Wordsworth and de Quincey in Westmorland Politics, 1818

PMLA ◽  
1940 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 1080-1128 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Edwin Wells
Keyword(s):  
William Wordsworth ◽  
Thomas De Quincey

The following pages communicate certain features of the Westmorland Parliamentary campaign of 1818; the text of two articles by William Wordsworth apparently not hitherto reprinted; a number of facts regarding the publication of Wordsworth's Two Addresses to the Freeholders of Westmorland; the readings of a broadside printing of a portion of Two Addresses; the variants of the several texts of Two Addresses; the text of a pamphlet by Thomas De Quincey never reprinted, of which but one extant copy has been reported hitherto; the text of eight letters, of which only a few slight extracts have been published, addressed by De Quincey to Wordsworth, dealing with the campaign, revealing his labors on the pamphlet and other political pieces, and applying for the editorship of the Westmorland Gazette; and materials exhibiting more definitely the relations between De Quincey and Wordsworth in the period.

‘Otherwise in London’ or, the ‘Essence of Things’: Modernity and Estrangement in the Nineteenth-Century Cityscape

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-35
Author(s):  
Julian Wolfreys
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
William Wordsworth ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Thomas De Quincey ◽  
Urban Centre ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Urban Representation ◽  
Robert Southey ◽  
The World ◽  
The City

Writers of the early nineteenth century sought to find new ways of writing about the urban landscape when first confronted with the phenomena of London. The very nature of London's rapid growth, its unprecedented scale, and its mere difference from any other urban centre throughout the world marked it out as demanding a different register in prose and poetry. The condition of writing the city, of inventing a new writing for a new experience is explored by familiar texts of urban representation such as by Thomas De Quincey and William Wordsworth, as well as through less widely read authors such as Sarah Green, Pierce Egan, and Robert Southey, particularly his fictional Letters from England.

William Wordsworth and John Wilson: A Review of Their Relations between 1802 and 1817

PMLA ◽  
1934 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-183
Author(s):  
Alan Lang Strout
Keyword(s):  
William Wordsworth ◽  
Thomas De Quincey ◽  
Romantic Movement ◽  
Lyrical Ballads ◽  
John Wilson

That two boys of seventeen should have welcomed the most important early book of the romantic movement in England is remarkable, a curiosity of literature. The letters of Thomas De Quincey and John Wilson, in praise of the Lyrical Ballads, probably afforded Wordsworth greater pleasure in 1802 and 1803 than any commendation outside of his immediate circle.

scholarly journals The Capital and the Romantic Sublime: The Case of Thomas De Quincey

CounterText ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-65
Author(s):  
Martina Domines Veliki
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
William Wordsworth ◽  
Thomas De Quincey ◽  
National Debt ◽  
Traumatic Memories ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
New Type ◽  
Formative Experiences ◽  
Literary Model

This paper aims to explore the idea that the formulation of the modern discipline of economics involved a discourse on the romantic sublime. By using the example of Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), it will address the issue of money and knowledge as two formative experiences in De Quincey's life. Unlike his literary model, William Wordsworth, who is eager to build up his ‘egotistical sublime’ (Keats's phrase), De Quincey is intent on registering his traumatic memories and resultant disorders and neuroses. Thus, he builds up a new type of romantic subjectivity where his personal accumulation of debt can be read as an encounter with the sublime, and it runs parallel to Britain's ever-increasing national debt. The sublime in De Quincey's Confessions carries an ideological burden as it affirms the subsistence of a middle-class individual and his right to participate in the discourse of the sublime. However, De Quincey falls from his middle-class position and becomes one of the poor where his access to the sublime experience is utterly denied. De Quincey's London experience is measured against Wordsworth's London experience in The Prelude (1805) and by experiencing the ‘negative sublime’ (Weiskel), he puts Wordsworthian ethics into practice. Thus, De Quincey's Confessions shows the tensions inherent in the romantic discourse of the sublime in a manner which connects romantic modes of subjectivity to the rising capitalist society.

Thomas de Quincey

2001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick Burwick
Keyword(s):  
Thomas De Quincey

Poetry and Science: William Wordsworth and his Irish Friends William Rowan Hamilton and Francis Beaufort Edgeworth, c. 1829

Romanticism ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-101
Author(s):  
Brandon C. Yen
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
William Wordsworth ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
Bodleian Library ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
The Relationship

Through hitherto neglected manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin, the Bodleian Library, and the Wordsworth Trust, this paper explores the relationship between William Wordsworth and his Irish friends William Rowan Hamilton and Francis Beaufort Edgeworth around 1829. It details the debates about poetry and science between Hamilton (Professor of Astronomy at Trinity College Dublin and Royal Astronomer of Ireland) and Edgeworth (the novelist Maria Edgeworth's half-brother), in which Wordsworth was embroiled when he visited Ireland in the autumn of 1829. By examining a variety of documents including letters, poems, lectures, and memoirs, a fragment of literary history may be restored and a clearer understanding may be reached of the tensions between poetry and science in Wordsworth's poetry, particularly in The Excursion, and of the Irish provenance of a memorable passage in ‘On the Power of Sound’.

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