wordsworth sucks

have to put this up here. this last paper is on felicia hemans. you probably won't have heard of her. she was quite a major poet at the time though. but anyway...this was between her and wordworth...it was lifted from notes for my paper so really choppy.

In the same headnote Wordsworth writes, ‘ “Her education has been so unfortunate” as to leave her “totally ignorant for housewifery,” as his headnote puts it: this “spoilt child of the world…could as easily have managed the spear of Minerva as her needle.” His droll distress about Heman’s refusal of “her” needle, the usual instrument of women’s “work,” may seem to contain as a comedy at her expense his unease with her intellectual power, projected as a spear-bearing deity of wisdom. But even the warrior Minerva had a domestic role as the proud Olympian weaver for the gods” ’ (Wolfson 1994: 138).

‘ “It was from observing these deficiencies,” the headnote continues, “that, one day while she was under my roof, I purposefully directed her attention to household economy, and told her I had purchased Scales, which I intended to present to a young lady as a wedding present; pointed out their utility (for her especial benefit)…Mrs. Hemans, not in the least suspecting my drift, reported this…to a friend…as a proof of my simplicity” (Wolfson 1994: 138).

‘Heman’s own report of this scene is amusingly tuned to the ideological contest: the palpable simplicity of Wordsworth’s design to point a wayward poetess into a proper female sphere of attention and her deftly polite resistance to his obvious “drift” by recourse to a wittily blinkered aestheticizing of his object of instruction: Imagine,…a bridal present made by Mr. Wordsworth, to a young lady in whom he is much interested – a poet’s daughter, too! You will be thinking of a brooch in the shape of a lyre, or a butterfly-shaped aigrette, or a forget-me-not ring, or some such “small gear” – nothing of the sort, but a good, handsome, substantial, useful-looking pair of scales, to hang up in her storeroom! “For you must be aware, my dear Mrs. Hemans,” said he to me gravely, “how necessary it is occasionally for every lady to see things weighed herself.” “Poveretta me!” I looked as good as I could, and, happily for me, the poetic eyes are not very clear-sighted, so that I believe no suspicion derogatory to my notability of character, has yet flashed upon the mighty master’s mind: indeed I told him that I looked upon scales as particularly graceful things, and had great thought of having my picture taken with a pair in my hand’ (Wolfson 1994: 138).

so sick of wordsworth. he was such a pompous old fool. wrote some great stuff when he got started but towards the end when he really got full of himself it was just dribble. anyway...back to my paper.