Preface to Lyrical Ballads: Wordsworth

Theory of poetry

“Poetry is the thought and the words in which emotion  spontaneously embodies itself.”         

Thoughts on Poetry and its Variations by Mill.

Wordsworth took the hint and produced the theory of poetry which is contained in Preface to Lyrical Ballads wherein, at least two places; he points out: “All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling,” and “It takes its origin from the emotion recollected in tranquility”. At first glance, these two are quite opposite to each other—the one is coming on a sudden, and the other deliberately called to memory—but Wordsworth makes no difference between two and tries to explain one by the other.

In his famous Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, he enunciated his theories that he was going to use “a selection of language really used by men”, and this chiefly “in humble and rustic life” because such men are in hourly communion “with the best objects from the best part of language is originally derived” and,       “at the same time to throw over a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to  the mind in an unusual manner”. He also adds “there neither is nor can be any essential difference between the language of prose and verse”.

Poetry “a hopeless product of intelligence playing upon the surface of life …made out of the interests of society in its great centers of culture” originates in the heart and not in the intellect; and a poet cannot write under any pressure, as Keats says “Poetry should come as natural as leaves to a tree” and again he says “We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us”. A poet writes only when he is inspired because only then his ideas spontaneously flow out of his mind and he creates poetry of high order and which is: “nothing less than the most perfect speech of man, that in which he comes nearest to being able to utter the truth”.

Wordsworth’s own typical poems—A Moving Sight, Skylark, A Solitary Reaper— were composed in his own manner. The group of Daffodils was also seen during a walk, stored in the memory and recalled in the moments of calm contemplation to be bodied forth into the poem. This is what Wordsworth actually means when he says in Daffodils:       

                        “For oft, when on my couch I lie       
                        In vacant or in pensive mood,           
                        They flash upon that inward eye       
                        Which is the bliss of solitude;
                        And then my heart with pleasure fills,          
                        And dance with the daffodils.”

So the end of poetry is to impart pleasure, this pleasure is not ideal pleasure, but of a profound kind because poetry “is the breath and finer spirit of all the knowledge, the impassioned expression that is in the countenance of all the science”. Poetry aims at winning “the vacant and the vain to noble raptures” and also aims at evoking a feeling of love for mankind. Wordsworth hoped that with his poetry he should be able to “console the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier: to lead the young and gracious of every age to see, to think, and to feel, and, therefore, to become more actively and securely virtuous”. The pleasure imparted by poetry ennobles and edifies the readers.

Thus, “The end of poetry is to produce excitement in co-existence with an overbalance of pleasure; but, by the supposition, excitement is an unusual and irregular state of mind; ideas and feelings do not, in that state, succeed each other in accustomed order”. For Wordsworth, the first stage of the progress of poetry, which is “unforced overflow of powerful feelings”, is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; the next is that of emotion recollected in tranquility; and the last is of its expression in poetry. He always composed his poems with the greatest care, not trusting his first expression which he found often detestable, in his own words, “it is frequently true of second words as of second thoughts that they are the best.”

F.L. Lucas once said “Wordsworth’s famous theory of style is merely a natural revulsion frozen into a foolish rule; and his style in practice is often the very opposite of his own theory, without being any the better for that”. J.K Stephan said, “There are two wholly different Wordsworths. Suddenly in this rough block of granite the mica flashes out, like diamond, beneath the moon; on this blunt, whale-headed fell the sunset strikers, like a great transfiguration, athwart the grey, crawling rags of mists”, until     

                        “…………………… the sky seems not a sky         
                        Of earth, and with what motion move the clouds”.

Despite all criticism, including Eliot’s, who said “poetry is not the turning loose of emotions but an escape from emotions,” Wordsworth’s theory of poetry can hardly be over-estimated or over-praised, thus, Preface gives Wordsworth concept of nature, function and language of poetry which give direction to the nineteenth century poetry. All in all, through the breathless efforts, Wordsworth gives a new trend to poetry.

Wordsworth says that nature obeys certain rules and poetic diction arbitrary and capricious, however, Walter Raleigh declares that Wordsworth hardly observes rules set by himself—but it is said that he writes well when he breaks his own rules. However, Coleridge’s objection is that when a poet begins to arrange words he no longer remains spontaneous.

When we say that Wordsworth did not always practise his theory of poetic diction, we refer to the poems as Tintern Abbey, The Intimation of Immortality Ode, or Simplon Pass, etc. Here, too, however, there is no bombast; the style is not complicated but there is a sonorous “trumpet tone” which is not quite in keeping with his decision to select the real language of men. Many a time, he uses Latinised vocabulary—“incommunicable sleep”, “diurnal course” “unimaginable touch of time”, etc. There is nothing much ordinary with lines such as: 

                        “And O Fountains, meadows, hills and groves          
                         Forebode not every severing of our loves.” 

Dr. Johnson declared that noble and the graceful action is degraded if expressed in ordinary and simple language; and Gray staled: “the language of the age could never be the language of poetry”. So Wordsworth rebelled against the artificial language used by the poets of the preceding sensation, which was known as the Neo-Classical language.

Wordsworth asserts that there is essentially no difference between the language of prose and metrical composition. He gives an example to prove that the meter should not be confused with poetic diction.  Wordsworth gives a false example which has been applied to poetry in which the language resembles life and nature. Here is bad poetry:     

                        “I put my hat on upon the head,                    
                        And walked into the strand    
                        And there must another man
                        Whose hat was in his hand”. 

And here is an example of good poetry:       

                        “The pretty Babies with hand in hand;          
                        Wandering up and down;      
                        But never more they saw the Man    
                        Approaching from the town”.

In both these examples, the words are in prose order and ideas familiar. Yet one stanza is poor poetry and the other is good poetry: where is the difference? Surely not in the words or metre, but in one, the matter is contemptible and in the other interesting images emerges.

In sum, under the influence of Wordsworth, poetry broke through the iron modules of rules and came to be blessed with a sweet music that rose directly from the poet’s heart and went overflowing direct to the heart of the readers.

All in all, to conclude, it must be admitted that Wordsworth gives a new trend to English poetry by eliminating artificial diction from it. He broke a vicious tradition and evolved a simple, unaffected and natural style which reaches the hearts of men. Thus, Wordsworth in his theories was, as he himself remarks “a man fighting a battle without enemies”; whose principle object was “to choose incidents from the common life….to imitate and, as far as possible to adopt the very language of men.”

Wordsworth Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

Wordsworth Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, 1800, 1802, 1815.

The chief aim in the composition of poems in the Lyrical Ballads has been to choose ‘incidents and situations from common life’ and to relate them in a selection of language really used by men, and at the same time throw over them a colouring of imagination, whereby the ordinary things would be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect. WW insists that if the subject is properly chosen, it will naturally lead the poet to feelings whose appropriate expression will have dignity, beauty and metaphorical vitality.

He has chosen ‘incidents and situations from common life’ as subjects of his poetry for the following reasons: in humble and rustic life feelings are freely and frankly expressed for these are simple, the manners of the rustics are not sophisticated and hence are more conducive to an understanding of human nature, in rustic life, human passions are connected to nature and so they are more noble and permanent.

He has used the language of the rustics because such men hourly communicate with the best objects of nature from which the best part of language is derived, and because of their low rank in society, they are less under the influence of social vanity. They convey their feelings in a simple and unelaborated language. Such language is far more philosophical than the arbitrary language used by the poets of the day.

The theme which dominates most of Wordsworth’s criticism, and which he pursues most consistently is his argument against poetic diction. The immediate object of his attack was the ‘gaudiness and inane phraseology’ and the ‘vague, glossy and unfeeling language’ of contemporary poets. Wordsworth is arguing against the idea of ‘poetic diction’ current throughout the 18th c, the idea that some modes of diction were best avoided in poetry, but that other modes were especially suitable. He argues that to separate poetry from ordinary speech is to separate it from human life. Poets confer honour neither on themselves or their works by using a sophisticated diction. In fact it alienates human sympathy. Simple rural people are less restrained and artificial in their feelings and their utterance, and those feelings are at one with their environment. Expanding his apologia for his rejection of poetic diction, he says that there neither is, nor be any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition, and repeats that the language of poetry should as far as possible be ‘a selection of the language really spoken by men’. If true taste and feeling are applied to the process of selection then what results will be firmly distinguished from the ‘vulgarity and meanness of ordinary life’ and if meter is ‘superadded’ then it will be even better. Acc to WW, metre is not essential to poetry, but it is an additional source of pleasure.

What is a poet? Acc to WW, a poet is a man speaking to men. He is endowed with more lively sensibility

has greater knowledge of human nature a more comprehensive soul greater zest for life, greater powers of communication

A poet communicates not only personally felt emotions but also emotions he has not directly experienced. Role of Poetry: Poetry is not a matter of mere amusement and idle pleasure; it is a much noble and higher pleasure. It is the most philosophic of all writings: its object is truth, not individual and local, but general and operative. It is the image of man and nature. For Ww, the poet’s specialty is the interaction between man and his environment, the complexities of pleasures and pain that arise therefrom, and the deep sympathies by which they are interrelated. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge…It is by virtue of this sublime concept of the poet that WW decries verbal artifices and vague ornamentation in poetic expressions.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility. In WW’s poems, feelings are more important than action and situation.

Views on metre: WW justifies the use of meter. Metre is regular and uniform, while poetic diction is arbitrary and capricious. The rules of metre are fixed, while there are no rules for poetic diction. WW has used metre for the following reasons: it is an additional source of pleasure, in using metre he has followed tradition, metre has restraining and tempering effect on the flow of emotion and passion, it softens the painful and pathetic, it has a distancing effect, it imparts grace and dignity to the lighter emotions, provides an element of contrast, and the perception of similarity in dissimilarity.

Poetic process; four stages through which poetic composition takes place a) observation, b) recollection, c) contemplation, d) imaginative excitement of the emotions which were experienced earlier.

Criticism of WW’s ideas by Coleridge

Language so selected and purified will no longer be rustic language. WW permits the use of metre, and this means a particular order and arrangement of words. If metre is to be used in poetry it will be not same as the language of prose. The use of metre is as artificial as poetic diction, if one is allowed why not the other? Coleridge objects to the use of the word ‘real’- every man’s language differs according to his individuality and the class to which he belongs. In that case can one language be less real than the other. As man advances from the primitive stage, his thoughts and expressions have also advanced, he has acquired new ideas and concepts, these cannot be adequately expressed in rustic language.

Wordsworth: A Nature Poet

Wordsworth or “the Muse of Poetry” well known as “a priest of Nature”, who shows:

“……………….the light of setting sun,

And the round ocean, and the blue sky,

The living air and the mind of man”.

English poetry before Wordsworth was the poetry of town and drawing room but Wordsworth drew the attention of the readers towards rills and hills, skies and stars, rivers and trees. In his poetry he adopted Rousseau’s slogan “Return to nature” but in his return to her he never grew morbid like Rousseau or animal like D.H. Lawrence. He says “love he had found in huts where poor men lives”, and his poetry is the “language of conversation among middle and poor classes of the society”, and as a poet he is “a man speaking to men”. So, he today remains the living voice crying in its wilderness prophetic protest, not only against the unhealthiness civilization but also against the drop brutality of the machine world.

“Wordsworth”, in his poetry remarks F.L. Lucas “was more wiser than Rousseau and less wise than Montaigne”. Because of this simple strength his work endures without any rainbow of magic of Coleridge; or the kiss of La Balle Dame Sans Merci on pale lips of Keats; or the sun shimmering mists of Shelly’s vision; or the passionate gloom of Byron. Thus, he goes on his way and becomes totally different from that of his contemporaries. Wordsworth independence towards Nature led him to the heart of common things. It was an instinct in him, as Shakespeare does, he too:

“Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks

 Sermons in stone and good in everything”.

The poem World is too Much With Us about the people who are out of tune with nature. In the present poem Wordsworth shows us a beautiful image of nature:

“…….sea that bares her bosom to the moon

The winds that will be howling all hours

And now up gathered like the sleeping flowers”.

Tintern Abbey is the complete philosophy of Wordsworth and the most reflective poem of English literature. In this poem he says that nature is:

“…………………..the nurse

The guide and guardian of my heart and soul

And all of my moral being”.

In the same poem he advices his sister Dorothy that nature takes us “joy to joy” and it “never betray the heart of that loves her”.

About Wordsworth’s treatment of nature Huxley says that Wordsworth were born in a country where there is plenty of nature if he were in desert of Arabia his intention towards nature would be totally different. Huxley’s intention is that Wordsworth deals in his poetry those aspects which he found in Lake District.  But Wordsworth proves Huxley wrong in his poem The Solitary Reaper which is about the “melancholy strain” of “yon solitary…..single in the field”. About her song Wordsworth says:

“No Nightingale did ever chaunt

 More melodious in some weary bands

Of travellers in some shaddy haunt

Among Arabian Sands”

This poem shows that Wordsworth did not see the landscape in all its details. He had no real scenery but he can create desert scene in his imagination.

In Daffodils he spent no time at the description of daffodils. Instead he describes them as

“Besides the lake, beneth the trees

 Fluttering an d dancing in the bridge”

Wordsworth believes that “Nature is a teacher whose wisdom we can learn, and without human is vain and incomplete”. In Immortality Ode , he says , when he was a boy his love towards nature was a thoughtless passion but now the object of nature takes sober colouring in his eyes because he sees the “still sad music of humanity”:

“To me the meanest flower that blows can give the

 Thought that often do lie too deep for tears”.

Thus, we see that Wordsworth love for nature underwent various charges. It starts form the delight of childhood and culminated into the worship. But as “a pure poet” it is very easy to criticize Wordsworth; as he had admirer like Tennyson and Arnold “thick angle” and “boor”. For Fitzgerald he was “Daddy Wordsworth” and for Swinburne he was a “Philistine”; Rossetti remarks “good, you know, but unbearable”. Meredith remarks in Richard Feveral “He is a superior donkey reclaimed from heathen”. But besides these charges he hailed out as a great great poet of nature.

In sum, nature was never dead for Wordsworth, but it is full if breath of infinite breath. So Wordsworth personifies Nature and natural objects most imaginative way. He identified God and Nature as one. Wordsworth tries to seek out the principle of joy wherever it can be found. One may add to it, we cannot see the Nature with Wordsworth’s eyes.