SDecorte - Extract about Wordsworth's Views of Poetry and the Poet

The text from William Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads is considered the Manifesto of Romanticism. It is intended for poets and intellectuals of the time and it sets out intentions and aims of romantic poetry: what the content of poetry should be, what the language should be, who the poet is and what the creative act is like.

The subject of poetry should be incidents and situations from common life, in particular low and rustic life; the poet should choose them because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently, may be more contemplated and communicated. At the same time Wordsworth's object is to throw over these subjects a certain colouring of imagination whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way to make them more interesting and attractive.

The language of poetry should be selected but familiar and really used by men, because such men convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Consequently this language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent and a far more thoughtful than the language which is usually substituted for it by the poets.

The poet is a man speaking to other men who has more sensibility, enthusiasm and tenderness than ordinary people; who has a greater knowledge of human nature and a more comprehensive soul, and who has acquired a greater readiness and power in expressing what he think and feels.

Finally, the creative act of poetry is a spontaneous process based on powerful feelings and emotions recalled in tranquility. An emotion that actually exist in the poet's mind creates pleasure and when the poet writes a poem he remembers that emotion and he is in a state of contemplation and enjoyment.