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De Quincey on Wordsworth's Theory of Diction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2021

John E. Jordan
John E. Jordan*
Affiliation:
University of California Berkeley 4
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Extract

Thomas de Quincey is one of the few prose stylists whose work is inevitably tagged with that vague suggestion of mélange des genres, “prose poetry.” Such a label, prompted by the rich “poetic” quality of his diction as well as the beautiful orbicularity of hit rhythmical periods, is enough to encourage the question, “What was the position of such a wielder of words on the controversy of his contemporaries over the language of poetry and the language of prose?” The answer takes on more interest when we recall his close association with the giants of that argument. “Like one of our own Family,” he tramped the dales of Grasmere with Wordsworth, who roundly asserted, “There neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition.” He was, however, also a disciple and sacrificial benefactor of Coleridge, who called vital parts of Wordsworth's theory “useless, if not injurious,” and declared that “in every import of the word essential, which would not here involve a mere truism, there may be, is, and ought to be, an essential difference between the language of prose and of metrical composition.” Some of this disagreement may have been more apparent than real, and it is likely that if confusions of meaning had been cleared up, the two poets would have found themselves close together in their basic concept of poetry. Probably by “language” Wordsworth intended only “diction,” whereas Coleridge used the word more in the sense of “style.” Wordsworth's context, however, admits the broader interpretation and Coleridge's includes the narrower, so that on this issue there appears clear-cut disagreement. De Quincey thought that an “unfathomable chasm of chaotic schism opened between them.” Where, then, between these “mighty opposites” did De Quincey himself stand on poetic diction?

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 68 , Issue 4-Part1 , September 1953 , pp. 764 - 778
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1953

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References

1 Dorothy Wordsworth, letter to Jane Marshall, 19 Nov. 1809.

2 The Poetical Works of Wordsworth, ed. Thomas Hutchinson (New York, 1933), p. 937a; Biographia Literaria, Chapa, xvii, xviii. That Coleridge does not meet Wordsworth's argument fairly and squarely has been argued by C. M. Drennan, The Spirit of Modern Criticism (London, 1922), p. 52. and John Crowe Ransom, Wordsworth Centenary Studies (Princeton, 1951), p. 92; that the two poets were to essential agreement without realizing it is the opinion of Alexander Brede, “Theories of Poetic Diction in Wordsworth and Others and in Contemporary Poetry,” in Papers of the Michigan Acad. of Science, Arts and Letters, XIV (Ann Arbor, 1931), 556, and Clarence D. Thorpe, “Some Notes on the Differentiae of Prose and Poetry, with special Reference to the Theory of Coleridge,” in Papers Mich. Aced. Science, Arts and Letters, XIV, 575 n.

3 The Collected Writings of Thomas De Quincey, ed. David Masson (Edinburgh, 1889-90), XI, 324. Subsequent references to De Quincey's. writings will be to this standard edition where possible and will be indicated simply by volume and page numbers inserted paren-thetically.

4 Pp. 563, 558, 557.

5 A Diary of Thomas De Quincey, 1803, ed. Horace A. Eaton (London, 1927), pp. 191 f.

6 Since the paper refers to the alterations to “Gipsies,” it was probably written after the appearance of the revised version in 1820; it could have been produced almost any time thereafter. In 1819 De Quincey promised hie Westmoreland Gasette readers an article on “Mr. Coleridge” (Horace A. Eaton, Thomas De Quincey: A Biography, New York, 1936, p. 242). In 1821 he told Woodhouse he was meditating an essay “on Coleridge's literary character” (“Notes on Conversations with Thomas De Quincey,” reprinted in Confessions of an English Opium-EatEr, ed. Richard Garnett, London, 1885, p. 199). In 1824 he cited the Biographia Literaria to his “Young Man Whose Education Has Been Neglected.” A paper on Coleridge's Biographia criticisms of Wordsworth could wall have developed in this context, and “Criticism” sounds as if it were written from a fresh acquaintance with Coleridge's work. The one page reference which De Quincey cites to the Biographia, however, fits the 1847 edition but is one page off for the 1817 edition. Although De Quincey certainly knew the 1847 edition (I, 49: II, 228), the one page reference to the later edition is not conclusive evidence that the paper is late; then wen abundant opportunities for error sad the two pages constitute one opening. In “Criticism,” however, then is also sometime, the suggestion that Coleridge is dead. The defense of the Pedlar may, therefore, be an expansion of a note to the 1839 “William Wordsworth,” and since the note was omitted in the 1854 revision possibly even a late expansion intended for a place in his col-lected works (Literary Reminiscences, Boston, 1872, I, 320 n). The irritation at Wordsworth for tinkering with hie poems at his critics' suggestion is echoed in a note added in 1858 (VII, 72 n.).

7 Post, Works, I, 124 n, 135, 143, 171, 190, 202, 275, 276, 293; II, 78, 130 n, 256

8 Dorothy's letter of 1 May 1809; Edinburgh Rev., XIII (Jan. 1809), 276.

9 Eaton, p. 172; Edinburgh Rev., I (Oct. 1802), 63; John Edwin Wells, “Wordsworth and De Quincey In Westmoreland Politics, 1818 ”PMLA, LV (1940), 1126.

10 There is other circumstantial evidence which suggests that the essay was written quite early. De Quincey cite, the “unfinished work of Colonel Pasley” (Post. Works, II, 209), the same officer whom, a. Captain Pasley (he we. made lieutenant colonel in 1813), he mentioned in his “Postscript” to Wordsworth's Convention of Cintra in 1809. He speaks of Southey's. “own originality and splendour erf genius.” (211) in terms comparable to his 1803 Diary's “My imagination files, like Noah's dove, ... and find, no place on which to rest the sole of her foot except Coleridge—Wordswrorth and Southey”(Diary, p. 209). In later papers De Quincey repeats the argument of “Wordswrorth and Southey” that the two poets did not belong to a “Lake School” (II, 172 f, 345), but be call. Southey “a respectable poet” (II, 338) and make, no mention of “genius.”

11 George McLean Harper, William Wordsworth: His life, Works, and Influence (New York, 1923), I, 406; Herbert Read, Wordsworth (London, 1949), p. 103.

12 Biographia Literaria, Chap. IV; Wordsworth's, letter to John A. Heraud, 23 Nov 1830; An Estimate of William Wordsworth by His Contemporaries (Oxford, 1932), p. 61.

13 Lives of the Poets, Cowley; cf. Masson, x, 260 ff. In 1821 De Quincey himself spoke of word. as “the dress in which thought, appear,” according to Woodhouse (pp. 222 f.). For a full account of De Quincey's. ideas on style see Sigmund K. Proctor, Thomas De Quincey's Theory of Literature (Ann Arbor, 1943), pp. 186-227.

14 “The Growth of a Poet's. Mind,” Papers Michigan Acad. of Science, Arts and Letters, XXIV, Part 4 (Ann Arbor, 1939), 111. Cf. Brede, p. 555.

15 Works, ed. Hutchinron, p. 938a.

16 Biographia Literaria, Chap, xviii; Masson, XI, 297.

17 13 July 1802 (Letters, of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. E. H. Coleridge, Boston, 1895, I, 374 f.), quoted by Thorpe, pp.567 f.

18 The Complete Works of William Haslitt, ed. P. P. Howe (London, 1930-34), XI, 162 (The Spirit of the Age, “Mr. Campbell tad Mr. Crabbe”).

19 “Is Verse Essential to Poetry,” Monthly Magazine, II, 453 ff.; quoted by Marjorie L. Barstow, Wordswroth's, Theory of Poetic Diction, Yale Studies in English, LVII (New Haven, 1917), 121 f. According to Walter Graham the author is William Enfield (English Literary Periodicals, New York, l930, p. 189).

20 Lene Cooper points out that De Quincey wrote little “impassioned prose” between 1821 end 1844 end suggests that this prose had a special vocabulary (The Prose Poetry of Thomas De Quincey, Leipzig, 1902, pp. 33, 17).

21 Biographia Literaria, Chap, xxii; Hazlitt's Works, ed. Howe, IV, 121; XIX, 20 f.; The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, ed. E. V. Lucas (London, 1903-05), I,171. Judson Lyon points out that many other critics ridiculed the Pedlar, notably Jeffrey and Meri-vale, and that Wordsworth defended his choice by expanding the second note to The Excursion (The Excursion: A Study, Yale Studies in English, 114 (New Haven, 1950], p. 71).