This book explores the ways in which Wordsworth attempted as an artist to maintain continuities through all the stages of his life. Habitually reviewing all of his work, both published and that still in manuscript, the poet painstakingly revised at the level of verbal detail or recast it more largely. New poems frequently emerged from re-engagement with old, often serving as a sequel to or commentary from the maturer poet on his earlier creation. This book offers a lively account of Wordsworth’s practice, both in composition and in later revision. Combining textual analysis, critical commentar ... More

This book explores the ways in which Wordsworth attempted as an artist to maintain continuities through all the stages of his life. Habitually reviewing all of his work, both published and that still in manuscript, the poet painstakingly revised at the level of verbal detail or recast it more largely. New poems frequently emerged from re-engagement with old, often serving as a sequel to or commentary from the maturer poet on his earlier creation. This book offers a lively account of Wordsworth’s practice, both in composition and in later revision. Combining textual analysis, critical commentary and biographical narrative, it considers what binds Wordsworth’s later, less well-known poems to his earlier work. The stimulus to creation given by revisiting friendships, especially those with Scott and Coleridge, is stressed. The evolution of the ‘Yarrow’ sequence of poems and of the poems that eventually become Guilt and Sorrow is explored in detail. At the centre of the book is an account of the evolution of The Prelude from 1804-1839, in which it is argued that Wordsworth’s masterpiece must be followed through all its versions, seen as a poem growing old alongside its creator. Discussion of Wordsworth’s contributions to debates on such issues as the New Poor Law and Capital Punishment affirm the place of his later writing in early Victorian intellectual culture and is thus a complement to the author’s earlier study of Wordsworth and the Victorians (1998).