No More Learning

When editors can escape the bias of contemporary thought and feeling,
when their judgments are refined by distance and mellowed by the new
literary standards of the intervening years,--when in fact Wordsworth is
as far away from his critics as Shakespeare now is--it may be possible
to adjust a final text. But the task is beyond the power of the present
generation.

It may farther be urged that if this reasoning be valid,--and if, for
the present, one text must be retained uniformly throughout,--the
natural plan is to take the earliest, and not the latest; and this has
some recommendations. It seems more simple, more natural, and certainly
the easiest. We have a natural sequence, if we begin with the earliest
and go on to the latest readings. Then, all the readers of Wordsworth,
who care to possess or to consult the present edition, will doubtless
possess one or other of the complete copies of his works, which contain
his final text; while probably not one in twenty have ever seen the
first edition of any of his poems, with the exception of 'The Prelude'.
It is true that if the reader turns to a footnote to compare the
versions of different years, while he is reading for the sake of the
poetry, he will be so distracted that the effect of the poem as a whole
will be entirely lost; because the critical spirit, which judges of the
text, works apart from the spirit of sympathetic appreciation, in which
all poetry should be read. But it is not necessary to turn to the
footnotes, and to mark what may be called the literary growth of a poem,
while it is being read for its own sake: and these notes are printed in
smaller type, so as not to obtrude themselves on the eye of the reader.

Against the adoption of the earlier text, there is this fatal objection,
that if it is to be done at all, it must be done throughout; and, in the
earliest poems Wordsworth wrote--viz. 'An Evening Walk' and 'Descriptive
Sketches',--the subsequent alterations almost amounted to a cancelling
of the earlier version. His changes were all, or almost all,
unmistakably for the better. Indeed, there was little in these works--in
the form in which they first appeared--to lead to the belief that an
original poet had arisen in England. It is true that Coleridge saw in
them the signs of the dawn of a new era, and wrote thus of 'Descriptive
Sketches', before he knew its author, "Seldom, if ever, was the
emergence of a great and original poetic genius above the literary
horizon more evidently announced. " Nevertheless the earliest text of
these 'Sketches' is, in many places, so artificial, prosaic, and dull,
that its reproduction (except as an appendix, or in the form of
footnotes) would be an injustice to Wordsworth. [10] On the other hand,
the passages subsequently cancelled are so numerous, and so long, that
if placed in footnotes the latter would in some instances be more
extensive than the text.
The quarto of 1793 will therefore be reprinted
in full as an Appendix to the first volume of this edition. The 'School
Exercise written at Hawkshead' in the poet's fourteenth year, will be
found in vol. viii. Passing over these juvenile efforts, there are
poems--such as 'Guilt and Sorrow', 'Peter Bell', and many others--in
which the earlier text is an inferior one, which was either corrected or
abandoned by Wordsworth in his maturer years. It would be a conspicuous
blunder to print--in the place of honour,--the crude original which was
afterwards repudiated by its author.

It may be remembered, in connection with Wordsworth's text, that he
himself said, "I am for the most part uncertain about my success in
altering poems; but, in this case" (he is speaking of an insertion) "I
am sure I have produced a great improvement. " ('Memoirs of Wordsworth',
vol. i. p. 174. ) [11] Again, in writing to Mr. Dyce in 1830, "You know
what importance I attach to following strictly the last copy of the text
of an author. "

It is also worthy of note that the study of their chronology casts some
light on the changes which the poems underwent. The second edition of
"Lyrical Ballads" appeared in 1800. In that edition the text of 1798 is
scarcely altered: but, in the year in which it was published, Wordsworth
was engrossed with his settlement at Grasmere; and, in the springtime of
creative work, he probably never thought of revising his earlier pieces.
In the year 1800, he composed at least twenty-five new poems.