Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T02:13:48.676Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON'S EVOLUTIONARY WORDSWORTH

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2016

Trenton B. Olsen
Trenton B. Olsen*
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University – Idaho
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

While crediting William Wordsworth's tutelage in his 1887 essay “Books Which Have Influenced Me,” Robert Louis Stevenson indicates that the poet's contribution to his writing is difficult to pin down: “Wordsworth should perhaps come next. Every one has been influenced by Wordsworth and it is hard to tell precisely how” (164). Seeking to understand this relationship, I examined Stevenson's copy of Wordsworth's The Poetical Works (1858) at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. Stevenson's penciled markings, cross-references, and annotations fill the six-volume set, indicating careful and repeated reading over many years. Stevenson purchased the edition as he was entering adulthood in Edinburgh, and kept it with him until the end of his life in Samoa. While Stevenson's marginalia cannot be precisely dated, the handwriting alongside Wordsworth's poetry ranges from the large sloped script of his early years (1870--1874) to the smaller, more rounded and upright letters he used in the final period of his life (1890–1894). Given this record and the frequency and depth of Stevenson's allusions to Wordsworth in his fiction, essays, and letters, it is surprising that no study of the relationship has been undertaken. In recent book-length studies of Romantic influences on Victorian writing, Stevenson is rarely mentioned, and never in connection with Wordsworth. Even Stephen Gill's encyclopedic Wordsworth and the Victorians makes no reference to Stevenson.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 887 - 906
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

WORKS CITED

Arata, Stephen. Fictions of Loss in the Victorian Fin de Siecle. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beer, John. Romantic Influences: Contemporary, Victorian, Modern. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1973.Google Scholar
Butler, Samuel. Unconscious Memory. London: Longmans, Green, 1890.Google Scholar
Carroll, Joseph. Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature. London: Routledge, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carroll, Joseph. Reading Human Nature: Literary Darwinism in Theory and Practice. New York: SUNY P, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darwin, Charles. From So Simple a Beginning: The Four Great Books of Charles Darwin. Ed. Wilson, Edward O.. London: W. W. Norton, 2006.Google Scholar
Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1976.Google Scholar
Drout, Michael D. C. Tradition and Influence in Anglo-Saxon Literature: An Evolutionary Cognitivist Approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eliot, T. S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” T. S. Eliot: Selected Essays 1917–1932. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt: New York, 2014.Google Scholar
Fruscione, Joseph. Faulkner and Hemingway: Biography of a Literary Rivalry. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 2012.Google Scholar
Gill, Stephen. Wordsworth and the Victorians. Oxon: Oxford UP, 2001.Google Scholar
Hancock, Stephen. The Romantic Sublime and Middle-Class Subjectivity in the Victorian Novel. New York: Routledge, 2005.Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2008.Google Scholar
Hellman, George S. “Stevenson's Annotated Set of Wordsworth.” Colophon 7 (1931): 1–8.Google Scholar
Hills, Gertrude, ed. Robert Louis Stevenson's Handwriting. The Edwin J. Beinecke Collection. Privately Printed. New York, 1940.Google Scholar
Huxley, Thomas Henry. Evolution and Ethics. Ed. Ruse, Michael. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keats, John. “To George and Georgiana Keats, September 22, 1819.” Letters of John Keats to His Family and Friends. Ed. Colvin, Sidney. London: Macmillan, 1891.Google Scholar
Knight, William Angus. “Wordsworth.” Studies in Philosophy and Literature. London: C. Kegan Paul, 1879.Google Scholar
Longinus. On the Sublime. Trans. Stebbing, Thomas R. R.. Oxford: T & G Shrimpton, 1867.Google Scholar
MacDuffie, Allen. “Irreversible Transformations: Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Scottish Energy Science.” Representations 96 (2006): 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phelps, William Lyon, ed. The Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906.Google Scholar
Reid, Julia. Robert Louis Stevenson, Science, and the Fin de Siècle. London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandison, Alan. Robert Louis Stevenson and the Appearance of Modernism: A Future Feeling. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schulze, Robin G. “Textual Darwinism: Marianne Moore, the Text of Evolution, and the Evolving Text.” Text 11 (1998): 270–305.Google Scholar
Schulze, Robin G. The Web of Friendship: Marianne Moore and Wallace Stevens. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shakespeare, William. “Twelfth Night.” The Norton Shakespeare: Comedies. Ed. Greenblatt, Stephen, Cohen, Walter, Howard, Jean E., and Maus, Katherine Eisaman. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. 689–750.Google Scholar
Spencer, Herbert. Social Statics. London: Williams & Norgate, 1868.Google Scholar
Stephen, Leslie. “Wordsworth's Ethics.” Hours in a Library. 4 vols. London: Smith, Elder, 1907. 3: 127–78.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “Aes Triplex.” Ed. William Lyon Phelps. 43–54.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “The Beach of Falesá.” The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. Edinbugh Edition. 28 vols. Ed. Colvin, Sidney. Edinburgh: Longmans Green, 1894–1898. III, 1896. 5–106.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “Books Which Have Influenced Me.” Ed. William Lyon Phelps. 159–67.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “The Character of Dogs.” Ed. William Lyon Phelps. 125–37.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “Cockermouth and Keswick.” The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. Edinburgh Edition. 28 vols. Ed. Colvin, Sidney. Edinburgh: Longmans Green, 1894–1898. IV, 1896. 101–14.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Ed. Charyn, Jerome. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “The Ebb-Tide.” The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. Edinbugh Edition. 28 vols. Ed. Colvin, Sidney. Edinburgh: Longmans Green, 1894–1898. III, 1896. 187–377.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. Ed. Booth, Bradford A. and Mehew, Ernest. Vols. 1–8. New Haven: Yale UP, 1994–1995.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “The Manse.” Memories and Portraits. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908. 100–12.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Master of Ballantrae. The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. Thistle Edition. 24 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895–1899. IX, 1895. 1–227.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “Memoir of Himself.” The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. Tusitala Edition. 35 vols. Ed. Osbourne, L. and Van de G., F. London: Heinemann, 1923–24. XXIX, 1924. 157–58.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “On Some Technical Elements of Style in Literature.” R. L. Stevenson and Fiction. Ed. Norquay, Glenda. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1999. 92–109.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places.” Ed. William Lyon Phelps. 3–13.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “Pulvis Et Umbra.” Ed. Phelps, William Lyon. 173–81.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. “Talk and Talkers.” Ed. Phelps, William Lyon. 61–88.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Weir of Hermiston. The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. Thistle Edition. 24 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895–1899. XX, 1896. 1–151.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Wordsworth's Poems: Stevenson's Annotated Set. 6 vols. MS Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. New Haven: Yale University.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Wrecker. The Novels and Tales of Robert Louis Stevenson. 27 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902–1907. X, 1903.Google Scholar
Stiles, Anne. “Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde and the Double Brain.” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 46.4 (2006): 879–900.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, Donald D. The Romantic Impulse in Victorian Fiction. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turnbull, Olena. “Robert Louis Stevenson and Nineteenth-Century Theories of Evolution: Crossing the Boundaries between Ideas and Art.” Robert Louis Stevenson: Writer of Boundaries. Ed. Ambrosini, Richard and Dury, Richard. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2006. 228–36.Google Scholar
Veeder, William, and Hirsch, Gordon, eds. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde after One Hundred Years. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1988.Google Scholar
Wordsworth, William. William Wordsworth: The Poetical Works. Ed. Moxon, Edward. 6 vols. London: Edward Moxon, 1858.Google Scholar