v Introduction :-
William Wordswords, English poet, nature’s priest, the greatest and in the end, the most influetial of the English. Romantic was born in 1770 and died in 1850. Wordsworth began his literary career at quit an early age when he was yet a student at Hawkshed Grammar School.
v His two poems are:-
Ø An evening walk (1793)
Ø Descriptive Sketches (1793)
Which he wrote as a University student, are worthy of notice. These poems may not be having any originally in style, but they show the poet’s love for nature.
Preface to the “Lyrical Ballads”:-
The first fruits of his genius were given out in “The Lyrical Ballads” published in 1798. It was a joint venture by Coleridge and Wordsworth. The publication of this monumental work ushered in the new era of romanticism in poerty and smashed the old, artificial, superfluous and hackneyed theory of English poerty of the previous age. The second edition was published in 1800 with many new poems added, and a much loner and more detailed preface was revised and enlarged for the 1802 edition. Wordsworth added a long account of the nature and function of a poet.
The first edition of the Lyrical Ballads consisted 23 poems of which 19 were from Wordsworth pen and they are :- ‘The Idiot Boy’, ‘We are Seven’, ‘The Tharn’, and some Lucy poems etc…..
And from Coleridge’s fertile imagination and they are:- ‘The Ancient Mariner’, ‘The Foster –mother’s tale’, ‘The Nightinagle and The Dungeon’. The preface begins with sufficient boldness and originality. The preface is one of the masterpieces of English criticism, it is intelligent, subtle, yet extremlly clear and provocative.
Why did Wordsworth write preface? Wordsworth was not in favour of writing a preface. The first edition of his poems had only a brief Advertisement. He added a preface to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads on the advice and insistence of his friends. Wordsworth wrote the preface with a view to provide a kind of introduction to his poems and they differ from the popular tradition of the age. In the nature and function of poerty and poetic process, the qualification of a poet and the poetic truth. He regards poerty, superiors to philosophy history and science. In a way the preface is a landmark in the history of literary criticism.
The preface, Its varied Themes.:- The preface makes, very simply, the following points:-
Ø The subject matter of poerty is whatever interest the humanmind
Ø The Lyrical Ballads are written as experiments, to try out the use of the language of conversation of real people in poery.
Ø They are new and unusual, and will not ‘suit the taste’ of most readers.
Ø Neverthless, the reader is asked try them with an open mind and not to be put off at first sight without giving a fair trial.
They are the basis of argument of the longer preface.
Humble and rustic life :- According to Wordsworth his main object in writing these poems has been to choose incidents and situation from comman life, and to relate or describe them as far as possible in a selection of language really used by men. Humble and rustic life has been choosen by him for the following reason.
In humble and rustic life, the essential passions of human heart find and unrestrained, free and frank expression. The essential passions of the human heart exist in a state of greater simplicity in the humble and rustic condition as compared to sophisticated city-life. The manners of rustic life are more easily comprehended, and are more durable. In rustic condition, human passions are associated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. “Wordsworth has used language and situation from low and rustic life because in low and rustic life man is more simple, more direct, near to his own elemental passions and less affected and artificial in the way he express his passions.’’
Poerty does not require specifically poetic subject. It does not deal with the grand or the dignified or the sensational, but with permanent enduring interests of the human heart.
Language and style of poetry:- Wordsworth points out that some of his contemporaries have introduced triviality and meanness of thought and language in their metrical compositions. Feelings are more important than action and situation. Wordsworth is not favour of sensationalism. He says that the human mind can be excited without the application of grows and violent stimulants. He avoided personification of abstract ideas, the mechanical devices of style, and what is generally called poetic diction and a large portion of phrases and figures of speech which had been foolishly repeated by bad poet. According to Wordsworth
“there neither is nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition.”
Wordsworth’s Theory of poetry:- Wordsworth goes on to say that
“The clear springs of poetry must flow freely and spontaneously it can not be made to flow through artificially laid pipes……. Poerty is born, not in the mind, but in the heart overflowing with feeling.”
Poetry, says Wordsworth, “is produced by man, who being possessed, had also thought long and deeply.”
Poetry is an overflow of powerful emotion in one who has thought long and deeply. The sequence of events described in the production of poetry seems to go something like this:-
o a notable experience
o deep and long contemplation
o a period of tranquility
o sudden overflow of power feelings as the notable experience is recaptured and recreated.
o Shaping of the poem, hardly touched on in the preface excepts as a transition in the pleasure of the poet.
o Pleasure for the reader, who enjoys the original experience vicariously in his experience of the created poem.
Spontaneous over of power feelings:- According to Wordsworth, poetry is the spontaneous overflow powerful feelings. And it refers to the nature of poetry and if flows from the internal feelings of the poet. In a poetic mood, poetry flows out naturally from the poet’s heart. In such moments, his language of discourse becomes the language of poetical inspiration.
Wordsworth talks of ‘expressing powerful feeling’ felt in the heart and in the generated in the mind. Poetry takes its birth in the springs of the heart and not in the cold store of the intellect according to Wordsworth deep emotion is the fundamental condition of poetry he discards Aristotellian doctrine.Wordsworth himself says that
“the feeling there in developed gives importance to the action and situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling.”
Wordsworth says “A poet must be man possessed of more than usual organic sensibility.” Organic sensibility means or implies the capacity to receive impression through the senses. The emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquility gradually disappears, and emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced and does itself actually exist in successful composition generally begins, and in a mood similar to this it is carried on . Wordsworth could follow his theory of poetry but to make a general statement that all poetry is the recollection not true.
The end or function of poetry:- Poetry is not a dish for epicurean taste, according to Wordsworth ‘poetry is the breath and finer sprit of the all knowledge the impassioned expression that is in the countenance of all science.” Poetry seeks to ennoble and edity. The poet, through his poetry imports moral lessons for the betterment of humanlife. Wordsworth says that
“a poetry of revolt against moral ideas is a poetry of revolt against life, a poetry of indifference towards moral ideas is a poetry of indifference towards life.”
Wordsworth is precise and emphatic in stating that pleasure is the of poetry “The end of poetry is to produce existanse with an overbalance of pleasure.”
What is poet? § Wordsworth defines poet as ‘a man speaking to man’. He is endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness.
§ He has a man pleased with his own passions and volitions and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is the delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings on of the universe, and habitually compelled to create them where he does not find them.
§ He has a greater knowledge of human nature and a more compressive soul, than once supposed to be comman among mankind.
· He has an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from being those produced by real events. He can better remember the passions produced by real events which other men are accustomed to feel in themselves .
§ Then, from practice, he has acquired a greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks and feels, and especially those thoughts and feelings which by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external excitement.
Wordsworth’s theory of poetic diction:- Wordsworth goes on to says that
“The principal object proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from commanlife, and to relate describe them throughout as far as this was possible in a selection of language really used by men” and at the same time, “to throw over them a certain colouring of the imagination” where by ordinary things should be presented to the mind an unusual aspects. The language of these men has been adopted because such men communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language originally derived.
Main principles of poetic diction:- There is no vital difference between the language of poetry and the impassioned and purified language of comman speech.In other words, the language of poetry should be a selection of the language really used by men.
It should be “the language of men in a state of vivid sensation” It should have “a certain colouring of imagination . There is no essential difference between the language of prose and the language of metrical composition. What Wordsworth means is that the words used in conversation, if they are properly selected, would provide the rough frame work of the language of poetry , only the latter is heightened by feeling and emotion.
Coleridge criticises the preface:- The task for Coleridge was not an easy one since he was an equal partner in the enterprise of the Lyrical Ballads and his close and long association with Wordsworth made the frank expression of adverse opinion extremely delicate to Wordsworth’s views on the comman language in poetry is:-
· These views are applicable only to some kinds of poetry.
· Even to these classes they are not applicable, except in such a sense, as has never by any one been denied or doubted.
· As a rule they are useless if not injurious and, therefore, either need not or ought not to be practiced.
In this way Coleridge’s attack on Wordsworth continues even in chapter 18of the Biographia Literaria. Coleridge denies that the words and their combination derived from the best part of the rustic is the familiar, can be justly said to form the best part of the language. Refuting Wordsworth’s statement that there is no essential defferance between the language of prose and metrical composition. Coleridge says that though the words may be quite ordinary, their arrangement is not as he says there are phrases which, beautiful in poetry, are quite inappropriate in prose and Vice-Versa. He says
“I write in metre because I about to use a language different from that of prose”
Accoding to Coleridge,
“metre is the proper form of poetry and poetry is imperfect and defective with outmetre”
Wordsworth’s practice of his theory:- In the Preface Wordsworth professes to have sought to use
“a selection of the language really used by men” and this chiefly “in humble and rustic life”
But in his practice, the language of rustic life gradually disappeared from his work, and was only formally retained in his theory.
For example:-
Poems like “The Intimation ode” needed a language coloured by emotional fervour and vigorous imagination. Hence Wordsworth was mistaken in making a sweeping generalization for all types of common speech. There are scores of poems like ‘Lucy Gray’, ‘The Solitary Reaper’, ‘Michael’ etc… which triumphantly vindicate his theory of poetic diction.
Conclusion:- Through, the Preface, Wordsworth creates a taste by which he is read and enjoyed. The Preface is the most eloquent as well as the most reasoned statement of the aims and ideals of a poet that we have in language. It is full of carefully psychological observations and profound self-analysis.
According to Smith and Parks
“It raised a wall between the 18th and 19th centuries, it dated a new era- it served to make intelligible for ever the dividing line between the two regions in criticism that might otherwise have seemed to flow into one another we do not often have many such dividing walls.”
