Peter Bell’s Professions

• Published in: Romanticism (Edinburgh) Vol. 29; no. 3; pp. 226 - 238
• Main Author: Simons, Christopher
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: UK Edinburgh University Press 01.10.2023
• Subjects: Literary Studies; Wordsworth; Peter Bell; Wedgwood; Swaledale; lead mining; transportation

This article investigates the socioeconomic contexts of Wordsworth’s Peter Bell in relation to Peter’s ‘profession’ – to use Wordsworth’s term, when he wrote that first among the ‘great defects’ of Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner is that the protagonist ‘has no distinct character … in his profession of...