This enables the editors to offer what they call a “Dynamic collation” of all the texts of a single poem with the differing version of different editions on the screen at the same time, so that students can trace in detail the changes that were made over the years. In their Introduction, Gamer and Porter describe having to choose “a base text … choosing not just one version of a poem over another, but also privileging one edition and one historical moment” as “an editorial no-win situation.” However, it also prompts them to provide what they claim is “A Dynamic Edition” that “will help readers to understand the textual revisions to individual poems, as well as providing insight into why Wordsworth radically reordered the contents of the first volume.” Nevertheless, anybody who wants even more dynamism, or perhaps has become addicted to volume change, may decide to stay glued to the computer screen, since in Bruce Graver and Ron Tetreault’s “electronic scholarly edition” the reader has access to all the editions of Lyrical Ballads from 1798 (both the Bristol and the London editions) to 1805, both as transcripts and as facsimiles. So perhaps Michael Gamer and Dahlia Porter’s edition would be a better initial purchase, since there the inquisitive reader will find a reprint of the 1798 single volume as well as both volumes of the 1800 edition – so three volumes for the price of one. He then proceeds to offer the reader the 1805 edition of Lyrical Ballads, leaving out everything that comes before apart from what he refers to in his commentary and footnotes, and is offered at the end of the volume. Michael Mason does not seem to have had a great opinion of the first edition of the poem, and even says that “All in all, 1798 deserves its celebrity only by a kind of courtesy” -a view with which one may wish to dissent vigorously (though naturally in a lyrical fashion), although Mason goes on to justify his dismissal by adding, reasonably, “One will not find anything significant in the first edition of LB which is not retained and perhaps improved in 1800 and later, augmented by Wordsworth’s remarkable prose and verse additions” (with which one would not want to disagree). If fecal-themed nicknames aren’t really your thing, here are 42 other Old English insults that you can fling with abandon.If anybody were to follow this purely personal advice he or she would be in a good state to follow it in the three versions of Lyrical Ballads under review. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it derives from the Old English word tord, meaning “piece of excrement,” and it’s been used as a personal insult ever since the 15th century. As Literary Hub points out, Lord Byron referred to Wordsworth as “Turdsworth.”īyron’s jab sounds like something you’d hear at an elementary-school kickball game, but, then again, the eccentric poet was never one to adhere to anybody’s expectations-during college, for example, he often walked his pet bear around the grounds.Īs for the word turd itself, it’s been around much longer than you might have realized. While Coleridge’s witty rhyme poked fun at Wordsworth in a playful way, not all of his contemporaries were quite so kind. In an essay for the London Review of Books, Michael Wood highlights the time that Samuel Taylor Coleridge sent his poem “The Nightingale” to Wordsworth, writing, “And like an honest bard, dear Wordsworth/You’ll tell me what you think, my Bird’s worth.” ![]() Some of it was the type of clever wordplay you might expect from England’s elite poets. ![]() The fitting, alliterative moniker makes it hard to forget that Wordsworth was a wordsmith, but it also made him an easy target for mockery at the hands of other Romantic era writers. For those of you who thought William Wordsworth was a not-so-subtle pseudonym meant to further the literary brand of a certain 19th-century poet, think again: William Wordsworth’s real name was actually William Wordsworth.
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