Are you perhaps familiar, Gentle Reader, with the literary life and writings of Mr. William Wordsworth? While This Humble Author is herself by trade and by degree a Victorianist—I find the Romantics to be Too Free, Too Open, and Too Emotional for My Repressed Standards!—I was once, yes, even myself, fascinated with the Romantic Poets. While Wordsworth was never my cup of tea—I prefer Darjeeling, or Scottish Breakfast, or a bit of Byron, Keats, and Coleridge—I find his eventual recantation of all of his youthful beliefs and writings fascinating.
Why? Because often we In Youth do and say things that we In Age regret. Having grown up with the Internet, I am sure many of us, even you, Most Constant of Readers!, have said things or posted things while not instantly regrettable, regrettable over time. How awful to be confronted again and again with the scribblings of the nineteen-year-old self, that grandiose, self-important, self-loved self that is sure, absolutely sure that she is Above All Things Correct. Not that I speak from Personal Experience, Friends! Heavens no. Everyone here understands perfectly that This Humble Author makes no mistakes, even before she was This Humble and This Wise.
But Mr. Wordsworth, lit with the fire of youth and integrity, certain he would Change the World and bring it forward into a new egalitarian age, was, upon recollection some thirty years later, a bit chagrined at the passion and fervor with which he wrote. Or perhaps he truly no longer believed the words he had written, once. Or perhaps, just perhaps, he was on the brink of Victorianism, a Romantic who, like Mary Shelley, lived too long, saw too many loved ones die young, and felt that he no longer appreciated the naiveté of youth.
I call attention to Mr. Wordsworth today because as a literary critic, I do not feel that authors should justify, defend, or qualify their works, the same as I believe that critics never can assume authorial intention. The anecdote about Mr. Wordsworth above has no bearing on Mr. Wordsworth’s writing. A biographical or historical reading of his works would bring this into play, certainly, but a straight examination of, say, The Preludes? We should look at the quality of work itself. We cannot assume, ever, that Mr. Wordsworth meant This or That with his writing, or that This or That has direct correlation with His Personal Life. Recent scandals in the literary memoir and autobiography world have brought these very ideas into play. There is no “real life,” is there not? There is author; there is work; there is reader; there is critic. And God willing, never the all of them shall meet.
That is to say, I-as-writer separate the I-as-critic and the I-as-blogger and the I-as-wife, -student, -daughter, -puppy-mother from each other because they are the all of them not the same. The Witty and Intelligent Amy Reads that blogs before you today is not, dare I say it?, the Amy Reads that heads home to New Orleans to visit family, or the Amy Reads that sings in the car, just to annoy Mr. Reads, or the Amy Reads who is, despite the Wit and Intelligence referenced just Moments Ago, irrationally afraid of Clowns (those evil, evil things). In fact, “Amy Reads” is not anything at all but a voice in This Body that comes through fingers and onto blog.
A very long and rambling preamble, Friends, to say that over Spring Break, which sadly ends today, This Humble Author spent many hours engaged in a vigorous Spring Cleaning. And during this Spring Cleaning, I came across several, several journals written by a Young and Naïve Amy Reads.
Oh, Gentle Reader, how to express the agony of those revelations about Love, Life, Work, The Environment, Politics, even Self-Presentation circa 1996? How best to explain the naiveté, the painful, painful exercise of sorting through pretentious attempts at interesting and expressive handwriting, the bad, utterly awful poetry with grandiose comparisons to “painted eyes,” “silvered tears,” “silent statues,” and, Most Awful Of All, the Revelation of the Poet, Herself, in Verse? How many broken hearts can one twenty-year-old possess? Seven, if I counted correctly. How many angry diatribes against the world can one twenty-year-old offer? Sixteen, yes, sixteen “manifestos” claiming to Change The World/Women’s Body Images/The State of Alternative Music/etc. etc. ad nauseam.
My first thought? Of the destructive and thus effective qualities of fire.
My second thought? Of Wordsworth.
Perhaps, for the first time in my life, I understood Elder Wordsworth more than Youthful Wordsworth. I understood the burning desire to destroy and remove All Traces of the Self’s Youth from the world.
My third thought? Of today’s impersonal encounter with the Internet.
With the Wide Array of blogs, message boards, forums, MySpace and Facebook and other such phenomena in the world, and the strange permanence of the Internet, there is little opportunity to destroy youthful pretensions. What is said on the Internet, Gentle Reader, stays on the Internet, for good or bad. That disconnect between the persons on either end of the blog, or message board, or forum, is a true disconnect: there is little understanding of the body on the other end. That body could be a neighbor, a best friend, a complete stranger, or, Woe To Them, a boss, a principal, a parent, a spouse. But sitting here in the Room of My Own, looked down upon by Wonder Woman Action Figures and Angel Puppets and Buffy Posters, I do not know you. Yes, you, Most Constant of Readers. I know little for certain of who receives my work or how it is received.
But is that not the point? Do we not put work out there, for good or for bad, and stand back to let the waves of reception swallow the work whole? An author cannot go Door to Door and say, “no, on page 252, what I *really* meant was…” the same as Wordsworth, despite Recantation, cannot take back what he said as a younger man. It was said. It was read. And that is all. He can rewrite, certainly, but he can never take back. The work is written; it is done. Nothing, not even rejection, can change that.
This is something I Firmly Believe In: an author cannot in truth recant, and should not justify or qualify or defend. And while I wish I could Go Back to 1996 and retrieve those Poems poorly distributed to Broken Heart #3, or those words submitted for publication (most likely in response to Broken Heart #5), I cannot. And as the Great Philosopher Buffy Summers tell us, Here endeth the lesson.
In the end, while the desire was Very, Very Strong, I did not burn the notebooks. I did, however, pack them away under many, many boxes filled with old drafts of novels and letters from former loves and current husband(s) who were not yet husband(s) at the time of writing. In other words, in the dark recesses of my closet, to be discovered only in the event of emergency, of nostalgia, or the next attempt at Spring Cleaning, which I predict will be a Long Time Coming. But while I cringe at the naiveté and silliness and general idiocy of Young Amy Reads, so earnest, so driven, so in need of rigorous line-editing, I adore her, too, because she *was* earnest. She *did* love passionately and expressed such in poor rhyme. She was, Above All Things, Young. Quite, quite, quite young.
As were you, Mr. Wordsworth, living your Poet’s Retreat in Somerset, the world spread before you, possibility shining as brightly as the sunlit Lakes in the soon-to-be-seen District.
Mr. Reads, Pup Reads, and I all bid adieu to Spring Break and return to Work tomorrow, (and tomorrow, and tomorrow). There is Much to be Done today in Preparation, so I must bid you adieu for now, as well.
