H'm : you know Wordsworth's friend Southey in his pre-tory youth was
notorious for refusing to wear a powdered wig at table at Oxford, while too
it was the Dawn of the Age of Trousers as well as Steam. The move was away
from aristocratic style: the Regency was a bridge between eighteenth century
high style and the coming age of Victorian respectability. But 'natural
speech' always begs the question 'whose' as well as the consideration that
as far as poetry is concerned 'natural speech' is A Rhetorical Device every
bit as 'artificial' as weaves of end-rhyme or syllabics or what you will.
best
dave
On 8 September 2011 19:56, Bob Grumman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Good thinking on Wordsworth, Dave. I don't think we're too far apart on
> him. Cowper, yes! I knew it was a poet whose name started with a C whom I
> hadn't read much of but had read enough of to agree with those considering
> him an important forebear of WW, but grabbed Crabbe, instead. (As I typed
> the "WW," I remembered Williams--interesting that the second one to go in
> the most major way (I think) toward "natural speech" was another WW.)
>
> I've been switching computers around after getting one with more storage
> space I've needed for three or four years, so haven't done anything with my
> text yet. May not for a while. The computers are wearing me out.
>
> all best, Bob
>
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
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