From July 29 to August 12, 2000, the Wordsworth Summer Conference will celebrate its thirtieth anniversary.
Founded in 1970, as the Rydal Mount Summer School by Richard Wordsworth and Marilyn Gaull, it is organized annually
by the Wordsworth Trust, promoted by the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association, and directed by Jonathan Wordsworth,
the Chairman of the Trust.
The location: Grasmere, Cumbria, a charming village in a perfect valley that has attracted writers, artists and
scholars for the past two hundred years--the home of Dove Cottage, the award-winning Museum, Library, and the Center
for British Romanticism.
The program is an ideal and rare combination of mental, physical, and social activity: lectures, informal papers,
seminars, excursions to places of literary and historical interest, climbs up and along the great hills of the
Lake District, poetry and play readings, walks around the lake before breakfast or rowing and swimming in the afternoon,
festive meals, nightly discussions in the village pubs, and an auction of books and paintings conducted by Jonathan
Wordsworth for the Wordsworth Trust.
The theme is Romanticism, British and Continental, the literature, culture, lives, and times of the writers, thinkers,
and the tradition of literary studies that has grown up around them. The speakers range from the young and provocative
to the legendary (and equally provocative), from Basil Willey, William Empsom, E.P.Thompson and Kathleen Raine,
to writers such as Seamus Heaney, Margaret Drabble, and Andrew Motion. The speakers in 2000 will include Jonathan
Bate, John Beer, Frederick Burwick, James McKusick, Nicholas Roe, Robert Ryan, and Jonathan Wordsworth.
Since its founding, the conference has attracted an international array of scholars, students, writers, professionals
from many fields, all of whom, regardless of age, nationality, or experience find the ideal academy, creative center,
and intellectual exchange. Everyone, especially those who do not offer papers, are participants. Expenses for the
conference are therefore tax-deductible and appropriate for professional development or, with more than ninety
hours of lectures, seminars, and excursions, for academic credit which students may arrange either though our own
cooperating institutions or their own.
There are many ways to experience the conference: some come for the landscape, others the literary conversation,
for developing ideas in an international setting, to work in the library, for a unique holiday, for spiritual,
physical, and intellectual renewal. Since the earliest days, there is a popular but optional pre-breakfast walk
around the lake or, during the first week, a Catholic mass, open to everyone, celebrated by Father Robert Barth,
S.J. The middle weekend offers the choice of a day-trip to Scotland or the Borders, or, for keen walkers, an all-day
walk or climb in the heart of the Lake District mountains.
A normal day might start with the optional walk around the Lake before breakfast, and a lecture after, followed
by a seminar discussion, and a choice among three afternoon activities that includes two different walks and often
a bus trip to Hawkshead, for example, or Kendal. Starting at 5:00, Jonathan Wordsworth conducts the presentation
of two papers of twenty minutes each followed by forty minutes of discussion. Dinner is at 7:00, then an evening
lecture at 9:00.
The research papers are on all aspects of Romanticism. We invite scholars, twenty-five in all, at all levels to
submit their papers, however tentative or final, provocative, original, even contentious. These papers should be
no more than ten pages, with abstracts submitted in advance, indeed as soon as possible, to Jonathan Wordsworth,
St. Catherine's College, Oxford, OX1 3UJ, UK, or care of Dove Cottage, no later than April 1. Because many applicants
need early decisions to qualify for grants from their institutions, we cannot guarantee places for late decisions,
and preference is always reserved for those who did not present the previous year. Paper readers are required to
participate in the full two weeks of the conference, without exception. They are the heart of our academy, and
the continuity of our work depends on their participation.
We hope everyone, however, will attend for the full two weeks. Our schedules, not only for the papers but also
the walks and excursions even the menus, are based on the assumption that we are forming a small community the
life of which, like a work of art, will have coherence and shape, a succession of experiences and pleasures.
The conference is residentially based at the luxurious and hospitable Red Lion Hotel in Grasmere Village, though
a list of other accommodations is available on request. The fee includes hotel accommodation, breakfast, packed
lunch, dinner, attendance at all conference activities including bus trips, excursions, guided walks, transportation
to and from the train. Based on double occupancy, the fee is £1280 per head, single occupancy £1714.
Without accommodations, the fee for academic and social participation is £525. A deposit of £300, refundable
before April 1, is required, the balance by June 15. Special rates can be arranged for groups. All payments should
be in British Sterling, payable to the Wordsworth Summer Conference. We regret that it is not possible to accept
payment in credit card.
We hope you will make Grasmere your destination in 2000. Here in the heart of the Lake District, for the first
two weeks of every August, a community of friends and colleagues rediscover the alchemy of time, personality and
place that makes this conference unlike any event in the literary world. We hope you will join us.
Jonathan Wordsworth, Director
Marilyn Gaull, American Director
Sylvia Wordsworth, Administrator
For information and application:
Wordsworth Summer Conference
Dove Cottage, Grasmere
Cumbria LA22 9SH UK
Telephone: 015394-35651
Fax: 105394-35748
e-mail: sylvia@scaurcrag.demon.co.uk
For latest information: www.wordsworth.org.uk
GSAS / 
NYU