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Article: The Hidden Wordsworth.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- August 29, 1998
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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By Kenneth Johnston. Norton; 965 pages; $45; K30
EVEN in his lifetime, William Wordsworth's public image was that of the ultimate nature poet, wandering lonely as a cloud, gazing benignly at daffodils and small children, at home only in the Lake District-the patron saint of the Cumbrian tourist industry. This blandly arcadian picture did not always inspire respect. Robert Browning accused Wordsworth of betraying his youthful ideals and one Victorian satirist compared the great man to "an old half-witted sheep". Academic critics, more recently, have aimed historical scholarship at the sentimental images of Wordsworth, pointing out, for example, that Tintern Abbey, the ...