Framing dialect in the 1800 Lyrical Ballads: Wordsworth,regionalisms and footnotes

This article addresses one of the most theoretically and linguistically vexing issues in the history of English poetic language: stylistic variation in Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. It suggests that two footnotes, added to the 1800 edition, offer a new perspective on a question which has prompted debate since its publication: specifically, what is the relationship between Wordsworth’s use of dialect and the language of ‘low and rustic life’ promised by the 1800 Preface to Lyrical Ballads? In sections 1 and 2 the article expands on the importance of the footnotes in relation to the discussion surrounding Wordsworth’s language. Section 3 examines the departure of Lyrical Ballads from 18th-century conventions regarding the glossing of non-standard language in poetry, while section 4 explores the function of the unfootnoted and unframed regionalisms that can be found throughout the collection. Sections 5 and 6 discuss the content of the two footnotes in relation to Wordsworth’s blurring of the roles of poet and glosser, and suggest that this conflation of roles is connected to Wordsworth’s implicit blurring of Standard English and dialect in his definition of ‘low and rustic life’ (a definition explored in greater detail in section 7). The conclusion suggests that the lack of specificity in Wordsworth’s Preface and his approach to framing dialect were part of a single strategy to integrate Standard English and dialect in a more organic manner than was typical of 18th-century writing.