本文致力于研究华兹华斯（William Wordsworth）与文学市场既矛盾对抗又对话合作的多层关系。随着十八、十九世纪英国印刷业的发展，文学创作也呈现市场化趋势。当时的英国号称“阅读之邦”和“批评之邦”，读者群体急剧扩张，作家这一职业应运而生。文学市场化为华兹华斯创设了作为职业作家的历史语境，他以此谋取生计，积极建构自己作为诗人的职业身份，最终赢得煊赫的声名和崇高的地位；他提倡的诗歌理念和践行的诗歌创作致力于抵制文学市场的庸俗化风气，破除批评家的专制权威，纠正读者肤浅的阅读习惯，改造读者的审美趣味，由此达成自己作为诗人的职业抱负和审美诉求。

本文共分三章。第一章分析华兹华斯如何在文学市场化之语境下积极、主动地建构自己作为诗人的职业身份。华兹华斯于1812年便明确了以诗人为职业的决心，对自己的诗歌作品出版事宜保有高度管理和经营。华兹华斯与出版商既合作又博弈，掌握作品版权，扩大作品销路。此外他积极参与英国版权法改革，并最终推动议会于1842年通过了一项延长作家版权期限的修改法案。华兹华斯期望英国版权法能够妥善保护具有原创性的作家，鼓励其创作富有想象力的作品，这也是华兹华斯在文学市场视域下建构自己职业身份重要的体现。

第二章探察华兹华斯诗学理念和创作在诗人与读者关系中的体现。十八、十九世纪读写能力普遍提升，读者群体急剧扩张，但文学市场化趋势也让很多读者追逐肤浅内容，阅读趣味庸俗。华兹华斯认为诗人写诗并非单单表达自己，而是为人们而写诗。每一位伟大的作家，都要关注读者趣味，培养能让读者欣赏自己的趣味。他以重建读者趣味为己任，体现在他对当时流行的哥特文学持有的批判、继承、改革的立场，以及愉悦心灵的诗学观上。华兹华斯批判哥特文学中为迎合文学市场而刺激感官欢娱的内容，同时在自己的部分诗作中也引入了超自然等哥特因素，对读者心灵进行爱与道德的净化。华兹华斯认为诗歌要包含能给人教导和愉悦的内容，诗歌创作应以愉悦读者心灵为手段，以教导读者、改善读者趣味为目标。

第三章聚焦华兹华斯其人其作在英国文学市场中曲折的批评接受过程。华兹华斯作品的评论接受颇是迂回曲折，从崭露头角，继之恶评如潮，渐次拨乱反正，并最终盛誉等身，为英国诗歌史少见之现象。以弗朗西斯·杰弗利（Francis Jeffrey）为首的批评家自诩文学市场中的批评权威，长期对华兹华斯诗歌改革实践持续贬低、诋毁。为此，华兹华斯自创了一套理论，为自己辩护、张目，也即“死后认可”（posthumous reception）理念，旨在质疑批评家的权威，破除读者和作家对于批评家的迷信。他认为文学作品的优劣与它在同时代的接受不一定成正比的关系，优秀的作品拥有不受批评家影响和文学市场左右的恒久性价值。为此他对自己的旧作不断进行修订、再印和重新编排，做自己最具影响力的批评家。此外，华兹华斯诗歌经常入选教材，在一定程度上普及了华兹华斯的诗歌。批评界的恶评如潮曾经严重影响了华兹华斯诗歌的市场销路以及他作为诗人的声誉，但到了晚年，他的名誉纷至沓来。在这场与批评家角力的漫长抗争中，华兹华斯最终取得了胜利，确立了自己文学经典的地位。

华兹华斯在与文学市场的交互中，一面坚守自我，拒绝文学市场庸俗化；一面依赖文学市场谋求生计，实现自己的职业理想。这种剧烈的矛盾体现在他与出版商、评论家和读者大众的相互作用、彼此影响的合作与角力中。文学的价值在于引导和提升，而非取悦和俯就。民族和时代的审美趣味并非取决于市场消费，而是文学精神和力量塑造的成果。

This dissertation endeavors to investigate the interactions and contradictions between William Wordsworth and the British literary marketplace. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Great Britain marked the development of print culture and the literary marketplace, thus giving rise to the reader audience and the birth of authorship.

Since Great Britain developed into a reading nation as well as a “critical” nation, a professional writer such as Wordsworth aimed to find readers who could comprehend him. Wordsworth actively constructed his poetic identity within the backdrop of the development of the literary marketplace. He was strongly opposed to the frantic novels and sickly stories of his time. Instead, he strove to create and improve the taste of the reader and remained undaunted facing the barrage of slings and arrows of negative criticism. In the end, he was finely acknowledged as the great poet of his age. The construction of his vocational identity and authority as a poet in relation to an unknown literary marketplace embodies his ultimate artistic pursuit.

This dissertation consists of three chapters. Chapter One examines his self-presentation and construction of poetic identity in the context of the commercialization of literature. Wordsworth’s determination to take literature as a life pursuit motivates his keen interest in copyright and publishing. Through his hardball negotiations with publishers concerning the ownership of copyright and his maneuvering both in and out of Parliament in support of M. P. Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795－1854) in a public campaign from the 1830s to 1840s, British parliament passed a revised copyright bill which resulted in an extension of term of copyright that lasts for the author's lifetime plus seven years, or for a minimum of forty-two years from the date of publication. Wordsworth's concern for the British copyright law reform in essence is the very issue, that he wants to defend the literary paternity as a literary father by maintaining control of his works' copyright, and thereby refine the taste of the reading public and realize his utmost pursuit of his literary values.

Chapter Two analyzes his attempts to reconstruct his readers and create the aesthetic taste he wants his reader to enjoy. Wordsworth declared “a poet is a man who is speaking to men.” By employing the real language of men, he aimed to change the commercial reading practices. Wordsworth criticized the sickly and stupid contents in contemporary gothic literature, which sought to cater to the literary marketplace and quench readers’ degrading thirst, although he inherited the supernatural elements of gothic literature in some of his poems. Wordsworth announced the particular purpose of his poetry was to give his readers pleasure. By instilling the feeling of pleasure in the Reader, Wordsworth the Poet created a new taste and purified the mind of the Reader.

Chapter Three explores the critical reception of the poet and his poetry in the context of the literary marketplace. The acceptance of Wordsworth's works was never easy or smooth. Initially receiving a positive response, it was then followed by severe attacks from the critical circle led by Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850) which lasted for almost twenty years. Wordsworth ultimately achieved a high reputation through his constant revisions of former poems and his efforts in turning some of his poetry into school textbooks. In the thirty years from 1819 to1850, Wordsworth himself was his own most influential critic.

When many other authors in Britain frequently found themselves displaced in the rapid proliferation of print culture and its ever-growing and diverse reading public, Wordsworth was ardently engaged in the literary marketplace. He welcomed the interactions with the marketplace and overcame the contradictions between his authorial identity and the commercialization of literature and thereby realized his ultimate life pursuit as a truly original poet.