No More Learning

If he did so, the discovery of the place
would not help any one to understand or appreciate the poem. It is
obvious that he did not intend to be literally exact in details, as the
poem was written in 1800, and addressed to Joanna Hutchinson,--who is
spoken of as having been absent from Grasmere "for two long years;" and
Wordsworth says that he carved the Runic characters 'in memoriam'
eighteen months after that summer morning when he heard the echo of her
laugh. But the family took up residence at Grasmere only in December
1799, and the "Poems on the Naming of Places" were published before the
close of 1800. The effect of these lines to Joanna, however, is
certainly not impaired--it may even be enhanced--by our inability to
localise them. Only one in the list of places referred to can occasion
any perplexity, viz. , Hammar-scar, since it is a name now disused in the
district. It used to be applied to some rocks on the flank of
Silver-how, to the wood around them, and also to the gorge between
Silver-how and Loughrigg. Hammar, from the old Norse 'hamar', signifies
a steep broken rock.

The imaginative description of the echo of the lady's laugh suggests a
parallel passage from Michael Drayton's 'Polyolbion', which Wordsworth
must doubtless have read. (See his sister's reference to Drayton in her
'Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland', in 1803: in the note to the
poem, 'At the grave of Burns', p. 382 of this volume. )


'Which _Copland_ scarce had spoke, but quickly every Hill
Upon her verge that stands, the neighbouring valleys fill;
_Helvillon_ from his height, it through the mountains threw,
From whence as soon again, the sound _Dunbalrase_ drew,
From whose stone-trophed head, it on the _Wendrosse_ went,
Which tow'rds the sea again, resounded it to _Dent_,
That _Brodwater_ therewith within her banks astound,
In sailing to the sea, told it to _Egremound_,
Whose buildings, walks, and streets, with echoes loud and long,
Did mightily commend old _Copland_ for her song. '

'Polyolbion', The Thirtieth Song, ll. 155-164.


Any one who compares this passage with Wordsworth's 'Joanna' will see
the difference between the elaborate fancy of a topographical narrator,
and the vivid imagination of a poetical idealist.
A somewhat similar
instance of indebtedness--in which the debt is repaid by additional
insight--is seen when we compare a passage from Sir John Davies's
'Orchestra, or a poem on Dancing' (stanza 49), with one from 'The
Ancient Mariner', Part VI. stanzas 2 and 3--although there was more of
the true imaginative light in Davies than in Drayton.


'For lo, the sea that fleets about the land,
And like a girdle clips her solid waist,
Music and measure both doth understand;
For his great crystal eye is always cast
Up to the moon, and on her fixed fast:
And as she danceth in her palid sphere
So danceth he about his centre here. '

DAVIES


'Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the moon is cast--

If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him. '

COLERIDGE.


These extracts show how both Wordsworth and Coleridge assimilated past
literary products, and how they glorified them by reproduction. There
was little, however, in the poetic imagery of previous centuries that
Wordsworth reproduced. His imagination worked in a sphere of its own,
free from the trammels of precedent; and he was more original than any
other nineteenth century poet in his use of symbol and metaphor. The
poem 'To Joanna' was probably composed on August 22, 1800, as the
following occurs in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal under that date:

"William was composing all the morning . . . W. read us the poem of
Joanna, beside the Rothay, by the roadside. "

Charles Lamb wrote to Wordsworth in January 1801, of

"these continuous echoes in the story of 'Joanna's laugh,' when the
mountains and all the scenery seem absolutely alive.