Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T21:53:04.875Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wordsworth and the Ethics of Things

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Adam Potkay
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Wordsworth poetically realizes an ecological ethics grounded on the self's non-assimilative encounter with the otherness of nonhuman things. Engaging the etymological force of the word thing, Stoic and Spinozan philosophy, and a poetic tradition of assigning a “face” to natural things, Wordsworth arrives at a lyric apprehension of the “life of things,” a life that human beings share with other thinking and insentient, substantial and circumstantial things. Instead of anthropomorphizing things, Wordsworth “thingicizes” ethics. This aspect of Wordsworth's poems is illuminated when they are read alongside the “ethics of things” developed by Silvia Benso in philosophical dialogue with two major figures of the continental tradition: Heidegger, who conceives of things without ethics, and Levinas, who advances an ethics without things.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 123 , Issue 2 , March 2008 , pp. 390 - 404
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by The Modern Language Association of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Abrams, M. H. Natural Supernaturalism. New York: Norton, 1971.Google Scholar
Akenside, Mark. The Pleasures of Imagination. Poetical Works. Ed. Dix, Robin. Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1996. 85–174.Google Scholar
Aristotle. The Art of Rhetoric. Trans. John Henry Freese. Loeb Classical Lib. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1926.Google Scholar
Aristotle. A Briefe of the Art of Rhetorique, Containing in Substance All That Aristotle Hath Written in His Three Bookes of That Subject. Trans. Thomas Hobbes. London, 1637.Google Scholar
Arnold, Matthew. English Literature and Irish Politics. Ed. Super, R. H. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1973.Google Scholar
Bate, Jonathan. Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition. London: Routledge, 1991.Google Scholar
Bauman, Zygmunt. Postmodern Ethics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1993.Google Scholar
Beattie, James. The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius. The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer. Ed. Gilfillan, George. Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1854. 1–38.Google Scholar
Benso, Silvia. The Face of Things: A Different Side of Ethics. Albany: State U of New York P, 2000.Google Scholar
Beowulf. Ed. Klaeber, F. 3rd ed. Lexington: Heath, 1958.Google Scholar
The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha. Ed. and introd. Carroll, Robert and Oxford World's Classics, Stephen Prickett. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1997.Google Scholar
Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England. 13th ed. Vol. 2. London, 1800. 4 vols.Google Scholar
Blackwell, Mark, ed. The Secret Life of Things. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2007.Google Scholar
Brown, Bill. A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003. —–. “Thing Theory.” Things. Ed. Brown. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004. 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buell, Lawrence. “In Pursuit of Ethics.” PMLA 114 (1999): 7–19.Google Scholar
Chase, Cynthia. Decomposing Figures: Rhetorical Readings in the Romantic Tradition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Cicero. Tusculan Disputations. Trans. J. E. King. Loeb Classical Lib. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1945.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. Ed. Engell, James and Jackson Bate, W. Vol. 1. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1983. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Letter to William Godwin. Collected Letters. Ed. Griggs, Earl Leslie. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon, 1956. 624–26. 6 vols. 1956–71.Google Scholar
Cooper, Lane. A Concordance to the Poems of William Wordsworth. London: Smith, 1911.Google Scholar
Daniel, Samuel. Poems and a Defence of Rhyme. Ed. Sprague, Arthur Colby. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1930.Google Scholar
Ellison, Henry. Madmoments; or, First Verseattempts. 2 vols. London, 1839.Google Scholar
Ellison, Henry. “Thoughts on Man, Art, and Nature.” Ellison, Madmoments 1:235–86.Google Scholar
Festa, Lynn. Sentimental Figures of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006.Google Scholar
Galperin, William. The Return of the Visible in British Romanticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Garrard, Greg. “Radical Pastoral?” Studies in Romanticism 36 (1996): 449–65.Google Scholar
Hall, J. R. Clark. “Thing.” A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. 4th ed. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1984.Google Scholar
Hartman, Geoffrey H. Wordsworth's Poetry, 1787–1814. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale UP, 1971.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. “… Poetically Man Dwells….” Heidegger, Poetry 213–29.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper, 1971.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin. “The Thing.” Heidegger, Poetry 163–82.Google Scholar
Hume, David. Dialogues concerning Natural Religion. Ed. Smith, Norman Kemp. London: Nelson, 1947.Google Scholar
James, Susan. Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel. “Sentiment.” A Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. London: W. Strahan, 1755.Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel. “Thing.” A Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. London: W. Strahan, 1755.Google Scholar
Jupp, W. J. “Neglected Sources of Joy.” Hibbert Journal 19 (1920–21): 679–89.Google Scholar
Keach, William. Arbitrary Power: Romanticism, Language, Politics. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroeber, Karl. Ecological Literary Criticism: Romantic Imagining and the Biology of Mind. New York: Columbia UP, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamb, Jonathan. “Modern Metamorphoses and Disgraceful Tales.” Things. Ed. Brown, Bill. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2004. 193–226.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 1969.Google Scholar
Levinson, Marjorie. Wordsworth's Great Period Poems. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Lucretius. De rerum natura. Trans. Thomas Creech. Oxford, 1682.Google Scholar
McGann, Jerome J. The Romantic Ideology: A Critical Investigation. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.Google Scholar
James, McKusick. Green Writing: Romanticism and Ecology. New York: St. Martin's, 2000.Google Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. Autobiography and Literary Essays. Ed. Robson, John M. and Stillinger, Jack. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1981.Google Scholar
Miller, J. Hillis. “On Edge: The Crossways of Contemporary Criticism.” Romanticism and Contemporary Criticism. Ed. Eaves, Morris and Fischer, Michael. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1986. 96–118.Google Scholar
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. Hughes, Merritt Y. New York: Odyssey, 1957. 207–469.Google Scholar
Murphy, Patrick D. Literature, Nature, and Other: Ecofeminist Critiques. Albany: State U of New York P, 1995.Google Scholar
Pater, Walter. “Wordsworth.” Selected Writings. Ed. Bloom, Harold. New York: New Amer. Lib., 1974. New York: Columbia UP, 1982. 125–42.Google Scholar
Alexander, Pope, trans. The Odyssey of Homer. By Homer. 6 vols. London, 1725–26.Google Scholar
Ricks, Christopher. The Force of Poetry. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.Google Scholar
Shaftesbury, third earl of. Life, Unpublished Letters, and Philosophical Regimen. Ed. Rand, Benjamin. New York: Macmillan, 1900.Google Scholar
Shaftesbury. The Moralists. Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. Ed. Ayres, Philip. Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon, 1999. 1–124. 2 vols.Google Scholar
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Complete Works. Ed. Bevington, David. 5th ed. New York: Longman, 2004. 1097–149.Google Scholar
Spenser, Edmund. “The glorious pourtraict of that Angels face.” Poetical Works. Ed. Ernest De, Selincourt. London: Oxford UP, 1912. 565.Google Scholar
Spinoza, Benedict de. The Ethics. A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works. Ed. and trans. Curley, Edwin. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1994. 85–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Thing.” Def. 8b. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford UP, 1989.Google Scholar
Thomson, James. “Summer.” The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence. Ed. James Sambrook. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987. 36–86.Google Scholar
Thomson, James. “Winter.” The Seasons and The Castle of Indolence. Ed. James Sambrook. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987. 128–57.Google Scholar
Tooke, John Horne. Winged Words; or, The Diversions of Purley. Vol. 2. London, 1805. 2 vols. 1786–1805.Google Scholar
Turner, Katherine. “Defoe's Tour: The Changing ‘Face of Things.‘” British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 24 (2001): 189–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warton, Thomas. “The Pleasures of Melancholy.” Eighteenth-Century Poetry: An Annotated Anthology. Ed. Fairer, David and Gerrard, Christine. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. 367–74.Google Scholar
Whipple, Edwin Percy. Rev. of Complete Poetical Works, by William Wordsworth. North American Review 59.125 (1844): 352–84.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Borderers. Ed. Osborn, Robert. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1982.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. “Fragments from Peter Bell Ms. 2, ca. February 1799.” Wordsworth, Prelude 496.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. Home at Grasmere: Part First, Book First, of The Recluse. Ed. Beth Darlington. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. Letter to Catherine Clarkson. [Jan 1815]. The Middle Years. Part 2:1812–1820. Arranged and ed. Ernest de Selincourt. Rev. Mary Moorman and Alan G. Hill. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1970. 187–92. Vol. 3 of The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. 8 vols. 1967–93.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads and Other Poems, 1797–1800. Ed. Butler, James and Green, Karen. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Pedlar. The Ruined Cottage and The Pedlar. Ed. James Butler. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1979. 377–448.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. Peter Bell. Ed. Jordan, John E. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1985.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850. Ed. Wordsworth, Jonathan, Abrams, M. H., and Gill, Stephen. New York: Norton, 1979.Google Scholar
Young, Edward. Night Thoughts. Ed. Cornford, Stephen. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989.Google Scholar