Learning Paths » 5A Interacting
Preface to Lyrical Ballads
I’m going to make a short essay about the Preface to Lyrical Ballads by Mordsworth, that is generally considered the manifesto of Romanticism. The extract deals with the point of view of Wordsworth on poetry and the figure of the poet. It is a text of literary criticism, because it is focused on a reflection about lyrical poetry.
The preface starts with a declaration of intentions; this means that we are reading a short essay. The reason why he wrote it is to speak about what poetry should be like.
As a matter of fact the poet should write about common life, its incidents and situations and to tell about them he should use the language really used by common people with an additional amount of imagination, to make things more interesting. Imagination, that adds colour to things, presents things in an unusual way. So that people is caught and interested in them, like when they are excited. Poetry originates after an experience has already been lived and the emotion connected to that experience is recollected in tranquillity. After that the emotion is contemplated, the tranquillity gradually disappears. A new emotion is born of the same kind to the emotion before the contemplation. The poet is a man speaking to other men, who has a profound understanding of human nature, a powerful imagination and a capacity to articulate sensations and thoughts.