Wordsworth's Monastic Inheritance

Poetry, Place, and the Sense of Community

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Poetry History & Criticism
Cover of the book Wordsworth's Monastic Inheritance by Jessica Fay, OUP Oxford
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Jessica Fay ISBN: 9780192548160
Publisher: OUP Oxford Publication: May 3, 2018
Imprint: OUP Oxford Language: English
Author: Jessica Fay
ISBN: 9780192548160
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Publication: May 3, 2018
Imprint: OUP Oxford
Language: English

This is the first extended study of Wordsworth's complex, subtle, and often conflicted engagement with the material and cultural legacies of monasticism. It reveals that a set of topographical, antiquarian, and ecclesiastical sources consulted by Wordsworth between 1806 and 1822 provided extensive details of the routines, structures, landscapes, and architecture of the medieval monastic system. In addition to offering a new way of thinking about religious dimensions of Wordsworth's work and his views on Roman Catholicism, the book offers original insights into a range of important issues in his poetry and prose, including the historical resonances of the landscape, local attachment and memorialization, gardening and cultivation, Quakerism and silence, solitude and community, pastoral retreat and national identity. Wordsworth's interest in monastic history helps explain significant stylistic developments in his writing. In this often-neglected phase of his career, Wordsworth undertakes a series of generic experiments in order to craft poems capable of reformulating and refining taste; he adapts popular narrative forms and challenges pastoral conventions, creating difficult, austere poetry that, he hopes, will encourage contemplation and subdue readers' appetites for exciting narrative action. This book thus argues for the significance and innovative qualities of some of Wordsworth's most marginalized writings. It grants poems such as The White Doe of Rylstone, The Excursion, and Ecclesiastical Sketches the centrality Wordsworth believed they deserved, and reveals how Wordsworth's engagement with the monastic history of his local region inflected his radical strategies for the creation of taste.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

This is the first extended study of Wordsworth's complex, subtle, and often conflicted engagement with the material and cultural legacies of monasticism. It reveals that a set of topographical, antiquarian, and ecclesiastical sources consulted by Wordsworth between 1806 and 1822 provided extensive details of the routines, structures, landscapes, and architecture of the medieval monastic system. In addition to offering a new way of thinking about religious dimensions of Wordsworth's work and his views on Roman Catholicism, the book offers original insights into a range of important issues in his poetry and prose, including the historical resonances of the landscape, local attachment and memorialization, gardening and cultivation, Quakerism and silence, solitude and community, pastoral retreat and national identity. Wordsworth's interest in monastic history helps explain significant stylistic developments in his writing. In this often-neglected phase of his career, Wordsworth undertakes a series of generic experiments in order to craft poems capable of reformulating and refining taste; he adapts popular narrative forms and challenges pastoral conventions, creating difficult, austere poetry that, he hopes, will encourage contemplation and subdue readers' appetites for exciting narrative action. This book thus argues for the significance and innovative qualities of some of Wordsworth's most marginalized writings. It grants poems such as The White Doe of Rylstone, The Excursion, and Ecclesiastical Sketches the centrality Wordsworth believed they deserved, and reveals how Wordsworth's engagement with the monastic history of his local region inflected his radical strategies for the creation of taste.

More books from OUP Oxford

Cover of the book Language and the Structure of Berkeley's World by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book The Trinitarian Christology of St Thomas Aquinas by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book The Economics of New Health Technologies by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book Darwin's Legacy by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book The Sonnet by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 53 by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book Crime Fiction: A Very Short Introduction by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book Belinda by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book The Protections for Religious Rights by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book The She-Apostle by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book Sight Unseen by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book From Empire to Union by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book The Oxford Handbook on The World Trade Organization by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction by Jessica Fay
Cover of the book Health and Social Justice by Jessica Fay
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy