Written by his collateral descendant, sculptor Andrew Wordsworth,
this insightful biography studies Wordsworth's poetry to understand
more fully this deeply private and often enigmatic personality, and
it observes the artist's life to better grasp the meaning of the
deceptively immediate verses which conceal many layers of meaning.
Andrew Wordsworth doesn't hesitate to describe faithfully his
illustrious ancestor's complex and aloof personality, and his
successes as well as his shortcomings. For example, he explains how
after The Prelude (completed in 1805 but published posthumously) he
composed little of note and his project with Coleridge, The
Recluse, remained a literary pipe-dream. Perhaps, Wordsworth
himself was the 'Recluse', increasingly isolated, ensconced in his
bucolic corner in the Lake District, surrounded by his close family
circle (the harem, as Coleridge called it): his sister Dorothy, his
constant companion, and later his wife Mary and his daughters -
tragically, Dorothy was to be afflicted by a mental illness for the
last 20 years of her life. Moreover, Wordsworth became
progressively conservative and nationalistic, abandoning entirely
his earlier liberal ideals which led him to join the French
revolutionaries several years earlier. One wonders if this need for
a settled and steady life and for tradition was a reaction to the
many upheavals he had experienced in his early life; he was
orphaned as a young child and grew up separated from his brothers
and sisters: he didn't see Dorothy for nine consecutive years.
However, this lack of interest in the outside world and its
progress was perhaps one of the causes stemming the flow of his
creativity which nonetheless would change the course of English
poetry forever. As Dr David Whitley notes, Well-Kept Secrets
intersperses the narrative exploring Wordsworth's life with a
wealth of poetic verses. This structure clearly shows how
Wordsworth's art was intimately linked to his existence and how it
was a means - more or less conscious - to come to terms with the
world, with himself and the many contradictions running like chasms
across his personality. It also enables Andrew Wordsworth to shed
some new light on the interpretation of the poetry and to better
understand the poet as a man.
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