Possible readings

A list of possible readings could go on forever. I include such a list because, during the course of my researches, a number of scholars and critics have answered my requests for information on the subject of W's reading, some with extremely likely but thus far unproved titles. This list is appended to draw attention to some of those readings regarded by those in the field as likely, in the hope that evidence might one day be found for their inclusion in the above list. Each entry is followed by the name, in square brackets, of the person who suggested it. Where no attribution is given, the entry is mine.

[Roe] = suggested by Nicholas Roe

[Betz] = suggested by Paul F. Betz

[Chard] = suggested by Leslie F. Chard, II

[Clancey] = suggested by Richard Clancey

[Pittman] = suggested by Charles L. Pittman, ‘An Introduction to a Study of Wordsworth's

Reading in Science’, Furman Studies 33 (1950) 27-60

Aikin, John, especially poems

Suggested date of reading: 1787 onwards [Chard]

Aristotle, Poetics

Suggested date of reading: probably not before 1800

References: see note

Aristotle tells us that poetry ‘is a more philosophical and a higher thing than history’ (Poetics ix 3 [1451b 5-7]; Butcher 35). With this in mind W commented, in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads: ‘Aristotle, I have been told, has said, that Poetry is the most philosophic of all writing: it is so’ (Prose Works i 139).