Peter Bell

Apparently the English poet, Wordsworth, wrote a poem about a troubled soul called Peter Bell:

Peter Bell is a tale of redemption, a chronicle of a man being broken down and created anew. Melodramatic it may be, but when dealing with the best thing that can happen to a human being, one may be excused for it. Melodrama is perhaps only inexcusable when the theme is inferior to the sentiments that the author seeks to arouse. When the theme is a great one, as in this poem, the greater incongruence, or the greater impiety, would be to invest the story with too little dramatic emotion, to be too subdued or sober. Or perhaps best of all, to some tastes, would be to refrain from the attempt to tackle such a great theme head-on in the first place! As for me, I received the tale simply, like a childhood bedtime story (as I believe Wordsworth intended), and in this attitude I was not offended at the way he handled the massive undertaking. In fact, it is one of my favorites among Wordsworth's early work. I think it provides a great twist on William Blake's ideas of Innocence and Experience. Here someone goes from the cynicism and hard-heartedness of Experience, back, as it were, to the meek gentleness of Innocence!