Wordsworth and the Worth of Words

In this book Hugh Sykes Davies - novelist, poet and distinguished literary critic - addresses Wordworth's major poetry. Language, and its interaction with genius, is his central concern; but questions about Freud, Coleridge and the Romantic Imagination are raised and answered in the course of his stimulating survey. It reconstructs the poet's relationship with Mary Hutchinson and his sister Dorothy, focusing on the Dove Cottage ménage during Wordsworth's most productive years. A remarkable combination of analytic and empathic intelligence, this book should earn a place among the few essential studies of the poet. Hugh Sykes Davies died in 1984, and this 1987 book was prepared for publication by John Kerrigan, a colleague at St John's College, Cambridge, and Jonathan Wordsworth, chairman of The Dove Cottage Trust, to which the author gave many years support as Trustee.