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Wordsworth and Keats—A Study in Personal and Critical Impression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2021

Clarence D. Thorpe
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Extract

So far as we know, Wordsworth never bothered himself enough with Keats to write a line about him. The best evidence we have as to his attitude toward his youthful contemporary is in the testimony of Lord Houghton and Benjamin Haydon. Lord Houghton relates that when at Haydon's “the younger poet had been induced to repeat to the elder the fine ‘Hymn to Pan’ out of Endymion …. Wordsworth only remarked, ‘it was a pretty piece of Paganism.‘”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , December 1927 , pp. 1010 - 1026
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 Forman, John Keats, IV, 72, note.

2 This letter was first published by Amy Lowell, John Keats, I, 542.

3 As Amy Lowell states upon information from F. Holland Day, the present owner of this copy; see her John Keats, I, 544.

4 The Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, edited by Tom Taylor, I, 355.

5 November 20, 1816.

6 Lord Houghton remarks, apropos of Keats's excellent youthful critical taste: “It should here be remembered that Wordsworth was not then what he is now, that he was confounded with much that was thought ridiculous and unmanly in the new school, and that it was something for so young a student to have torn away the veil of prejudice then hanging over the honored name, and have proclaimed his reverence in such earnest words while so many men of letters could only scorn and jeer.”—Houghton MSS.

7 Reynolds, too, was an admirer of Wordsworth, but in common with Hunt, Lamb, and others, he thoroughly despised such naive pieces as The Idiot Boy, Alice Fell, etc. Keats was also a party to the Peter Bell trick, writing a brief notice of Reynolds's verses for The Examiner. It was all done in good spirit, it would seem, as a sort of rebuke to a loved friend for his infirmities, rather than as an indication of a derogatory attitude toward his verse in general. (Keats's notice appeared in The Examiner, April 25, 1819, a few days after Reynolds' skit.)

8 Bailey's Memoranda, Houghton MSS. (Quoted by Sidney Colvin in John Keats, pp. 145–146.)

9 See Colvin, p. 146.

10 Ibid.

11 Quoted above, p. 1010. Miss Lowell is inclined to make a good deal of this episode, which, she believes, explains Keats's scanty references to Wordsworth in his letters to his brothers as well as the derogatory tone in which he sometimes speaks of Wordsworth in the first weeks subsequent to their meeting. In view of the eagerness he had shown to meet the older poet, Keats's chill reports of his first contacts with him seem to lend color to this interpretation.

12 To George and Thomas Keats, Jan. 5, 1818.

13 To John Taylor, Jan. 10, 1818.

14 Houghton MSS (Quoted by Forman. John Reals. IV, 52.)

15 Though Lord Houghton explains the negative note in this passage by the conjecture that Keats was piqued at the moment by Wordsworth's careless remark about the Hymn to Pan as “a pretty piece of Paganism.”—Forman. IV, 72. As neither of these specific incidents could have occurred less than a month previous to the writing of this letter, it is likely that, while each may have contributed to Keats's mood neither one alone explains it. It would seem safer to conclude that the letter represents a culmination of several weeks' suppressed irritation.

16 “Wordsworth” in The Spirit of the Age (Everyman, p. 258).

17 Ibid., p. 260.

18 Feb. 3, 1818. (One month and six days after the first meeting with Wordsworth.)

19 Forman, IV, 80.

20 To B. R. Haydon, April 10,1818. It is a commentary on Keats's eclectic taste in his friendships, perhaps in a degree a mark of an innate aristocratic temper, that he thoroughly and instinctively disliked Kingston, a man, we are told, of small intellect, who combined with his propensities to petty politics a certain tendency to social climbing and such distinction as might be had from association with literary men of the day. Keats haughtily refused even to dine with him, and deplored Wordsworth's compliance.

21 To Haydon. March 23, 1818.

22 As reported by Sidney Colvin in John Keats, p. 245. In Robinson's entry for December 27, 1817, repeated by Knight in Wordsworth's Poetical Works, X, 288–289, we read, “…. I was for the first time in my life not pleased with Wordsworth. And Coleridge appeared to advantage in his presence. C. spoke of painting in that style of mysticism which is now his habit. W. met this by dry unfeeling contradiction. C. maintained that painting was not an art which would operate on the vulgar, and W. declared this opinion to be degrading to art. C. illustrated his assertions by reference to Raphael's Madonnas. W. could not think that a field for high intellect lay within such a subject as a Mother and child; and when C. talked of the divinity of these works, W. asked whether he thought he should have discovered their beauties if he had not known that Raphael was an artist. And when C. said that was an unkind question, W. made no apology. Independently of the unfeeling manner, I thought W. substantially wrong. It was not so clear to me that C. was right. Coming away, I found the Lambs felt as I did ….”

In Henry Crabb Robinson's Diary and Correspondence, edited by Thomas Sadler, Boston, 1869, the entry for December 27, though recording the dinner, contains no reference to this argument between Coleridge and Wordsworth. Mr. Sadler possibly suppressed the unfavorable reference to shield the fair name of Wordsworth. It may also be noted that in quoting H. C. Robinson's account of an evening's conversation at Lamb's a few days later, Mr. Sadler again omits a significant sentence. Robinson says he could catch little of the conversation, “But I heard a long time Coleridge quoting Wordsworth's verses; and W. quoting, not Coleridge's, but his own.” (Knight. X, 289.) Mr. Sadler gives no hint of these omissions.

23 C. Cowden Clarke: Recollections of Writers, p. 149.

24 Recollections of Writers, p. 149.

25 To Thomas Keats. June 29, 1818.

26 Forman, John Keats. IV, 117, note.

27 Article on Kean. The Champion. December 21, 1817.

28 Forman, IV, p. 173.

29 Forman, IV. 56.

30 Forman, IV. 57.

31 “Half-caste”—Let us remember that Leigh Hunt had lately been in prison and was out of favor with the party in power, that Haydon had grievously offended the reigning dictators in English art, and in spite of merit and his best efforts, was never admitted to the Academy, and that the others were as a group scorned by the Tory reviews who had derisively dubbed them “cockneys” and had pretty effectively discredited them with the nation.

32 JoknKeats, p. 250.

33 Hazlitt: The Spirit of the Age. Collected Works. IV, p. 276.

34 Letter to Reynolds, May 3, 1818.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

37 Forman, op. cit., V, 35.

38 Ibid., p. 40.

39 The Examiner, April 25, 1819.