Undoing the Influence of Wordsworth on Robert Frost

Abstract

The following discussion had a particular origin in a paper read at a conference by Thomas Cleary — a paper on the idea of influence, especially of Wordsworth on Frost, in a particular sonnet. It was a deliberately old-fashioned undertaking in that Cleary seemed to want to show that the classic practice of literary criticism was not yet dead, despite the threats of the new theory. He did this in the midst of a session devoted to the new theory, and he got a very warm response, largely because his essay is such a dramatically successful piece of analysis and rhetoric. Indeed, such was the impression it made on me that after the session I approached Cleary and asked him to let me publish the essay in an issue of the Dalhousie Review (it appeared in vol. 63, no. 4, pp. 566–72). I think my response totally justified, although even at the time I thought that I was being seduced by some sense of beauty that I found in the essay rather than persuaded that the argument was absolutely foolproof. Not that I thought it possible simply to refute Cleary and show that he was wrong. I did think, however, that as an editor putting out one version of established opinion I had given myself something of a responsibility to pursue the issue on academic grounds.