Disowned by Ever-Turning Language: (Dis-)Placing Wordsworth’s Lucy in Context

Abstract

The Lyrical Ballads of 1801 contains a lyric cycle known to us as Lucy poems. Although textually dispersed and inconsistent in fitting together to form a unified whole, each piece is marked by the reference to Lucy, of which the referent is ambiguous. This essay examines whether they make up a thematic unit, and if they do, what it is about, and how we can figure out Wordsworth’s poetic endeavors. Lucy provokes and eludes representation simultaneously, occupying a temporary node in a network of transferences and displacements. The narrator, however, does not merely represent Lucy’s absence but makes her absence through representation. Lucy might have nothing to reveal. But the lyric cycle successfully reveals the narrator’s passion for poetic representation, and Lucy embodies such passion.