No More Learning

Mr. Arnold's arrangement of the Poems, in his volume of Selections [4],
is extremely interesting and valuable; but, as to the method of grouping
adopted, I am not sure that it is better than Wordsworth's own. As a
descriptive title, "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection" is quite as good
as "Poems akin to the Antique," and "Poems of the Fancy" quite as
appropriate as "Poems of Ballad Form. "

Wordsworth's arrangement of his Poems in groups was psychologically very
interesting; but it is open to many objections. Unfortunately Wordsworth
was not himself consistent--in the various editions issued by
himself--either in the class into which he relegated each poem, or the
order in which he placed it there. There is tantalising topsy-turvyism
in this, so that an editor who adopts it is almost compelled to select
Wordsworth's latest grouping, which was not always his best.

Sir William Rowan Hamilton wrote to Mr. Aubrey de Vere in 1835 that Dora
Wordsworth told him that her father "was sometimes at a loss whether to
refer her to the 'Poems of the Imagination,' or the 'Poems of the
Fancy,' for some particular passage. " Aubrey de Vere himself considered
Wordsworth's arrangement as "a parade of system," and wrote of it, "I
cannot help thinking that in it, he mistakes classification for method. "
[5] I confess that it is often difficult to see why some of the poems
were assigned by their author to the realm of the "Fancy," the
"Imagination," and "Sentiment and Reflection" respectively. In a note to
'The Horn of Egremont Castle' (edition 1815) Wordsworth speaks of it as
"referring to the imagination," rather than as being "produced by it";
and says that he would not have placed it amongst his "Poems of the
Imagination," "but to avoid a needless multiplication of classes"; and
in the editions of 1827 and 1832 he actually included the great 'Ode' on
Immortality among his "Epitaphs and Elegiac Poems"! As late as 27th
September 1845, he wrote to Professor Henry Reed,

"Following your example" (i. e. the example set in Reed's American
edition of the Poems), "I have greatly extended the class entitled
'Poems of the Imagination,' thinking as you must have done that, if
Imagination were predominant in the class, it was not indispensable
that it should pervade every poem which it contained. Limiting the
class as I had done before, seemed to imply, and to the uncandid or
observing did so, that the faculty, which is the 'primum mobile' in
poetry, had little to do, in the estimation of the author, with pieces
not arranged under that head.
I therefore feel much obliged to you for
suggesting by your practice the plan which I have adopted. "

Could anything show more explicitly than this that Wordsworth was not
perfectly satisfied with his own artificial groups? Professor Reed, in
his American edition of 1837, however, acted on Wordsworth's expressed
intention of distributing the contents of "Yarrow Revisited, and Other
Poems" amongst the classes. He tells us that he "interspersed the
contents of this volume among the Poems already arranged" by Wordsworth.
[6]

It may also be mentioned that not only members of his own household, but
many of Wordsworth's friends--notably Charles Lamb--expressed a
preference for a different arrangement of his Poems from that which he
had adopted.


SECOND The various Readings, or variations of text, made by Wordsworth
during his lifetime, or written by him on copies of his Poems, or
discovered in MS. letters, from himself, or his sister, or his wife, are
given in footnotes in this edition. Few English poets changed their text
more frequently, or with more fastidiousness, than Wordsworth did. He
did not always alter it for the better. Every alteration however, which
has been discovered by me, whether for the better or for the worse, is
here printed in full. We have thus a record of the fluctuations of his
own mind as to the form in which he wished his Poems to appear; and this
record casts considerable light on the development of his genius. [7]

A knowledge of these changes of text can only be obtained in one or
other of two ways. Either the reader must have access to all the
thirty-two editions of Poems, the publication of which Wordsworth
personally supervised; or, he must have all the changes in the
successive editions, exhibited in the form of footnotes, and appended to
the particular text that is selected and printed in the body of the
work. It is extremely difficult--in some cases quite impossible--to
obtain the early editions. The great public libraries of the country do
not possess them all. [8] It is therefore necessary to fall back upon the
latter plan, which seems the only one by which a knowledge of the
changes of the text can be made accessible, either to the general
reader, or to the special student of English Poetry.