Wordsworth and the Poetry of Sincerity

David Perkins

Published by Harvard University Press 1964

Wordsworth and the Poetry of Sincerity

David Perkins

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674424258

Overview
Contents

About this book

This book presents not just the Romantic Wordsworth, but Wordsworth as part of a large historical movement in poetry, beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing to the present day. It concentrates on the difficult, much discussed, but little analyzed problem of "sincerity" in poetry, which it treats both critically and historically, as a demand relatively new in Wordsworth's time and still with us. It contains an extended criticism of Wordsworth's later poems, and explores the vexing question of why the mode of his poetry changed as he grew older.

The author shows that the ideal of sincerity has influenced poets, critics, and common readers from Wordsworth to now, and describes the problems raised for poets by this new challenge. The first problem is the adequacy of language--does the very structure and fact of language stand as an obstacle to a complete sincerity? Perkins says: "One can hardly explain the history of poetic style or, indeed, of literature since Wordsworth, unless one keeps in mind that there has been a continuing mistrust of language. By words, it is feared, we chop realities into categories. The categories are arbitrary, or, even if they are not, their generality strips our experience of its unique aspects."

Another problem raised by the challenge of sincerity is the distrust of poetic form. How can you write with a personal sincerity when you have to use meters and stanzas? Or, more fundamentally, how can you be honest to the complexity and uncertainty of your own experience, when a poem must always be more limited than the consciousness from which it arises? Still another problem is the distrust of poetic conventions and traditions. The author says, "The wish to be sincere is challenged and baffled by the fact that poetry is a learned performance, that all poetic expression depends on traditions and conventions peculiar to the art and inherited from the past...Yet if you imitate the great achievements of the past, how can your poem be thought a sincere personal utterance? The question of imitation is only the most obvious result of this anxiety. For a fanatic sincerity may suppose that merely to be influenced by other writers--in fact, to be influenced by anything at all--somehow clouds the purity of self-expression."

Author / Editor information

Perkins David :

David Perkins is John P. Marquand Professor of English Literature, Harvard University.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
PREFACE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
I. THE CHALLENGE OF SINCERITY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
II. SINCERITY AND COUNTER IDEALS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
III. THE PROCESS OF COMPOSITION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
IV. THE ADEQUACY OF LANGUAGE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
V. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BELIEF Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	108
VI. WORDSWORTH AND HIS AUDIENCE Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
VII. RESOURCES OF STYLE AND EXPRESSION: I Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	176
VIII. RESOURCES OF STYLE AND EXPRESSION: II Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
IX. THE LATE POEMS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
NOTES INDEX
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	272
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	273
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Copyright year: 1964
Edition: Reprint 2014
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 285
Keywords: Sincerity.; Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850.; LITERARY CRITICISM / General; LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry

eBook

Published: October 1, 2013
ISBN: 9780674424258

Hardcover

Published: February 5, 1964
ISBN: 9780674424234