William Wordsworth Books

A man of prominence in literary discussions since the beginning of his time, William Wordsworth's fifty years of writing caught the attention of critics for the duration of his career and beyond. While some sought to praise him, many more attempted to shame him. In reading the literary criticisms of Wordsworth, one delves into a chapter in literary history jointly written by such esteemed critics as Coleridge, Montgomery, Lamb, Jeffrey, Wilson, and Hazlitt. Regardless of the seemingly amorphous and ever changing opinions of the critics and the narrow popularity of his writing, Wordsworth's esteem was undeniable.
The notion that prior to our births we have an understanding of the oneness of the universe that is disrupted upon our delivery, leads to a nostalgic tone in the poem. Wordsworth dabbled with the concept that what we have never consciously known is not ever lost, but it is merely forgotten and remains somewhere to be sought after.Herein lies the beauty of both interpretation of poetry and of Wordsworth, actions can be the products of feelings, anything or nothing can be important, and innovation can extend only as far as imagination. Expand yourself.

This is not "new" reading for me, but my previous copy is worn to shreds. My only issue with this particular volume is that there are no pictures of Blake's amazing artwork. Perhaps when I am a little more flush I'll get the book that does have it.

It's a great source for looking at the many aspects of Wordsworth's poetry and philosophy. Bloom and company do a good job putting together authentic accounts of commentaries that get to the heart of his writings. For any one interested in Wordsworth, the Enlightenment, or The Age of Romanticism this is the book to have.

John Hayden's book argues that Wordsworth, while being an emotional poet as many scholars recognize, was very much an intellectual poet as well. In particular, Hayden shows the extent to which Wordsworth was actively involved in pondering eighteenth century psychology and philosophy. While he admits that some critics have explored certain passages in order to show Wordsworth's interest in psychology, Hayden's task is to create a full-length study of the subject.

However, it is important to note that he does not, in fact, attempt to show Wordsworth's connection to the modern practice of psychology or even to the practice of psychology in the eighteenth century. Rather, he aims to explore Wordsworth's thoughts about the "mind of man" in the eighteenth century (3). There are a few chapters of particular note. Chapter two, "Wordsworth and Eighteenth-Century Psychology," takes up Wordsworth's acceptance of associationism, as expressed by John Locke and, more importantly, David Hartley. Although in this chapter Hayden strives to reject the Hartley-Wordsworth connection that scholars have advanced, the chapter also deals generally with Wordsworth's particular views concerning the activity (and passivity) of the mind, arguing that Wordsworth held a hybrid viewpoint that the mind was both active and passive. Finally, in chapter six, "Wordsworth's Psychology of Vision: Joy, Calm, and Insight," Hayden argues that Wordsworth should not be understood as a "nature" poet-at least not according to the traditional definition-because Wordsworth is constantly looking past nature towards a unified, transcendental whole. This chapter will be particularly useful to anyone seeking to understand Wordsworth's treatment and representation of the human mind.

It is noteworthy, however, that Hayden's book will also be useful to those exploring the psychological interests of other poets of the Romantic Era-especially Samuel Taylor Coleridge-due to the sheer amount of eighteenth century psychology Hayden surveys and includes in the book.

Interesting biography that "attempts to tell the story of [Wordsworth] through a more rigouous reading of key and representative works . . . and through a careful blending of his life and poetry." This book argues for more of a compromise between the powerful forces of deconstructive impulse (close readers)and the "rigidly ideological framework" of New Historicsm.

Blake's greatness is not in question, nor is his difficulty. Northrop Frye said that Blake is of the great English poets the one for whom the largest share of his work remains largely unread and unknown. An explanation for that is that Blake's longer poems, his prophetic works are extremely difficult to understand. Thus any presentation of his work should have copious notes, even if that presentation centers on that smaller lyric poetry for which Blake is best known to the world. This present edition contains an introduction to Blake's work which is far too short to really give an overall sense of his life and development.
Nonetheless this edition contains much of the anthologized Blake, as well as selections from longer works like 'Milton' and 'Jerusalem'.
A reader can thus find here the best of Blake. But if the reader needs to go beyond the understanding he can attain by his own reading then this work must be supplemented by others.

The book has lots of interesting anecdotes on Thackeray, Hawthorne, Dickens, Wordsworth, "Miss Mitford" and others, many from the author's personal interactions. He seems to enjoy dropping names and letting you know where he has been! He is a bit wordy, and admits as much, himself, in the preface. Few others would have been as well-equipped to offer personal observations on well-known authors of this period.
. . . . some have suggested that his wife, an outstanding literary person in her own right, may have been the source of more of his insights into the authors' thought than he acknowledges . . .

(I have included below some excepts on the author, from Wikipedia, for the edification of browsers):
Fields was the publisher of the foremost contemporary American writers, with whom he was on terms of close personal friendship, and he was the American publisher of some of the best-known British writers of his time, some of whom he also knew intimately. The first collected edition of De Quincey's works (20 vols., 1850-1855) was published by his firm. As a publisher he was characterized by a somewhat rare combination of keen business acumen and sound, discriminating literary taste, and as a man he was known for his geniality and charm of manner.

In 1862-1870, as the successor of James Russell Lowell, he edited the Atlantic Monthly. In 1871 Fields retired from business and from his editorial duties, and devoted himself to lecturing and writing. He also edited, with Edwin P. Whipple, A Family Library of British Poetry (1878). His chief works were the collection of sketches and essays entitled Underbrush (1877) and the chapters of reminiscence composing Yesterdays with Authors (1871) in which he recorded his personal friendship with Wordsworth, Thackeray, Dickens, Hawthorne and others. He died in Boston on the 24th of April 1881

I was impressed by the value and quality of this book.... Outstanding!!!!

A great book, it includes all the famous plays such at Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet, and all of his others. It also includes shakespeares sonnets, which themselves are great. If Shakespeare hadn't written such good plays he'd be famous for his sonnets alone. It is a must have for the drama lover. Or the poetry lover.

William Shakespeare's works make sense out of what it is to be alive. They cover every facet of the human condition, and include some of the most beautiful poetry ever written. Nobody should ever go through life without reading these incredible plays. And this edition is an excellent choice; it's not overpriced, it's thorough and clear; and unlike many collections of Shakespeare's Complete Works, you can pick it up and read it without breaking your arm. Highly, highly recommended.

Well, the book contents are strictly what the cover tells, there are no kind of studies or comments about Shakespeare's works, you will find only the pure texts of each story.
Other negative point of the book is its huge size, what makes the reading feasible probably only inside your house; and the tiny letters, what really handicaps the reading.
If you are not going to read every Shakespeare's work don't buy this book, prefer another one.

Brian Kendig's previous review says it all, but I wanted to add a caveat to a still-potential buyer: the text is so incredibly condensed that the endings of some of the longer lines are scrunched up in awkward brackets in the white space above, making for a disjointed reading of an already unapproachable edition. (Please read the previous review--it's quite helpful.)

Let's face it, there are better editions of Shakespeare out there. You get what you pay for. This is not a top of the line leather edition. For the price, though, you can't beat it. It is what it is, a reasonably priced leather edition of his complete works. No household should be without one.

This was a gift for our son, who appreciated having all of Shakespeare's works in one attractive volume.

This is my first experience reading a McDermid book. As such, I did not know what to expect but was very pleasantly surprised by the plot and sub-plots of the book.

The Grave Tatoo is a take off from the traditional mystery as described by other reviewers but I enjoyed that interesting change from the typical "who done it."

McDermid's story holds up throughout the book. It is a solid read and well worth your time reading it.

I look forward to reading more of her work.

Have never read a book by this author before. I will again. Like the way she constructs sentences, uses rich vocabulary (it is the English version of English). There does appear to have been a great amount of research on literature of Wordsworth and his biography; Fletcher Christian and his life history, geneology, and medical ways in which to murder someone in an undetected way and in how to conduct autopsies. However, it is true, as other reviewers have said, that the ending isn't wholly satisfactory and too easy an out; the revelation of the "bad guy" also seems to be constructed soley to meet the requirement of having an anti-hero. There are too many sub-plots and the story might have been better if she had given these extra characters either far more story or far less, but they hit the middle ground. We learn enough about them to get the ball rolling and then their stories plateau and the ball comes to a standstill with no bearing of real importance to the main story or real ending to the sub-story either. In fact, in the end, only Jane herself-is truly integral to the telling of the story. Everyone else becomes somewhat peripheral, even if their part would be classified as "main character," they really aren't. Also, the tattoos advertised on the cover, really don't hold a highly prominent place in the story. In the end, I would describe this as a comfortable book. It is nice to curl up to, but it won't cause you any lost sleep because you can't keep from turning the next page till morning.

I think this is the fourth Val McDermid novel I have read. It is certainly an interesting combination of intellectual exercise and detective work. Like the other McDermid novels I have read, this one has a "mysterious bad guy" who keeps doing evil things without being clearly identified. Based on the other novels, I was able to narrow the suspects down to a small group. I was pleased to see that the bad guy did not turn out to be from the same category of people as in "The Distant Echo" and "The Torment of Others." As a scholar, I sympathize with heroine Jane Gresham and I loathe the greedy people who see old manuscripts as mere path to profit. Here's to the preservers of priceless manuscripts for the world to see!

A 200 year old preserved peat body discovered in England's Lake District is covered with South Sea Tattoos of the sort that 18th century British seamen acquired during their travels throughout the far reaches of the British Empire. Wordsworth scholar Jane Gresham, convinced that this body is actually Fletcher Christian, long thought to have died on Pitcairn Island, also believes that Wordsworth composed a final epic poem about Christian and the Bounty saga. Of course, if the poem had been published in Wordsworth's lifetime, Christian would have been apprehended and summarily hanged. So, if the poem and any documentary evidence exists as to its provenance, the Wordsworth family have been keeping it secret for over two centuries.

In "The Grave Tattoo", McDermid has created an enjoyable literary mystery that is skillfully blended with an imagined tale of Fletcher Christian's escape from a native uprising on Pitcairn Island and his secret return to the British homeland he so sorely missed. The additional story of Jane's friendship and growing love for a young 13 year old black girl, Tenille Cole (her neighbour in Marshpool, one of London's rundown public housing projects), rounds out the story nicely, adds a tinge of modern day reality, lifts the tale out of the somewhat stuffy world of pure academia and gives "The Grave Tattoo" overall a somewhat more US-centric thriller flavour.

Overall, an enjoyable if somewhat lengthy story that I think might have benefitted by a little editorial pruning and stepping up of some pacing. I'm tempted to make a return visit to Nordhoff and Hall's "Mutiny on the Bounty".

Paul Weiss

A bizarrely tattooed body is discovered in the UK Lake District. There are persistent rumours that Fletcher Christian secretly returned from his exile to Pitcairn Island and was harboured by William Wordsworth, a childhood friend, who turned his tale into an epic poem. Because the manuscript has remained hidden, there is no conclusive proof of its existence. Can the body be that of Fletcher Christian? Is the manuscript still extant? Who holds the key to the past? Wordsworth Scholar Jane Gresham would love to find the manuscript, as would many others and not all are as scrupulous.

Peopled with interesting characters, the research through the past in combination with some fast action in the present provides the potential ingredients for a good mystery. This book involves a number of different subplots, some of which are more satisfying than others. Overall, the total package worked well for me, and I enjoyed the read.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

It is gratifying to see that Fr. Rolfe, a/k/a Baron Corvo is still the cause of violent polemicism in modern readers. There truly was no one like him, not even Joyce, for love of language.

Were he not so self-focused he might have written a corpus of much more sustainable themes; and yet his entire oeuvre is shaped and iterated by his own disappointments and failures (there were so many: he was so tired). In this book, he takes revenge on the world, and triumphs--as pope! What a wonderful conceit. It should be read slowly. It is truly to be savored.

I read this a long time ago and it left a very distinct and longlasting aftertaste. In my childhood, I met more than a few Catholics caught up with the elaborate outer crust, rituals and language of this religion, the religion of my childhood. Hadrian the seventh is more extreme in this way than all of those characters put together. You do not have to be a Catholic to enjoy his very original use of the English language. It is a classic. Poverty seems to have chased Frederick Rolfe even after death. This book is out of print! I read this book during the same period while I was at university that I read the Autobiography of Aleister Crowley, Milarepa by Evans-Wentz and Borges and shortly after that Marques, just before he won the Nobel Prize. I promise you young folks that reading these crazy books would take you on more thrilling trips than drugs, fast cars and mindless sex. It is all in the mind, is it not?

Yes, well, um, quite...This eccentric, dainty, precieuse story really has not much to do with Roman Catholicism or the Papacy...It has almost everything to do with its eccentric, dainty, precieuse author, who certainly was an odd fish--It is his confession, vindication and divine wish-fulfillment all in one. Or was he really all that odd? His is the story of the eminently talented, gifted, sensitive soul left to drift in the world, his talents unappreciated by the vulgar herd, left with only his pride as consolation. He very much resembles Baudelaire's description of the poet whose "great wings prevent him from walking"--And this book encompasses his vision of what he would do could he but fly. But it must be said that this literary flight is, simply put, more odd and curious than grand or tragic or majestic or poetic. It is, like its author, idiosyncratic to the core.

Reading this book, for me, was like rummaging in a linguistic attic, chancing upon a forgotten turn of English or Ancient Greek and smiling wistfully before putting it aside again. Ultimately, this book is, like its author, a curiosity whose "caviare" as D.H. Lawrence puts it on the back cover, can and will be appreciated only by the few with a taste for the peculiar.

I thought the novel was splendid. It's about a "nobody" who became pope - not a new concept by any means - with some obscure details on, and innovative reforms of the catholic church.

I found the characters to be believable, underscoring my general feeling about the hierarchical structure of, and the personalities residing within the church.

Although it's a bit of a hard read in terms of its language usage, I enjoyed it and have recommended it to other people.

Frederick Rolfe styled himself Fr. Rolfe to write this book, to make it look as if he was a Priest. Rolfe himself failed to enter the RC priesthood, rather like Mr Rose/Hadrian (the hero)... and from there on, you can see from his life that Hadrian VII is really Rolfe's wish fulfilment... not only to become a priest, but a Pope! Like Hadrian/Rose, Rolfe was an oddball in real life.

Mr Rose is a reclusive, catty & bookish Englishman, who excels in verbosity and likes showing off his skills in Ancient Greek. Through a chain of coincidences, this autistic "hermit" ends up becoming a priest, and then Pope. He renames himself Hadrian as the last English Pope before him, Nicholas Breakspear, had. Once in power Hadrian takes two conflicting courses, first reforming the Vatican to become less worldly and selling off some of its treasures for charity, harmonising RC factions etc and secondly getting right into world politics... this novel was written before WWI so some of his solutions are a little quaint. He gets France and Russia "sorted out", and hands over most of the world to his native England (see end). Hadrian has a strong anti-socialist bent, but this book came about 8 years before the Bolshevik Revolution occurred.

The other characters are less appealing... least convincing is Jerry Sant, who is supposedly some kind of Scottish socialist, but who speaks neither like a Scot nor much like a socialist (devious or otherwise). Cardinal Ragna, who might be presumed to supply some decent opposition, is also a cardboard cutout.

Rolfe has an odd style of writing... for example he refuses to talk of people being "Scottish" or "Irish", but prefers talking of them as Pictish, Erse or Gaelic, or Keltic (with the K). Despite being a pompous quoter of Classical Greek (and more oddly not mentioning much Latin to go with it), he shows a great prejudice towards living languages of his country's neighbours. -

"England is the dominant race: her language is the language of all her colonies. Why a triplet of little conquered countries [Scotland, Ireland and Wales] should refuse to learn English - should be permitted to insist on their barbarous and unliterary languages, we could never understand. They are conquered countries annexed to their conqueror"

Rolfe evidently needed educating in this area. Gaelic monks taught the Anglo-Saxons how to read and write, and the Irish Free State began a mere six years after the book was written, but I digress. Here is a specimen of the book's style, which goes on and on, page after page -

"The Supreme Arbitrator provided the human race with scope and opportunity for energy. The provisions of the Epistle to princes were drawn up in the Form of Treaty dividing the world, til Midnight (G.T.) of December 31st (N.S.) of the year 2000 of the Fructiferous Incarnation of the Son of God into the Ninefold Kingdom, the American Republic, the Japanese Empire and the Roman Empire."

(This is his cabbalistic way of saying Hadrian handed over Africa and most of Asia to England "the Ninefold Kingdom", naturally, and had given Siberia to Japan. The Roman Empire he speaks of is Continental Europe controlled by the Kaiser.)