Wordsworth Response

As a general rule, when we think of the production of a piece of writing, we expect authorial intent to reign supreme. Should the roles of the publisher, editor, and printer/distributer act solely as catalysts for the writer’s intentions? How does one truly know what a writer intends, particularly if he or she has not left specific instructions on how to carry out a particular wish?

The first major difference I noticed between the versions of Wordsworth’s “I wandered lonely as a cloud” was the way in which the role of the editor seemed to increase along with the publication year. Evidence of this can be found immediately, almost glaringly on the title pages—particularly in how the editor’s name is displayed in conjunction with Wordsworth’s. In the 1965 edition edited by Stillinger, Wordsworth’s name appears in all-caps, text larger than Stillinger’s, which is in italics near the bottom of the page. Alternatively, in the 1983 edition edited by Curtis, not only does Curtis’s name appear to be in larger text than Wordsworth’s, it is also in all caps, while Wordsworth’s is not. Such a development affirms the increasing prominence of the editor, which is mirrored by Curtis’s sizeable involvement in the poem via footnotes.

As opposed to the freestanding versions of the poem (the original manuscript + 1807 edition), the information contained in Curtis’s footnotes—not to mention that which accompanies the poem online through the Wordsworth Trust and British Library—inevitably shapes the way we read it. Did Wordsworth intend for his audience to know that he was inspired to write the poem by his sister Dorothy’s account of the experience? Academically, I appreciated the extra information I garnered from Curtis’s footnotes and the listed websites. Aesthetically, I preferred the 1807 edition due to its lack of surrounding textual clutter.