Repetition has connotations of something boring, or unoriginal, or lacking in poetic skill, but repetition - in several different senses - dominates Wordsworth's poetry. This book explores those moments of repetition, placing them in the early nineteenth century context from which they emerged, and teasing out through extended close attention to the poetry itself the complexities of repetition and recapitulation. Drawing on extensive close readings of Wordsworth's poetry, the book asks what it means to repeat, and how saying things again, often in a way which recognises both sameness and difference at the same time, is fundamental to Wordsworth's attempt to write what he called 'sincere' verse. By analysing instances of repetition and the conjunctions which facilitate recapitulation within Wordsworth's writing, the book attempts to understand the context, in terms of ideas of repetition, from which Wordsworth's works emerge, and to consider repetition in a broad range of senses - from repeated words and sounds within particular poems, to ideas of translation, allusion, and echo. Houghton-Walker also argues the importance of the element of difference within even apparently 'pure' repetition. Such difference might be in perception, attitude, or understanding, but for Wordsworth, the subtle relationship between instances of what seems to be the same experience illuminates the potential for poetry to portray simultaneously the specific and the universal: to hold within its lines both immediate and general truths at the same time.

The present study examines the relationship of Milton's Adam and Eve, their different identities, and their different roles, and explicates the link between the nature of their relationship and the dramatic developments of the biblical story. The story is considered in the light of Milton's ethics as explicated and implicated in Paradise Lost, which are crucially different from the present-day ethics which we naturally tend to superimpose or take for granted. He makes use of two particular means of investigation. Firstly, the author provides a technical analysis of Milton's style, with an emphasis on verbal (often latinate) ambiguity and on a feature hitherto hardly described in Milton criticism, namely syntactical ambiguity, all yielding extra information. Secondly, on the basis of newly found verbal parallels between Milton's Christian epic and Vergil's Roman epic the Aeneid the author provides an analysis of the intended contrast between Milton's Adam and Eve and Vergil's Dido and Aeneas; on Milton's request, so to speak, the romance of Adam and Eve is put in the epic and Vergilian context. The author's observations on Milton's strategic use of the Aeneid as an antithetic frame of reference for his own Paradise Lost also leads to an investigation into a poem which in its turn uses Milton's Paradise Lost as an antithetic frame of reference, namely Wordsworth's Prelude.

The most accessible edition of Wordsworth’s poetry and prose, prepared to meet the needs of both students and scholars. This Norton Critical Edition presents a generous selection of William Wordworth’s poetry (including the thirteen-book Prelude of 1805) and prose works along with supporting materials for in-depth study. Together, the Norton Critical Editions of Wordsworth’s Poetry and Prose and The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850 are the essential texts for studying this author. Wordsworth’s Poetry and Prose includes a large selection of texts chronologically arranged, thereby allowing readers to trace the author’s evolving interests and ideas. An insightful general introduction and textual introduction precede the texts, each of which is fully annotated. Illustrative materials include maps, manuscript pages, and title pages. “Criticism” collects thirty responses to Wordsworth’s poetry and prose spanning three centuries by British and American authors. Contributors include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Felicia Hemans, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lucy Newlyn, Stephen Gill, Neil Fraistat, Mary Jacobus, Nicholas Roe, M. H. Abrams, Karen Swann, Michael O’Neill, and Geoffrey Hartman, among others. The volume also includes a Chronology, a Biographical Register, a Selected Bibliography, and an Index of Titles and First Lines of Poems.

This welcome addition to the Blackwell Guides to Criticism series provides students with an invaluable survey of the critical reception of the Romantic poets. Guides readers through the wealth of critical material available on the Romantic poets and directs them to the most influential readings Presents key critical texts on each of the major Romantic poets – Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats – as well as on poets of more marginal canonical standing Cross-referencing between the different sections highlights continuities and counterpoints

The Cambridge Companion to Wordsworth provides a wide-ranging account of one of the most famous Romantic poets. Specially commissioned essays cover all the important aspects of this multi-faceted writer; the volume examines his poetic achievement with a chapter on poetic craft, while other chapters focus on the origin of his poetry and on the challenges it presented and continues to present. Further contributions include discussions of The Prelude and The Recluse, Wordsworth as philosophic poet, his writing in relation to European Romanticism, and Wordsworth as Nature poet. The collection, by an international team of established specialists concludes with a lucid account of the history of Wordsworth's texts, and offers students invaluable reference material including a chronology and guides to further reading.The volume aims to ensure that its readers will be grounded in the history of Wordsworth's career and his critical reception.

Writing in Real Time is the first book-length study of the American long poem as a complex adaptive system.