Wordsworth's Poetic Collections, Supplementary Writing and Parodic Reception by Bates Brian R

Author:Bates, Brian R. [Brian R. Bates]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317322269
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Reputing Wordsworth: ‘Here lie the remains of W. W.’

Two weeks before Wordsworth published his 'Peter Bell', Reynolds published his parody to pre-empt and shape the public's response to yet another Wordsworth publication.5 Reynolds's satirical attack mimics Wordsworth's paratextual practices and mocks the seeming continuity of his poetic career, which Wordsworth based heavily on the relationship between his past and future poetic productions – a method with which Coleridge, Wordsworth's former Lyrical Ballads collaborator, was well-acquainted.6 In a letter to Reynolds's publishers Taylor and Hessey, which refers to the parodist's 'Peter Bell', Coleridge admits, 'I laughed heartily at all the prose, notes included'. Coleridge seems delighted by Reynolds's paratextual apparatus,7 including his mock preface, supplementary essay and footnotes to the poem, which poke fun at Wordsworth's poetic system, egotism and seemingly extravagant valuation of his profession. Reynolds's supplementary writings, particularly his footnotes, ridicule Wordsworth's prose notes, which point out the significance of repeated words and continuities between his poems. Fittingly, Reynolds begins his concluding supplementary essay by burlesquing Wordsworth's prose:

I BEG leave, once for all, to refer the Reader to my previous Poems, for illustrations of the names of the characters and the severe simplicity contained in this affecting Ballad. I purpose, in the course of a few years, to write laborious lives of all the old people who enjoy sinecures in the text, or are pensioned off in the notes, of my Poetry.8

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