Poor Susan

"Poor Susan" is a lyric poem by William Wordsworth composed at Alfoxden in 1797. It was first published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800). It is written in anapestic tetrameter.

The poem records the memories awakening in a country girl in London on hearing a thrush sing in the early morning.

Text

History

In Wordsworth's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, the poet states:

Charles Lamb objected to the final stanza: According to Ernest de Sélincourt, Wordsworth responded by deleting the stanza in the 1815 edition of his poems and renaming the poem The Reverie of Poor Susan, a title which may have been influenced by his reading Bürger's Des Arme Suschens Traum at Goslar. In addition he replaced the word There's at the beginning of the second line by Hangs and added an introductory note:

However, Peter J. Manning pointed out that:

References

Bibliography

• Davies, Hunter. William Wordsworth, Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1980
• Gill, Stephen. William Wordsworth: A Life, Oxford University Press 1989
• Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth, A Biography: The Early Years, 1770-1803 v. 1, Oxford University Press 1957
• Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth: A Biography: The Later Years, 1803-50 v. 2, Oxford University Press 1965

External links

• Internet archive of Lyrical Ballads
• The Reverie of Poor Susan, Poetry Foundation