cover image William Wordsworth: A Poetic Life

William Wordsworth: A Poetic Life

John L. Mahoney. Fordham University Press, $27 (301pp) ISBN 978-0-8232-1716-8

Although the seminal figure in English romanticism, of the five great English romantic poets, Wordsworth (1770-1850) typically draws the most ambiguous response. Perceived as lacking the inventive imagination of his friend Coleridge, the sheer tonal beauty of Keats, the passion of Byron or Shelley, he instead relied on the power of memory and self-knowledge to transform personal experience into a poetry that speaks directly to the reader. Mahoney, a professor of English at Boston College, presents both a sympathetic biography and a critical study. Drawing on previous biographies (notably those by the poet's nephew Christopher Wordsworth and, more recently, by Mary Moorman and Stephen Gill) to retrace familiar ground, he examines the young poet's affair with Annette Vallon in France and his later, controversial treatment of Vallon and their daughter, as well as his crucial relationship with his sister Dorothy, which has stirred much debate among Freudians and feminists. Wordsworth's celebrated collaboration with Coleridge on the Lyrical Ballads (1797) is covered in depth. Significantly, Mahoney challenges the common view that the poet's greatest work occurred in a ""Golden Decade"" (1797-1807) and that his last 40 years were spent in dullness and decline. Rather, ""the enormous output of 1810 to 1850... represents an effort of considerable stature in [Wordsworth's] literary life."" Taking into account recent theoretical approaches, Mahoney admirably avoids jargon, but his close readings often err on the side of the literal and fail to bring the poet fully to life. While this book will be a useful basic resource for the student, readers anticipating a full-blooded popular account of the life or poetic criticism that breaks ground will be disappointed. (Mar.)