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WORDSWORTH'S VIEWS OF POETRY AND THE POET
From William Wordsworth PREFACE TO LYRICAL BALLADS (1802)
The extract I am going to analyse belongs to the Preface to Lyrical Ballads.
The Lyrical Ballads is a collection of poems published by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798 (it is the fundamental date for English Romanticism). Wordsworth added a preface to the collection that is considered the manifesto of Romantic poetry. The Preface is a declaration of intentions: Wordsworth explained his objectives and his considerations about Romantic poetry.
"The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life". Wordsworth underlines soon the subject of his poetry: SITUATIONS FROM COMMON LIFE.
"and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as possible, in a selection of language really used by men". Wordsworth speaks about the language: he wants to use the LANGUAGE OF ORDINARY PEOPLE.
"and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way". Wordsworth wants to present ORDINARY THINGS IN A NEW WAY THROUGH IMAGINATION.
"and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature". Wordsworth believes that the use of the LANGUAGE OF NATURE is necessary.
After that he explains the reasons why low and rustic life was chosen:
•· In that condition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil, are less under restraint and speak a more emphatic language
•· In that condition the elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity and therefore they may be more accurately contemplated and communicated.
•· Those elementary feelings are more easily comprehended and more durable
•· In that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.
Now he explains the reasons why the language of these men (low men) is adopted:
•· Because such men communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived
•· Because they are not under the influence of social vanity (they convey their feelings in simple and unelaborated expressions)
Wordsworth makes some questions and gives answers:
· What is a poet? = he is a man speaking to men, but he is endued with more sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, has a greater knowledge of human nature and a more comprehensive soul; he is a man pleased with his own passions and volitions; he has a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present; he has a great power in expressing what he thinks and feels.
· What is poetry? = poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings and takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.
In the last part of the extract Wordsworth tries to explain the CREATIVE ACT OF THE POET: the emotion is contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually EXIST IN THE MIND. Now successful COMPOSITION BEGINS. But in describing any passion whatsoever THE MIND will upon the whole be in a STATE OF ENJOYMENT.