Sonnet Series and Itinerary Poems, 1820-1845

by William Wordsworth

This volume of The Cornell Wordsworth contains eight collections of poems, mostly sonnets, published between 1820 and 1845. The River Duddon is a series of sonnets describing an imagined journey. Ecclesiastical Sketches, by far the largest group in the volume, consists entirely of sonnets and moves through historical time rather than topographical space. Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, 1820 is a record of an actual tour, containing when first published 23 sonnets and 15 other poems. In Yarrow Revisited, and Other Poems, celebrating another tour, all but three of the 26 poems are sonnets. Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1833 originally consisted entirely of sonnets. Memorials of a Tour in Italy includes five poems that are not sonnets. The remaining two groups, Sonnets upon the Punishment of Death and Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty and Order, which are both quite short, move through neither space nor time, but are thematically linked.An account of the genesis, dates of composition, and publication of each series is followed by reading texts, including all available variants. The poems are followed by Wordsworth's own notes and by the editor's notes. Photographic reproductions of manuscript pages of special interest, with transcriptions, are included for all the collections except Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty and Order.

1024 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2004

About the author

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was a major English romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their 1798 joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.

Wordsworth's masterpiece is generally considered to be The Prelude, an autobiographical poem of his early years, which the poet revised and expanded a number of times. The work was posthumously titled and published, prior to which, it was generally known as the poem "to Coleridge". Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

Reviews

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy the various tours more than the Ecclesiastical Sonnets or the thoughts on death and liberty.