Wordsworth and the Victorians

Wordsworth, Presidential Address

to the Lake District and who, from the first flush of revolutionary fervour came to a dignified old age in Rydal, Westmorland as Queen Victoria's Poet Laureate, a Tory supporter, opponent of reform and adherent to the established church. There are several reasons for choosing this subject. I have heard some twenty Presidential Addresses to this Society, from Mr. Robert Cooke's 'Ship-Shape and B...

Reading Wordsworth with Hegel and Deleuze

In his article "Reading Wordsworth with Hegel and Deleuze" Douglas Berman reexamines Wordsworth poem The Ruined Cottage (1798) in terms of the importance of the Pedlar who serves as the witness and singular moral authority in the text. Berman focuses on the inherent tension between impermanence as exemplified by the trope of wandering and the redemptive vision which shapes the ending of the sec...

Introduction to The Great Gatsby (Wordsworth Editions)

How the Mid-Victorians Worked, Ate and Died†

Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours. Their levels of physical activity and hence calorific intakes were approximately twice ours. They had relatively little access to alcohol and tobacco; and due to their correspondingly high intake of fruits, who...

"The child is father of the man" (William Wordsworth, 1802).

The occurrence of atherosclerosis at an early age has long been the subject of curiosity and wonder. Isn't it remarkable that 65 of 140 combat soldiers who died as a result of injuries sustained in World War I had increased coronary atherosclerotic plaques at a mean age of 27.7 years (1)? How interesting is it that grossly visible lesions not causing obstruction were present in 35% of 300 Korea...