The Revolutionary 'I': Wordsworth and the Politics of Self-Presentation (Romanticism in Perspective) [Hardcover]

Ashton Nichols (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312211651 | ISBN-13: 978-0312211653 | Publication Date: May 1998

In the winter of 1798-99, shut up in the freezing German town of Goslar, William Wordsworth began producing lyrical fragments that appeared first in letters written to Coleridge and emerged eventually as source texts for The Prelude. These lyrics are revolutionary because they construct a new version of the autobiographical 'I'. The Wordsworthian first person, which becomes the prototype for so much subsequent writing about the self, emerges out of an interplay among complementary and conflicting questions: How could a struggling 28-year-old author write a 'great' poem? How might he satisfy the expectations of his imagined, as well as actual, readers? How should he fashion his own life into and out of poetry? The constant writing and rewriting of a poem with many titles over many decades was a textual act designed, at least in part, to answer such questions. The Revolutionary 'I' explores the numerous voices of the poetic speaker 'Wordsworth' and their relationship to the historical figure who shared the same name, offering the first sustained analysis of the complex autobiographical voice in Wordsworth's poetry.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Ashton Nichols's The Revolutionary 'I' trawls through versions of The Prelude up to and including the 1805 text in search of a fundamental Wordsworthian orgininality, which he believes is a generative source of most subsequent imaginative literature in English...he believes that Prelude breaks new autobiographical ground with its presentation of the I as a dramatized cultural self rather merely a mimetic revelation of identity.' - James Treadwell, The Wordsworth Circle --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

ASHTON NICHOLS is an Associate Professor of English at Dickinson College, Pennsylvania, USA. He is the author of The Poetics of Epiphany: Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Modern Literary Moment and numerous essays on nineteenth century literature and postcolonial literature. He has been a visiting lecturer at the University of East Anglia. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 187 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (May 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312211651
• ISBN-13: 978-0312211653
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,689,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ashton Nichols, Ph.D., holds the Walter E. Beach '56 Distinguished Chair in Sustainability Studies and is Professor of Language and Literature in the English Department at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The recipient of teaching awards that include both the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Ganoe Award for Inspirational Teaching, Professor Nichols's books include *The Revolutionary "I": Wordsworth and the Politics of Self-Presentation* and *The Poetics of Epiphany: Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Modern Literary Moment* as well as a teaching anthology, *Romantic Natural Histories: William Wordsworth, Charles Darwin, and Others*. He is the developer of *A Romantic Natural History: 1750-1859*, a hypertext project that has been recognized for excellence by The New York Times, the BBC in London, M.I.T., Romantic Circles, and the BLTC "Site of the Day". His scholarly publications include essays and articles on Emerson and Thoreau, Chinua Achebe, Derek Walcott, Thomas Pynchon, Seamus Heaney, Salman Rushdie, Werewere Liking, J. M. Coetzee, African exploration narratives, Victorian poetry, and travel writing. He has published numerous nature essays as well as poetry and fiction. In recent years he has delivered keynote addresses and lectures in nations around the world, including China, England, Italy, Japan, India, Portugal, Cameroon, and Morocco.