ALBERT S. COOK, EDITOR LVII WORDSWORTH'S THEORY OF A STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL AND PERSONAL BY MARJORIE LATTA BARSTOW INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH IN CONNECTICUT COLLEGE A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School ארויס NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MDCCCCXVII PREFACE The following study was undertaken as a doctoral dissertation under the direction of Professor Albert S. Cook of Yale University. To Professor Cook I am especially indebted, not only for stimulating guidance in the field of the English language in general, but for a most minute and painstaking criticism of the proof. To Professor Lane Cooper of Cornell University I owe a debt less easy of definition. Although he has not read the manuscript of this book, and is not responsible for particular statements herein, the inspiration and the direction that I received from him in my reading of Wordsworth as an undergraduate at Cornell has been the most vital element in my study of the poet; if there is anything good in this work of mine, it is ultimately derived from him. I also wish to make grateful acknowledgment to Professor Charlton M. Lewis for criticism received from him in his course on nineteenth-century poets in the Graduate School of Yale University. My indebtedness to books I have tried to indicate in the footnotes. But, like many other students of Wordsworth, I wish to record my especial appreciation of the Early Life of William Wordsworth by Professor Émile Legouis. Although, in many instances, I have been forced to disagree with the conclusions of M. Legouis, I feel that without the stimulating example of his beautiful work, this study would have been impossible. In acknowledging my special indebtedness to books, I wish to make grateful mention of the beautiful collection of Wordsworthiana in the possession of Mrs. Cynthia Morgan St. John of Ithaca, New York, which she generously placed at my disposal. |