Veiled Movements in "The Vale of Esthwaite"

Abstract

The Vale of (1787), Wordsworth's first sustained effort at original composition, was first published in 1940 by Ernest De Selincourt in Poetical Works of Wordsworth as an example of juvenilia. Among scholars who treated De Selincourl version of poem, Geoffrey Martman's account in Wordsworth's Poetry, 1787-1814 is fullest, which argues that The Yale of turns upon mind of a poet enthralled by nature despite signs that his imagination may well be independent of nature (76-89). Other treatments of De Selincourl's edition appeared in F. W. Bateson, Paul Sheats, Thomas Weiskel, James Ave rill. Jonathan Wordsworth, Kenneth R.Johnston. and Kurt Fosso. The latest edition appeared in Earlier Poems and Fragments, 1785-1797 (Cornell, 1998), edited byjared Curtis and Carol Landon, and described by Duncan Wn as the most accurate and carefully edited text of poem that we are ever likely to have (3). One can learn much about Wordsworth's evolving practice from this text, experimenting as he does with description, moral encomia, and personal reflection/retrospection inspired by Virgil's Georgics and contemporary Gothic and local color. Incomplete and underdeveloped as poem is, it parleys an initiation whereby young poet recognizes his poetic calling, as Jonathan Wordsworth first surmised in Two Dark Interpreters: Wordsworth and De Quincey (224). Comprised of three major sections or movements in manuscript, poem could be read as an anthology of visual and visionary scenes, as Landon and Curtis remarked, but there is a certain cleverness about it that makes it more than discrete imitative exercises. The argument, to adapt a Romantic convention, may be sketched hvpolhelically as follows: of Esthwaite--Superstition--Spirits, as Might Be Heard by a Minstrel--Mystic Twilight--Veil of Night--Melancholy--Power of Fancy--Storm Visions--Spectral Visitations--Remembrance of Grief following Death of Author's Father--Whispering Voice--I lope for Peace at Close of Life--Faith in Friendship --Consolation in Nature and Memory--Homage to Native Region--Filial Love--Homage to a Friend. These headings could be faithful to poem as it exists in manuscript and as young Wordsworth might formulated them for An Evening Wath and Descriptive Sketches (both 1793). For all of lapses or shifts in theme, tense, and tone, particularly in third movement, a line runs through first two movements, one that turns upon young poet's place in literary tradition, which in turn impacts final movement. Wordsworth cleverly and self-consciously acknowledges over course of poem literary tradition that precedes him, and gestures toward origins of his own poetic calling with an opening verse paragraph that I call a View of Esthwaite (1-24) that foregrounds georgic inquisitiveness inflecting first section by describing some of the larulskip's varied treasure (2). The narrator finds himself in gloomy glades of Superstition (25 ff.), where the ringing of druid Sons (31-32), moves him to ask Why roull on me your glaring eyes/Why fix on me for sacrifice (33-34, echoing Wordsworth's Irregular Fragment). The question imparts a sense of foreboding, trading as passage does in English druidic folklore. Then musing onward would I stray/Till every rude sound died away, speaker observes to lead off verse paragraphs that I tagged Spirits, as Might Be Heard by a Minstrel (43 IT.), which exhibit further awareness of other English folklore along with a knowledge of Virgilian and contemporary poetics: And oft as ceased owl his song That screamed roofless walls among Spirits yelling from their pains And lashes loud and clanking chains Were heard by minstrel led astray Cold wading thro' swampy way Who as he flies mingled moan Deep sighs his harp with hollow groan He starts dismal sound to hear Nor dares revert his eye for fear Again his harp with thrilling chill Shrieks at his shoulder sharp and shrill Aghast he views. …