* Looks at the impact of grief on Wordswortha s great poetry. * Explains the importance of the poeta s great, unfinished epic a The Reclusea to his work as a whole. * Includes 20 illustrations from original notebooks. * Contains the first annotated text of a The White Doe of Rylstonea . .

List of Illustrations vii Preface viii Acknowledgments xii A Note on Texts xiv Abbreviations xv 1 ‘Perhaps my pains might be beguil’d 1 2 ‘In black Helvellyn’s inmost womb’ 20 3 ‘Charg’d by magic’ 43 4 ‘The world is poisoned at the heart’ 69 5 ‘Their life is hidden with God’ 88 6 ‘The vital spirit of a perfect form’ 118 Part I: October 1798-April 1799 118 Between Parts I and II: April-May 1799 134 Part II: May-December 1799 146 7 ‘Serious musing and self-reproach’ 167 8 ‘I yearn towards some philosophic song’ 189 9 ‘That vast Abiding-place’ 210 10 ‘I only look’d for pain and grief’ 231 11 ‘Forbearance & self-sacrifice’ 257 12 ‘O teach me calm submission to thy will’ 275 Epilogue 303 Appendix: The White Doe of Rylstone (1808 Text) and it’s ‘Advertizement’ 316 Bibliography 347 Index 361

From his work editing Wordsworth's Juvenile Poetry (1785-1790), Duncan Wu came to understand that much of the content of the poet's later great work drew on early childhood experiences, particularly delayed mourning arising from his parents' deaths. This original study is the first fully to investigate the impact of this formative experience on Wordsworth's poetry and to integrate it into a critical account of how his art developed from 1787 to 1813. In doing so it seeks to explain the importance of Wordsworth's great epic, The Recluse, to his work as a whole, and looks at how some of it got written and why it was left unfinished at his death. The book includes 20 illustrations from original notebooks retained by the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere, and, among its numerous discoveries, presents the first annotated reading text of The White Doe of Rylstone (1808) with its important 'Advertizement'. Written in an accessible manner, this revealing study will be of great interest to students and researchers of Wordsworth's poetry.