Wordsworth's preface to the lyrical ballads .

Hello viewers !!!

    I am Maya Batiya , A student of M.A sem 1 , Department of English in MKBU.

 _assigned by Dilip Barad sir..

Q.1)  write a brief note on the self contradictory observation in preface.

Ans :

∆  Introduction :

 

       Wordsworth mostly known as a poet, and he has started his criticism just because of poetry. He has inspired by poetry. When Wordsworth has started criticism it was a neo-classical criticism. Critics judge the work by the genres and rules of poetry which has decided by ancients like Aristotle has influenced and interrupted by French and Italian authors and critics. 

∆ Preface to Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth:-

          After two editions of Lyrical Ballads in 1789 and 1800, the final edition has come out with the all new theories and ideas of poetry in 1802.

    

∆ Wordsworth’s poetical concept:-

             Coleridge and Wordsworth have written poetries in Lyrical Ballads as a part of an experience to know that how people accepts the common language in poetry, and how they get pleasure from it. And has given some theories to write poetry as below;

      1. Object:-

The very first concept of writing poetry is to choose the object from common things. The situations and incidents should be from the life of an ordinary people, and then they are presented with the imagination of a poet, which supports an original object and creates a kind of a novelty. Wordsworth has rejecting all the classical forms of writing and after choosing a subject of common life, he composes it in a formal style of writing.

Why all this toil and trouble?

And further in poem, there is a description of a nature and comparison of books and nature.

    2. Routine life:-

            After taking a subject from a common life, he has depicted the character’s routine life incidence in their language. As per the views of Wordsworth he has given an importance to

“Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”

He used to go for an evening walk and in his walk he used to encounter some incidence and beautiful sights of nature. After viewing this sight and incidence, he spontaneously overflows his feelings as he experienced.

      In his poem Daffodils he has expressed his routine life’s walk experience, that how he has seen the beautiful 

  

        In his another poem The Solitary Reaper, he has depicted his another experience that he has heard a song from a tribal woman working in a farm and has written a poetry, as we can see in some lines,

I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

This was his theory which was later on accepted by critics and other poets also.

     3. Diction:-

       Wordsworth has a strong belief that a language of poetry should be very simple and it would be able to connect with the heart of an ordinary people, it should be presented realistically, so uneducated person could also understand it as well as educated person.

Wordsworth has experimented to his poetry with vernacular dictions and this idea got success at that time. As per his theories his view towards the diction that a poet should be,

“Man speaking to men”

He has chosen common life with vernacular language to communicate with all the readers. As per him, he believes that a philosophical language can effect but a language of a common people could affect in better way. In his poem My Heart Leaps Up, he has used the simple and vernacular language,

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky;

In a very simple way he has described his love for rainbow, in his another poem “To a Butterfly”, he has depicted his experience of playing with butterfly and his attempts to catch it. He likes to watch butterfly and in poem he tells the butterfly to stay near him so he could watch it for long time.

    

      4. A Poet:-

            Wordsworth has given some qualities of poet by saying that

  

“What is Poet?”

Rather than telling who is poet. He concluded some qualities like;

 

* Man speaking to men;

* A man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness;

* He has a great knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than supposed to be common among mankind;

* Who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him;

These qualities a poet should have and in his ‘preface’ of Lyrical Ballads he has given the description and said that poet is a one who can express his thoughts very well than a common person, to a common person, he has that genius.

∆ Wordsworth’s self Contradiction:-

            Wordsworth has given so many theories about diction of poetry, how a poet should be and how he should write poetry but at some point he himself has failed to follow that rules. In his some poetries he used the language which is not a common people’s language, but highly imaginative and against his nature. He was known as a nature poet but in his poem London 1812, when it was time of French influence, and all the works was criticized highly, and there were boundaries to write poetry, he recalls the memory of Milton and he is telling Milton that you should be here at this time, because England is in bad need of your kind of a brave man.

Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need to thee:

She is a fen of stagnant waters: altar,

He has used a metaphor of stagnant water by saying that all the people are blindly following such rules and have staying stagnantly in their life in a particular manner. As all knows that john Milton has written many rebellious works towards society, and he has shown the reality of life without any fear of critics and political aspects, his anti-Christian view was also famous. Further in the poem he says,

 

“We are selfish men; Oh! Raise us up, return to us again”

Again he is telling the soul of Milton to rise the country up because men have become selfish and self centered. He reminds his works that always helped people to think in new ways.

* Wordsworth in his explanation to what is poet said that a poet should be very simple in his diction, but sudden after that he also says that a poet should has a genius mind, thus he himself has a contrast in his statement.

* He concludes a poet as a common man, but further he says that a poet is quite different than a common man in expressing his thoughts. He has an imagination power than a common person has.

* He has a strong belief that poetry should be a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, but he himself has used more Tranquility. He used to recall his memories after his experience. In most of his poetries there in contradiction between spontaneity and tranquility.

* As in the very famous poetry of Wordsworth daffodils, first three stanzas are in present tense which shows spontaneity and the last stanza is in the past tense which is tranquility. In solitary reaper also there is a first stanza is in the present tense and others are in past tense.

* With his self contradiction he has gain widely attention towards his poetries and his theories, and got acceptance from readers and critics.

  

 ∆ conclusion :   

       Wordsworth’s poetry does not only delight us but teaches us a moral lesson to live life.

        Wordsworth has presented his works in very simple diction, with such realistic characters, realistic situations, though he has contained strong narrative element which not only gain attention of common people but also an educated people also. It is also an art to be in a simple manner and understand the common people’s perspective. 

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