SOURCE: "A 'Word Scarce Said': Hysteria and Witchcraft in Wordsworth's 'Experimental' Poetry of 1797-1798," in ELH, Vol. 53, No. 2, Summer, 1986, pp. 357-90.

In the excerpt that follows, Bewell discusses Wordsworth's use of the hysteric and her roots in the figure of the witch to examine the connection between language and the creative imagination.

Old Susan, she who dwells alone,
 Is sick, and makes a piteous moan,
 As if her very life would fail.

There's not a house within a mile,
 No hand to help them in distress;
 Old Susan lies a-bed in pain,
 And sorely puzzled are the twain,
 For what she ails they cannot guess.

Susan Gale's strange disease and unusual cure have received little critical attention from readers of "The Idiot Boy"—so little, in fact, that no one has felt it worth clarifying what her illness actually is. The doctor never arrives to give a diagnosis...