WARTON LECTURE ON ENGLISH POETRY

Wordsworth and the Druids

Dr Matthew Campbell, University of Sheffield

Tuesday 20 May 2008

Wordsworth said he had nothing more than a 'Siesta among the Pillars of Stonehenge', after his solitary journey across Salisbury Plain in July 1793. Yet the events of that day and night reappeared as a vision of the ancient Britons and their druids in poetry that was to be written and rewritten over the next fifty years of his career. This lecture looks again at this poetry, and at Wordsworth's vision of sites of execution, ancient remains and the violent origins of Britain. His druidic fancy mixes primitivism with Celticism, and he creates a factitious version of a past which tells the story of the atavistic foundations of the modern nation.

Dr Matthew Campbell has taught Nineteenth-Century, Twentieth Century and Contemporary English and Irish Literature. His publications cover three main areas: Victorian literature, Irish Poetry in English from the nineteenth century and modern Irish Poetry. His publications include Rhythm and Will in Victorian Poetry (Cambridge University Press).

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