The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and Their Year of Marvels
Wordsworth and Coleridge as you’ve never seen them before in this new book by Adam Nicolson, brimming with poetry, art and nature writing. Proof that poetry can change the world. It is the most famous year in English poetry. Out of it came The Ancient Mariner and ‘Kubla Khan’, as well as Coleridge’s unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood, Wordsworth’s revolutionary verses in Lyrical Ballads and the greatness of ‘Tintern Abbey’, his paean to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding. Bestselling and award-winning writer Adam Nicolson tells the story, almost day by day, of the year in the late 1790s that Coleridge, Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and an ever-shifting cast of friends, dependants and acolytes spent together in the Quantock Hills in Somerset. To a degree never shown before, The Making of Poetry explores the idea that these poems came from this place, and that only by experiencing the physical circumstances of the year, in all weathers and all seasons, at night and at dawn, in sunlit reverie and moonlit walks, can the genesis of the poetry start to be understood. What emerges is a portrait of these great figures as young people, troubled, ambitious, dreaming of a vision of wholeness, knowing they had greatness in them but still in urgent search of the paths towards it. The poetry they made was not from settled conclusions but from the adventure on which they were all embarked, seeing what they wrote as a way of stripping away all the dead matter, exfoliating consciousness, penetrating its depths. Poetry for them was not an ornament for civilisation but a challenge to it, a means of remaking the world.
Читать The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and Their Year of Marvels онлайн беплатно
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2019
Copyright © Adam Nicolson 2019
Cover image © In Xanadu (Island Studio)
All woodcuts photographed by Leigh Simpson
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008126476
Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008126483
Version: 2019-05-20
The making of verses, the making of works, occurs in the edges of your life, of your time, in your late nights or early mornings … And my words, the words for me, seem to have more nervous energy when they are touching territory that I know, that I live with … I can lay my hand on [a place] and know it. And the words, the words come alive and get a kind of personality when they are involved with it for me. The landscape is image. It’s almost an element to work with, as much as it is an object of admiration.
Seamus Heaney, speaking to Patrick Garland on Poets on Poetry, BBC 1, October 1973
Contents
1 Cover
2 Title Page
3 Copyright
4 Dedication
5 Epigraph
6 Contents
7 1 Following
8 2 Meeting – June 1797
9 3 Searching June 1797
10 4 Settling – July 1797
11 5 Walking – July and August 1797
12 6 Informing – July and August 1797
13 7 Dreaming – September and October 1797
14 8 Voyaging – November 1797
15 9 Diverging – December 1797 and January 1798
16 10 Mooning – January and February 1798
17 11 Remembering – February 1798
18 12 Emerging – March 1798
19 13 Polarising – March 1798
20 14 Delighting – April, May and June 1798
21 15 Authoring – June 1798
22 16 Arriving – July 1798
23 17 Leaving – August and September 1798
24 Acknowledgements
25 A Note on Tom Hammick’s Pictures
26 Notes
27 Bibliography
28 Index
29 Also by Adam Nicolson
30 About the Publisher
LandmarksCoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter
List of Pagesiiiivvix123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140141142143144145146147148149150151152153154155156157158159160161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177178179180181182183184185186187188189190191192193194195196197198199200201202203204205206207208209210211212213214215216217218219220221222223224225226227228229230231232233234235236237238239240241242243244245246247248249250251252253254255256257258259260261262263264265266267268269270271272273274275276277278279280281282283284285286287288289290291292293294295296297298299300301302303304305306307308309310311312313314315316317318319320321322323324325326327328329330331332333334335337338339340341342343344345346347348349350351352353354355356357358359360361362363364365367368369370371372373374375376377381382383384385386387388389390ii
1
The year, or slightly more than a year, from June 1797 until the early autumn of 1798, has a claim to being the most famous moment in the history of English poetry. In the course of it, two young men of genius, living for a while on the edge of the Quantock Hills in Somerset, began to find their way towards a new understanding of the world, of nature and of themselves.
These months have always been portrayed – by Wordsworth and Coleridge and by Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy as much as by anyone else – as a time of unbridled delight and wellbeing, of overabundant creativity, with a singularity of conviction and purpose from which extraordinary poetry emerged.
Certainly, what they wrote adds up to an astonishing catalogue: ‘This Lime Tree Bower My Prison’, ‘Kubla Khan’, The Ancient Mariner, ‘Christabel’, ‘Frost at Midnight’, ‘The Nightingale’, all Wordsworth’s strange and troubling poems in Lyrical Ballads, ‘The Idiot Boy’, ‘The Thorn’, the grandeur and beauty of ‘Tintern Abbey’, and, in his notebooks, the first suggestions of what would become passages in
