Preface to Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth

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2015-2016

Name: Vala Asha Tidabhai

Semester:1

Roll no: 41

Work: Assignment

Topic: Preface to Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth

Paper: 3  ( Literary Theory and Criticism)

Email.id: valaasha10@gmail.com

Date: 14/10/2015

Submitted By: Smt. S. B. Gardi,

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.

Department of English

Preface to Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth

                                                                             Introduction:

                                Wordsworth and Coleridge  collaborated their works in their only one little book. They would still be among the representative writers of an age that  proclaimed  the final triumph of romanticism. 'Lyrical Ballads of 1798' was famous book. in their partnership Coleridge was to take up the supernatural, or at least romantic while Wordsworth  was to give the charm of novelty to things of every day.

                                His Life:

                Wordsworth was Born at Cocker Mouth, a town which is actually outside the lake district, but well within hail of it his father,  who was a lawyer, died when William was thirteen years old.

                The elder Wordsworth  left very little money and that was mainly. In the form of a claim on Lord Lonsdale. Who paid for schooling  at hawker shed he had to depend on the generosity  of two uncles. he was a moody and violent temper. His mother despaired him alone among her five children. Three things in his poem must impress even the casual reader.

 1) Wordsworth  loves to be alone, and is never lonely with nature.

2)  Like every other child who spends much time alone in the woods and fields, he feels the presence of some living spirit, real though unseen,

3)  his impressions are exactly like our own, and delightfully familiar.

                                He died  tranquilly in 1850 at the age of eighty years and was buried in the churchyard at Grasmere. In the "Advertisement" to the 1798 edition of Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth and Coleridge state that the poems in the collection were intended as a deliberate experiment in style and subject matter. Wordsworth elaborated on  this idea in the "Preface" to the 1800 and 1802 edition which outline his main ideas of a new theory of poetry.

                Wordsworth explained his poetical concept:

"The majority of the followings poems are to be

considered as experiments. They were written

chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language

of conversation in the middle and lower classes of

society is adopted to the purpose of poetic pleasure."

                In the experiment with vernacular language was not enough of a departure from the norm, the focus on simple, uneducated country people as the subject of poetry was  a signal of shift to modern literature. One of the main themes of "Lyrical Ballads"  is the return to the original state of nature, in which man led a purer  and more innocent existence. Wordsworth subscribed  to Rousseau's belief that man was essentially good and was corrupted by the influence of society. This may be  linked with the sentiments spreading through Europe just prior to the French Revolution.

                Rejecting  the classical notion that poetry should be about elevated  subjects and should be composed in a formal style, Wordsworth instead championed more democratic themes the lives of ordinary men and women, farmers, paupers, and the rural poor.  In the " preface" Wordsworth also emphasized his commitment to writing in the ordinary language of people, not a highly crafted poetical one. True to traditional Ballads form, the poems depict realistic characters in realistic situations, and so contain a strong narrative elements.

                Wordsworth and Coleridge were also interested in presenting the psychology of the various characters in the lyrical ballads. The poems, in building sympathy for the disenfranchised characters their describe, also implicitly  criticize England's  poor laws, which  made it necessary for people to lose all material possessions before that could received any kind of financial assistance from the community.

                Wordsworth also discussed the role of poetry itself, which he viewed as an aid in  keeping the individual s"sensitive" in spite of the effects of growing   alienation in the new industrial age. The poet, as  Wordsworth points out, is not a distant observer or moralist, but rather production " a man speaking to men", and  production of poetry is the result of "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," recollected in tranquility, not  the sum total of rhetorical art.

                In  this 'preface to the lyrical Ballads' Wordsworth presented his poetic manifested, indicating the extent  to which he saw his poetry, and that of Coleridge, as breaking away from the 'Artificiality',  'Triviality' or over- elaborate and contrived quality of eighteenth century poetry. The "preface" is itself a  masterpiece of English prose, exemplary in its lucid yet  passionate defense of a literary style that could be popular without compromising artistic and  poetic standards yet it is also vital for helping us to understand what Wordsworth and Coleridge were attempting in their collection  of verse, and also provides  us with a means of assessing how successfully the poems themselves live up to the standards outlines in the "preface".

                The "preface" covers a number of issues and is wide ranging in its survey of the place of the lyrical Ballads  on the contemporary literary scene, The  topics covered include the following.

                1) The principal object of the poems :

                Wordsworth, in this extract, Places the Emphasis on the attempt to deal with natural   (rather than cosmopolitan) man,  arguing that such men live much  closer to nature and, therefore, are closer to the well - springs of human nature. Behind this we can see how much Wordsworth owes to that eighteenth century. Preoccupation with "Natural man"  associated  particularly with the writings  of Rousseau. He sees his poetry, in its concerns with the lives of men such as Michael, as  an antidote to the artificial portraits of man presented in eighteenth century poetry. The  argument is developed when he outlines his reasons for dealing with "Humble and rustic life".

                                2) For Wordsworth and Coleridge this choice of subject matter necessarily involves  a rethinking of the language of poetry. Note, however, that Wordsworth admits to same license in "Tidying up" the language of "ordinary men". Does this affect the persuasiveness of his theories about "natural men"?.

                3) This leads Wordsworth to an attempt, to define poetry and its effects on the reader, Wordsworth's project is an idealistic one, and clearly poetry for him, has a  vital role in educating the mind and sensibility of his reader, a moral purpose. This quotation illustrates how important this benevolent effect is for the reader.

                                4) Inevitably, perhaps, the above leads Wordsworth towards asking what is poet?. His answer illustrates the underlying assumptions about the poet as genius, as special person, capable of re- articulating thought and feeling so as to educated the reader.

                 He is a man speaking to men; a man it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness.

                                He has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than one supposed to be common among mankind.

                He is a man pleased with his own passions and volition and who rejoices more than other man in the spirit of life that is in him,;  delighting to contemplate similar volition and passions as manifested in the goings  on of the universe, and habitually compelled to create them where he does not find them.

                                To these qualities he has added a disposition to be affected more than other men by  absent things as  if they were present. He has an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed  far from being those produce 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 had acquired a greater readiness  power in expressing what he thinks and feels, and specially those thoughts and feeling which, by his own choice , or  from the structure of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external excitement.

                The Function of Poetry:

                                Poetry, According to Wordsworth ' is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, the impassioned expression that is in the countenance of all science'. Poetry seeks to ennoble and edify. It is like morning star which throws its radiance through the n gloom and darkness of life. The poet is  a teacher and through the medium of poetry he imparts moral lessons for the betterment of human  life. Poetry is the instrument for the propagation of moral thoughts. Wordsworth's  poetry does not simply delight us, but it also teacher us deep moral lessons and brings home to us deep philosophical truth about life and  religion. Wordsworth believes 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.

                Conclusion:

                                In style Wordsworth presents a remarkable contrast for he ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous.  It is always to be remembered that at his best Wordsworth can unite simplicity with sub limit. As  he does in the lyrics we have already quoted . He has a kind of middle style as its best it has best, it  has grace and dignity a heart searching simplicity and a certain magical enlightenment of phrase that is all his own.

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