Book contents
- Experimentalism in Wordsworth’s Later Poetry
- Cambridge Studies in Romanticism
- Experimentalism in Wordsworth’s Later Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Death Zone
- Chapter 2 Chronicle of a Death Untold:
- Chapter 3 Wordsworth in Homage:
- Chapter 4 Wordsworth at Sea
- Chapter 5 Dementia Poetics in Wordsworth’s Late Memorials
- Chapter 6 Wordsworth’s Bardic Vacation
- Chapter 7 Hybrids, Hermits and Hut Dwellers:
- Chapter 8 An Aged Man Writes about an Aged Man
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Romanticism
Chapter 5 - Dementia Poetics in Wordsworth’s Late Memorials
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 June 2023
- Experimentalism in Wordsworth’s Later Poetry
- Cambridge Studies in Romanticism
- Experimentalism in Wordsworth’s Later Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Death Zone
- Chapter 2 Chronicle of a Death Untold:
- Chapter 3 Wordsworth in Homage:
- Chapter 4 Wordsworth at Sea
- Chapter 5 Dementia Poetics in Wordsworth’s Late Memorials
- Chapter 6 Wordsworth’s Bardic Vacation
- Chapter 7 Hybrids, Hermits and Hut Dwellers:
- Chapter 8 An Aged Man Writes about an Aged Man
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Romanticism
Summary
This chapter examineswhat happened to apostrophe, to invocation – to Wordsworth’s bardic stance as the voicer of the spirits of nature and of the dead—when he came face to face with modernity – with a Scotland and Lake District accessed via a mechanised tourist infrastructure: motion automated and at speed. Steam boats and railway lines, I argue, left him in a representational quandary. They not only disrupted his established ways of knowing nature visually but also challenged his self-chosen task of bringing the inner, spiritual meaning of place into voice by speaking for its dead. Rather than reject the new technology for that reason; however, he attempted to be its bard and to call its transformation of space and time into poetic speech.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Experimentalism in Wordsworth's Later PoetryDialogues with the Dead, pp. 107 - 128Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023