PREFACE In this volume the author aims to trace the history of Wordsworth's mental and spiritual unfolding as a poet of Nature and as a poet of Man, under the influence of heredity and of his physical and social environment. A careful study of the various external sources, and of the Poet's works, has been made. This, of course, has shed much light, not only on Wordsworth's personal psychology, but, also, on the content of his thought concerning Nature and Man, which has been carefully interpreted and systematized, so that it forms a complete statement of his poetic and philosophic creed. In treating of Wordsworth as a poet of Nature, the author has dealt with him primarily as a poet of insight rather than as a descriptive poet, although much is said of him from this point of view also. The limits of the essay precluded a study of Wordsworth's evolution as a literary artist, but this subject, too, could not be entirely ignored. The author desires gratefully to acknowledge his obligations to his colleagues, Henry A. Beers and Albert S. Cook, Professors of English Literature in Yale University, and to Lane Cooper, Assistant Professor of English Literature in Cornell University, for valuable criticism and suggestion. Acknowledgments are also due to Christopher Wordsworth's " Memoirs of William Wordsworth," edited by Henry Reed, Boston, 1851; to Professor William Knight's "The Life of William Wordsworth," Edinburgh, 1899; to Professor Émile Hyacinthe Legouis's "The Early Life of William Wordsworth," translated by J. W. Matthews, New York, 1897; to "Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth," edited by William Knight, London and New York, 1904; to the Fenwick notes, published in Professor Knight's Eversley edition of "The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth," London, 1896; and to "Letters of the Wordsworth Family, from 1787 to 1855," collected and edited by William Knight, Boston and London, 1907. Wordsworth's metrical autobiography, "The Prelude," has been of much service. The text of the Oxford edition of "The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth," edited by Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, London, 1895, has been followed in all quotations. His chronological table has proved to be an excellent guide. YALE UNIVERSITY E. HERSHEY SNEATH |