Disowned by Memory: Wordsworth's Poetry of the 1790s [Paperback]

David Bromwich (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226075575 | ISBN-13: 978-0226075570 | Publication Date: April 15, 2000 | Edition: 1

Although we know him as one of the greatest English poets, William Wordsworth might not have become a poet at all without the experience of personal and historical catastrophe in his youth. In Disowned by Memory, David Bromwich connects the accidents of Wordsworth's life with the originality of his writing, showing how the poet's strong sympathy with the political idealism of the age and with the lives of the outcast and the dispossessed formed the deepest motive of his writings of the 1790s.

"This very Wordsworthian combination of apparently low subjects with extraordinary 'high argument' makes for very rewarding, though often challenging reading."—Kenneth R. Johnston, Washington Times

"Wordsworth emerges from this short and finely written book as even stranger than we had thought, and even more urgently our contemporary."—Grevel Lindop, Times Literary Supplement

"[Bromwich's] critical interpretations of the poetry itself offer readers unusual insights into Wordworth's life and work."—Library Journal

"An added benefit of this book is that it restores our faith that criticism can actually speak to our needs. Bromwich is a rigorous critic, but he is a general one whose insights are broadly applicable. It's an intellectual pleasure to rise to his complexities."—Vijay Seshadri, New York Times Book Review

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Any discussion of William Wordsworth invariably brings forth three maxims. First, he's the great poet of self-consciousness, having practically cooked up the concept in The Prelude; second, he's the preeminent nature boy of the romantic era; and third, his work went steadily downhill after the glory days of Poems in Two Volumes (1807). David Bromwich, however, feels differently. In Disowned by Memory, he slides Wordsworth's poetry of the 1790s under the magnifying glass and comes up with some persuasive revisionism.

It's not that Bromwich presents an brand-new, nature-hating Wordsworth. But he does suggest that we do the poet an injustice by tarring him with the tranquil, touchy-feeley brush:

We have honored him for uninteresting virtues; but the fault is not entirely his. Art of a certain dignity risks being fancied in the minds of spectators as a monumental thing. Wordsworth was a disagreeable man and an interesting poet, but a man wrote the poems and it seems worth keeping him in view, as disagreeably as possible.

Bromwich initially applies the blowtorch to our conception of Wordsworth's ideology, examining the early poem "The Old Cumberland Beggar" for its expression of what the author calls "radical humanity." This is no bucolic postcard, he argues, but a complicated spin on worth and worthlessness, the self and society, in which the beggar operates as a odd medium of exchange: "His life is more valuable than others just because it is obviously less valued." Elsewhere Bromwich ponders his subject's verse-play, "The Borderers"--in which he sees Wordsworth working out his mingled guilt and joy over the violence of the French Revolution--and recasts "Tintern Abbey" as an expression of seclusion from nature, rather than an anticipatory tree-hugger's anthem. Here as always Bromwich is tartly provocative, even on the subject of being provocative: "To become detached from one habitual sense of a poem is an odd and unsettling process, and it takes time. I can compare it to having a fixed idea of a friend who, when you meet him after a long absence, says or does something so peculiar that it changes the whole picture of his character, until you think about it and realize this was part of the picture all along."

The Wordsworth we encounter in Disowned by Memory is indeed detached from our habitual sense of the poet. Still, Bromwich's arguments are so sound, and his prose so agreeably spiky, that he forces you to think through what he's saying and offer some articulate reply. It was Hazlitt who first put the finger on Wordsworth's paradoxical insularity: "He sees nothing but himself and the universe." But Bromwich too makes you wonder whether being self-centered is a good thing, a bad thing, or just a fact of life for a poet. --James Marcus --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The poetry of the first decade of Wordsworth's career is some of his most memorable. According to Bromwich (English, Yale), Wordsworth turned to poetry after the French Revolution to articulate the ideals of human dignity and solidarity. Bromwich engages in dazzling close readings of poems like "Tintern Abbey," "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal," and "The Old Cumberland Beggar" as he contends that Wordsworth's early poetry has "radical acts of human solidarity" as its theme. Bromwich combines the of psychology, history, and biography to uncover the contexts for these poems, but his critical interpretations of the poetry itself offer readers unusual insights into Wordsworth's life and work. Highly recommended for both large public libraries and academic libraries.?Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Westerville P.L., OH
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 193 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (April 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226075575
• ISBN-13: 978-0226075570
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #895,735 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book ever written on Wordsworth, December 30, 2010

By 

Tim Ellison "Timothy Ellison" (Cambridge, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Disowned by Memory: Wordsworth's Poetry of the 1790s (Paperback)

The praise in my title is superlative, to be sure. There have been a number of brilliant explorations of Wordsworth, perhaps the most misunderstood poet in the language and often misread. But Wordsworth anticipated this misreading, and tried not to despair. He found "Resolution and "Independence." He is a strangely happy poet.

David Bromwich is, perhaps, Wordsworth's ideal reader, insofar as he seems to have an almost telepathic sympathy (a key word for Bromwich as much as for Wordsworth) with Wordsworth's moral, political and individual intentions. His book is also beautifully written (as criticism should be written), which is not to suggest that it is not difficult; complex thought always requires difficulty. Of course Geoffrey Hartman opened the door, in many ways, to the possibilities of profound Wordsworth studies, but Hartman's book is slowly becoming dated, as criticism often is. You must read David Bromwich to reinvigorate the ever-original poems of Wordsworth. If there has ever been a truly perfect essay written on the poet, it is Chapter 4, "Moral Relations in two Prefaces and Lyrical Ballads." The "Tintern Abbey" chapter is also simply splendid.

Unlike the very important and sure-to-be influential philosophical explorations by Paul Fry (2008) and Simon Jarvis (2007), you don't need to know the work of Heidegger or Paul de Man or Coleridge to make sense of Bromwich's book. It is a rare form of criticism, in the wonderfully paradigmatic model of criticism, Hazlitt. I suspect Bromwich's book is a permanent achievement.

8 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Book, Within interesting Connections to Robert Blake, April 25, 2002

By 

blobertobo (Cambridge MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Disowned by Memory: Wordsworth's Poetry of the 1790s (Hardcover)

I was amazed at how Bromwitch drew all these great connections to the work of Romantic Poet and Baretta star, Robert Blake. I had no idea that the plot to do away with fellow poet Bonnie Lee Blakey was actually inscribed in Tintern Abbey. This is Bromwitch's great insight, and boy, did I lose a lot of sleep over it. I am also impressed with the claim that all of Wordsworth's poetry grew out of his own obsession with the female reproductive system, particularly that of his sister, Dorothea. After reading this book I quickly decided to disown the book, and lent it on purpose to a friend with Alzheimer's, so he would not remember from whence it came. So, I say, thank god for disowning memory!