Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Wordsworth: the shape of the poetic career
- 2 Wordsworth's poetry to 1798
- 3 Poetry 1798-1807
- 4 'The noble living and the noble dead'
- 5 Wordsworth and The Recluse
- 6 Wordsworth and the meaning of taste
- 7 Wordsworth's craft
- 8 Gender and domesticity
- 9 The philosophic poet
- 10 Wordsworth and Coleridge
- 11 Wordsworth and the natural world
- 12 Politics, history, and Wordsworth's poems
- 13 Wordsworth and Romanticism
- 14 Wordsworth and America
- 15 Textual issues and a guide to further reading
- Index
- Series List
14 - Wordsworth and America
reception and reform
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Wordsworth: the shape of the poetic career
- 2 Wordsworth's poetry to 1798
- 3 Poetry 1798-1807
- 4 'The noble living and the noble dead'
- 5 Wordsworth and The Recluse
- 6 Wordsworth and the meaning of taste
- 7 Wordsworth's craft
- 8 Gender and domesticity
- 9 The philosophic poet
- 10 Wordsworth and Coleridge
- 11 Wordsworth and the natural world
- 12 Politics, history, and Wordsworth's poems
- 13 Wordsworth and Romanticism
- 14 Wordsworth and America
- 15 Textual issues and a guide to further reading
- Index
- Series List
Summary
On the morning of 28 August 1833, a thirty-year-old American trekked up a steep road in northwest England. He was on a pilgrimage to the home of the poet who had kindled his belief in the intrinsic value of (Human) Nature. The poet's family bade him enter a 'modest household where comfort and culture were secured without any display'. Here, in a sitting room overlooking a downward-sloping garden, he awaited the master of the house. The young man was somewhat surprised when there appeared a 'plain, elderly, white-haired man . . . disfigured by green goggles', which he wore to soothe and protect his troubled eyes. The Englishman sat down and held forth on one of his favourite topics - America. There, society is 'being enlightened by a superficial tuition, out of all proportion [to the restraint of its] moral culture'. Getting and spending Americans lay waste their power, for 'they are too much given to the making of money; and secondly, to politics . . . they make political distinction the end and not the means'. In a statement that seemed paradoxical to the visitor, his host noted that 'they needed a civil war in America, to teach the necessity of knitting social ties stronger'.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Wordsworth , pp. 230 - 245Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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