Wordsworth and Lyrical Archaeology: The Poetics of Pre-historical Imagination in "The Brothers"

Abstract

Compared equally familiar poems in Lyrical Ballads, Brothers received little attention, despite Wordsworth's high opinion of it--at one point he intended make it first of new poems appear in second volume of 1800 edition (Reed 76n31). It grew out of a story he heard with Coleridge on a visit Ennerdale during a walking tour of Lake District in October and November, 1799, before he and Dorothy decided settle in Grasmere. The poem reflects William's troubled thoughts about his relationship his own brother, John, who had just left their company a week before and who, like Leonard Ewbank, Wordsworth's protagonist, had become a mariner help support brother he had left behind. The poem also expresses some of his anxieties at thought of being mistaken, like long-absent Leonard, for a Tourist in very region where he born and raised (Butler). Several critics, including Parrish (133),Averill (227), and Galperin (125-132), noted dramatic irony of situation in which Leonard, now matured beyond recognition, converses with elderly priest of his birthplace concerning fate of his younger brother, James, and gets him identify young man's unmarked grave, all without ever acknowledging that he is James's sibling, Leonard, whom priest believes is dead. He even listens patiently as priest relates lurid story of Leonard's supposed death after leaving for sea as a slave of the Moors/Upon Barbary Coast (324-325). Leonard's decision not identify himself appears, some, be motivated by guilt at having left his brother die alone, or perhaps by a reluctance recommit himself life of village, as he had promised upon leaving, without knowing if his brother were alive share in that jubilant return, or even if such a return were economically possible (Turner 211; Simpson 38-39). Strictly speaking, one can only guess at Leonard's reasons: nothing more is known other than, after his leaving vale, he wrote a letter Priest identifying himself and asking to be forgiven,/That it from weakness of his heart,/ He had not dared tell him, who be was (445-7). As Francis Jeffrey said of The Excursion, This will never do (Gill 305). Weakness of ... heart is too vague and inadequate a motive account for Leonard's deceiving, in such a calculated and deliberate manner, man who loved him. And what would be so daring, after all, about telling truth, especially after he's been assured that If there one among us who had heard/ That Leonard Ewbank come home again, ... The day would be a very festival (315-19)? Weakness of ... heart is so half-hearted an explanation that it makes situational irony of poem look contrived. Like sea-captain's deliberate decision in Thorn avoid Martha Ray--the one person who could reveal everything one would ever want know about thorn, hill of moss, and muddy pond she frequents--Leonard's secrecy impedes his own enlightenment, suggesting that Wordsworth is pursuing an ulterior goal similar one in The Thorn: examine process by which one attaches stories objects coming from a past beyond reach of available narratives. For Wordsworth of Lyrical Ballads privileged artifacts upon which this preoccupation focuses is unmarked stone, or series or pile of stones, or mounds of earth, like many unmarked graves or barrows found near pre-Roman ruins such as Stonehenge. At some point between 1793, when he first encountered Stonehenge, and 1800, when he published two-volume Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth became interested in stones: they litter Ballads like glacial erratics. The stones comprising mossy seat in a yew tree, where poet leaves his Lines; old gray stone on which poet sits in Expostulation and Reply, while dreaming his time away; three, uninscribed hewn stone pillars marking a stag's prodigious leaps its death; stones rolling in diurnal course with rocks and trees and human remains; a narrow girdle of rough stones and crags and pile of stones comprising a half-completed sheep-fold--a miniature Stonehenge, perhaps, with an shepherd named Michael as patriarchal archdruid. …