Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print General Editors: Professor Anne K. Mellor and Professor Clifford Siskin Editorial Board: Isobel Armstrong, Birkbeck & IES; John Bender, Stanford; Alan Bewell, Toronto; Peter de Bolla, Cambridge; Robert Miles, Victoria; Claudia L. Johnson, Princeton; Saree Makdisi, UCLA; Felicity Nussbaum, UCLA; Mary Poovey, NYU; Janet Todd, Cambridge Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print will feature work that does not fit comfortably within established boundaries whether between periods or between disciplines. Uniquely, it will combine efforts to engage the power and materiality of print with explorations of gender, race, and class. By attending as well to intersections of literature with the visual arts, medicine, law, and science, the series will enable a large-scale rethinking of the origins of modernity. Titles include: Scott Black OF ESSAYS AND READING IN EARLY MODERN BRITAIN Claire Brock THE FEMINIZATION OF FAME, 1750 1830 Brycchan Carey BRITISH ABOLITIONISM AND THE RHETORIC OF SENSIBILITY Writing, Sentiment, and Slavery, 1760 1807 E. J. Clery THE FEMINIZATION DEBATE IN 18TH CENTURY ENGLAND Literature, Commerce and Luxury Adriana Craciun BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION Citizens of the World Peter de Bolla, Nigel Leask and David Simpson (editors) LAND, NATION AND CULTURE, 1740 1840 Thinking the Republic of Taste Elizabeth Eger BLUESTOCKINGS Women of Reason from Enlightenment to Romanticism Ina Ferris and Paul Keen (editors) BOOKISH HISTORIES Books, Literature, and Commercial Modernity, 1700 1900 John Gardner POETRY AND POPULAR PROTEST Peterloo, Cato Street and the Queen Caroline Controversy George C. Grinnell THE AGE OF HYPOCHONDRIA Interpreting Romantic Health and Illness Ian Haywood BLOODY ROMANTICISM Spectacular Violence and the Politics of Representation, 1776 1832 Anthony S. Jarrells BRITAIN S BLOODLESS REVOLUTIONS 1688 and the Romantic Reform of Literature
Jacqueline M. Labbe WRITING ROMANTICISM Charlotte Smith and William Wordsworth, 1784 1807 Michelle Levy FAMILY AUTHORSHIP AND ROMANTIC PRINT CULTURE April London LITERARY HISTORY WRITING, 1770 1820 Robert Miles ROMANTIC MISFITS Tom Mole BYRON S ROMANTIC CELEBRITY Industrial Culture and the Hermeneutic of Intimacy Nicola Parsons READING GOSSIP IN EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND Jessica Richard THE ROMANCE OF GAMBLING IN THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH NOVEL Andrew Rudd SYMPATHY AND INDIA IN BRITISH LITERATURE, 1770 1830 Erik Simpson LITERARY MINSTRELSY, 1770 1830 Minstrels and Improvisers in British, Irish and American Literature Anne H. Stevens BRITISH HISTORICAL FICTION BEFORE SCOTT David Stewart ROMANTIC MAGAZINES AND METROPOLITAN LITERARY CULTURE Mary Waters BRITISH WOMEN WRITERS AND THE PROFESSION OF LITERARY CRITICISM, 1789 1832 Esther Wohlgemut ROMANTIC COSMOPOLITANISM David Worrall THE POLITICS OF ROMANTIC THEATRICALITY, 1787 1832 The Road to the Stage Palgrave Studies in the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Cultures of Print Series Standing Order ISBN 978 1 4039 3408 6 hardback 978 1 4039 3409 3 paperback (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Writing Romanticism Charlotte Smith and William Wordsworth, 1784 1807 Jacqueline M. Labbe Palgrave macmillan
Jacqueline M. Labbe 2011 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-28549-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-33064-5 ISBN 978-0-230-30614-1 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230306141 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Labbe, Jacqueline M., 1965 Writing romanticism: Charlotte Smith and William Wordsworth, 1784 1807/Jacqueline M. Labbe. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Smith, Charlotte Turner, 1749 1806 Criticism and interpretation. 2. Smith, Charlotte Turner, 1749 1806 Contemporaries. 3. Wordsworth, William, 1770 1850 Criticism and interpretation. 4. Wordsworth, William, 1770 1850 Contemporaries. 5. English poetry 18th century History and criticism. 6. Romanticism Great Britain. I. Title. PR3688.S4Z75 2011 823'6 dc22 2011012056 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
To my children, Indie and Nathan
Contents Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations viii x Introduction 1 1 Writing the Lyrical Ballad: Hybridity and Self-Reflexity 19 2 Mediating History: War Poetry 49 3 Subject to Place, Subjected by Poetry 78 4 Modeling the Romantic Poet 106 5 1807: The Art of Poetry on a New Plan 146 Conclusion 175 Notes 180 Bibliography 206 Index 215 vii
Acknowledgments This book is deeply indebted to all the scholars of Smith s and Wordsworth s work who have established the depth and the durability of their poetry. In researching it I have learned vaster amounts than have made it into this study. As literary fashions have come and gone, what is remarkable is the enduring consensus about Wordsworth s preeminence. The corollary is Smith s centrality to the study of Romanticperiod women s writing, which found its own consensus as soon as feminist literary critics found her. It is my fervent wish that this book will do something to merge these agreements and place Smith and Wordsworth on the same page, critically, thematically, poetically. As always, I am immeasurably grateful for the tutelage and scholarly example shown by Stuart Curran. By asking me to edit Smith s poems for the Pickering and Chatto Works of Charlotte Smith, he allowed me to get inside her poetry. I am grateful, as well, to Stephen Gill for his edition The Oxford Authors: Wordsworth, and to the varied editors of the Cornell editions of Wordsworth which have given all readers and scholars of Wordsworth such confidence in the texts they study. Some portions of this book have already appeared in print. I am grateful to the following, both for publishing the work in the first place, and for allowing its revision and republication: A section of Chapter 1 appeared as The hybrid poems of Smith and Wordsworth: Questions and Disputes. European Romantic Review 20 (2009), pp. 219 26. A section of Chapter 3 appeared as At the Intersection of Artifice and Reality. Romantic Localities, eds. Jacqueline Labbe and Christoph Bode. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2010, pp. 25 38. Versions of Chapter 4 appeared as Revisiting the Egotistical Sublime: Smith, Wordsworth, and the Romantic Dramatic Monologue. Women and Men Romantic Poets. Ed. Beth Lau. Aldershot: Ashgate Press, 2009, pp. 17 38; and as Smith, Wordsworth, and the Model of the Romantic Poet. Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net 51 (2008); http://www.erudit.org/revue/ravon/2008/v/n51/index.html?lang=en. As I have worked on this book I have benefited tremendously from the insightful comments of colleagues who have listened patiently at viii
Acknowledgments ix North American Society for the Study of Romanticism conferences, British Association for Eighteenth-Century Studies conferences, British Association for Romantic Studies conferences, and other venues. I am extremely grateful to the two anonymous readers for Palgrave, whose generous and intellectually challenging responses have made this book more than it otherwise would have been. I am also indebted to Anne Mellor and Cliff Siskin, not only for their scholarship, which has enriched Romanticism, but for accepting this book for their series. Finally, as both Smith and Wordsworth would say, this book is dedicated to my children, Indie and Nathan, who so carefully watched out for the books! ; and as Wordsworth might say but Smith most definitely would not, to my spouse, Rod, who always makes the time. Jacqueline Labbe Coventry, April 2011
List of Abbreviations DS Descriptive Sketches EW An Evening Walk LB Lyrical Ballads, and Other Poems, 1797 1800 P2V Poems, in Two Volumes, and Other Poems, 1800 1807 Poetry Charlotte Smith, Poetry. RC The Ruined Cottage and The Pedlar SP The Salisbury Plain Poems x