Wordsworth's "Nutting" and the Ovidian "Nux".(William Wordsworth)

Publication: Studies in Romanticism

Publication Date: 22-MAR-06

Bookmark this article Print this article Link to this article Email this article Digg It! Add to del.icio.us RSS

COPYRIGHT 2006 Boston University

And will any one say he had no right to those Acorns or Apples he thus appropriated, because he had not the consent of all Mankind to make them his? Was it a Robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in Common? (1)

THE CENTRAL IMAGES OF WORDSWORTH'S POEM "NUTTING" ARE SO STRIKING that they have garnered him the highest accolades for originality. To quote but one major voice, that of Geoffrey Hartman: "Few before him would have been inspired by the event recorded in 'Nutting.' That Wordsworth is so inspired argues a new phase in the development of the sympathetic imagination...." (2) He does note that the act of the boy may be compared to that of a hero in Romance and cites the prefatory essay to Tile Borderers, where Wordsworth referred to "the Orlando of Ariosto, the Cardenio of Cervantes, who lays waste the groves that would shelter him." (3) But, Hartman insists, "The scene, however, remains English, the hero a boy, the wood a wood" (Hartman 74). The convictions about the poet's absolute originality have had important consequences for the interpretation of the text, as commentators have sought to account for such radical innovation by delving into Wordsworth's biography. Such investigations have frequently moved on into the realm of speculation about the psychology of puberty, about the nature of Wordsworth's relationship to Dorothy, and about gender identity. (4) Other readings have taken the assumption of originality as barfing the investigation of contexts and as legitimating intensive work-immanent readings. (5) Some have investigated the poem's relation to other sources, especially in Milton and in Ariosto. (6) All these approaches have enriched our understanding of the poem and have made it into a significant moment in Wordsworth studies, and I do not aim to slight or deny the respective value of their contributions. Rather, I hope to add another dimension to the discussion by focusing attention on an unnoticed source for the poem in the Ovidian elegy "Nux." The recognition of this source raises some important questions about the poem's story as well as its history and may elucidate Wordsworth's motives in removing "Nutting" from The Prelude and thereby isolating it from a revealing context. (7)

It is not surprising that "Nux" has been overlooked by Wordsworth scholars, even by those who have studied his borrowings and translations from Latin in detail. A short poem of ninety-one distichs, "Nux" is the complaint of a walnut tree directed against those who attack it for its nuts and against fate for making it so productive, so attractive to marauders. Once considered a poem by Ovid and transmitted as such, "Nux" has encountered a difficult reception since the nineteenth century, when German philologists seriously challenged its authenticity. The pros and cons of those arguments need not be reviewed here. (8) What does matter more is that before then "Nux" had circulated as one of Ovid's poems, albeit one of the lesser works, because of its style, topic and language. (9) Occasional doubts were expressed, but the poem continued to be popular, not least because it was well-suited for teaching pupils Latin. (10) It had the admired Ovidian style without any disturbing amorous or lascivious undertones. On the contrary, the complaint of the hapless nut tree about how it had been stoned and beaten would have lent itself to ready moralizing for schoolboys who might be prone to stealing nuts and fruits from local orchards.

Pedagogical motives led Erasmus to write a detailed commentary on "Nux" in 1523, expressly for the purpose of helping the son of Sir Thomas More with Latin lessons. Erasmus encouraged the pupil to accept "this small gift--it is really quite elegant and very Ovidian. In any case, one could hardly regard a whole tree as a very tiny gift, or think that something so eloquent is valueless." (11) Part of the learned wit in the project is that the relatively straightforward "Nux" did not really demand extensive commentary or explication, unlike the Metamorphoses, for example. The observations at times do resemble a satire of philological zeal, even when they claim to be informative, as those on line seventy-one:

But why should walnuts be excluded from the dessert course, when Pliny (book 16, chapter 6) relates that even in his day the Spanish used to serve nuts for dessert? I too, when I was at Florence, saw chestnuts provided instead of dessert fruit at the home of a very rich man. Almonds, however, as I have said, are the most favoured, followed by filberts. (Erasmus 151)

But the majority of the comments display Erasmus' profound knowledge and can still be read profitably for those coming to "Nux" for the first time. (12)

Since Erasmus, "Nux" has aroused virtually no critical interest. One reason for this is that a poem not freighted with references to gods, history and classical authorities does not appear to present major challenges to interpretation. Once the poem became associated with the beginners' classroom experience, it was difficult for scholars to make a reputation on an excessive investment in it. Even Erasmus had been on the defensive:

I am well aware that some people will be quick to shout out the old Greek saying 'The old man's in his second childhood' and has gone back to his nuts! I don't really think, however, that it is a waste of time for boys (or undignified for old men) to play with nuts like this; such relaxation helps to restore the intellect when it has been tired out by serious studies. (127)

Quite damaging to the poem's reception were the attacks on its authenticity in the nineteenth century, which have had the unfortunate result of excluding "Nux" from the increasingly subtle and sophisticated readings of Ovid. Most of the energy expended on "Nux" has since gone into proving or disproving Ovid's authorship. Even Carl Ganzenmuller devoted only a few pages to interpreting the poem which he defended so vigorously. According to Ganzenmuller, "Nux" is a thinly-veiled allegory on Ovid's difficult situation in exile: it would have been better to produce no works--bring forth no nuts--than to become the victim of cruel, unmotivated attacks by every stranger who comes by. (13) The thesis may be untestable and untenable, but that is beside the point in the present case, since Wordsworth would have had no pressing reason to reject the attribution to Ovid.

Extensive reading in Ovid, both in English translations and in Latin, would have been an important part of Wordsworth's education. (14) Exactly where he would have encountered "Nux" is not yet clear. The best evidence for his familiarity with it will have to come from a comparison with "Nutting" itself. But there is no doubt about the overall importance of Ovid for Wordsworth. First, there is his own declaration in the note on the "Ode to Lycoris":

But surely one who has written so much in verse as I have done may be allowed to retrace his steps in the regions of fancy which delighted him in his boyhood, when he first became acquainted with the Greek and Roman Poets. Before I read Virgil I was so strongly attached to Ovid, whose Metamorphosis I read at school, that I was quite in a passion whenever I found him, in books of criticism, placed below Virgil. (15)

Although this attestation is usually quoted without further comment, the context deserves mention because it bears upon the composition of "Nutting." Wordsworth is discussing poetic composition as a process of associating, remembering, and then synthesizing: "Those specks of snow, reflected in the lake and so, transferred, as it were, to the subaqueous sky, reminded me of the swans which the fancy of the ancient classic poets yoked to the car of Venus" (PW4: 422). The sequence, utterly characteristic for Wordsworth, is that something he saw in nature reminded him of something he had previously encountered in written tradition and then prompted him to preserve the combined recollections, actual and textual, into his own poem. The note to the second Lycoris ode reiterates the blending of reading books and being outdoors:

One day a stranger having walked round the garden and grounds of Rydal Mount asked one of the female servants who happened to be at the door, permission to see her master's study. 'This,' she said, leading him forward, 'is my master's library, where he keeps his books, but his study is out of doors.' (PW 4: 423)

Such a mixing together of literary and lived experience is repeated in "Nutting." Indeed, the two Lycoris odes and "Nutting" are deeply connected, even though their publication histories have separated them. Three lines of the second Lycoris ode are already found in the tangled manuscript identified as a draft of "Nutting." (16) Thus, however indirectly, Wordsworth's explicit invocation of Ovid in conjunction with the Lycoris ode can also be linked to the genesis of "Nutting."

The holdings of Ovid in Wordsworth's personal library were substantial and included Latin as well as standard English translations. (17) In addition to works assigned to Ovid available to Wordsworth, one should notice those transmitted under the names of Ovid's English translators in the eighteenth century: Dryden, Pope, Addison, and others. (18) Wordsworth must have studied them closely. Of Dryden, he wrote "As a Translator from the antient classics he succeeds best with Ovid...." (19) Wordsworth's intense concern with the problem of how to translate Latin poets into a contemporary diction has been studied in detail by Bruce Graver. (20) Although Wordsworth did not make his reputation as a translator of Latin poetry, the exercises and attempts left permanent impressions on his own writing. Clear traces of Ovid have been identified recently in "There was a boy," in Book 5 of The Prelude, and in "At Dover." (21) Beyond Wordsworth's immediate concern with Ovid as part of his reading of Latin literature, first as a pupil and then as a poet, he would also...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.