Wordsworth's Italy

Extract

Wordsworth's relation to Italy has been a subject rather neglected in the annals of English poets who have known and loved “the land of lands,” and have left us memorial records of the beauty of Italy's blue sky, the golden clarity of her air, the soft greenness of her trees, and the fame of her poets and artists. Biographers of Wordsworth have so emphasized his relation to France that the general reader is hardly aware that the poet had crossed the Alps, both in body and in spirit. He belongs with Chaucer, Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Milton, Gray, Goldsmith, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Landor, Clough, and the Brownings, all of whom will ever be associated with memories of Italy. An attempt to trace the history of his acquaintance with Italy, may, it is hoped, show that he had for things Italian a really life-long sympathy. Moreover, the study may help to dispel some lingering superstitions about Wordsworth's insularity. Wordsworth was one of the most assiduous travellers of all the English poets except Byron. The difficulty of travel in the early nineteenth century should be remembered in considering the distances he traversed. He knew France, Switzerland, Germany, The Netherlands, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and various regions of England, including every inch of the Lake Country.