1-Wordsworth's Conception Of Poetry

Critics and poets, in all ages and countries tried to explain their own theory and practice of poetry.
Wordsworth, too, expounded his views on poetry, its nature and functions, and the qualifications of a true poet
in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads.

On the nature of poetry, Wordsworth states that:

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful passion”.

Internal feelings of the poet proceeds poetry. It is a matter of feeling and temperament. True poetry cannot be
written without proper mood and temperament. It cannot be produced to order. It must flow out freely and
willingly from the soul as it cannot be made to flow through artificially laid pipes. Secondly, poetry is a matter
of powerful feelings. It is never an intellectual process.

“Poetry is born not in the mind but in the heart overflowing with feelings”.

Poets are gifted with greater organic sensibility. They have greater ability to receive sense impressions.
Beauties of nature, which may leave ordinary mortals untouched, excite poet’s powerful emotions and he
feels an urge to express them. Wordsworth’s heart leapt up with joy on beholding a rainbow or daffodils
dancing in the breeze and he expressed his overflowing feelings spontaneously in his immortal poems.

According to Wordsworth, good poetry is never an instant expression of powerful emotions. A good poet must
meditate and ponder over them long and deeply. Poetry has its origin in “emotions recollected in tranquility”.
Experience has to pass at least four stages before successful composition becomes possible. Firstly, there is
the observation or perception to some object, character or event which sets up powerful emotions in poet’s
mind. Secondly, there is recollection and contemplation of that emotion in silence. In this stage, memory plays
a very important part. An interval of time must elapse, in which the first experience sinks deep into the poet’s
insight and becomes his part and parcel. During the interval, the mind ponders and the impression received is
purged of the unneeded elements or superfluities and is “qualified by various pleasures”. This filtering process
is very slow; time and solitude are vital. Thus, the poet’s emotion is universalized. Thirdly, the interrogation of
memory by the poet sets up, or revives, the emotion in “the mind itself”. It is very much like the first emotion,
but is purged of all superfluities and constitutes a “state of enjoyment”.

This does not mean that the creative process is a tranquil one. The poet points out that in the process of
contemplation, “tranquility disappears”. The poet has to “passion anew” while creating and is terribly
exhausted as a result. But creation, if it be healthy, carries with it joy or “an over-balance of pleasure”. On the
whole, “the mood of imaginative creation is enjoyment”. The ability to create comes from nature and not from
premeditated art.

The fourth and last stage is of composition. The poet must convey that “overbalance of pleasure” and his own
“state of enjoyment” to others. He differs from ordinary individuals in communicating his experience to others
in such a way as to give pleasure. Metre is justified for it is pleasure super-added:

“Verse will be read a hundred times where Prose is read only once”.

Wordsworth himself closely followed his theory. He rarely made, “a present joy the matter of a song”. He did
not poetize an experience immediately; his hardly ten poems are described unplanned. His composition had a
wide interval between an experience and its poetic delineation. He had a powerful memory and at times he
would fetch out an impression, “from hiding places ten years deep”. All his best poems resulted from emotions
recollected in tranquility.

Recalling in silence enables the poet to see into the things deeply and converse the very soul of an
experience to his readers. Through such contemplation the poet is able to impart to everyday object a
‘visionary gleam’, a ‘glory’, a ‘light that never was on land and sea’. As such recollection is best done in
solitude, the poet loved lonely places, liked to wander all alone, lost in reverie, and was known by the rustics
of Cumberland as the Solitary.
 Wordsworth asserts that the function of poetry is to give pleasure. Even the painful subject should give
pleasure. The poet in a “state of enjoyment” must commune this enjoyment to his readers. But pleasure is not
the only and the chief aim of poetry. It is not an entertainment or a pastime. He tells:

“It is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, the impassioned expression that is in the
countenance of all science”.

To be incapable of poetic feeling is to be without love of human nature and reverence of God. Its mission is
to:

“Arouse the sensual from their sleep of Death. And win the vacant and the vain to noble Rapture”.

Poetry must serve the purposes of life and morality.

“Poetry divorced from morality is valueless”.

He hoped to console through his own poetry, the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight, to lead the people to
see, to think and to feel and become more virtuous.

Any subject can be poetically treated but Wordsworth favored incidents and characters from low and rustic
life. He made the folks of Cumberland, their lives and objects of nature, the subjects of his poetry, for in rustic
life the basic passions and emotions can be observed more clearly and expressed more perfectly. Such
elementary passions in rural settings are linked with, “the beautiful and permanent forms of nature”. For
Wordsworth it is the feeling and emotion that is important and not action and situation.

“Feeling developed in a poem gives importance to the action and situation and not the diction and
situation to the feeling”.

Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction was a direct outcome of his democratic preference for simple rustic life
and characters. When the theme was simple, the language must be simple too. It must be a selection of the
language really spoken by such men otherwise it would not be in character. He is, therefore, critical of the
artificial poetic diction of 18th century poetry.

2- Analysis of Preface to lyrical Ballads

The Preface to Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge appeared after the first publication of the
poems and then in numerous revised forms until the end of Wordsworth's career. It remains the clearest
statement of Romantic principles as it lays out the purpose and practice of writing poetry and its close
relation to prose. It also explains the profession, or craft, of the "poet" and the role of poetry in giving a
voice to contemporary and simplified ways of living that stay close to the truths of nature. For
Wordsworth, as for all the Romantic writers, one discovered these primary laws of nature through
experiences in the natural world—experiences that, when combined with emotion, produced poetry.

Importance of Subject Matter

Wordsworth emphasizes why and how he chooses the subjects for his poems. He separates his work
from that of past ages and literary figures, showing they have been too "literary" by emphasizing formal
or classical models of artificial conventions. Rather than the recording of actual observations or events,
Wordsworth believes emotional truths and fidelity to nature are the keys to providing ordinary readers
with insights into their own conditions of life. He favors a "humble and rustic" rural existence (yet without
narrating anything unsettling or violent) to urban life because it seems simpler and more natural.
Wordsworth also favors a more unified, common population that shares similar experiences. In cities like
rapidly expanding London, the permanence of natural truths seems absent. The short-lived values of
shifting populations give no connection to the past or the promise of future tranquility for the common
people, whose experiences can form the basis for poetry as well as prose. Wordsworth sought to make
ordinary experiences seem more extraordinary and enduring. As nature reveals permanence and
unchanging truths, the new literature Wordsworth proposes would share the simplicity, and depth, of
people's lives.

Characteristics of Poetry
Wordsworth says poetry must arise from the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its
origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." Although a poet should make a poem seem spontaneous,
the creation of it is not. Poetry must reflect emotion, or passion—not simply record observations. The
poet must draw from real-life experiences and describe them in ordinary language, and the poet must
"throw over them a certain coloring of the imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to
the mind in an unusual aspect." It is the imagination that permits the poet to touch on the eternal, making
the surrounding world new and connecting the people with that world.

Wordsworth analyzes what he sees as four parts of the poet's creative process. The poet first observes
something that creates a powerful emotion. Then he tranquilly contemplates and reflects on the emotion.
During this period the poet may recall other things that relate to the observation itself or to the past in
some way. Such contemplation is personal, intended only for the poet. The tranquility of contemplation
disappears after a time, and then the poet distills all these thoughts, eliminating some and keeping
others so that the original emotion is recreated in a way that is more universal. Finally the poet is ready
to write, with the aim of sharing the emotion with an audience.

Poetry, therefore, doesn't arise from classical models or through an immediate inspiration on any
supernatural level. It arises through experience on an ordinary level—understood and reflected upon.
Wordsworth rejects elaboration or literary devices as artificial and uses numerous examples of earlier
poets' work in his discussion. He hopes to lead readers to meditate on their own emotions and arrive
eventually at a more moral and true conception of themselves and of life. Poetry can achieve the finest
level of art by being simple and straightforward.

Poetry and Prose

Wordsworth devotes much of the Preface to examining his views on poetry and prose. He rejects past
distinctions of one being more heroic or a higher art than the other. His aim is to reveal both as sharing
the most important characteristics of "the language of men." As he simplifies the art of being a poet into
being "a man speaking to men," he essentially erases the lines separating prose from poetry. He sees
the distinction of both as opposed to science, as he understands it, because the relatively new field of
science focuses on the factual. Moreover, he sees the scientist as making discoveries on their own,
away from others, and not influencing the common condition, which for Wordsworth is the essence of
poetry. For Wordsworth, who favors free, straightforwardly rhymed lines over traditional rhyme and
meter in poetry, the use of most meter produces a forced type of "verse" rather than the "naked," simpler
poetry that shares truths with prose.

He explains that he chooses to write poetry—with a proper and natural "Poetic Diction"—rather than
prose because it offers more possibilities for his imagination to explore the natural passions of men and
give them form. However, he refuses to acknowledge any strict separation between poetry and prose
because both must spring from emotion and reflection. Wordsworth writes, "They both speak by and to
the same organs ... their affections are kindred, and almost identical, not necessarily differing even in
degree." He ends the Preface by saying that whether he writes in prose or verse, the essential principle
of his art—made of imagination and sentiment—will employ "one and the same language" of meter or
prose.
 Analysis
The Preface as Writing
Although the Preface itself is a work of prose, Wordsworth quotes much poetry within it and, like his
verses, places the same emphasis on common experience being illuminated by the imagination. It is
clearly the manifesto of an individual explaining a radically new approach to something that has had a
long existence already. In his essay he sets himself as both alone and with the common experience of
others as heralding a new age in understanding and communicating feelings and emotions in a changed
world. During his long career, Wordsworth often saw himself as embarking on new and uncharted paths.
He had a broad and thorough education in the canon of Western literature and used this background in
new ways.

Many past movements saw themselves as either inheriting literary traditions or making their own, but
Wordsworth was the first to base his work on the actual lives of ordinary people. The Preface often
alternates between proudly staking out his own principles and calling on the views of his
contemporaries, as when he begins with "Several of my friends are anxious for the success of these
Poems." His own voice is loud and clear, unafraid to criticize even good intentions in others. He seems
always aware of a performance art in which he quotes others against each other, with his own views
making the judgments on levels of quality. Whereas Coleridge wrote with more abstract emphasis on the
unusual and even the supernatural, Wordsworth focuses on the ordinary, the voices of the common folk,
of whose assumed simplicity and homogeneity he approves, even though they may have little
experience with poetry.

The Preface was revised and republished several times: beginning from the period when Wordsworth
spoke as a young radical voice through his recognition as a leading literary voice. As both a young and
mature man, he embraced sharply different ideas from those of other poets. During the high point of the
Romantic movement, which the manifesto seems to have ushered in, his emphasis on feeling and
individualism became commonly held.

The Preface on Verse and Prose

The long essay in its various versions returns numerous times to the question of types of writing.
Wordsworth devoted his life to writing, never having had another occupation or seeming to search for
one. When his formal education ended, he traveled as widely as he could with limited resources, and his
poems are often shaped by these experiences. When Lyrical Ballads appeared, it gained considerable
attention. Its detractors objected to Wordsworth's choice of subject matter and disagreed with his
emphasis on common people, rustic and even illiterate lives of poverty, real human passions, and
feelings joined with reflection. Although Wordsworth avoided extreme or vulgar examples of these
things, his detractors found such points of interest to be outside the realm of poetry. Having taken poetry
to this new territory, Wordsworth in the Preface proceeds to examine how the actual forms of writing can
best conform to such aims. He goes deeply and repeatedly into comparing and contrasting the range of
powers open to the poet in both prose and poetry.
Past literary movements frequently have emphasized one of these genres over the other, depending on
the work and reputations of the writers of the time. Wordsworth seems intent on using the best of both,
not excluding one in favor of the other, but seeking always to find the most appropriate genre. He spent
decades of his life writing poems in various formats and voices but dispensed with many rules and
formulas. The Preface is his great prose work and never enters poetic territory despite its focus on it.
Wordsworth repeats that efforts to privilege verse or prose are wrongheaded, for both share the same
instinct for truth and human passion in the communal sense. Science, on the other hand, seems new
and impersonal, based on facts that poetry cannot affect or change. His aim to raise his readers' moral
sense appears untouched by scientific study or research.

To make prose and verse allies, in a sense, against the potential changes in society is also to limit the
poet's own impact in the future. Also, Wordsworth's emphasis on emotions will eventually lessen his
influence, as new ways of looking at the world will emerge and people will judge the Romantic era with
different eyes. In time, the effort to convince the world that poetry and prose are essentially similar in
approach and content can be judged independently of form will result in these becoming commonplace
ideas. However, these ideas were often ignored by others, as poets and prose writers continued to go
their separate ways.

Wordsworth as Judge
The usefulness of the Preface in judging merit in poetry depends on several factors. Wordsworth
appears neither modest nor boastful when citing his own poems and measuring them against others,
including works of well-known writers. A few pages into the text, Wordsworth harshly criticizes the 18th-
century poet Thomas Gray. Quoting lines from one of Gray's few poems, Wordsworth says the verse is
far from simple truths that could be expressed in either prose or more natural-sounding poetry.
Wordsworth dismisses more than half of Gray's sonnet as having no value. Gray's other major work,
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," with its canonical, or scriptural, lines "on the paths of glory" and
"far from the madding crowd," remains among the most quoted and best-loved poems of all time, so it
may seem odd to find Gray so faulted. Similarly, Samuel Johnson's writing is noticeably said to have
"contemptible matter."

But throughout, nothing indicates Wordsworth is issuing such opinions specifically to promote his works
over others. He seems to have given serious thought to his views and taken a long and broad view of
literature before his own time. The emphasis remains not on him personally but on what any poet may
achieve when he focuses on the correct foundations for a common and humble source of truth. He
appears willing to view his own work as an experiment in poetic diction, newly formed and purified of
what he believes it lacked before. He admits to putting store in what others think of his work and having
doubts about whether he can achieve the high goals he has set. Wordsworth sees his Lyrical Ballads as
innovative and connected to a high level of truth and significance, if not a high level of life and society.
Ages after the Preface made its judgments, and Wordsworth's own reputation has endured its ups and
downs, it is doubtful many contemporary readers would use either his praise or his criticisms as the
basis for their own reactions to literature. Modern readers can understand how Wordsworth saw people
and society and his need to express new ideas in the hope they would lead to progress in life as well as
art. He returns again and again to the need to take down barriers, as in the traditional separation of
prose and poetry, but such forms continue to exist, even strictly, for some. Passion and commitment to
change motivate Wordsworth, and using literature as a means to effect change can be understood and
appreciated in a democratic society that values free expression. If readers do not actively judge the
writers Wordsworth mentions, they can value him for his openness and ability to take risks in his
opinions.

3.Explain the Quotation by Wordsworth, “a poet is men talking to

men”, with reference to “Preface to Lyrical Ballad”?
Wordsworth, when describing a poet, says that a poet is a 'man
speaking to men' and is someone 'who rejoices more than other men in
the spirit of life which is in them'. It needs to be definerated what
Wordsworth means by 'man', whether he is refering to 'man' as a gender
or man as in humanity. When refering to poets he always uses the term
'man' or 'men' implying that all poets must be male. Later in the
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth goes on to say that
"poets... sing a song in which all humans beings join", surely
suggesting that women and children are included in this as they are
part of mankind. Blake, as one of the most renouned romantic poets,
focuses much of his work around images of mankind. Although in saying
this, "mankind" is collective and includes women and children, and
Blakes work is undoubtedly preoccupied with these two groups. He
distinguishes "man" very differently to "children" depending on the
context. In London (songs of expereince) he clearly identifies "man"
as a separate group to the "infant" in the poem as he refers to them
by different names and as a separate category, highlighting their
differences. Children to Blake are extremely important, especially in
the context of poetry, indeed in '"The introduction to Songs of
Innocence' he says that the poems are "for children to hear" and
concentrates on a child's view of life. It is not possible to say that
Blakes poetry excludes women and children as so many of his poems are based around these
themes. Even the titles of the poems represent
this, such as "The Little Girl Lost", "Infant sorrow", "Little Black
Boy" and "Nurse's Song", compared to very few centred primarily around
men. Blake uses his poems to express the view and plight of suppressed
groups in society, such as children.

4.POETIC DICTION ACCORDING TO WORDSWORTH

The term diction refers to the kind of words, phrases, sentences, and sometimes figurative
language that constitute any work of literature. When it comes to poetry writing, the question related
to the diction always arises. The question of diction is considered as primary because the feelings
of the poet must be easily conceived by the readers. The poets of all ages have used distinctive
poetic diction.
The Neo-classical poetic diction was mainly derived from the classical poets such as Virgil,
Spenser, and Milton. These poets used to write poetry by using embellished language and
particular decorum. Other prominent features of that period were the extensive use of difficult
words, allusions, the personification of abstracts, and avoidance of things considered as low or
base. The poetry of that time was treated as something sacred. It was only subjected to the people
with high intellect and of high status in the society.

Wordsworth prime concern was to denounce such superficial and over-embellished language.
Wordsworth’s aim was to write poetry which symbolizes the life in its simple and rustic state. The
poetry, for Wordsworth, must be like the part of daily life speech. It should be written in such
language that anyone who wants to read it could comprehend it easily. Wordsworth believes that all
such ornamented poetry clocks the genuine and passionate feelings of the poets. He only justifies
the use of an embellished language of poetry when it is naturally suggested by the feelings or the
subject matter of the poetry. The poetry, for Wordsworth, is the expression of natural feelings and
these feelings cannot be communicated with the help of fake and version of upper-class speech but
with the actual speech of “humble and rustic life”.
He defines poetic diction as a language of common men. It is not the language of the poet as a
class but the language of mankind. It is the simple expression of pure passions by men living close
to nature. The poetic language is the natural language; therefore, it must be spontaneous and
instinctive. The real poetic diction, in the view of the Wordsworth, is the natural overflow of the
feelings, therefore, it is immune to the deliberate decoration of the language.

Wordsworth also attributes the quality of giving pleasure to the natural poetic diction. It must not
contain any vulgarity and disgusting element. The poet must, through his language, elevate the
nature and human feelings.