Coleridge, Alfoxden, and Lyrical Ballads (1797–8)

Abstract

Mary Hutchinson stayed at Racedown from November 1796 until June 1797; she had travelled from Sockburn with her sailor brother Henry, who was on his way to Plymouth. Her presence during the severe winter was a pleasure to Dorothy and William, but it must have made him think seriously at times about his future vis-à-vis Annette. Basil’s father arrived in March, and he and Wordsworth, after visiting Bath, called on Coleridge at Nether Stowey in the Quantocks. About this period Wordsworth wrote a short dramatic fragment, possibly for The Borderers, illustrating the suicidal reasoning of a perverted mind. ‘The Convict’ may be earlier; based on Godwin’s arguments against prison iniquities (in Caleb Williams, for example) and published in The Morning Chronicle (14.xii.97), then in Lyrical Ballads, it is the first of a number of Wordsworth’s poems in anapaestic verse, the movement of which hardly allows one to settle seriously to the seriousness of the subject. He also composed the first two cantos of ‘The Three Graves’, a supernatural story which was continued (but not completed) by Coleridge. Wordsworth’s ballad moves easily and powerfully, giving passionate reality to the subject.KeywordsReturn JourneyPassionate RealityMaternal LoveAncient MarinerFinal ThrustThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.