Wordsworth and the Cultivation of Women

Judith Page offers a more nuanced feminist account of Wordsworth's values, using family letters, journals, and unpublished material to present him as a poet who endorsed domesticity and familial life.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 216 pages
Publication date: 29 April 2022
Publisher: University of California Press

Feminist critics have often viewed Wordsworth as an exploiter of women and feminine perspectives, particularly in his poems from the Great Decade. In this groundbreaking and thought-provoking book, Judith Page delves into Wordsworth's extensive career to present a more nuanced and feminist interpretation of the poet's values. She explores Wordsworth's relationship with women from the perspectives of both the women themselves and the cultural context of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England. Through extensive use of family letters, journals, and other documents, as well as unpublished material by Wordsworth's daughter Dora Wordsworth, Page presents Wordsworth as a poet who is not defined solely by egotistical sublimity but by his complex and conflicted endorsement of domesticity and familial life.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which celebrates the University of California Press's commitment to seeking out and nurturing the brightest minds and giving them a voice, reach, and impact. Voices Revived leverages a backlist dating back to 1893, utilizing print-on-demand technology to make high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again. Originally published in 1994, this title remains a valuable contribution to the study of Wordsworth and feminist criticism.

Weight: 318g
Dimension: 234 x 156 x 13 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520306257