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XX.—The Novelty of Wordsworth's Michael as a Pastoral
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
- Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang
- But wi' miscarriage.
- Burns's Poem on Pastoral Poetry.
Wordsworth saw common things with “unaccustomed eyes.” When he gazed upon the landscape about him or when be observed the life of people in humble station, he found many a feature which his predecessors had overlooked or neglected. Nature, he perceived, had been ignored or superficially regarded. Yet Nature, to his mind, deserved the best efforts at interpretation. Similarly, country folk of low degree he found had hearts as sensitive as those of -people in high places, and accordingly he undertook to proclaim the truth to the world. He wished to enforce his own doctrine : “Of genius the only proof is, the act of doing well what is worthy to be done, and what was never done before: of genius, in the fine arts, the only infallible sign is the widening the sphere of human sensibility for the delight, honour, and benefit of human nature ! ”
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1920
References
1 “ Essay, Supplementary to the Preface of 1815,” The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, ed. A. George, Cambridge, Mass., 1904, p. 815.
2 The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, ed. Wm. Knight, Edinburgh, 1882, ii, pp. 125 ff.
3 Bucolici Graeci, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Oxonii, 1905. Professor L. N. Broughton of Cornell University has had in press a monograph which may consider the exact extent of Wordsworth's use of Theocritus. See The Prelude, Knight, iii, bk. viii, ll. 111 ff.; cf. the same, xi, ll. 424 ff.; “the Preface to the Edition of 1815,” George, pp. 801 ff., and “Essay Supplem.,” work cited, pp. 809 ff. From the pastoral I exclude at present songs like Henryson's Robine and Makyne and the Elizabethan lyrics; elegies like those by Bion, Moschus, Milton, and Burns; dramas like those of Politian, Tasso, Guarini, Fletcher, and Ramsay; romances like those of Longus, Sannazzaro, Sidney, and Gessner; village idyls like The Deserted Village and Hermann und Dorothea.
4 The Works of Virgil, J. Conington and H. Nettleship, London, 1898, i.
5 The Shepheardes Calender, ed. C. H. Herford, London, 1914. French and Italian influences affected Spenser. The references to Scripture, S. C. (date 1579), v, vii, need not detain our inquiry; or the earlier references by Barnabe Googe in Eclogs, etc., ed. E. Arber, London, 1895, (date 1561-3), iii, p. 42; iv, pp. 43 ff.; vii, pp. 65 ff.; or those by A. Barclay (ca. 1513) in his combination of paraphrase and originality based on Mantuan, Spenser Society, vol. 39, Manchester, 1885. Early English pastoral was not averse to abstractions personified, such as occur in the Roman de la Rose.
6 His aloofness did not exclude interest in national politics.
7 Poems of William Browne, ed. G. Goodwin, 2 vols., London, 1894.
8 Works, ed. Elwin, Whitwell, and Courthope, London, 1871, i, pp. 257 ff. His Messiah, vol. i, pp. 309 ff., based on Virgil, iv, and Isaiah, does not affect our study. A. Philips's Pastorals, Chalmers's Poets, London, 1810, vol. xiii, pp. 109 ff., offer nothing novel for our consideration.
9 It may be noted that the contemporary writers had become dissatisfied with the state into which pastoral had fallen, or otherwise they would not have encouraged Gay.
10 Poetical Works, ed. J. Underhill, London, 1893, i, pp. 265 ff.
11 Essay Supplem., work cited, p. 811.
12 Work cited, i, pp. 65 ff.
13 They lacked the sympathy of Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, an idyl of village, not pastoral life. Considerable realism marks Allan Ramsay's pleasant pastoral drama, The Gentle Shepherd, (date 1725). One may compare incidentally for the effect of epic idyl, Goethe's Hermann und Dorothea and Longfellow's Evangeline.
14 H. E. Mantz, Non-Dramatic Pastoral in Europe in the Eighteenth Century, Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc., xxxi, pp. 421 ff. His conclusion as to the end of English pastoral, it will be obvious from the present paper, is too sweeping.
15 Poetical Works of William Shenstone, ed. G. Gilfillan, Edinburgh, 1854, pp. 99, 149 ff.
16 Poetical Works of James Thomson, ed. D. C. Tovey, London, 1897, i.
17 Poetical Works of William Collins, ed. W. M. Thomas, London, 1906, pp. 3 ff.
18 Poetical Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. J. Mitford, London, 1902, i, pp. 99, 191.
19 Ed. cited, vol. i.
20 London, 1772.
21 For further instances of various types of eclogue, one may consult R. T. Kerlin, Theocritus in English Literature, Lynchburg, 1910.
22 Ed. A. J. Carlyle and R. M. Carlyle, London, 1908, pp. 34 ff.
23 Ed. J. Bruce, London, 1896, vol. ii, pp. 3 ff.
24 Scotch poetry like Burns's also made for naturalness. Cf. further the realistic pastorals of Voss and other German poets of the eighteenth century, E. C. Knowlton, Pastoral in the Eighteenth Century, Mod. Lang. Notes, xxxii, 471 ff. Wordsworth in the looser sense of the word wrote pastorals for 1800: ed. cited, iii, pp. 106 ff., The Brothers; pp. 149 ff., The Pet Lamb; pp. 145 ff., The Idle Shepherd-boys. His The Oak and the Broom, pp. 172 ff., is an Aesopian pastoral, as is The Oak and the Brier, Spenser's S. C. ii; cf. S. C. v. Southey's English Eclogues should be noted (1798 on), The Poetical Works of Robert Southey, Boston, 1878, vol. ii, pp. 5-55.
25 Ed. cited, p. 791.
26 Like Flemish chiaroscuro. The black and white of the description in contrasting with each other are more in harmony with the subdued contrasts of action and character than would be the pomp of color. One may compare the painting of a kitchen attributed to Velasquez and preserved at the chateau of Villandry near Tours.
27 Cf. such passages as
“ she …
Heard him, how he was troubled in his sleep,“
(ll. 290-1.)
and
“ to his heart
He pressed his Son, he kissed him and wept.“
(ll. 421-22.)
28 Letters of the Wordsworth Family, ed. Wm. Knight, Boston and London, 1907, i, p. 139.
29 Cf. Prelude, ii, ll. 232 ff., for motherly love, “Blest the infant Babe …”
30 Personal references such as those in Barclay and Spenser or masked political allusions are of a different sort.