“SO I SUNG THE SAME AGAIN”: READING REVISION IN THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY LONG ...

164 Pages·2007·1.43 MB·English

by  Kristen Wagner

“SO I SUNG THE SAME AGAIN”: READING REVISION IN THE
NINETEENTH-CENTURY LONG POEM

A Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of Cornell University
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

by
Sarah Ferguson-Wagstaffe
August 2007
© 2007 Sarah Ferguson-Wagstaffe
“SO I SUNG THE SAME AGAIN”: READING REVISION IN THE
NINETEENTH-CENTURY LONG POEM
Sarah Ferguson-Wagstaffe, Ph.D.
Cornell University 2007

This study considers the practice of textual revision in Romantic and Victorian
long poems that exist in multiple versions. Each of the long poems explored in
this study is concerned with the growth of consciousness: Blake’s Jerusalem
narrates a story about spiritual awakening through imaginative vision;
Wordsworth’s The Prelude tells to its addressee, Coleridge, the story of the
growth of the poet’s mind, particularly the restoration of imagination through
memory; and Tennyson’s In Memoriam narrates the poet’s growing sense of
solace as he struggles to come to terms with the death of a dear friend.
Although different in each poem, revision is central to the stories these poems
tell. They are not so much works, but workings—records of the continuous
process of seeing (or singing) something again and recasting it in a new light.
Building on the work of critics who have argued for the legitimacy of multiple
textual versions (like Hans Zeller, Jerome McGann, and Jack Stillinger), this
study takes the claims of textual pluralism a necessary step further in its
attempts to read among versions, to interpret them diachronically and
synchronically. Ultimately, I argue that the practice of textual revision is part of
the meaning of that which is repeatedly revised. Recognizing Blake’s practice
of abbreviating the narrative of contracted perception allows us to understand
the last version, and see this process of revision as a figure for expansive
vision and revelation in the larger story. Reading Wordsworth’s practice of
reframing and removing references to Coleridge in The Prelude allows us to
understand the significance of textual absence and its relationship to the
growth of the poet’s presence. Finally, considering Tennyson’s practice of
adding paired, or partner sections to published versions of In Memoriam
allows us to understand the importance of revision, incorporation, and closure
in the wake of loss. The Coda considers affinities between British and
American nineteenth-century poetry in process by exploring “points of contact”
between William Blake and Walt Whitman.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Sarah Ferguson-Wagstaffe was in utero during the Indiana Repertory
Theatre’s production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. She was born in
1975 to Priscilla Lindsay, an actor, director, artist, writer, activist, teacher, and
birder, and Richard Ferguson-Wagstaffe, a scene designer, playwright,
photographer, marketing director, gardener, and ship builder. Sarah attended
Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and graduated summa cum laude with a
B.A. in English. She received her M.A. in English Language and Literature
from Cornell University. After teaching writing and literature at Cornell
University and a maximum-security prison in Auburn, NY, she moved to
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to teach eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British
Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She currently teaches Expository
Writing at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA.

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For my parents, Richard and Priscilla
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This dissertation has two origins: my undergraduate thesis on
Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and my reading of Blake’s
poetry in 2001. I wrote my undergraduate thesis with Cathy Caruth, and I
would like to acknowledge the deep impression of her inspiration and support,
for which I am very grateful. She said possibly the most important thing any
teacher has ever said to me: “I can see where you’re going, but I want you to
get there yourself.” My work over the last several years, culminating in this
dissertation, extends the conversation I had with my thesis committee
members: Cathy Caruth, Walter Reed, Louis Ruprecht, Jr., and Pamela Hall. I
thank Walter Reed for asking me about the significance of Coleridge’s poetic
revision in my oral exam because it opened up question a that I would try to
answer in the following years: how do we read revision in poems that exist in
multiple versions? Later, I realized that this is a fundamental question for any
reader of Blake’s poetry, and began to explore relationships among versions
of his poems as well as versions of a particular narrative. Soon after I started
reading Blake’s poetry, Karl Parker’s friendship (branches around the
branches of the heart) helped me bring my thoughts into being: “the great
spruces loom.”
I am thankful for the opportunity to work with the members of my
Cornell special committee: Reeve Parker, Debra Fried, Dorothy Mermin, and
Cynthia Chase. I would like to thank the chair of my committee, Reeve Parker,
for reading Wordsworth aloud with me when I visited Cornell, supporting this
project, and making me a better close reader. There are also many others in
the Cornell community whose friendship and guidance had an impact on me:
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Laura Brown, Catherine Burroughs, Dwight Codr, Nick Davis, Roger Gilbert,
Will Hacker, Brandon Harvey, Marlon Kuzmick, Barry Maxwell, Joel Porte,
Pete Wetherbee, and the members of Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Kristen
Ebert-Wagner has been especially kind and helpful, and I thank her heartily for
her careful formatting of this document.
I extend warm thanks to those who helped me along this path: my high
school English teacher, Carolyn Lausch, who first drew out my critical
creativity; Lou Ruprecht, whose generous intellectual spirit glimmers like
moonlight on the Aegean and keeps me in touch with what it means to live
and teach your passion; Andrea Gazzaniga, whose friendship, love,
encouragement, collaboration, cooking, party planning, painting nights, and
honest passion made graduate school worth it; Gordon Teskey, for always
believing in me, intellectual companionship, the ring from the fish, and raving
on; Michael Gamer, for his unflagging encouragement and support; and Matt
Rubery, for his friendship in Philadelphia.
I would like to acknowledge the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for their
financial support, the PEO International Sisterhood for their encouragement
and substantial financial support in 2002-2003, and The Mario Einaudi Center
for International Studies for funding my research abroad.
I thank my grandmothers, Anne Lindsay and Margene Wagstaff, for
being two of my most important female role models. I hope to follow in the
footsteps of these intelligent women who speak their minds and follow their
hearts. I am deeply grateful to have been blessed by Bill, Maggie, Cyndi, Ken,
Courtney, Aunt Lois, Ernestine Galloway (my fairy godmother), and my
parents, Richard and Priscilla—a family that taught me to express my
creativity, individuality, and voice in everything I do. Finally, I would like to
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thank Robert Ahrens, for unwavering support, love, humor, Xeno’s paradox,
and walking by my side.
My parents are intelligent, creative, courageous, brave artists. They
have dedicated their lives to their children and the art of becoming. There is no
greater gift. For everything they have taught me, I dedicate this dissertation to
my Mom and Dad.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH........................................................................... iii
DEDICATION............................................................................................... iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS............................................................................... v
TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................................................... viii
Chapter 1: Introduction................................................................................ 1
Chapter 2: Revision and Recognition in Blake’s Jerusalem......................... 29
Chapter 3: Witness and Restoration in Wordsworth’s “Poem to Coleridge”. 56
Chapter 4: Incorporation and Completion in Tennyson’s In Memoriam....... 96
Coda: “Points of Contact”: Blake and Whitman............................................ 129
Bibliography................................................................................................. 145

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