Lyric Over‐Hearing: Wordsworth’s Intent to Steal

A slumber did my spirit seal, I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, force; neither hears nor sees; Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course, With rocks, and stones, trees!1 ‘A steal, /I fears.’ Given Wordsworth’s celebrated lyric is suspended its entirety above this essay, there decent chance you, reader, will have noticed the typographical error opening quotation: steal. Then again, perhaps not. Exactly typo, or misquotation, mishearing, misremembering, proven to be surprisingly pervasive one, poem been accidentally made into one about stealing by readers both relatively unfamiliar with Wordsworth those very familiar indeed. Speaking only who teach Romanticism, likely leave off at anecdote – certain as it anyone experience teaching heard mislabeled, else misquoted themselves. But evidence beyond anecdotal within easy reach. Bedraggled pre-university students poetry looking for help, hindrance, engaging English canon might turn website Enotes, where they find an analysis begins steal.’2 That same formulation on contents page volume two Ernest de Sélincourt’s Poetical Works appears current digital format Oxford University Press (the print original ‘seal’), it’s Richard Holmes’s majestic retelling Coleridge’s relationship Coleridge: Early Visions.3 E. M. Forster repeated when making point ‘it does matter wrote “A steal”’, survived across four editions Companion Literature from 1932 1967.4 When 1935 Washington Post published poem, verses ‘Out Past,’ newspaper contributed future confusion writing ‘steal’ place ‘seal’ headlined title first line (Fig. 1).5 It’s hard speak certainty was mistitled, but appear product rise professional literary criticism more than editing. major nineteenth-century don’t mistake, entry ‘How Read Wordsworth’ periodical Queries 1888, well Nature Elements Poetry 1892 Manual 1894, amongst good deal other late Victorian examples.6 Thus proliferation steal’ rose discipline studies, 1913 entirely possible Egerton Smith write chapter types rhyme began quoting full, crucial word ‘steal.’7 Part recent strain doubt stemmed fact joint known ‘Christabel Notebook’, which contained now missing manuscript slumber’, until November 2020 catalogued online having once held steal’.8 are peer-reviewed scholarly articles quote ‘steal’, either passing or, occasionally, during sustained commentaries sequence lyrics ‘Lucy’ poems.9 Perhaps most high-profile these ‘Destroying Literary Studies’, well-known polemic René Wellek.10 Some particular display deceptive character title. Even he explains source Thomas Hardy’s ‘ere their senses seal’, Tim Armstrong refers steal’.11 And Claire Colebrook’s restatement hypothetical ‘“text” seems magically appeared reference any intent’, thought experiment originally posed Steven Knapp Walter Benn Michaels, actually reads little differently due mistitling: ‘picture walking along beach finding Slumber Did My Spirit Steal” inscribed sand; then imagine, implausibly still, wave washes away lines reveal next poem’.12 Several modern academic monographs spelling Wordsworth, yet refer indexes.13 As recently February 2020, David García review James Robert Woods’s Anecdotes Enlightenment.14 errors, mishearings, unchecked expectations go whichever may stolen itself minds many remained alternative canon. Wherefore insistence misidentification? There’s grammar line, starters. remarkably unclear how wants us handle initial inversion seal meaning we equally read being sealed spirit, slumber. sense Germanic influence syntax here, Goslar, struggled come terms German language himself. Regardless, through entirety, scarcely better position say what version mean. ‘Stealing slumber’ makes kind intuitive sense: action catching forty winks, nap, consonant dreamscapes associated Romantic lyricism. D. Walhout, article poem’s exhaustively catalogues rich poetic tradition eighteenth-century slumbers (‘Till seal’d his weeping eyes’), noting steps outside pair eyes, becomes sealed.15 funny Walhout’s method, enumerating precedents, can also employed make case mind, sealing. Consider: ‘Or if steal upon Eyes’ (Dryden), ‘And pleasing eyes’ (Pope), softer her cares rest’ (Darwin), ‘That steals Slumbers weary (Leapor), ‘Lest moment o’er thy Soul’ (Young), countless examples.16 Not clear pairing sealing cliché notable verb, such formulations, used mean ‘to move stealth’ take away’. Yet surprising himself already similar prior Lyrical Ballads, ‘Written Very Youth’: ‘Dark ground; steal/O’er vale, mountain, starless sky’ (5–6). Here clearly able moving stealthily landscape sky. parallel suggests ears, too, trip begs question much later supposed echo former. Paul H. Fry, ranks critics taken note readerly tendency lip over ‘seal’, offers insight verbal slippage critical reading: ‘Misreading elegy. misread Seal” Steal”, our misreading predicts mourns death Lucy quickly does’.17 We short, because expect away. Peter Bolla goes further ‘pressure pulsion’ ‘t’ ‘spirit’ ‘seems infect, colonize, appropriate follows, “seal”’.18 In De Bolla’s analysis, there’s ghostly trace power produce characterises ‘phantom’ haunted so readings poem. result loss before described: is’, writes, ‘as something gets started’ (57). second stanza resides predominantly euphemistic displacement “grave” image gravitation (“Rolled course”). though agreement tone stanza, subvocal uttered without written out. It rhymes “fears” “years” “hears,” closed last syllable poem: “trees.” “tears” animating, cosmic metaphor comes alive, poet’s lament echoes nature pastoral “Tears,” however, must give way written, dull definitive sound, anagram “trees.”19 Jonathan Culler, response Eco’s lecture, sanguine assessment Hartman: Hartman’s whilst fully illuminating hand, gives example basic tenet, ‘literary sensibility sensitivity’.23 sensitive, is, possibilities interpretive reading, rules anagram. essay after all, reflective exercise concerned limits own way; title, ‘The Interpreter’s Freud’, foregrounds precisely truths generated pre-established theoretical apparatus contact text, questions intentionality. doubtless largely, ‘fully’, convinced hearing ‘tears’ ‘trees’, given context seal’. misspelt anagram, we’ll permit thing, indeed pick up force rhyming back ‘fears’ ‘years’, are, like sat b-rhyme positions. What’s more, ‘fears’, all contain ears. So too ‘hears’, deny dead female living senses, ears albeit subtle ones, cognates ‘earth’s’ ‘earthly’. ‘Earthly years,’ fact, produces effect Garrett Stewart calls ‘transegmental drift’ between sounds, spellings, words; we’re encouraged hear even barely registers conscious level phrase ‘earthly ears’.24 going on, then: listening listen in? Or profusion do interpret ordinary arbitrary use act set signals, Blake wove acrostic ‘HEAR’ London ending hearse?25 certainly inviting think prompts us, readers, closely, pay attention see: Hartman heard, Edwardian prosodist Saintsbury advocated, ‘eye-and-ear’ alike once.26 light methodology, front become sympathetic notions anagrams shuffling sounds arresting reconfiguration letters. John Stuart Mill’s distinction rhetoric poetics known: ‘eloquence overheard’.27 Current theorists argued Mill anticipated twentieth- twenty-first-century common wisdom poems, especially governed logic dramatic monologue, special instance lyric.28 Lyrics, argument runs, miniature speech-acts narrative events, ones (and, practice, frequently do) begin understand asking ‘who speaking?’; idiom, overhearing?’ Regardless lyric’s non-narrative status, poetry. One definition ‘overhearing’, directly concerns old bugbear, intentionality: overhear, ‘contrary intention knowledge speaker’.29 suggests, ‘over-hearing’ carry different weight, much. expanded definitions ‘overhearing’ concern Lisa Lai-ming Wong seminal Promise (Over)Heard Lyric’, puts pressure subjunctive mood thinking experienced once, again times, even.30 This reading investigations ‘sounds’ silent texts. Marjorie Perloff Craig Douglas Dworkin renewed interest poetry’s 2009 edited collection aimed relegate sound work sidelines mainstream encounters.31 Angela Leighton’s Hearing Things reconsiders literature event hearing, letters words nevertheless sounded central part textual meaning.32 Elizabeth Helsinger similarly interested ‘peculiar music’ verse demands ‘that ourselves touch, sight poem’.33 Reading tradition, arise weren’t meant and, process attuning texts, background mutterings Wimsatt Beardsley, warning against renewing fallacy authorial intention. Hearing, yes; whose terms? seal’ Laura Mandell turns ‘Wordsworth’s reader seeing visual acoustic images exploiting visuality printed letter’.34 Accepting truth assertion, follows investigation possibility misheard, interpretation sometimes over-hearing To address whether ‘stealing’, compounds elegy preempts should credited author, I’m taking sidelong approach it, via works period Wordsworth. Hugh Sykes Davies, sees autonomous relation lyrics, views quintessentially Wordsworthian traceable poems 1790s broadly.35 extent keeping eye intention, fitting treatment received abundance intent interpretation. ‘arguably explicated language’,36 support argument; exhibit ‘A’ would Brian G. Caraher’s monograph ‘Slumber’ Problematics Reading, lengthy study legacy eight-line poem.37 Two classic accounts, Cleanth Brooks F. W. Bateson, illustrate complexity contradict another. Baker Jr. succinctly ‘Bateson maintained speaker rises state exultation contemplation “Lucy’s” pantheistic communion nature, whereas conjectured finds “agonized shock” contemplates “her utter horrible inertness”’.38 Hirsch responding contradiction took claims ‘objective interpretation’, versus Eco call over-interpretation.39 ultimately came down Bateson’s side, Wordsworth-as-pantheist view, placed emphasis ‘plausibility’: elsewhere, claimed, Bateson described. Thus, probability offered form reading. keen show deference J. Hills-Miller infamously characterised ‘touch years’ ‘a sexual appropriation leaves possessed still virgin dies young’, takes great liberties text throughout reading; claim name light, lucid larger logos, spite doesn’t all.40 originators fable quoted above, concerning intentionless washed sea, aim poststructuralist Miller’s, see wanting split apart ‘in inseparable’ partners ‘authorial texts’ (p. 12). Michaels’ Virginia Jackson looks formulating proved influential ‘lyricization’ vast range single, singularly modern, lens ‘lyric’; Jackson, implicit account Michaels assumption just maybe recognise Wordsworth.41 Where arrive, then, caught double-bind: case-study intentionality status (short) lyric, treated raises intent. Take, holy earth! soul holds dear: Take best gift Heaven lately gave.44 And, stroke, Boat Went heaving water, Swan; behind craggy Steep, till bound horizon, huge Cliff, voluntary instinct, Uprear’d head: struck, struck growing stature, Cliff Rose me stars, measur’d motion, Strode me. trembling hands turn’d, water stole Back Cavern Willow tree. Love, universal birth, From heart stealing, earth man, man earth, –It hour feeling. Listening, gentle shock mild surprize Has carried far voice Of mountain torrents, visible scene Would enter unawares mind solemn imagery, Its woods, uncertain Heaven, receiv’d Into bosom steady Lake. Boy Mates, died childhood, ere full ten years old. —Fair beauteous spot, Vale born: Church-yard hangs Upon Slope Village School, there, bank, pass’d At evening, believe oftentimes half-hour together stood Mute—looking Grave lies. left heath, calm quiet scene, memory never be.–– What ‘Three Years Grew’, bring towards experience: adult, knows (unlike child ‘We Are Seven’) gains deeper connected natural world: cycles life, heaths inheritance, rocks stones trees eventually roll. life ‘stealing away’ across’ boat-stealing episode, back’ outright theft. There return: mystery immaterial beings ground arose. experiences scholarship, ordinarily acts stealing. Pastoral elegy, streams called mourn person, complaint lover, extravagant genre chastely fashioned inscription. muted presence reminds means poet. childhood autobiographical Prelude tells aware ‘unknown modes being’ strange sympathies emanating nature. He animistic universe stimulated, shared, imagination.48 writes: “Words, Poet’s particularly, ought weighed balance feeling, measured space occupy paper.” Imbued passion, weighty actors right: “things, active efficient, themselves passion.” Weighed level.50 agree death, uses words, anything them. Rather, describe someone untouched merely appearance seemingness followed present-tense person unmoving non-perceiving. Jacobus notes, movement stanzas switch ‘then’ ‘now’ marks out Man important hardly all; ‘cannot feel’ cannot see. years, thanks mid-sentence break, proleptic non-feeling totalizing sense. couldn’t feel, ‘with’ thus, often assume, ‘like’ trees. staged series losses, lose purchase look consolatory gifts death. Primed poet, naively want posit final consolation nature: deeply forms. Subscribing we’d company: ‘Lucy alive dead’, writes Bateson.52 were case, connection here depends literal, figurative, thus subject hand’s inability appreciate whatsoever. Lucy. Burns Neveldine footnote ‘Nutting’, remains asked cost great, since considers herself’ (and context, turn, steal’).53 says nothing list bald assertions, intrinsic another: motion; see; world continues turning. true that, regard events rolls why assume togetherness predicated dead, ‘like’? surely, rolled course anyway, dead. changed dismissal early abstractions, favour fixed tangible material forms latter lines. lack real change consolation. sole redemption instead modicum knowledge, glimpsed last. speaker’s unsealed. Another release, catharsis. daydreams immortality, ‘the things are’ awful materiality being, welcome gift. If enough assured declaratives highly ambiguous fears spirit. Both defined false grow die’.54 Redemption eradication falsehood, realization mortality, actual girl. However, isn’t trying message hands, declare ‘true’ reader’s benefit. put forward Leighton,55 thinking: performing complex grieving equivocates allure compensation heavy feelings revoke recompense. insensible also, finally, young woman reclaimed it: existing, step rest universe, itself. Something sort impulse scores produced ‘seal,’ affecting least initially Clearly, realm ‘scientific’ empirical models linguistic rhythmical impediment appreciation proof led astray. view mode subjectivity self-reflexiveness, solitary “I” overheard meditation’.56 We’re back, overhearing, destined retain some residual syrupy subjectivity. Stewart, channeling, attuned ‘ambiguity’ sibilance remarks Pope’s ‘thence your maxims bring’ hit ear spring.’57 stave reduplication ‘s,’ multiply spirit’s ‘t’; perceived threat slip, realizing slip be, alight sturdier semantic unit points out, simple short journey contaminate, co-animate, line’s ending. worth appreciating misidentifications overly poetry, titles foremost poets persists. infused sonic play chain sibilance, near-bookending Ls (slumb/seal), echoing Is (did, spirit), bamboozle first. ‘steal,’ impels so. You, judge valid interpretation, invalid over-interpretation. always third option, though: surrender notion misheard. Abrams thinks consideration steal,’ notes Hillis Miller’s ‘allegorical’ deconstructive really ‘over-reading’.58 faulty Abrams’ over-reading indeed, defends strong useful Instead, transgression: ‘over-read enlarge complicate significance text-as-construed richer integrity’; Miller over-reads solely ‘undermine’.59 Either way, sauntering intentionality; but, New Criticism demise largely sit interpret. K. found necessary sp