Previous articleNext article FreeFrom the EditorCharles W. MahoneyCharles W. Mahoney Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreThis initial 2023 issue of The Wordsworth Circle opens with a remarkable article by Robert Morrison, “De Quincey and Power,” which analyzes de Quincey’s fascination with power, whether under the heading of the “literature of power” (understood in terms of the sublime), the British empire, murder, or the power of opium, which more than anything else took control of de Quincey. We are also happy to include three articles on Wordsworth. In “‘Intimations’ Revisited: Wordsworth’s Double Consciousness,” Thomas Casalaspi considers the joint presence of a past self and a current self in Wordsworth’s great ode, poetic selves that register each other with a dizzying simultaneity of distance and proximity, one feeling and experiencing while the other is recollecting and composing. In “‘The Child Is Father of the Man’: The Educational Writings of Thomas Wedgwood and the Poems of William Wordsworth, 1798–1804,” Tim Fulford argues that sustained consideration of the unpublished manuscripts of the philosopher, psychologist, and experimentalist Thomas Wedgwood demonstrates much greater coincidence than has hitherto been noted between his and Wordsworth’s writings. William Glover proposes in “‘On Poetry and Geometric Truth’: Wordsworth’s Genius Loci” that Wordsworth is not merely a poet of place—a genius loci—but a poet of the mathematical “locus,” and in doing so he provides an arresting account of the historical overlap between literature, mathematics, and science in Wordsworth’s poetry. Turning from poetry to drama, we are pleased to include Trevor McMichael’s “‘If They Would but Laugh at Him’: Joanna Baillie, Comedy, and Everyday Revenge,” in which he illustrates how Baillie provides important meditations on revenge in her dramas despite omitting a play specifically concentrated on this passion in her series of Plays on the Passions. In conclusion, in “Robert Southey and the Fate of Spanish Democracy, 1811–1821,” Stuart Andrews provides a sequel of sorts to his 2014 article “Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge: Their Iberian Spring” (TWC 49.1: 49–53), in which he analyzes Southey’s continuing commitment to Spanish and Portuguese democracy, as demonstrated in recently published correspondence of Southey’s through the end of 1821 and the convening of the Congress of Verona.We are thrilled to announce the winner of the second Marilyn Gaull Book Award (2022), Jeffrey Cox’s William Wordsworth, Second-Generation Romantic, Contesting Poetry after Waterloo (Cambridge University Press, 2021), reviewed by Kenneth Johnston in TWC 53.4 (2022): 505–10. The review committee commended Cox’s award-winning study as follows:From its cheeky title to its ringing conclusion, William Wordsworth, Second-Generation Romantic, Contesting Poetry after Waterloo, by Jeffrey Cox offers a provocative, field-altering assessment of Wordsworth after Waterloo, throwing into relief the networks and relationships hiding in plain sight between Wordsworth and his younger contemporaries. Written with a wry, perceptive sympathy and drawing on Cox’s unparalleled knowledge of early-nineteenth-century publishing circles, this is a timely and, at times, moving book about the challenges of aging, the dynamics of inter-generational tension, and the role of the artist in society. Cox’s book skillfully balances finely detailed close reading with the broader sweep of romantic print culture and European politics, creating a compelling narrative of Wordsworth as an engaged, sometimes combative, reader of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Hunt, and more. The poet who emerges from this study is in some sense a second “early” Wordsworth, deeply embroiled in the worlds of publishing and politics after Napoleon’s defeat. Beautifully written, brilliantly conceived, and meticulously researched, this volume makes the most persuasive case to date for the importance of the “later” Wordsworth to the study of British Romanticism. Marilyn Gaull would have loved this book.Congratulations to Jeffrey Cox! The Wordsworth Circle joins the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association in commending Cox on his “field-altering” study of the later stages of Wordsworth’s career. (For details regarding the 2023 award, please see the announcement in this issue.)In the spring 2023 issue (54.2), The Wordsworth Circle will publish a collection of articles reconsidering Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, and in the summer 2023 issue (54.3) will publish work first presented at the 2022 Wordsworth Summer Conference, as well as during the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association’s session at the 2023 meeting of the Modern Language Association, “Romanticism and Sexuality.” At the 2024 meeting of the MLA (Philadelphia), the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association will be sponsoring a session under the heading of “Pan-European Romanticism,” proceedings from which will be considered for a 2024 issue.—CWM Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Wordsworth Circle Volume 54, Number 1Winter 2023 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/725472 © 2023 The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.
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Jan 17, 2023
Elizabeth Ponder Melick 
Open Access