PREFACE TO LYRICAL
BALLADS
INTRODUCTION
William Wordsworth, a
romantic poet was born at Cockermouth, Cumbria, on 7 April 1770. Even though he
had a great contribution in English literary criticism, because his Preface to Lyrical
Ballads is one of the significant work in English literary criticism, he is
more a poet than a critic. Words Worth in 1830 stated that he is not a critic.
As a romantic writer, he believed in the democratization of literature and also
wrote poems dealing with nature rather than man. William Wordsworth was the
second child of Wordsworth, a lawyer, and Ann Cookson. The Prelude is an autobiographical poem of Wordsworth in which he
reveals “how he spent his boyhood in close companionship with nature, playing
in the river all day in summer (Thomas, p 7).” He was educated at Cambridge
University. “In Book IV of The Prelude he described how in the
summer vacation of 1778, as he was walking home after a night of dancing and
merry-making, an awareness of his poetic dedication came to him (Thomas P 8).” Then he resides in France but he could
not continue there until December 1792. Because of of the war between France
and England “he was forced to return from France and left behind the pregnant
Annette Vallon (Leitch. P 645).” Then he settled in England with his sister Dorothy,
although the departure of Annette makes him torment for long afterwards.
Wordsworth’s first collection of poetry Descriptive Sketches and An Evening Walk was
published in 1793.In `1794 Wordsworth
went on a tour and visit Tintern Abbey with his school friend William Calvert, later
his younger brother Raisly Calvert left the legacy of 900 which ease
Wordsworth’s financial crisis and helps him to raise his career as a poet . In
London he met William Godwin, an anarchist philosopher and an author of Political Justice. At first, he was affected by Godwin’s philosophical teaching but
then he found that “the philosopher’s insistence on the ascendancy of reason
over feeling irreconcilable with life as he experienced it (Thomas, P 10)”. For
him emotion and feelings are better than intellect. Then he met Coleridge, his
contemporary poet, at Bristol in 1795. Then Coleridge moved to Nether Stowey and
Wordsworth settled in Alfoxden, a short distance away from Nether Stowey. In
Alfoxden Wordsworth started to write both lyric and dramatic poems, the central
achievement of his career as a poet. In 1798 Wordsworth revisits Tintern Abbey
and composed his famous poem in accordance with it. This was the last poem of
his Lyrical Ballads.
“Wordsworth’s early compositions and his
creative partnership with Coleridge resulted in September 1798in the anonymous
publication of Lyrical Ballads (Leitch,
B, P 645).” The volume open with Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner and end with Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey and it introduce a new trend in poetry .Wordsworth
published the first volume of Lyrical
Ballads as an experiment . Because the trend of poems in this volume was
against to the existing trend, that is the neoclassical one. The new trend was
the subject of poetry should be an ‘incidents and situations from daily life’
and it should be written in a language ‘really used by men’ rather than the
elevated diction used by the Augustine poets. Later the second edition of Lyrical Ballads published in 1800,
Wordsworth’s preface and many new poems were included in it. This new edition
put “Wordsworth’s name on the title page and Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner move back to the penultimate shell” ( Leitch,
B, P.645).” The preface reveals the intention of poems
written in the volume that is “to choose incidents and situations from common life
and to relate or describe them ... in a selection of language really used by
men; tracing in them the primary laws of our nature (Wordsworth, P).” In his
Preface Wordsworth tries to explain and defends his own literary practice,
which was entirely differ from his contemporary Augustine writers. Later
another edition was published in 1802 then it reprinted in 1805.
The twentieth century critic Northrop Frye
connects poet’s innovative description to social and political critique by
quoting Wordsworth’s Prelude, for
Wordsworth the “existing social and education structure are artificial and
hypocrite and Nature is the better teacher than a book and one finds one’s own
lost identity with nature in moments of feeling in which one is penetrated by
the sense of nature's 'huge and mighty forms'.” Wordsworth encouraged writers to break from
the rules and conventions of the existing neoclassical authority instead to
find inspiration in emotions and experience of ordinary people. Wordsworth
believed that poetry is the self expression and self exploration. “The Preface is to some extent a
political text as well as a literary position paper. Wordsworth's desire to
select "incidents and situations from common life" blends into poetry
the democratic sentiments that the French Revolution had inspired in him in the
early I 790s ( Leitch, P.647).” The preface is against to the neoclassical view
of choosing elevated diction for poetry than everyday language instead it
propose a language of low and ordinary people as a language of poetry.
Even though Wordsworth gave much more
emphasis to experience in writing a work especially poetry, “his Preface is not
always in accord with his actual experience ( Leitch, P.647).” Contradiction
and ambiguities are found in him. He argued that a poet should use the language
of low and rustic people in his poem. But Rene Wellek argued that his literary
heroes were Milton and Spenser, they never used the language of common men in
their poetry instead they choose noble and lofty diction.
PREFACE TO LYRICAL
BALLADS
Wordsworth in partnership with
Coleridge anonymously published the Lyrical Ballads in 1798 – a ‘selection of
real language of men with vivid sensation’. He believed that the sort of
pleasure and the quantity of pleasure impart by the poems written in the
Lyrical Ballads are the pleasure a poet may rationally endeavor to impart. He
also thought that the people who should pleased with his poems would read them
with more than common pleasure at the same time the people who dislike them
would read with more than common dislike. But he had pleased with more than he
hopes .He assisted with Coleridge for the sake of variety and his aware about
his own weakness. Though there were some differences among them, their views on
the subject of poetry were almost similar. Wordsworth can pleased more than he
hope, but his friends were anxious about the success of his poems in Lyrical Ballads because the poems in Lyrical Ballads were differ from the
existing one. So they suggested, writing a preface to explain and defend his
poetic intention and practice respectively. But he was not willing to write
such a preface because he believed that in such a situation the reader would
look coldly upon his arguments. He did not want to impose his prejudice on
readers, at the same time he feared that when he wrote a preface to his poetry,
it would be a long one, unsuitable to a preface. Later, he decided to wrote a
preface, because he believed “there would be some impropriety in abruptly
obtruding upon the public, without a few words of introduction, Poems so
materially different from those, upon which the general approbation is at
present bestowed.”
Wordsworth argued that the triviality and
meanness both of thought and language, which some of his contemporaries had
occasionally introduced into their metrical compositions but, he was against to
it. Instead he believed that his entire poem written in this volume has a
worthy purpose. Wordsworth explained the principal objects of the poems written
in the volume are “to choose incidents and situations from common life’, and to
relate or describe them , as far as possible, in a selection of language really
used by men; 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; and above all, to make these
incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them , the primary laws of
our nature.” According to C. T Thomas “Even the works of Shakespeare and Milton
have suffered grievous neglect from the reading public with palates avid for
artificial stimulus.”
Then
he reveals the reason behind the choosing of incidents and situation from
common life. For him, low and rustic life is the subject matter of his poetry.
He give emphasis to the rustic people’s life and experience differ from the
existing convention, since he believed that in such a condition , ‘the
essential passion of the heart find a
better soil in which they can attain their maturity’. He also believed that
these ‘law and rustic life are less under restraint’, that is it is free from
the artificiality of urban, and ‘speak a plainer and more emphatic language ’because
in such a condition the ‘passion of men are incorporated with the beautiful and
permanent form of nature.’ Characters of rural occupassion can easily
comprehend. Due to these reasons, Wordsworth chooses the raw and rustic life as
the subject matter of his poetry. M.A.R Habib in his Literary Criticism From Plato to the Present argued that
Wordsworth’s passage on choosing incidents and situation from daily life is
fundamentally react against urban and industrialized society . Wordsworth
implies that “city life promotes vanity, artifice and confusion, and even vulgarity
in our feelings (Habib).” But the low and rustic life free from vanity and
artifice and also, it can comprehend easily. Because of all these reasons
Wordsworth choose low and rustic life as the subject matter of his poetry. He
bestows charm of novelty to every object, so that they can excite the readers
and dispel the leathery in minds. The objects of nature presented in his poems
create sensation and provide a delight in readers that they did not know before.
Wordsworth used the language of low and
rustic people in his poetry, because he believed that such a men communicate
with best object ‘from which the best part of language is originally derived’ and
such a language is also ‘less under the influence of social vanity ‘due to
their narrow status instead, they ‘convey their feelings and emotion in a
simple and unelaborated expressions.’ Wordsworth regards that such a language
arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings is more permanent and
far more philosophical than the language substituted for it by other poets. Wordsworth argued that the language of rustic
people is the most appropriate language for poetry. Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria criticized Wordsworth
that he simply asserts without proof that the language of rustic people has a
richer reality than that of urban dwellers. Wordsworth argued that the language
of prose is not differing from that of poetry.
Lyrical Ballads has a unique feature. The
style of poems written in this volume was exactly differing from his
contemporary one. Personification of abstract ideas and figure of speech as an aid to stylistic embellishment,
commonly used by Augustine poets were neglected in this volume of Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth regards that
the language of a good poetry differ from that of good prose only in use of metre.
Wordsworth define poetry is a
spontaneous overflow of power full emotion recollected in tranquility. For him,
poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion, thus it is subjective.
Wordsworth believed that poetry is the self expression and self exploration of
a poet. Wordsworth argued that poetry is born in heart not in the mind. For him
poetry is the ‘most philosophical of all writing’ and breadth and final spirit
of all knowledge. Poetry is the image of men and nature. “Poetry is
quintessential knowledge and the poet unifies the whole of mankind by the
composition and love that pervades his writings ( Thomas, P.26).”
Wordsworth differentiates poetry from
science. He argued that both poetry and science aims to discovering truth about
man and world around him, but the truth discovered by the scientist can add
only to our knowledge differing from the truth discovered by the poet can cling
to our mind . For Wordsworth poetry is the truth concerning man’s relation to
other men and his relation with external nature. Everyone can find delight in
poetry but only a layman can hardly find delight in scientific truth. Poetry
deals with ideal and universal truth, that is the pleasure, but the pleasure discovered by the science is
individual and restricted .
Wordsworth argued that poet is a ‘man
speaking to men’. He differs from others in the degree of gift he possess. He should endow with more than usual capacity
to think and perceive, which helps him to write a good poetry. A poet possesses
greater imagination and power of communication therefore he can appeal into the
heart of men. He also has a ready access to the heart of reader, for the
feelings aroused in him by the object are saner, purer and more permanent than
those aroused in the reader by the same object. He has a lively sensibility.
With this lively sensibility, he can induce the readers to feel his way. “Whatever
be the endowments of the poet, however exalted and gifted in imaginative
empathy, the poet’s medium of expression must fall far short of the language of
real-life situations and the emotions and passions of living experiences
(Thomas. P.25).” Poet must endeavor to bestow immediate pleasure to the reader
by appealing humanity within him; this pleasure is the aim of poetry. Thomas
argued that poet’s obligation to give pleasure should not be regarded as a
devaluation of his art. Pleasure is the source of all and poet’s intentions is
to produce such a pleasure by correlating man and nature.
CONCLUSION
Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads was published in 1800. It is one of the
significant works in English literary criticism. The preface explain and defend
the poetic technique of William Wordsworth, it was differ from the existing
one. As an advocate of romanticism he focused on emotion and experience. So, he
believed that poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions recollected
in tranquility. Poetry is the self expression and exploration of poet. To
recollect the past a poet must possess a fine memory. He is superior than
others not in his nature but in the degree of his gift. He must possess a
lively sensibility to understand the experience of others and to create a good
poetry.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
·
B.
Leitch, Vincent. The Norton Anthology of
Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 2001.
·
Nagarajan,
M.S. English Literary Criticism And
Theory. Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan Private Ltd, 2008.
·
Thomas,
C.T. William Wordsworth PREFACE TO
LYRICAL BALLADS. Chennai: Macmillan Indian Ltd.1981.
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