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Article: Wordsworth on covenants, "heart conditions," primogeniture, remains, and the ties that bind in "Michael" and elsewhere. (William Wordsworth)
- Article from:
- Criticism
- Article date:
- March 22, 1998
- Author:
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1. Covenants
When Peter J. Manning characterizes William Wordsworth's pastoral poem "Michael" (1800) as "a tale about broken covenants told by a narrator apparently aloof from it,"(1) he is not entirely accurate. To be sure, the narrative's plot, albeit one in which "[c]ausal relations between incidents are not dramatized,"(2) turns on such broken covenants. The financial failure of Michael's nephew, "a man / Of an industrious life, and ample means," causes the man to default on a covenant of sorts: a contract of guarantee.(3) This default in its turn means that Michael must either, under the terms of the secured note that he has executed,
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