Wordsworth and Helen Maria Williams; or, the Perils of Sensibility

about

A study of Wordsworth, Helen Maria Williams and Sensibility, and the effect of this literary liaison on his contemporary reputation.

Contents

Why did Wordsworth write his first published poem to Helen Maria Williams? What role did she play in forming his views of poetry, and of the French Revolution? Why was Wordsworth able to recite in 1820 a poem by Miss Williams that he first read in 1790? Was his own poetical sensibility comparable with that of the older woman? Did the reception of Wordsworth's *Poems, in Two Volumes* by Francis Jeffrey and others - as' puerile',' namby-pamby',' lisping' and' affected' - reflect a belief that manly sense and feminine sensibility, are not compatible? If so, why did Wordsworth run that risk? This little book attempts to suggest answers to some of those questions, and to provoke more systematic considerations of them all.

author

Richard Gravil was Secretary of the Wordsworth Conference Foundation and Director of the Summer Conference 2007-2010, and of the Wordsworth Winter School. He wrote Romantic Dialogues: Anglo-American Continuities, 1776-1862 (2000), of Wordsworth's Bardic Vocation, 1787-1842 (2003), and of Wordsworth and Helen Maria Williams; or, the Perils of Sensibility (2010). He edited or co-edited nine books, including collections of essays on Coleridge, Swift, Wordsworth, Anglo-American Poetry and Nineteenth Century Fiction.