Wordsworth's Gardens and Flowers: The Spirit of Paradise

by Peter Dale, Brandon C. Yen

Overview

• The first book to explore both Wordsworth's gardens and the poet's literary use of flowers • Includes rare botanical prints reproduced for the first time in several decades • Focuses on Wordsworth's gardens in the English Lake District and Leicestershire • Draws extensively on hitherto unpublished manuscripts and artworks • Reproduces illustrations from early editions of WordsworthA book that debunks the popular myth that William Wordsworth was, first and foremost, a poet of daffodils, Wordsworth's Gardens and Flowers: The Spirit of Paradise provides a vivid account of Wordsworth as a gardening poet who not only wrote about gardens and flowers but also designed - and physically worked in - his gardens.

Wordsworth's Gardens and Flowers: The Spirit of Paradise is a book of two halves. The first section focuses on the gardens that Wordsworth made at Grasmere and Rydal in the English Lake District, and also in Leicestershire, at Coleorton. The gardens are explored via his poetry and prose and the journals of his sister, Dorothy Wordsworth. In the second half of the book, the reader learns more of Wordsworth's use of flowers in his poetry, exploring the vital importance of British flowers and other 'unassuming things' to his work, as well as their wider cultural, religious and political meaning.

Throughout, the engaging, accessible text is woven around illustrations that bring Wordsworth's gardens and flowers to life, including rare botanical prints, many reproduced here for the first time in several decades.

Contents:
Part One: The Gardens and their Maker
Part Two: Flowers and the Poetry
A Note on the Botanical Plates
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781851498956
Publisher:	Acc Art Books
Publication date:	06/22/2018
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	7.10(w) x 10.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Peter Dale took his degree at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He is a poet, musician, antiquarian bookbinder and gardener who has contributed numerous articles to Hortus, the prestigious British horticultural journal. He is the author of a forthcoming book about the Irish garden and its spirit. Peter has lectured widely on music and literature, for the WEA and the Wordsworth Conference Foundation, amongst other institutions. Brandon C. Yen received his doctorate at Queens' College, Cambridge and is now a research fellow at University College Cork, where he works on Wordsworth's connections with Ireland. He is the author of a book-length study of Wordsworth's long poem, The Excursion (Liverpool University Press, 2018). In 2017, Brandon curated an exhibition on 'Wordsworth's Flowers' for the Wordsworth Museum in Grasmere.

Table of Contents

Preamble 7

Part 1 The Gardens and Their Maker 13

Racedown - Early Digging 19

Home at Grasmere: The Garden at Dove Cottage 25

Fingerprints, Green or Inky 40

Weeding out the Difficulties 46

Denominations, but not Factions 48

The Winter Garden for Sir George and Lady Beaumont 61

Wordsworth as Landscape Theorist 70

Ideas on the Ground: The Garden at Coleorton 73

Coleorton in Retrospect 94

Rydal Mount … Idle Mount 104

Part 2 The Flowers and the Poetry 122

The Daisy and 'Unassuming Things' 122

Rose 136

Bluebell and Harebell 144

Harebells and Dorothy Wordsworth 154

Rude and Mean Things 155

Wild Flowers and Ruins 162

Ruins, Weeds and Florists' Flowers 171

'Relics of Eden-Land' 183

Botany 189

'Of a Poetic Kind' 194

'An Excellent Botanist' 202

'William's Favourite' 206

Celandines Pressed and Sculpted 214

Primroses and Glow-Worms 219

Abbreviations 224

Endnotes 224

A Note on the Botanical Plates 227

Acknowledgements 229

Index 230

Editorial Reviews

…as the authors of this wonderfully illuminating book reveal again and again, Wordsworth’s feeling for plants is inseparable from the principles and practices of his entire life and work….[this book] is so attractive in its design, so generous in its illustrations and page layout that a quick glance might suggest a coffee-table book. Far from being a superficial guide to visiting gardens with literary flavouring or a survey of the poetry of flowers, however, this is a very carefully conceived, researched and considered book.

Times Literary Supplement - Fiona Stafford