Overview
From its first publication, what is now known as the Immortality Ode has been praised for the magnificence of its verse and disparaged for its paucity of meaning - the 'immortality' of the subtitle unsubstantiated, and the 'recollections' insubstantial. Yet Wordsworth's idea of immortality has clear precedents in the seventeenth century, and recollections of childhood are Traherne's starting point for the recovery of a lost vision comparable to Wordsworth's. Via the power of the imagination, or reason, they believed they could experience a renewed vision that both termed variously Paradise, or infinity, or immortality. Graham Davidson traces the origins of Wordsworth's poetic impetus to his resistance to the Cartesian division between mind and nature, first adumbrated by the Cambridge Platonists. If reunited, Paradise was regained, but this personal trajectory was tempered by a deep sympathy for the woes of mortal life. Davidson explores the consequent dialogue through some of Wordsworth's best-known poems, at the heart of which is the Ode. In the last section, he demonstrates how Wordsworth's publishing history led the Victorians and modernists to misinterpret his work; if one considers Eliot's Four Quartets as odes, facing several of the same problems as did Wordsworth, there is some irony in Eliot's dismissal of the Immortality Ode as 'verbiage'.
Full Product Details
Author: Graham Davidson
Publisher: James Clarke & Co Ltd
Imprint: Lutterworth Press
ISBN: 9780718896430
ISBN 10: 0718896432
Pages: 282
Publication Date: 30 March 2023
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Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
Many attempts have been made to fit Wordsworth's thought to the various templates of Anglicanism, Methodism, Pantheism, or to the very different philosophies of Locke, Berkeley or Kant. But, bar that of Plato, he avowed no 'ism'. Davidson demonstrates that the framework of Wordsworth's thinking closely matches, and might be derived from, that of the very undogmatic Cambridge Platonists. Douglas Hedley, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, University of Cambridge A thorough investigation of the merits of Wordsworth's Intimations Ode from which any reader will learn. Freshly conceived, meticulously worked through, probing, respectful, exciting: a book to send readers back to the poem enlivened. James C.C. Mays, Emeritus Professor of Modern English and American poetry, University College Dublin The fruit of a lifetime's engagement with Wordsworth, this is a deeply pondered, questioning study, full of insight into the poet's endless struggle to shape his thoughts. Of particular interest is how Davidson tackles Wordsworth's enigmatic 'life of things' and its relationship to the thing itself. Uniquely, his study of Traherne illustrates how the progress of the Ode follows the pattern of Traherne's thought. David Fairer, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Leeds In this strikingly original discussion of Wordsworth's major poems, free of theoretical obfuscation, Graham Davidson persuasively demonstrates that the poet's refusal to publish his work in chronological order, and The Prelude in his lifetime, resulted in the failure of the Victorians and the Modernists, especially Eliot, to understand fully what he had done. Stephen Gill, Supernumerary Fellow, Lincoln College Oxford
"""Many attempts have been made to fit Wordsworth's thought to the various templates of Anglicanism, Methodism, Pantheism, or to the very different philosophies of Locke, Berkeley or Kant. But, bar that of Plato, he avowed no 'ism'. Davidson demonstrates that the framework of Wordsworth's thinking closely matches, and might be derived from, that of the very undogmatic Cambridge Platonists."" Douglas Hedley, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, University of Cambridge ""A thorough investigation of the merits of Wordsworth's Intimations Ode from which any reader will learn. Freshly conceived, meticulously worked through, probing, respectful, exciting: a book to send readers back to the poem enlivened."" James C.C. Mays, Emeritus Professor of Modern English and American poetry, University College Dublin ""The fruit of a lifetime's engagement with Wordsworth, this is a deeply pondered, questioning study, full of insight into the poet's endless struggle to shape his thoughts. Of particular interest is how Davidson tackles Wordsworth's enigmatic 'life of things' and its relationship to the thing itself. Uniquely, his study of Traherne illustrates how the progress of the Ode follows the pattern of Traherne's thought."" David Fairer, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Leeds ""In this strikingly original discussion of Wordsworth's major poems, free of theoretical obfuscation, Graham Davidson persuasively demonstrates that the poet's refusal to publish his work in chronological order, and The Prelude in his lifetime, resulted in the failure of the Victorians and the Modernists, especially Eliot, to understand fully what he had done."" Stephen Gill, Supernumerary Fellow, Lincoln College Oxford "
Author Information
Graham Davidson was the editor of The Coleridge Bulletin for twenty-five years, to which he contributed regularly. He has also published in The Charles Lamb Bulletin, The Wordsworth Circle, Romanticism, and The Philological Quarterly. He has made contributions to Coleridge's Assertion of Religion, Coleridge in the West Country, The Bible in English Literature and Revisioning Cambridge Platonism. His first book, Coleridge's Career, was published in 1990.
