{"product_id":"the-excursion-and-wordsworth-s-iconography-9781786941336","title":"The Excursion and Wordsworth’s Iconography","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book considers William Wordsworth’s use of iconography in his long poem \u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e. Through the iconographical approach, the author steers a middle course between \u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e’s two very different interpretive traditions, one focusing upon the poem’s philosophical abstraction, the other upon its touristic realism. Fresh readings are also offered of Wordsworth’s other major works, including \u003ci\u003eThe Prelude\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003eYen explores Wordsworth’s iconography in \u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e by tracing allusions and correspondences in an abundance of post-1789 and earlier verbal and pictorial sources, as well as in Wordsworth’s prose and poetry. He analyses how the iconographical images in \u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e contribute to, and impose limitations on, the overarching preoccupations of Wordsworth’s writings, particularly the themes of paradise lost and paradise regained in the post-revolutionary context. Shedding light on a vital aspect of Wordsworth’s poetic method, this study reveals the visual etymologies – together with the nuances and rhetorical capacities – of five categories of apparently ‘collateral’ images: envisioning, rooting, dwelling, flowing, and reflecting.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Yen’s rich and fascinating study of \u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e builds on Fiona Stafford’s recent revaluing of the local to focus on “the quiet functioning of local detail” at a linguistic and metaphorical level through mediated images of rural landscape.  Yen works sensitively within the form of the long poem, with its extended passages of argument and reflection, to tease out “intratextual and intertextual recurrences” that resonate across the whole.  Across five categories of “envisioning”; “rooting”, “dwelling”, “flowing”, and “reflecting” Yen pulls out the threads of allusion that link the language of the text into larger political events of the time, arguing for an iconographic power held in the figurative language of landscape.  Methodologically sophisticated, the work both draws on and challenges the tenets of New Historicism so that, rather than displacing history, it seeks to awaken the history inherent within the allusive force of landscape imagery through a process of iconological interpretation. The writing is characterised by a remarkable attention to nuances of meaning, whilst the interpretation of political cartoons and symbols of the French Revolution grounds the argument in visual evidence.  Brandon Yen’s study treats \u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e with the respect it deserves as a major work of the late Revolutionary period.'\u003cbr\u003eSally Bushell, Professor of Romantic and Victorian Literature, Lancaster University.\u003cbr\u003e‘It is a crucial book for students of \u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e, but its positioning of that poem will also revitalize study of Wordsworth more generally… Yen’s impressively researched book should prompt critics to return to \u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e with fresh eyes.’\u003cbr\u003e David Stewart, \u003ci\u003eEuropean Romantic Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e‘An outstanding and persistent feature of the book is Yen’s seamless integration of the poetry into his prose. This creates a hybrid voice, at once presenting the poetry for reconsideration and providing an enlightening interpretation of it. Ultimately, through this hybrid voice, Yen emerges as an advocate for renewed and increased scholarly attention to \u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e.’\u003cbr\u003e Brandon Wernette, \u003ci\u003eThe BARS Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'The most ambitious, learned, wide-ranging, and important book on \u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e to date, one that firmly establishes the poem as the central text in Wordsworth’s re-imagining of British iconographic tradition and his reconfiguring of the post-revolutionary landscape.' \u003cbr\u003eAlison Hickey, \u003ci\u003eThe Review of English Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e‘Yen matches the number and complexity of Wordsworth’s local details with his own. I found the iconographical lens most productive in chapter 4, where Yen explicates a political tension within the iconography of rural cottages.’ Lawrence Evalyn, \u003cem\u003eEighteenth-Century Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Yen takes a risk in downplaying the literal in Wordsworth and in locating a “new direction” not in new materials but in new modes of reading.' Lawrence Evalyn, Northeastern University\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgements\u003cbr\u003eList of Illustrations\u003cbr\u003eList of Abbreviations\u003cbr\u003eIntroductionPart 1: Themes and Iconography\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Excursion\u003c\/i\u003e, Paradise Lost, and Paradise Regained\u003cbr\u003eWordsworth's IconographyPart 2: Envisioning\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003eCastles in the Air\u003cbr\u003eLight and Ascent\u003cbr\u003e‘Speculative Height’\u003cbr\u003eThe Wanderer's RevisitingPart 3: Rooting\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003eOak, Mountain Ash, the Liberty Tree\u003cbr\u003eTwo Ironic Images\u003cbr\u003eA Cosmopolitan VisionPart 4: Dwelling\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003eThe Devon Cottage and the Lakeland Cottage\u003cbr\u003eThe Cottage of the ‘Wedded Pair’\u003cbr\u003eThe Widower’s Cottage\u003cbr\u003eThe ‘Cabinet for Sages Built’Part 5: Flowing and Reflecting\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003eFlowing\u003cbr\u003eReflectingBibliographyIndex","brand":"Liverpool University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51360122601815,"sku":"9781786941336","price":109.5,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9781786941336.jpg?v=1754126735","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-excursion-and-wordsworth-s-iconography-9781786941336","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}