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OverviewFrom its first publication, what is now known as the Immortality Ode has been praised for the magnificence of its verse and disparaged for its paucity of meaning - the 'immortality' of the subtitle unsubstantiated, and the 'recollections' insubstantial. Yet Wordsworth's idea of immortality has clear precedents in the seventeenth century, and recollections of childhood are Traherne's starting point for the recovery of a lost vision comparable to Wordsworth's. Via the power of the imagination, or reason, they believed they could experience a renewed vision that both termed variously Paradise, or infinity, or immortality. Graham Davidson traces the origins of Wordsworth's poetic impetus to his resistance to the Cartesian division between mind and nature, first adumbrated by the Cambridge Platonists. If reunited, Paradise was regained, but this personal trajectory was tempered by a deep sympathy for the woes of mortal life. Davidson explores the consequent dialogue through some of Wordsworth's best-known poems, at the heart of which is the Ode. In the last section, he demonstrates how Wordsworth's publishing history led the Victorians and modernists to misinterpret his work; if one considers Eliot's Four Quartets as odes, facing several of the same problems as did Wordsworth, there is some irony in Eliot's dismissal of the Immortality Ode as 'verbiage'. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Graham DavidsonPublisher: James Clarke & Co Ltd Imprint: Lutterworth Press ISBN: 9780718896447ISBN 10: 0718896440 Pages: 282 Publication Date: 28 September 2023 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In stock  We have confirmation that this item is in stock with the supplier. It will be ordered in for you and dispatched immediately. Table of ContentsAbbreviations Acknowledgements Preface Part I: Patterns 1 A Philosophical Framework: Understanding the Intelligible 2 Expostulation and Reply: The Tables Turned 3 Tintern Abbey: His First and Happiest Ode 4 Geometry, Poetry and the Sublime of Man Part II: Principles 5 Intimations 6 Recollections Part III: A Crisis: The Poems of 1802 7 Several Kinds of Poem 8 Heaven and Earth Part IV: Reading the Ode 9 Origins 10 Verse, Grammar and Imagery 11 Competing Forces 12 Stanzas I-IV: The Statement of Loss 13 Stanzas V-VIII: The Analysis of Loss 14 Stanzas IX-X: Recovery 15 Stanza XI: Resolution Part V: Looking Forward into History 16 Poems Published and Unpublished 17 What if? A Counterfactual Reading Bibliography IndexReviews"""Many attempts have been made to fit Wordsworth's thought to the various templates of Anglicanism, Methodism, Pantheism, or to the very different philosophies of Locke, Berkeley or Kant. But, bar that of Plato, he avowed no 'ism'. Davidson demonstrates that the framework of Wordsworth's thinking closely matches, and might be derived from, that of the very undogmatic Cambridge Platonists."" Douglas Hedley, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, University of Cambridge ""A thorough investigation of the merits of Wordsworth's Intimations Ode from which any reader will learn. Freshly conceived, meticulously worked through, probing, respectful, exciting: a book to send readers back to the poem enlivened."" James C.C. Mays, Emeritus Professor of Modern English and American poetry, University College Dublin ""The fruit of a lifetime's engagement with Wordsworth, this is a deeply pondered, questioning study, full of insight into the poet's endless struggle to shape his thoughts. Of particular interest is how Davidson tackles Wordsworth's enigmatic 'life of things' and its relationship to the thing itself. Uniquely, his study of Traherne illustrates how the progress of the Ode follows the pattern of Traherne's thought."" David Fairer, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Leeds ""In this strikingly original discussion of Wordsworth's major poems, free of theoretical obfuscation, Graham Davidson persuasively demonstrates that the poet's refusal to publish his work in chronological order, and The Prelude in his lifetime, resulted in the failure of the Victorians and the Modernists, especially Eliot, to understand fully what he had done."" Stephen Gill, Supernumerary Fellow, Lincoln College Oxford " Many attempts have been made to fit Wordsworth's thought to the various templates of Anglicanism, Methodism, Pantheism, or to the very different philosophies of Locke, Berkeley or Kant. But, bar that of Plato, he avowed no 'ism'. Davidson demonstrates that the framework of Wordsworth's thinking closely matches, and might be derived from, that of the very undogmatic Cambridge Platonists. Douglas Hedley, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion, University of Cambridge A thorough investigation of the merits of Wordsworth's Intimations Ode from which any reader will learn. Freshly conceived, meticulously worked through, probing, respectful, exciting: a book to send readers back to the poem enlivened. James C.C. Mays, Emeritus Professor of Modern English and American poetry, University College Dublin The fruit of a lifetime's engagement with Wordsworth, this is a deeply pondered, questioning study, full of insight into the poet's endless struggle to shape his thoughts. Of particular interest is how Davidson tackles Wordsworth's enigmatic 'life of things' and its relationship to the thing itself. Uniquely, his study of Traherne illustrates how the progress of the Ode follows the pattern of Traherne's thought. David Fairer, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Leeds In this strikingly original discussion of Wordsworth's major poems, free of theoretical obfuscation, Graham Davidson persuasively demonstrates that the poet's refusal to publish his work in chronological order, and The Prelude in his lifetime, resulted in the failure of the Victorians and the Modernists, especially Eliot, to understand fully what he had done. Stephen Gill, Supernumerary Fellow, Lincoln College Oxford Author InformationGraham Davidson was the editor of The Coleridge Bulletin for twenty-five years, to which he contributed regularly. He has also published in The Charles Lamb Bulletin, The Wordsworth Circle, Romanticism, and The Philological Quarterly. He has made contributions to Coleridge's Assertion of Religion, Coleridge in the West Country, The Bible in English Literature and Revisioning Cambridge Platonism. His first book, Coleridge's Career, was published in 1990. 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