Liam Myers

• BA (Hons) English Literature
• Evolution of a Poet: Reading and Interpreting Wordsworth’s Manuscripts

This project has two primary purposes. It aims both to trace the changing representation of the natural world and religious faith in the poetry of William Wordsworth, and to document an engagement with different manuscript versions of a text. It will focus on a comparison of selected passages from Wordsworth’s poem The Prelude in three of its manuscript iterations. The research will primarily concern the composition of The Prelude undertaken while Wordsworth lived at Dove Cottage, Grasmere (1799-1808). Benefitting from the close partnership between the School of English at Newcastle University and The Wordsworth Trust, some of the research will be undertaken at the Jerwood Centre in Grasmere through consulting original manuscripts and rare first editions housed in the Trust’s collections. The work will be documented with the aim of demonstrating the value of taking archival research in English Literature to non-academic audiences, and of undergraduate students experiencing such research.

Funding source: Newcastle University

Project Supervisor: Prof Michael Rossington