A Study of Wordsworth’s stylistic and textual adoptions from Shakespeare’s plays in his play The Borderers

Although Shakespeare Studies began in the early decades of the seventeenth century shortly after the Bard’s death, the comparative criticism of his dramatic art enjoyed systematic attention centuries later, in the mid-twentieth century. One of the earliest contrastive researches seems to be Mary Weaver Sweet’s thesis entitled "The Influence of Shakespeare upon Wordsworth" (1950) which examines the poetical influence Shakespeare left upon Wordsworth’s literary career. Offering a wide range of examples, the author’s remark leads to the conclusive which indicate that he had studied the language of the dramatist until it had perhaps unconsciously become a part of his own" (82). A substantial part of the research has been dedicated to the formalistic and textual resonance of Shakespeare’s dramatic work in Wordsworth’s poetry. The most obvious problem with this research is its failure of providing sufficient evidence for the unconsciousness of the effects Shakespeare left on Wordsworth. Donald Hayden’s 1951 article, "Towards an Understanding of Wordsworth’s Borderers" investigates the philosophical grounds of Wordsworth’s play. The article’s main focus opens up the discussion of the ways in which Wordsworth’s characters were constructed, on the one hand, under the influence of his psychological circumstances, and on the other, in light of William Godwin’s utilitarian view of vice and virtue. The author also postulates that Wordsworth’s ambivalent use of some concepts such as "evil" and "good" intensifies the convolution of those concepts, paving the way for the reader’s multiple interpretations (4). Charles J. Smith, in 1953, in "The Effect of Shakespeare on Wordsworth’s The Borderers" investigates a variety of formalist and textual influences of Shakespeare on Wordsworth’s play, discussing that that Wordsworth adopted his characterization technique from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Othello. The article does not go beyond this stance which combines form and character. Actin and Reacting (2009) turned out to be an exhaustive initiative in the field of the Romantic Studies, generally focusing on the ways in which drama in the early decades of the nineteenth century flourished alongside the period’s poetry. The book investigates the structural and generic aspects of Romantic drama, including Wordsworth’s Borderers. The inclusion of a range of such subjects as realism, fantasy, nationalism, historical representation, sexuality, love, and morality, has made the work an invaluable monograph. In this book, Burwick defends that The Borderers was written under the influence of Schiller’s philosophy and dramatic style, especially his play "Die Räuber" (156). This implies that Wordsworth was impressed by continental philosophy rather than Shakespeare. The current research is predicated upon a comparative and intertextual approach to the xamination of Wordsworth’s the direct and indirect stylistic and textual adoptions from Shakespeare’s plays in his play The Borderers. In doing so, some of the most important similarities between Shakespeare’s plays and Wordsworth’s text have been unravelled and explained. The materials employed to realise this research entail a variety of library and archival resources in tandem with a handful of critical books and articles. Wordsworth’s undeniable contribution to the enrichment of Romantic poetry might have highly been inspired by his precursor poet John Milton, but the path he took in drama was utterly different. Wordsworth’s play, The Borderers is freighted with Shakespeare’s voice, tone, style, and poetics. However, it is worth mentioning that Shakespeare was not the sole figure who inspired Wordsworth in his dramatic attempt. The meticulous scrutiny of the play demonstrates that German idealism, which led to the emergence of a different version of Romanticism, the French Revolution, Godwin’s utilitarian philosophy, among other agents, were the morphing, persuasive conditions and elements that strengthened Wordsworth’s determination for trying his hand at the genre of drama; a creative commitment that consciously led him to a pragmatic adoption of Shakespearean style and theatre.