English Romantic Writers and the West Country

335 Pages·2010·4.634 MB·English

by  Nicholas Roe (eds.)

English Romantic Writers and the West Country
Also by Nicholas Roe:
WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE
The Radical Years
THE POLITICS OF NATURE
FIERY HEART
The First Life of Leigh Hunt
English Romantic Writers
and the West Country
Edited by
Nicholas Roe
© Editorial matter, selection © Nicholas Roe 2010
Foreword © Richard Holmes 2010
All remaining chapters © their respective authors 2010
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-22374-5
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First published 2010 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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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,
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ISBN 978-1-349-30868-2 ISBN 978-0-230-28145-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230281455
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
English romantic writers and the West Country / edited by Nicholas Roe.
p. cm.
Summary: ‘Long confounded with a monolithic British entity or misrepresented
as Lakers and Cockneys, the diverse regional forms of English Romanticism are
ripe for reassessment. Ranging west of a line between the Wye at Tintern and
Jane Austen’s Chawton, this book offers a first reconfiguration of Romantic
culture in terms of English regional identity’ – Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-349-30868-2
1. English literature—19th century—History and criticism. 2. English literature—
18th century—History and criticism. 3. Romanticism—England. 4. West Country
(England)—In literature. I. Roe, Nicholas.
PR457.E55 2010
820.9'358423—dc22 2010002711
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
In memory of Jonathan Wordsworth
1932–2006
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Foreword by Richard Holmes xii
Acknowledgements xiv
About the Contributors xv
List of Abbreviations xviii
Introduction 1
Nicholas Roe
Part I Landscapes and Legends
1 ‘More wondrous far than Egypt’s boasted pyramids’:
the South West’s Megaliths in the Romantic Period 15
Joanne Parker
2 ‘Al under the wyllowe tree’: Chatterton
and the Ecology of the West Country 37
Nick Groom
Part II The Bristol School: Cottle, Coleridge, and their Circles
3 Joseph Cottle and West Country Romanticism 65
Richard Cronin
4 William Gilbert and his Bristol Circle, 1788–98 79
Paul Cheshire
5 S. T. Coleridge, Joseph Cottle, and Some
Bristol Baptists, 1794–96 99
Timothy Whelan
6 Coleridge’s Bristol and West Country Radicalism 115
Peter J. Kitson
7 Radical Bible: Coleridge’s 1790s West Country Politics 129
Anthony John Harding
Part III Imagining the West Country
8 Wordsworth’s 1793 Journey to the West Country and Wales 155
Carol Kyros Walker
9 Coleridge in Devon 176
Graham Davidson
vii
viii Contents
10 Southey’s West Country 201
Lynda Pratt
11 Romantic Hydrography: Tide and Transit in ‘Tintern Abbey’ 218
Damian Walford Davies
12 The Road Not Taken: Robert Bloomfield’s Wye
Valley and the Poetic Imagination 237
Tim Fulford
Part IV In Pursuit of Spring
13 ‘The Outset of Life’: Shelley, Hazlitt, the West Country,
and the Revolutionary Imagination 257
Michael O’Neill
14 ‘Over the Dartmoor Black’: John Keats
and the West Country 271
Nicholas Roe
15 Going Westward: William Wordsworth,
Thomas Hardy, and Edward Thomas 289
Saeko Yoshikawa
Afterword 302
Tom Mayberry
Index 304
List of Illustrations
1 B. Cooke, after S. Prout, ‘Logan Stone Near Drew Steignton,
Devonshire’ (London: W. Clarke and J. Carpenter, 1806).
By courtesy of the Devon and Exeter Institute 21
2 By and after T. H. Williams, ‘Cromlech, Drewsteignton. With
Druids’ (Plymouth: T. H. Williams, 1804). By courtesy of
the Devon and Exeter Institute 23
3 John Henderson 1757–1788. Tutor and friend to Joseph
Cottle and William Gilbert; ‘Celebrated for his
wonderful acquirements in Alchymy, Judicial Astrology,
and other abstruse and curious learning’. Frontispiece
to Joseph Cottle, Malvern Hills with Minor Poems and
Essays (London: Cadell, 1829). By courtesy of the
London Library 80
4 Astrological chart from William Gilbert, ‘Remarkable
Fulfilment’, The Conjuror’s Magazine, 1.2 (September 1791),
46–8 83
5 Robert Lovell’s Dedication, from Bristol: a Satire (1794).
By courtesy of Bristol Reference Library 85
6 Title page of Joseph Cottle’s ‘Bristol Album 1795’, with
Robert Southey’s autograph ‘English Dactylics, to a
Soldier’s Wife’ as the first entry. By courtesy of the
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections,
Cornell University Library 87
7 William Gilbert’s autograph poem ‘The Aurora of Human
Happiness: An Ode’, lines 1–20, from Joseph Cottle’s
‘Bristol Album 1795’. By courtesy of the Division of Rare
and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library 89
8 John Ryland, D.D. (1753–1825), taken from the
frontispiece to Pastoral Memorials, ed. J. E. Ryland
(London, 1828) 106
9 Wordsworth’s journey to the West Country and Wales,
summer of 1793, end of June to August 156
10 Salisbury Cathedral 159
11 Salisbury Plain. Stonehenge 162
12 Bristol. Spire in the old city 167
ix