Wordsworth’s “Illustrated Books and Newspapers” and Media of the City

Abstract

Wordsworth’s 1846 sonnet “Illustrated Books and Newspapers” has gained notoriety as the prize exhibition, in the words of Gillen D’Arcy Wood, of the resistance of “the literary elite” to “the cultural influence of new visual media”:

Discourse was deemed Man’s noblest attribute, And written words the glory of his hand; Then followed Printing with enlarged command For thought—dominion vast and absolute For spreading truth, and making love expand. Now prose and verse sunk into disrepute Must lacquey a dumb Art that best can suit The taste of this once-intellectual Land. A backward movement surely have we here, For manhood—back to childhood; for the age—Back towards caverned life’s first rude career. Avaunt this vile abuse of pictured page! Must eyes be all in all, the tongue and ear Nothing? Heaven keep us from a lower stage!