The Idiot Boy
"[3] "The Idiot Boy" is Wordsworth's longest poem in Lyrical Ballads (with 463 lines), although it is surpassed in length by Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
[5] The poem tells the story of the titular "Idiot Boy," as well as his mother Betty Foy and their gravely ill neighbour Susan Gale.
As Johnny's father, a woodsman, is away from home, Betty decides to send her son to the nearest town on horseback, so that he may bring with him a doctor who could help Susan.
[24] The narrator's attitude towards Johnny seems benevolent, however he criticises Betty with "a trace of patronizing condescension" in lines 22-26: [23] The world will say 'tis very idle, Bethink you of the time of night; There's not a mother, no not one.
[25] Condescension may also be found in the narrator's description of Johnny as a "fierce and dreadful hunter," (338) as well as in his negative response to Betty's imaginings about her son's fate (lines 212-216).
"[15] Out of ninety stanzas of the poem, approximately one third of them begin with the conjunctions "and," "but" or "so," which suggests that its narrator is focused chiefly on a simple, sequential retelling of the story.
[28] He also seems prone to simplifying the character's experience into simple binary opposites, such as when referring to the life or death of Susan Gale (52-56), in Betty's instructions to Johnny (62-66; "[h]ow to turn left and how to right") or in the description of her search for him (217-221).
[31] The narrator's appeal to the muses has also been described as a way to comment on the anxiousness which readers may experience expecting a full account of the titular character's "strange adventures" (351), as they would in more traditional sentimental stories.
[32] In lines 347-348 the narrator claims that he has practised poetry (been "bound" to the muses) for fourteen years, which is a fact true about Wordsworth in the moment of writing the poem.
[38][39] Its humour has been dubbed a "defence against the ominous threats facing Johnny,"[40] as well as a "burlesque" of the philosophical discourse of intellectual disability in the Enlightenment,[41] as by "mocking the reader's sense of decorum" the poem seems to challenge literary and social preconceptions.
[46] Despite its abundance of supernatural elements, the poem has been found to be focused rather on "social commentary"[47] in line with Wordsworth's aim "to give the charm of novelty to things of every day" (as described by Coleridge).
[49] "The Idiot Boy" is said to explore how such disabilities are mythologized in order to establish them as a proper subject for linguistic and psychologic deliberations,[50] and it has been connected with "an emergent 'humane' understanding of cognitive difference.
"[49][51] The poem's usage of the term "idiot" has been said to carry "connotations of deficiency,"[8] and the word itself has been counted amongst those used "to provoke revulsion or to ostracize groups of people.
[66] Abuse of language similar to Johnny's is prevalent throughout the poem, as exemplified by Susan's miraculous recovery, made possible when she recovers as she regains "control over her utterance," and by the doctor's ironic lines (262-271), which subvert the expectations one might hold towards a member of his profession and the principles of the Hippocratic Oath.
[67] The word "burr" is often used in the poem (lines 19, 107, 115, 387) to refer to a sound made by Johnny, which has been classified as his "physiological response to the cold,"[70] as well as a mimicry of the owls,[71] or his steed.
[65] Johnny's "burring" has been likened to Wordsworth's own – that is, to his Northumberland accent, "characterized by a strong, guttural pronunciation of 'r,'"[75] and to his narrator's stylistic mistakes, which suggest that his "competency as a storyteller is limited.
"[28] In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth expressed his aim to portray human nature by "tracing the maternal passion through many of its more subtle windings.
"[78] Betty's approach to her son has, however, been dubbed by John Wilson as "almost unnatural"[79] and by Coleridge as "an impersonation of an instinct abandoned by judgement,"[80] signifying that Wordsworth's contemporaries found the poem "lacking" in this regard.
[76] This role, in turn, allows for the narrator to be read as her double, guilty of the same susceptibility to emotions in his reports, which "exposes [his] poetic pretension and lack of self-awareness.
[89] In the period of 1798-1800 it was reprinted only once, in 80 lines, in the issue of Critical Review for October 1798,[90] in which it was famously criticised by Robert Southey as "[resembling] a Flemish picture in the worthlessness of its design and the excellence of its execution.
[81] William Hazlitt wrote that he felt "a chaunt in the recitation" of the poems declaimed to him by Wordsworth and Coleridge, including "The Idiot Boy, which would "[act] as a spell upon the hearer, and [disarm] the judgment".
'"[93] In line with this, Janina Nordius comments that "great talent wasted on a dubious topic seems to be the dominant critical view" of the poem,[94] and Roger Murray claims that "no one has warmly defended" it.
[24] The "Idiot Boy" been described as "incongruous" and as "a failure" by Geoffrey H. Hartman, as its repetitions "draw too much attention to Wordsworth's own 'burring,'"[98] Joshua King argues, however, that such features are "what make[s] [the poem] interesting," as they suggest "a human community made possible by blind patterns of sensation, pleasure and habit, rather than primarily by rationality and linguistic ability.
"[99] Jonathan Wordsworth dubbed the poem a "comic masterpiece" and "an almost faultless work of art," as well as "a creation of exquisite tact, at once humorous and deeply moving.
"[102] Although the poem "appears frivolous" with its "feminine rhymes, overblown diction and laughable characters," Karen Guendel argues that it warrants a second, more in-depth look due to its subversion of expectations and metaliterary critique of its own narrator.
[103] Wordsworth's transgressions have, however, been noted by Anne McWhir to "[prevent] us from noticing" his perpetuation of the binary oppositions of what is vulgar and proper, as he strives to select the latter kind of language for his poetry.
"[111] Joshua King claims that the author's contemporaries were unable to sympathise with Betty Foy, as her love for Johnny transgressed their "standards of propriety," defined by "rationality and the clear use of language.
[112] Similarly, G. H. Durrant claims that "the essential meaning of the poem" is conveyed in how Betty's love "leads [Johnny] safely and serenely through [his] perils," while she "suffers fear and anguish on his behalf.
[114] Wordsworth commented on the "purpose" of the poem in the 1802 Preface to Lyrical Ballads, saying that it adheres to his goal to "follow the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when agitated by the great and simple affectations of our nature" by "tracing the maternal passion through many of its more subtle windings.
I mention this in gratitude to those happy moments, for, in truth, I never wrote anything with so much glee.Wordsworth's fondness of the poem has been identified "a frustrated desire for his dead mother,"[116] Ann Wordsworth,[117] though this claim has also been disputed as too simplistic an assumption.
