Wandering In Literature A Mere Word

This book does not find its starting point in a theory but in the recognition that the word "Wanderer," and other forms based on the common root of the verbs to "wander" and "wandern," recur with conspicuous frequency in the writings of Goethe and English Romantic poets such as William Wordsworth and Lord Byron. A notable scholar, Professor L. A. Willoughby sought an explanation for this phenomnon in Carl G. Jung's theory of the unconscious but Willoughby's sole ambit of reference was what he termed "Goethe's poetry." This restriction could not allow the scope necessary for the study of the collective aspect of the mind's power and influence. This study poses the attempt to widen the survey of "wandering" to a comparison of texts found in a wide variety of authors including Milton, Shakespeare and William Blake.

Normally we consider only one context to establish the sense of a word to which a dictionary applies more than one definition. The reader of poetry can consider many more contexts, such as those supplied by his or her familiarity with other works by the same author and with literary tradition. The theoretical basis of this study resides in an analysis of Ferdinand de Saussure's distinction between "langue" and "parole" and approaches to textual criticism predicated on this distinction, which is most clearly evident in the theoretical studies of the Russian Formalists. On the firm basis of an understanding of the difference between poetry and nonliterary prose this study unravels the issues which surround the prominence of words derived from the verbs "wandern" and "to wander" in German nd English respectively in such celebrated poems as "Wandrers Nachtlied," "I wandered lonely as a cloud" and William Blake's "London.:

"Using a method based on New Historicism, but with added emphasis on literature as cultural commentary, Andrew Cusack's study traces the motif's intertextual connections, how it receives meaning from non-literary discourses, and how it transmits meaning into the social sphere by molding individual and collective self-conceptions. The study draws on a corpus of ten prose narratives that reflect the vast scope of the motif and show how its function changes. The study pays scrupulous attention to the historical specificity of each work and to its relationship to contemporary aesthetic and philosophical currents, revealing the wanderer motif to be a significant vehicle of cultural memory that sustained the ideas of the Enlightenment and of Romanticism into the latter part of the century."--BOOK JACKET.

"Wandering" in the sense indicated in the title of this book concerns the fact that within the ambit of German and English literature since the days of Shakespeare words based on the root of the verbs 'to wander' and 'wandern' appear with great frequency and prominence in such titles as "Wandrers Nachtlied" and "I wandered lonely as a cloud." Is it not strange then that very little interest has been taken in this phenomenon on the part of leading literary critics and scholars with one or two notable exceptions? One reason for this neglect might lie in intransient attitudes and dogmatic theories that deny the very relevance of high literature to all things external in common life, social conditions and the quest for truth.

The title picture of Percy Bysshe Shelley in combination with the words 'Wandering" and "defence" imply that "wandering" is another way of saying "poetry," an inference to be drawn from the words of great poets of Shelley's generation. In every age most probably poetry needs to be defended anew. In Shelley's day the threat sprang from a philosophical climate that saw virtue in lucid unambiguous prose alone. Today leading theorists deny any vital connection between words found in poetry and literary prose and what they ostensibly point to in the world around. As such critics cannot find anything in 'wandering' to support their arguments they tend to ignore it as far as possible but words such as 'wanderer' are so deeply entrenched in German and English poetry that "wandering" resolutely stays put.

The Symbolist Movement in Literature, first published in 1899, and with additional material in 1919, is a work by Arthur Symons largely credited with bringing French Symbolism to the attention of Anglo-American literary circles.