95

Nature and Self: Wordsworth’s Contributions

to the Transformation of Gothic Conventions

自然與自我：華滋華斯對哥德式習俗轉變的貢獻

By

Jeffrey E. Denton 唐傑夫

國立高雄第一科技大學應用英語系助理教授

Department of English

National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology

and

Hui-fen Tang唐惠芬

東方設計學院應用外語系講師

Applied Foreign Languages Department

Tung Fang Design University

Abstract

The term “Gothic” brings forth the images that have become symbolic of the

horror tale, but the term encompasses a great deal more today than it did in the early

eighteenth-century. It has been enlarged and made much more acceptable to

audiences of differing social classes through higher uses and subtlety. This paper

proposes that one poet who had a share in this transformation was William

Wordsworth, whom, surprisingly, openly attacked gothic conventions. Wordsworth’s

poems used the gothic conventions throughout adding a dark connection between his

favorite subject of “nature” and the anxieties of his characters, but in ways that

differed from the low-class popular genre prose of the time. This use by

Wordsworth contributed in bringing the gothic style into acceptance by more

“well-read” and “well-bred” citizens of the times.

Key words: William Wordsworth, Gothic literary conventions, Gothic elements

96

摘要

「哥德式」一詞所帶來的意象已成為恐怖故事的象徵，但這個字在今日卻受到較

之十八世紀早期更多的討論，它不斷擴展而且更為社會不同階層的人所接受。本

論文提出詩人華滋華斯對此轉變之貢獻及曾驚世駭俗公開抨擊哥德式傳統。華滋

華斯將哥德式傳統運用在詩中，並將他最喜愛的自然界主題及其焦慮性格連結，

但在形式上和當時流行的不入流散文有所不同，此舉使哥德式作品在當時更能被

受過良好教育的人民所接受。

關鍵詞：華滋華斯、哥德式文學的習俗、哥德式要素

Discussion

“The invaluable works of our elder writers…are

driven into neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid

German tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant

stories in verse. When I think upon this degrading

thirst after outrageous stimulation, I am almost ashamed

to have spoken of the feeble effort with which I have

endeavoured to counteract it… “

– William Wordsworth

Wordsworth, in his Lyrical Ballads Preface, was most probably partially referring

to the growing fascination with Gothic literature that was capturing the growing

market of prose readers. The statement gives no doubt that the poet, rather than

simply disliking the genre, actively “endeavoured to counteract it.”

First of all, it is important to define just what we are talking about. What is this

genre, which promotes such dislike in Wordsworth that he should publicly speak out

about it when it is gaining such popularity at the time despite the intellectual elite

seeing it in a negative critical light? From the European developed architecture of the

same name the novel developed and the English Romantics of the late eighteenth and

early nineteenth-centuries came to think of the style as both “awe inspiring and

mysterious” (Baton 84).

When anyone starts discussing the term Gothic they almost immediately think of

vampire stories, tales of horror and terror, helpless damsels, and supernatural tales that

chill the bones. Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz recognize the genre of Gothic as “a

97

type of romance popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-centuries…usually

set in medieval castles with…ghosts,…gloom...and supernatural paraphernalia, and

were thrillers designed to evoke genteel shudders” (Beckson 101).

But Gothic has come to mean much more in the present time and the scope of

elements and style has evolved to include more and more possibilities which overrun

into other accepted literary categories. Marie Mulvey-Roberts, in her Handbook to

Gothic Literature, now finds an almost endless definition of what is included in

contemporary Gothic. However, quoting Angela Carter, “there is the retention of ‘a

singular moral function – that of provoking unease’” (Introduction xvii). In other

words, the Gothic story has evolved from its beginnings into many forms. But what

aided in this expansion of the extravagant story? How did it occur? Why did it

occur? And why is the consistent part psychological more than supernatural? The

reasons may be many and certainly include the work of such thinkers as Sigmund

Freud and Carl Jung. But writers affect writers and few writers are original in

developing new approaches to a winning mix and no one can successfully argue that

Gothic is not a winning mix even today.

It is the intent of this paper to demonstrate the possibility that William

Wordsworth, whether intentionally or not, rather than counteracting these popular

extravagant stories, actually contributed to a major transformation of the Gothic

convention that greatly enlarged the scope of the term and the subject matter treatment

for future writers before Freud or Jung or the ideas associated with them were so

clearly evident in literature. It is also argued that regardless of his comments against

the genre, Wordsworth was strongly influenced by it early in his career and its

elements are legion throughout his varied works over the length of his career.

It is known that the Romantic poets often drew from Gothic traditions for their

themes, ideas, and even for the choice of words they used (Thompson 1). This

tendency ranges from Lord Byron to Mary Robinson and to John Southey, Samuel

Coleridge, and, yes, even William Wordsworth. Coleridge’s work was clearly more

in line with the Gothic traditions of the past and took fantastic or exotic events and

made them somewhat spectacular in an Elizabethan way. He clearly shows its

influence in such works as Christabel and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Wordsworth, on the other hand, preferred simple and more ordinary scenes to make

the everyday event fresh and interesting – hardly a description of the Gothic ideal.

Interestingly, Wordsworth in the early years of his career read several

mainstream Gothic novels of the time as well as being an admirer of John Milton’s

works (considered quite Gothic in style, but just too early in time). These Gothic

mainstream novels mentioned were ones that began and exemplified the style

prevalent in the late 17th

to the mid 18th

century. Wordsworth read such titles as The

98

Monk and Castle Spectre by Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Romance of the Forest and

The Italian by Ann Radcliffe (although he stated that he only read Radcliffe to laugh

at the works (Thompson 3)), The Mysterious Mother and The Castle of Otranto by

Horace Walpole – the father of the Gothic novel. As to the The Mysterious Mother, it

was said at the time to be “the most disgusting, detestable, vile composition that ever

came from the hand of a man. No one with one spark of true manliness, of which

Horace Walpole has none, could have written it” (4). The list of Gothic novels read

by Wordsworth, provided by Douglas Thompson, includes several others, which,

through Wordsworth’s letters as well as borrowings to his own works, demonstrates

his fondness in some cases as well as his disgust of this type of writing.

Several of Wordsworth’s poems concern the supernatural, which can easily be

argued to therefore fall into the outrageous, which he seemed to dislike. But

Wordsworth’s lapses into hypocrisy are not the overt purpose of the thesis here. It’s

the contribution he made to the changing aspect of the genre whether intentional or

not that he gave. A connection was made between the Romantic and the Gothic,

which switched the very focus of the Gothic genre away from the earlier narrow

treatment of subject and style to a broader more subtle, modernized, and naturalized

approach.

Wordsworth argued that those German tragedies created “outrageous

stimulation.” However, he also argued in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads that poetry

should have a purpose and one purpose would be pleasure to the reader. Wordsworth

recognized that poetry must excite the reader and give pleasure. Gothic was a way of

producing excessive emotion (Botting 6) and Wordsworth, like many Romantic poets,

used the style or elements for just that reason – the sublime effect of the image that

was created by elements and storyline.

As stated, the concept, style, and elements of the Gothic genre during the

eighteenth-century was that of castles, oppressive ruins, wild landscapes, catholic or

feudal societies, guilt and shame, nocturnal landscapes, dreams, apparitions,

wandering Jew characters, madhouses, silences, tales within tales, etc (Sedgwick

9-10). Since the Romantic poets borrowed extensively, it initially can be assumed that

these elements would be found within their poems.

Again, the book that started the style was Walepole’s The Castle of Otranto

published in 1764 (Thompson 4). Wordsworth was born in 1770. The Monk was

published in 1796 and The Italian in 1797 (4). The genre was therefore begun

shortly before the birth of Wordsworth and two of the major novels that he had

contact with were published when he was 26 and 27 years of age. Through his

26th and 27th

year, William Wordsworth was engaged in work on his Lyrical Ballads,

which he first published in 1798. We can use these initial dates to indicate the

99

parallel of Wordsworth’s career and the status of Gothic writing. The Castle of

Otranto was followed by a multitude of copying of the style and elements so that

many stories were like a perverse convention. Once you read one, you could

accurately predict the others (Sedgewick 9). But despite this large body of similar

work and Wordsworth’s obvious readings and similar usage of elements common to

this then popular genre Stephen Gill in his well-written biography of the poet never

touches upon any such material. Clearly indicating that Wordsworth had access to

many of the contemporary works through Hawkshead school, the two schoolmasters

William Taylor and Thomas Bowman, as well as later at Cambridge, Gill only

discusses classics and scientific monographs. Any borrowing or interest in the

fictional literature popular to the general public but distained by the educated elite is

avoided.

So if the Gothic literature did affect him, how then did this go on to allow

William Wordsworth to have an effect on the development of the Gothic conventions

that transformed or helped to transform them into later forms? The answer may lie

in the later emphasis that Gothic literature placed on the concept of the inside of man

versus what is on the outside. The three main elements of modern Gothic are: what’s

inside a man, what’s outside a man, and what separates the two locals (13). The

inside can be thought of as the self and whatever aspects reside within – the

psychology, character, virtues, etc. The outside can be thought of as the forces of

nature, others, locations and homes, etc. And finally, that which separates them are

events as well as counterparts to the elements considered to be outside of the person

(13). Wordsworth understood that the outside can not only be an influencer of what

is inside, but can also be a reflection with on firm separation as we will discuss later,

no real boundaries.

Today, the definition of Gothic has changed so much that there are really no

limits or boundaries any more. The time of dream landscapes, supernatural behavior,

ghosts, and creatures have been pushed to the side. That’s not to say these elements

are not still strong but stories are more realistic and even more sublime when it is

possible to connect certain feelings and impulses that are common to us all. The

adult generally does not feel afraid of the goblin or the vampire. But we find that

things familiar to us yet made uncanny or strangely warped become disturbing and

somehow much closer to ourselves. We find the possibility of commonality with

community or ourselves quite powerful and the story has the ability to “bring

out …pleasure in the audience” (Wordsworth, LB 34). Reading pleasure can be

derived from much more than simply happy scenes. For example, reading pleasure

can be obtained from material that makes a reader contemplate possibilities and to see

things in new lights and in finding or not finding resolutions to situations. Gothic

100

literature saw its emphasis shift to the psychological aspects of the inside self rather

than the stereotypical supernatural forces as the prime movers in worlds where

individuals could not be sure of others or even themselves (Botting 12). Excesses

came from within, from “hidden, pathological motivations that rationality was

powerless to control” (12). With the right Gothic settings, or a sprinkling of other

elements, the psychological thriller was built on these Gothic traditions and

environments.

Though William Wordsworth’s distain for the outrageous, extravagant stories did

not stop his early and later use of the elements of Gothic convention, his use of those

elements was remarkably similar to the later developed emphasis on the psychological

rather than the supernatural. Fred Botting states that, “Gothic writing thrived and

exerted an influence on more properly [sic] literary forms” (15) of writing such as

poetry, as the sublime was “linked to poetic and visionary power” and evoked

excessive emotion (4). Therefore, is it not arguable that the elements within the other

“more properly literary forms” might equally have a powerful effect on Gothic

writing?

Wordsworth worked to produce poetry that would “counteract” the effect of the

“degrading thirst” for Gothic but it seems in a way that legitimized its conventions by

self-consciously putting them to more acceptable and ideological uses. This then

would seem to be the unintentional effect Wordsworth really had on the genre. He

merely was one of the instrumental mainstream writers that helped to transform a low

art to a more acceptable one.

In Guilt and Sorrow, Wordsworth strongly used Gothic elements and

conventions to create a poem that, looking back from today, is remarkably similar in

sound and style with Edgar Allan Poe’s. The subject matter of the poem is the

poisonous effects of guilt. The main character is the wandering Jew-like Traveler,

the returned sailor, who moves along in his tale to be hung by the law in the end for

his crimes. “Upon his swinging corse an eye can glance” (LXXIV: 11). Elements

that can easily be considered Gothic include among others “the pile of Stone-henge,”

the lone mansion, the lonely fort, the helpless women, and the “unburied dead”

(LXXIV: 11). The settings include the lengthening road, the peaceful plain, the silent

sea, and the forest glade. Which, along with the storm, the sun, the moon, and other

aspects of nature show Wordsworth’s belief in the kinship between man and nature

and the psychology of man in connection with and in relation to nature has a very

dark side which breeds the apprehension necessary to enthrall the reader.

This representation of nature is one of the foremost aspects of Wordsworth’s

poetry. One of the major objections of his friend Coleridge’s work is that he ignored

the morally curative power of nature and “took to the supernatural” instead (Voller

101

13). But it was also Wordsworth that shows nature in the unusual light and more than

once mixes the supernatural or hint of it in connection with nature. Nature is full of

powerful symbols and elements that were adopted and developed in the Gothic

convention. The setting is perhaps the foremost element of the Gothic story. A

bright sunny day with loads of cheerful children and families again is not consistent

with the Gothic style. But present the gloomy, stormy; even silent night with a

waxing or full moon and the reader begins to slip into the right mood for the story.

Wordsworth’s poems focused on nature and the natural background in most of his

poems. And surprisingly, a great many of his poems exemplified nature as dark

rather than bright. Darkness, in a metaphorical sense, threatens the “light of reason”

with what is not known. Gloom removes many of the perceptions we have about

order into obscurity. Uncertainty creates mysteries and passions that remove reason

from the mind. Nighttime gives free reign to imagination (Botting 32). Wordsworth

never actually expressly imposed any supernatural or evil aspect to these natural or

even dark nighttime scenes in and of themselves; rather, one could see them as rigidly

uncaring and set apart from mankind. Nature as amoral; the scenes were the

“outside.” Nature sometimes acts, as antagonist to the characters and sometimes it

serves as protection or savior, but it never really intends any purpose – it simply is.

So when Wordsworth indicates the morally curative power of nature he is

bviously referring to the “inside”, the self and the need to commune with nature to

build or rebuild oneself, to find the peace of mind to think, to understand oneself in

light of a more stable, unchanging force. As he demonstrates in his works,

Wordsworth believes that force to be neutral though a powerful influence on the

“inside” of the human self.

In The Thorn (Wordsworth, Collected Poems 197) the poet demonstrates word

choices that bring to the mind of the reader dark images of nature. “It is a mass of

knotted joints/ A wretched thing forlorn…Up from the earth these mosses creep…to

drag it to the ground…” Even the breeze “creeps” in stanza XX. But in stanza IV

and V he contrasts the dark with the light: “a beauteous heap, a hill of moss…all

lovely colours there you see…” However, also in stanza V he continues in a

surprising macabre way, “ Is like an infant’s grave in size…as like as like can be…”

The poem continues to the woman Martha Ray who sits by the thorn, and a third

person narrator tells us why she is crying since we cannot determine the reason

ourselves. It seems that the woman had been with child and abandoned by the

husband. The woman, Martha Ray, had gone wild with a “cruel fire” in her brain

(XII:8) and the child had died upon the hill with the thorn and beautiful moss. The

narrator recounts conjecture by “some” about whether the child had died in birth or

had been hung or drowned by the mother. Throughout, words such as “O Misery! O

102

Misery! (XVIII: 4) and “O Woe is me! (XXIII: 10) emphasize the despair and grief of

the mother.

Wordsworth’s word choices and contrasting descriptions of nature in one and the

same place reflect on the mind of the character Martha Ray – her joy of an impending

marriage and child and her subsequent madness and death (killing) of her own child

(the twisted thorn being pulled down into the ground – a grave). What modern

reader with knowledge of today’s Gothic forms could not see this in the light of a

gothic poem. Edgar Allen Poe’s best works have no vampires, no werewolves, and no

mummies; rather, his best works revolve around the grief, fear, and anxieties of his

characters dealing with their environments and some central “outside” force such as

the raven or the black cat. Wordsworth, shortly before his American counterpart,

Poe, began the transformation of Gothic elements and convention towards the

psychological rather than the supernatural.

The themes of insanity, impairment, and alienation are ones that the poet

explored and used to accomplish his purpose in writing his poetry. In considering

the Gothic conventions, the alienation of the human subject from the culture and even

the language in which he or she is located makes for a feeling of aloneness and a fear

of survival on several levels (Botting 12). In the more supernatural of Gothic tales,

we see Renfield alienated so that Dracula’s influence can remove any hope of a true

“survival.” Wordsworth understood the themes that built emotional and psychological

anxiety and led up to such conditions as the insanity or confusion of his characters –

an exploitation of the “inside” self.

The Idiot Boy (Collected Poems 126) demonstrates the effect of nature on two

characters, Betty Foy and her impaired son Johnny. Nature, as said, is neutral and

uncaring. But it is the cold “moonlight dale” punctuated by the hooting of owls

that nurtures the fear in Betty Foy and raises that fear to a level of contemplated

suicide over her failure as a caring mother. It is the idiot boy that cannot

conceptualize the dark and confuses the moon with the sun, the owl with the cock.

The passing of time by the clock – “the clock gives warning of eleven/ ‘Tis on

the stroke—…” (32:2,3) – is another convention of the modern Gothic. The passing

of time marking waiting builds the psychological pressure in the character as if steam

was being compressed. And either a release of that steam occurs or an explosion of

desperation. In this case, Betty Foy goes out in search for her son, whom, through

her own momentary blindness, was sent out by her into the darkness and perceived

cruelty of nature to his possible demise.

When she at first finds he has not arrived at the doctor’s, her fear and guilt

encompass her mind and she blames the neighbor for being ill, the reason for

Johnny’s trek, and then reaches the point of suicide in a green-grown pond (61:3).

103

Fortunately for the old girl the narrator reminds her (and the reader) that the horse is

great and trustworthy even if her son is not.

The nature background sets the mood clearly. During the time of trial and trouble,

the owls are about and the moon oversees all.

The owlets through the long blue night

Are shouting to each other still:

Fond lovers, yet not quite hob nob,

They lengthen out the tremulous sob,

That echoes far from hill to hill. (stanza 60).

The mood is melancholy and oppressive, mirroring the emotional distress and anxiety.

This setting begins to change even as the emotions change in the characters as

they find each other and set about going home.

By this the stars were almost gone,

The moon was setting on the hill,

So pale you scarcely looked at her:

The little birds began to stir,

Though yet their tongues were still. (stanza 84).

This progression to the promise of a daytime scene again reflects the emotional state

of the characters and their movement from fear, guilt, and anxiety to one of normalcy.

This triumph over the uncertainty of their actions, lives, and the fear of forces

“outside” of themselves evolves along with the condition of their surrounding

environment. They come out into the light so to speak, as the hero and heroines of

the Gothic escape the confines of the castle or tomb. But Wordsworth’s subject

matter is as he himself stated (in paraphrased form), in that it is using events and

occurrences of everyday in a way that makes them unusual.

The theme of madness and suicide is certainly not limited to just one of his

poems. Wordsworth was fascinated with the guilt, fear, and anxieties of the mother

and explored these themes in several poems. Her Eyes Were Wild describes the

isolated mother and child searching for the husband/ father that has abandoned them.

Abandonment is also a theme Wordsworth recognized as being a major influence on

the state of mind of women. And in the Gothic, it is usually the women that are

oppressed and misused. It is the Gothic convention to ascribe powerless sexuality to

the heroine (Sedgwick 48). The mother of the child, again feeling the pressure of

being abandoned, most likely because her beauty “is flown” (7:6), contemplates

jumping with her child over the “sea-rock’s edge” (5:4) and ending the pain of her

life.

Nature shows two faces here as well as in The Thorn. “The high crag…the

leaping torrents when they howl…poisons of the shade” along with “merry birds in

104

spring…earth-nuts fit for food” all go to reflect the moods and emotions of the mother

who is talking to her child and to herself; each description of the natural setting

mirroring the gothic descriptions of nature that will be used routinely by other authors.

Nature is not evil and it is not good, it simply is. However, again Wordsworth makes

the statement that communing with nature allows reflection on one’s “inside” self and

may be seen as a reflection of the state of mind of each character. The use of nature

as a reflection of the character’s “insides” can be seen in many later works, notably

Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher as the Family Mansion and the surrounding tarn

and dead trees are truly mirror images of the remains of the family that dwells within.

The connection between mind, mood, emotions, and nature aids in creating that

allegorical atmosphere that all readers can associate with.

Death or the threat of death, something all can relate to, is a given in Gothic

stories. The supernatural embodies the idea of death; as does nature. But even the

later Gothic writings concentrating on psychological anxieties finds the fear of death

and the eventuality of that “explosion” from emotional pressure resulting in some act

that usually ends in death – a major thematic element. Even the madness, a theme of

Wordsworth’s, becomes an important element that will later be explored and refined

further by E. A. Poe, R. L. Stevenson, and even Henry James. Again, for a man who

is so distaining of a genre, Wordsworth embraced these elements that gave rise to

“outrageous stimulation.” But even though it could be argued that all of these

themes, such as death, fear, etc. are again just ordinary, everyday events that

Wordsworth was treating in a way to make them seem different, it still should be

noted that one way he treated them different was to present them in a “dark” light.

To move them into a psychological mode of presentation that made the reader

disturbed in his or her own thoughts or perceptions – and isn’t that a description of the

modern concepts behind the Gothic story? Growing in popularity in Wordsworth’s

time was Graveyard poetry. It was popular in the first half of the eighteenth-century

(Botting 33). It gave images of death to encourage readers to think about the horrors

of the grave. Graveyard poetry included spectres and ghosts and spooky nighttime

scenes. But this kind of poetry also accomplished something Wordsworth

considered to be a “worthy purpose” – it elevated a person’s thoughts to higher

spiritual considerations.

In We are Seven (Collected Poems 83), the subject matter is death and the

perceptions or lack of understanding of death from the viewpoints of a young girl and

a passing adult male. Here Wordsworth indeed wants to elevate a person’s thoughts.

The “simple child’s” sisters and brothers dwell near their mother in the courtyard and

the traveler sees that at least two are in their graves. But despite his attempts to

make the girl see the situation of her family rationally, the little girl continues to tell

105

the man that “we are seven” in number.

The poem does not have any express elements of the supernatural. It only

raises questions of death and the perception of reality from different viewpoints.

This simple conflict between perceptions of such a serious (at least to the man)

subject is somewhat disturbing to the careful reader and raises underneath the

question of the absent father. Is this yet another abandonment? Is the issue here

also one of alienation? The girl was wildly clad and had a rustic air about her (3:1,2).

We see the female with her mind not quite right. Her thoughts are addled.

Regardless of her age, her perception of reality makes the shades of her brother and

sister alive for her. Can the reader perceive the hint of ghosts that may be real?

The poem Lucy Gray or Solitude (Collected Poems 82) can be seen in a dark

light. The father sends Lucy out into the cold snow covered moor to help fetch her

mother home before a winter storm. But the storm comes early and Lucy is lost.

Only the footprints that disappear in a planked bridge tell of her passage. But the

poem tells us that some maintain that she is still alive, “Upon the lonesome wild”

(15:4) because they to this day see her – another ghost story?

Sonnets upon the punishment of death (Collected Poems 517-520) is a grouping

of fourteen short series poems concerning death that Wordsworth composed between

1839 and 1840. They round out the discussion herein concerning the theme of death

and perception of the character. Again, Wordsworth’s choice of words clearly draws

the darkened mood of the poems into clear focus for the reader. These are poems

that while attempting to make a moral point of capital punishment also excite the

reader with that “outrageous stimulation” that makes the poems interesting and

attractive to the paying public.

In death, when evil against good has

fought

With such fell master that a man may

dare

By deeds the blackest purpose to lay

bare –

Is death, for one that condition

brought, --

For him, or any one, -- the thing that

ought

To be most dreaded? Lawgivers, beware,

Lest, capital pains remitting till ye spare

The murderer, ye, by sanction to that

thought,

106

Seemingly given, debase the general mind;

Tempt the vague will tried standards to

disown;

Nor only palpable restraints unbind.

But upon Honour’s head disturb the

Crown,

Whose absolute rule permits not to with-

stand

In the weak love of life his least com-

mand.

The moral argument (the moral function of creating unease as Angela Carter

states remains consistent even today) that Wordsworth is putting forth is done so in a

very Gothic manner in that it exemplifies elements which are part of the dark, sinister

atmosphere that has a purpose of creating unease in the reader. Because of injustice

the very head of the King, of the Judge, is put to the threat that they themselves

bestow upon the murderer. There is no more than allusion to supernatural, the idea

of holy justice perhaps. But puritan and catholic religions as well as feudal systems

are elements of the Gothic convention. It has always been very proper for the writer

of higher purpose or conventional literature to use the religious theme without

seeming to touch on the lower literary genre of the Gothic, but both encompass the

idea of that which is outside of the self and in which a person has no control – the

supernatural – and the apprehension that stems from this outside.

In summary, with the idea that William Wordsworth felt that the growing

genre of Gothic literature was an affront to higher, better literature there seems to be

little argument in the critical views of most writers. If the term Gothic is applied to

Wordsworth, it is that he experimented with it early and discarded it, as it was

“foreign to his sensibilities” (Voller 3). As stated, it is his friend Coleridge that the

word Gothic is associated with of these two men. However, as noted, the Gothic

style and emphasis moved from the supernatural into the psychological within the

nineteenth-century and into the twentieth-century. This transformation, this

progression of thought, increased the scope of the genre and made for more

engrossing material that looked more at the “inside” of the self than creatures of

supernatural origin.

Wordsworth’s poetry, in many respects uses nature to mirror this “inside” of

his characters’ selves. Nature is neutral, but it can be cruel by its completely

uncaring state. Wordsworth uses nature to set moods, often conflicting and in

comparison to one another but as a reflection of the thoughts and mindsets of the

characters, who are many times crazed, confused, or fearful. Therefore, the readers

107

get a macabre dark sense within poetry that speaks of the sublime and awe of the

everyday. But the everyday put differently, communing with nature and pulsing with

emotional disturbances. Although it can be said that all the elements used by

Wordsworth were used long before there was Gothic, per se, the crux of the argument

herein is that the use of these elements were not pre-Gothic but after the Gothic story

had been around for over 20 years. Because of this, his use of the elements would

have been identifiable as such to the reading public. Further, his use of the elements in

connection to nature would help to legitimize or elevate a low art to a more acceptable

one. Finally, his change in emphasis to the psychological was what Gothic prose

transformed into years later through more identifiable horror and suspense writers.

So, though the definition of Gothic must be one much closer to the present time’s

broader scope and no direct links to specific authors has been alluded to for the

refinement of the genre, it is fair to argue that Wordsworth’s poetry and concentration

on the anxieties of his characters and the mirroring of his settings was very timely and

very Gothic in nature.

Works Cited

Baron, Michael. Language and Relationship in Wordsworth’s Writing. New York:

Longman, 1995.

Barton, Edwin J. and Hudson, Glenda A. A Contemporary Guide to Literary Terms.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.

Beckson, Karl and Ganz, Arthur. Literary Terms: A Dictionary 3rd

ed. Taipei:

Bookman, 2001.

Botting, Fred. Gothic. London: Routledge, 1996.

Hartman, Geoffrey. Wordsworth’s Poetry. New Haven: Yale U.P., 1971.

Mulbey-Roberts, Marie. The Handbook to Gothic Literature. Basingstoke:

Macmillan, 1998.

Thompson, Douglass. Gothic Literature: What the Romantic Writers Read. 20 June,

2003. <www.wwnorton.com/nto/romantic/topic_2/resources.htm.>

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. The Coherence of Gothic Conventions. New York: Mehuen,

1986.

Voller, Jack G. "Samuel Taylor Coleridge." The Literary Gothic. 11 Mar. 2004. 14

May 2004. <http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/stc.html>.

Wordsworth, William. The Lyrical Ballads. Ed. Michael Mason. New York: Longman,

1992.

---. The Collected Poems of William Wordsworth. Hertfordshire: Cumberland House,

1994.