Gary Harrison: Plenary Lecture

Gary Harrison gave one of the invited plenary lectures at the 40th Anniversary Wordsworth Summer Conference in Grasmere, England, 28 July to 7 August 2010.  Harrison’s lecture, “Wordsworth, Clare, and the (Eco) Poetics of Acknowledgment” develops a way of thinking about how poetic language—specifically in Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals and in John Clare’s poetry—may influence readers’ disposition to the natural world.  Other lecturers at the conference included Wordsworth biographer Kenneth Johnston, University of Indiana; Angela Esterhammer, University of Zurich; Jeffrey Cox, University of Colorado, Boulder; Alan Richardson, Boston College; and Seamus Perry, Balliol College.  One of the conference’s highlights was a poetry reading by Seamus Heaney on Sunday evening at St. Oswald’s church in Grasmere. The conference is unique in combining lectures and research papers with hikes, walks and excursions around the Lake District.