Richard E. Matlak. Deep Distresses. William Wordsworth, John Wordsworth, Sir George Beaumont, 1800-1808. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003. Pp. 201. $43.50. Richard Matlak weaves together three strands of interpretation: the catalyzing effects on Wordsworth's imaginative development of his brother John's shipwreck drowning, the poet's earlier attitudes toward his youngest sibling, and his growing intimacy with his would-be patron, Sir George Beaumont, from 1803 on. The book's three strands correspond roughly to its three parts. First, some dozen poems in which John's presence is obvious or can be reasonably inferred (above all, the "Elegiac Stanzas," of course). Second, a detailed recounting of the sinking of John's ship, the Earl of Abergavenny, off Portland Bill on 5 February 1805, and the many conflicting personal and journalistic accounts of that event (again including the "Elegiac Stanzas"). Third, and most impressively to my mind, an interpretation of Wordsworth's relations with Beaumont, based on the patron's practice and reputation as a painter, his considerable power in London's cultural politics, and his efforts to aid--and shape--Wordsworth's career. Here, too, the focus is on "Elegiac Stanzas," but also on Beaumont's initiating gesture which inspired, or provoked, it: the two versions of his oil painting, Peel Castle in a Storm, whose centrality in the poem is emphasized by Wordsworth's full title, which, oddly, I do not find given anywhere in Matlak's book--"Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle, in a Storm, Painted by Sir George Beaumont." By linking John Wordsworth's fate to George Beaumont's cultural politics, Matlak enables us to see a new constellation in Wordsworth's oeuvre that reflects backwards (as it were), illuminating John's creative presence in places where we have not usually recognized it.
