MB UNIUD

The extracts below express some of Wordsworth's views on the following topics. Identifyin the text where the different points are discussed.

1. the subject of poetry
2. the language of poetry
3. the identity of the poet
4. the creative act of the poet

1. "The principle object...state of excitement". In these lines the poet says that Romantic poems should present to the mind in an usual way ordinary things. These means that poets should write about "incidents and situations from common life".
2. "Low and rustic...of their own creation". Wordsworth says that poets should use a simple language, in order to make feelings coexist ingreat simplicity, "and, consequently, may be more accurately contemplated".
3. "Taking up the subject...what he thinks and feels". The poet is "endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiams and tendernes, who has a greater knowledge of human nature". So the poet is a person who is in a level futher than other men. At the contrary of ordinary people, the poet is affected by "absent things as if they were present".
4. "I have said that poetry...in a state of enjoyment". Poet "takes it origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity".

Now look more closely at Wordsworth's ideas about poetry and contemplate the table below in your notebook.

•-           Subject matter of poetry                Poetry should deal with incidents and situations fro
                                                       common life

•-           The language of poetry                  Poetry should use familiar words

•-           The poet's identity                         The poet is a man speaking to other men who has a
                                                       greater knowledge of human nature

•-           The creative act of the poet            The creative process starts from an emotion which
                                                       contemplated by the poet