William Wordsworth: A Poetic Life [Hardcover]

John L. Mahoney (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0823217159 | ISBN-13: 978-0823217151 | Publication Date: January 1, 1996 | Edition: 2

Wordsworth: A Poetic Life is a new biography of the great father of British Romanticism. It is new in several ways, most notably in the way it approaches the life of the poet. Paying its proper respect to the classic lives of Wordsworth by Mary Moorman and Stephen Gill, it attempts to tell the story of the life through a more rigorous reading of key and representative works of the poet, through careful blending of life and poetry. Wordsworth offers the story of the literariness of the poet's life - childhood and adolescence in the Lake District, education at Cambridge, love and political radicalism in France, the long period of residence in Grasmere and Rydal, celebrity, and national and international recognition. Its reading of the poems, in tune with current theoretical practice, offers a sense of the continuities in Wordsworth's career as it moves away from familiar theories of a Golden Decade of creativity and a period of long decline. The book also works closely and rigorously with Wordsworth's poetry as a method of dramatizing the essentially poetic character of the poet's life.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Literary biography is flourishing these days, and now it's Wordsworth's turn in this examination of the "episodes in a poetic life," or moments when the poems and life intersect. Mahoney (Boston Coll.; The English Romantics, 1978) gives a cautious nod here to deconstruction, which he sees as exposing the different and often opposed meanings of a text, as well as the New Historicism, which deepens the reader's sense of the poet's engagement with the world. But while Mahoney's approach is enriched by both of these contemporary strategies, his larger goal is to write neither a critical study nor a life per se but something more like a biography of the poet's career, when Wordsworth was, in the fullest sense, his most writerly self. This book does not replace Stephen Gill's William Wordsworth (Oxford Univ., 1989. o.p.), the most readable and scholarly of recent biographies, but it does offer new and thorough readings of the poems. For all literature collections.?David Kirby, Florida State Univ., Tallahassee
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"offers new and thorough readings of the poems. For all literature collections." -- Library Journal

This new biographical study of a Romantic poet uses key and representative writings of Wordsworth to examine his literary achievements as well as his life and growth. The analysis of poems throughout, keyed to Wordsworth's life and philosophy, allow college-level students of English literature a set of fine insights into Wordsworth's life based on interpretations of his works, among other sources. -- Midwest Book Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 301 pages
• Publisher: Fordham University Press; 2 edition (January 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0823217159
• ISBN-13: 978-0823217151
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,328,405 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ideological Compromise, August 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: William Wordsworth: A Poetic Life (Hardcover)

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.