'Gems of a soft and permanent lustre': The Reception and Influence of the Lyrical Ballads in America

The bicentenary of the Lyrical Ballads will witness new approaches to the poems as well as the poets themselves. Stephen Gill's Wordsworth and the Victorians will widen the vistas of scholarship which has previously focused on aspects of publication and reception during the poet's lifetime. This year will also bring about an unprecedented publishing endeavour. Bruce Graver and Ron Tetreault's electronic edition of the Lyrical Ballads will contain the first ever reproduction of the 1802 Philadelphia Ballads . As this illustrates, the bicentennial will provide the perfect opportunity to bring the publication, reception and influence of the work in America to the attention of the scholarly community. The Ballads appeared in America in the wake of its Revolution, when minds were ripe for new philosophies both poetical and political. Although these early Americans had severed their ties to England's government, there were many who were still loyal to her literature. In this essay, I will focus on aspects of the American Ballads mainly in reference to Wordsworth. To make up for this unequal treatment, I think it necessary to say a few words about Coleridge's reception in the United States. Coleridge enjoyed equal if not more popularity than his fellow poet, but on the whole Americans simply were not aware of Coleridge's presence in the collection until much later. In the early 1800s, newspapers did their fair share to confound readers as to Coleridge's relationship with Wordsworth and involvement in the work. One advertisement in Relf's Philadelphia Gazette actually uses him to promote the Ballads— —but does not specify that the two collaborated on the work being advertised. As it intimates, the pre-1802 imported elitions of Coleridge fared a lot better than those of Wordsworth. Even so, he was not the most popular Lake Poet since by this time both Southey's Poems and Joan of Arc had been reprinted in Boston. The confusion in America that surrounded Wordsworth worked much to his advantage in gaining an audience. Take, for instance, these laudatory remarks on the poem 'Love', which contain another example of credit for the Ballads being given solely to Wordsworth who, according to the editor, By the 1830s, Coleridge was a favourite with the people and was certainly a figure to whom many Americans, such as Emerson and William Ellery Channing to name just two, made pilgrimages. 1831 is noteworthy because an edition of The Friend appeared in Vermont during this year as well. This publication secured him a steady readership which he maintained throughout the 1830s. After his death, his writings experienced a rise in popularity, particularly in Massachusetts where they were borrowed and studied by the professors and students of Harvard Divinity School and the readers of the Boston Athenaeum. Columbia College, New York was also a pro-Coleridgean stronghold as John MacVickar, who professed moral philosophy there, edited an American edition of Aids to Reflection to satisfy the growing demand for an affordable copy of the work. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, the author and Transcendentalist, wrote a letter to Wordsworth from her Massachusetts home in February of 1838. In addition to her missive, she sent a parcel which contained some writings of members of her circle, namely Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales and Emerson's Nature . In a plea for approval for these works, she attempted to convince Wordsworth that these authors have taken up their pens in response to his (and Coleridge's) calling: As far as Wordsworth's influence is concerned, his poems in the Lyrical Ballads are the ones, perhaps with the exception of The Excursion , which had the most profound impact on American literature of the …