The Life and Poems of William Wordsworth. Part 1. The Life of William Wordsworth. By Albert Fels, Ph. Dr. Printed in the Programme of the Realschule of the Johanneum, Easter 1875. Hamburg 1875. Printed by Th. G. Meissner. 30413 The Life and Poems of William Wordsworth. Part I. The Life of William Wordsworth. It is an interesting feature of literary history that there are poets who, while they enjoy the highest reputation in their own country, are less, if at all, known abroad. Such are, among French authors, Lafontaine and Alfred de Musset, whose renown in Germany is far behind the universal popularity which they have attained in France. A still more striking instance of the above remark is William Wordsworth. While Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and Byron are nearly as much read and esteemed among us as in their native country, Wordsworth "already a classic and extensively read and appreciated"1) in England, is, as yet, little known in Germany. As a proof of my assertion respecting his standing among his countrymen, I may refer to the large space allotted to him in English books on literature. 2) From my own experience I Sara can testify that many of his poems are generally known by heart. Coleridge) says of the "Platonic Ode", that "the energy of its language is so great, that every passage and every line of it has been received into the poetical heart of this country, and has become the common expression of certain moods of mind and modes of thought, which had hardly been developed before its appearance" and this may be justly maintained of a great portion of Wordsworth's poetry. 1) Craik, A Compendious History of English Literature (London 1871) II p. 459. 2) See for instance Craik 1. c. II p. 455–477. Shaw, The Student's Manual of English Literature. A History of English Literature (London 1872, eighth edition) p. 461–466. Collier, A History of English Literature in a series of biographical sketches (London 1874) p. 453-460. Spalding, History of English Literature 9th ed., Edinburgh 1865 p. 357. 362. 365. 375-379. Chambers' Cyclopaedia of English Literature II p. 279-291. 3) Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge. Edited by her daughter. Third edition, London 1873 vol. II p. 351. The first book of his Excursion has been selected by the Government Department of Education as a Text-book on which students in normal schools are examined. Exercises in paraphrasing and analysis of sentences taken from the Excursion have been required also of pupils in middle-class schools at the University examinations. 1) - As a further proof of the appreciation which Wordsworth has met with in his country, I shall mention the opinions of some authors of the highest eminence. Leaving out Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose judgment might seem influenced by the partiality of friendship, (though this latter was only produced by the deep impression which Wordsworth's very first poems had wrought upon his mind), ) I shall quote Edward Lytton Bulwer's words: "Above all", he says, "I believe that (viz. the influence) of Wordsworth to have been an influence of a more noble and purely intellectual character than any writer of our age and nation has exercised." 3) "Wordsworth's poetry is of all existing in the world the most calculated to refine, to etherealize, to exalt; to offer the most correspondent counterpoise to the scale that inclines to earth.") One of the finest testimonies to the power inherent in Wordsworth's poetry is given by John Stuart Mill (Autobiography, London 1873 p. 146 ff.). When in a state of despondency, owing, no doubt, to the premature overworking of his mental faculties through the singular educational system of his father, Mill was, by Wordsworth's poems, relieved from his disease, when he "gradually, but completely, emerged from his habitual depression, and was never again subject to it" (p. 149). Neither did Wordsworth fail to obtain the acknowledgment of his worth from that art so akin to his poetical tendencies, the art of painting. In the able and high-minded Sir George Beaumont he found an inestimable interpreter of several of his poems. 1) See Introduction to the First Book of Wordsworth's Excursion. With full notes and a treatise upon the analysis of sentences. By the Right Rev. C. H. Bromby, D. D., Lord Bishop of Tasmania. New edition. London: Longmans, Green and Co. In another edition, of the first book of the Excursion with notes by the Rev. H. G. Robinson, Edinburgh, Oliver and Boyd, it is said that the notes are, in the first instance, designed to assist Students in Training Schools, and other candidates for a Certificate of Merit, in preparing themselves to answer the questions which will be set in Grammar and Composition at the Government Examination. 2) See Biographia Literaria by S. T. Coleridge (London 1870, among Bohn's Standard Library) p. 39: During the last year of my residence at Cambridge, I became acquainted with Mr. Wordsworth's first publication, entitled: Descriptive Sketches; and seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an original poetic genius above the literary horizon more evidently announced". 3) England and the English. By Edward Lytton Bulwer, Book the fourth. Chapter II (p. 308 in the Paris Edition of 1833). 4) ib. p. 210. And lastly, not to weary the reader's patience, I may mention the public homage paid to him by his nomination as Poet Laureate, whose office it is to write verses on important public occasions. Though the choice depends entirely upon the good pleasure of the Sovereign, it may easily be inferred from the names of his predecessor and his successor, Robert Southey and Alfred Tennyson, that the appointment is regarded as the highest honour to be conferred upon a literary contemporary and could, therefore, not be made without a due consideration of the public opinion. To corroborate this, I shall extract some passages from a letter written by Robert Peel to Mr. Wordsworth on the occasion. "The offer was made to you by the Lord Chamberlain .. in order to pay you that tribute of respect which is justly due to the first of living poets. The Queen entirely approved of the nomination, and there is one unanimous feeling on the part of all who have heard of the proposal (and it is pretty generally known) that there could not be a question about the selection... As the Queen can select for this honourable appointment no one whose claims for respect and honour, on account of eminence as a poet, can be placed in competition with yours, I trust you will not longer hesitate to accept it."1) In opposition to these acknowledgments which Wordsworth met with in his own country, no person conversant with the spread of English literature will venture, I trust, to deny that Wordsworth is scarcely known among us beyond those poor specimens, continually repeated in the Anthologies. The regret which Mr. Lappenberg, the late celebrated historian of Hamburg, expressed, in 1840, in a letter to Mr. Wordsworth, that the writings of the author of the Excursion were not better known to the German public, 2) must still be entertained. The books on English literature published in 1) Memoirs of William Wordsworth by Christopher Wordsworth. In two volumes. London 1851. The author is the poet's nephew, at the time canon of Westminster, now bishop of Lincoln. 2) Mem. II 66. In the Memoirs stands by a misprint Lapperberg. The writer of the letter announces in it his intention of rendering some of W.'s poems into German. But he seems never to have executed his design. At least I find no indication of such a work either in F. L. Hoffmann's Johann Martin Lappenberg als Bibliograph und Literarhistoriker, Separatabdruck aus dem 28. Jahrgang des Serapeum's, Leipzig, T. O. Weigel 1867, or in Lappenberg's biography by Elard Hugo Meyer, Hamburg 1867. In the latter work there is (p. 19. 20) the following interesting passage on Wordsworth: Kein Ton, meinte Lappenberg, sei im menschlichen Gemüthe, den Wordsworth nicht in seiner ganzen Bedeutung, Schönheit und Harmonie aufzufassen verstände. Er erschien ihm wie ein Baum, der ihn, den müden Wanderer, durch seinen Schatten gelabt habe. This was Lappenberg's opinion as early as 1814. His regret expressed in the above quoted letter of the Memoirs was shared, he says, by Tieck. Likewise the Chevalier Bunsen stated that Wordsworth was not understood or cared for in Prussia. Moore and Byron were the great English poets there. (See: Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge II 261). |