The Major Works

Quick point. Not only does the editor pick out the best versions of Wordsworth's poems (as the other reviewer so accurately stated) but unlike other editions of Wordsworth I have seen, the poems are printed in a single column in readable type. THIS edition ROCKS!!!! I assume everyone reading this review has an opinion about Wordsworth, so I will simply note he is one of my favorite poets. You may disagree. FOOEY on you if you do!!!

The comments have been about Wordsworth, not about the edition in question. Potential purchasers should know that Stephen Gill has created a strange volume. Wordsworth lived to be 80, and revised his poetry all his life, leaving a Complete Works divided into thematic categories. Most editors respect the rule of honoring the author's final intentions, so that a revised version of a poem is "what the author really meant." Gill tosses that rule overboard, and in fact does exactly the opposite: his stated intent is to reprint the *earliest* version of any given poem. So, for instance, we get "The Ruined Cottage" as a work in itself, not as later incorporated into "The Excursion." Also, less debatably, Gill arranges the poems in sequence of composition, the better for students to trace WW's development. Why does Gill look to the earlier works? His explanation is that it goes along with the chronological sequence. Looking at a poem WW wrote in 1801, it does not help if we are reading revisions from 1835 or whenever. But Gill has a better, unstated reason. LATE WORDSWORTH SUCKS. The man's revisions of his own work are almost never for the better, and the older poet's lack of inspiration is painfully evident. If you want to give WW a fair shot -- if you want to understand what in his poetry blew people's minds and made him a giant of Romanticism -- then you gotta break the Textual Editing Rules, and you gotta read the poems as WW first wrote them, not as he later revised them. This, therefore, is the edition to read.

Wordsworth is a beloved writer of mine. I love his passionate and direct descriptions of Nature, his reflective calm, his deep moral sense, his simplicity and beauty of language. I love the thoughtfulness of his poetry, and its music. His lines are memorable lines and they evoke sensations sweet felt in the heart. He is a poet who brings with him a sense of both the sublime and the simple combined. There are of course many non- memorable lines and many poems which seem at times to be versified prose. But in the best Wordsworth in the great Wordsworth there is the Literature which makes us Love Life More. At some point I think each and every reader can be uplifted by this great poetic soul.

'We are Seven' is based on an actual encounter Wordsworth had with a child near the River Wye in 1793.To say he idolises an imaginary idea of Nature that doesn't exist except in Disney Land is not right. The kind of Nature he writes about exists in the Lake District. Wordsworth writes about the harsh side of Nature as much as the unambiguously positive sides of it. This book is most recommended and readers should dispell all those cliches that are stated about the 'Romantic' poets. The term 'Romantic' wasn't used until a long time after most of these poems were written.

Those readers of poetry who discount Wordsworth as merely a poet who "worships" Nature and holds emotion over rational thought are giving him only a shallow reading and relying on the obvious. When Wordsworth's work is read as a whole, and in context with his contemporaries and historical events, then one can begin to appreciate the depth and significance of the philosophical thought behind his poetry. His reliance on Nature comes not from a worship of it, rather from the belief that philosophical and social issues can be found and answered in Nature. This does not contradict modern scientific thought, which relies upon the observation of the natural world through experimentation. It also eliminates the need for a rigid religious structure, because divinity can be found in Nature. Wordsworth teaches us that we learn, and grow, once we accept that we are part of the natural world, and that Nature does not exist to be conquered.The feeling and emotion is a "natural" reaction, and therefore should not be discounted and inhibited. His poetry is an expression of this. It is not an attack on rational thought--it is a belief that one can learn through observation of the natural universe, not merely the reading of books and "dead forms."Wordsworth was a master poet and a genius. he is well-worth the time it takes to study him.