Ceaseless Music Sounding Wordsworth’s The Prelude

by Matthews, Steven; Picciotto, Joanna; Schad, John; Craik, Katharine; Loofbourow, Liliana; Palfrey, Simon

• ISBN13: 9781474232777
• ISBN10: 1474232779
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2017-06-01
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Through a series of critical reflections and poetic responses, Ceaseless Music explores the historical and contemporary influence of Wordsworth's landmark autobiographical poem The Prelude in literature, philosophy and life writing and the insights it can offer into the writing of poetry today.

Beginning with an exploration of the poem's genesis – from draft versions found in Wordsworth's notebooks, to the alternative published versions – the book goes on to explore the poem's impact on 19th century biographical writing, on American literature and philosophy and on contemporary prose writing. In the final chapter, Steven Matthews reflects on what the study of Wordsworth's writing and influence can teach us about writing poetry in the 21st century.

Author Biography

Steven Matthews is a poet and critic who was raised in Colchester, Essex, and now lives in Oxford. His poetry collection Skying published in 2012 and he has been a regular reviewer for journals including the TLS, Poetry Review, and London Magazine. He has been Poetry Editor for Dublin Quarterly Magazine. As a critic, Steven Matthews has published books on a wide range of twentieth- and twenty-first century poetry in English, including writing on Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Les Murray, and contemporary Irish poetry.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: Theme
Part II: Variation I
Part III: Variation II
Part IV: Variation III
Part V: Variation IV
Bibliography
Index