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Elective English—IV

Notes returned alone to England the next year. The circumstances of his return and his subsequent
behaviour raise doubts as to his declared wish to marry Annette, but he supported her and his
daughter as best he could in later life. The Reign of Terror estranged him from the Republican
movement, and war between France and Britain prevented him from seeing Annette and Caroline
again for several years.
With the Peace of Amiens again allowing travel to France, in 1802 Wordsworth and his sister,
Dorothy, visited Annette and Caroline in Calais. The purpose of the visit was to pave the way
for his forthcoming marriage to Mary Hutchinson. Afterwards he wrote the sonnet “It is a
beauteous evening, calm and free” recalling a seaside walk with the 9 year old Caroline he had
never seen prior to that visit. The sonnet is somewhat reserved but it is plain Wordsworth felt
genuine affection for his daughter, as indeed did Mary who was anxious that Wordsworth
should do more for Caroline should their circumstances improve. Her wish was granted at
Caroline’s marriage in 1816, when Wordsworth settled £30 annually on Caroline, a generous
allowance (£1,360 purchasing power in year 2000 pounds sterling) that continued until 1835,
when it was replaced by a capital settlement.

9.1.3 First Publication and Lyrical Ballads

In his “Preface to Lyrical Ballads”, which is called the “manifesto” of English Romantic criticism,
Wordsworth calls his poems “experimental.” The year 1793 saw Wordsworth’s first published
poetry with the collections An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. He received a legacy of
£900 from Raisley Calvert in 1795 so that he could pursue writing poetry. That year, he met Samuel
Taylor Coleridge in Somerset. The two poets quickly developed a close friendship. In 1797,
Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy moved toAlfoxton House, Somerset, just a few miles away
from Coleridge’s home in Nether Stowey. Together, Wordsworth and Coleridge (with insights
from Dorothy) produced Lyrical Ballads (1798), an important work in the English Romantic
movement. The volume gave neither Wordsworth’s nor Coleridge’s name as author. One of
Wordsworth’s most famous poems, “Tintern Abbey”, was published in the work, along with
Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. The second edition, published in 1800, had only
Wordsworth listed as the author, and included a preface to the poems, which was augmented
significantly in the 1802 edition. This Preface to Lyrical Ballads is considered a central work of
Romantic literary theory. In it, Wordsworth discusses what he sees as the elements of a new type
of poetry, one based on the “real language of men” and which avoids the poetic diction of much
18th-century poetry. Here, Wordsworth gives his famous definition of poetry as “the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
A fourth and final edition of Lyrical Ballads was published in 1805.

The Borderers

From 1795 to 1797, he wrote his only play, The Borderers, a verse tragedy set during the reign
of King Henry III of England when Englishmen of the North Country were in conflict with
Scottish rovers. Wordsworth attempted to get the play staged in November 1797, but it was
rejected by Thomas Harris, manager of Covent Garden Theatre, who proclaimed it “impossible
that the play should succeed in the representation”. The rebuff was not received lightly by
Wordsworth, and the play was not published until 1842, after substantial revision.

9.1.4 Germany and Move to the Lake District

Wordsworth, Dorothy and Coleridge travelled to Germany in the autumn of 1798. While
Coleridge was intellectually stimulated by the trip, its main effect on Wordsworth was to
produce homesickness. During the harsh winter of 1798–99, Wordsworth lived with Dorothy

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