Preface to the Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth (B. A. III Sem. VI)

 

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth

 Brief Biography of William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was born in a raised in the scenic English Lake District, a rural paradise. His love for nature most likely came about as a result of this upbringing. Wordsworth attended St. John’s College, Cambridge University and took his degree without distinction. He spent a year in France (November 1791 to December 1792) after completing his studies and became an ardent supporter of the French Revolution. During this time, he fell in love with a Frenchwoman, Annette Vallon, and fathered a daughter, Caroline, with her. Lack of money forced him to return to England and war prevented him from rejoining his lover and child. This, combined with his disillusionment with the Revolution, led Wordsworth to the verge of an emotional breakdown. At this critical time, a friend died and left Wordsworth enough money to live by writing poetry. In 1795, he moved to Dorsetshire with his sister, Dorothy, befriended poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and began his own poetic career at the age of 27. A short period of collaboration between Wordsworth and Coleridge led to the publication of one of the most important books of the time: Lyrical Ballads. Over the years, he grew increasingly prosperous and famous, but settled into a religious and political conservatism that disappointed readers, like William Hazlitt, who once thought of him as a promoter of democratic change. By 1843, Wordsworth was poet laureate of Great Britain. He died in 1850 at the ripe age of eighty, and famed poet Alfred Lord Tennyson succeeded him as poet laureate.

 Historical Context of Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

Wordsworth wrote the “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” during a time where England was experiencing profound urbanization, industrialization, and movement towards mass media and mass culture. In the essay, Wordsworth expresses fear that these factors can lead human minds to become dull, and thus advocates a poetic revolution. At the same time, Wordsworth is careful to say that poetry, though passionate, should still be the product of prior thought and acquired skill. His disappointment with the French Revolution a decade prior to writing the “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” turned him away from the idea of thoughtless passion—emotions ought to be recollected and processed “in tranquility” prior to being expressed.

 

Other Books Related to Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

“Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” is an introduction to Wordsworth’s poetry collection, Lyrical Ballads, as well as a manifesto for the Romantic Movement in England. In the process of composing the essay, Wordsworth had frequent conversations with Wordsworth’s close friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who also contributed a few poems of his own to Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge is most well-known for his long poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but also penned shorter poems like “The Lime-Tree Bower My Prison.” Some of the ideas in “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” had antecedents in the late eighteenth century, but on the whole, the preface is a rather revolutionary manifesto regarding about the essence of poetry. The essay’s discussion of the valid language of poetry follows the lead of chapters 14 and 17 of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria—both Romantic poets attack the lofty diction of the Neoclassical poets. In his essay, Wordsworth also criticizes contemporary Gothic novels and German melodramas. For him, such nonimaginative and sensational literature threatens the acuity of the human mind. William Wordsworth’s sister, Dorothy, was also a Romantic poet and kept journals (The Grasmere Journal and The Alfoxden Journal) detailing her daily life, which often included spending time with Coleridge and William in nature.

 

Key Facts about Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

• Full Title: Preface to the Lyrical Ballads
• When Written: 1800-1802
• Where Written: Grasmere, England
• When Published: 1800 (2nd ed.), 1802 (3rd ed.)
• Literary Period: Romantic
• Genre: Essay, Manifesto
• Antagonist: Late-Neoclassical writers
• Point of View: First Person

 

Extra Credit for Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

Decline with Age. Wordsworth wrote prolifically throughout his life, but it appeared that after 1807, his poetic sensibility declined. Scholars have debated the reason for this decline. Some say that most of his poetry is based on the remembrance and reinterpretation of things he experienced as a youth, and memories of these experiences hardly forms an inexhaustible source for poetic inspiration.

Over the years, Wordsworth’s “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” has come to be seen as a manifesto for the Romantic movement in England. In it, Wordsworth explains why he wrote his experimental ballads the way he did. Unlike the highbrow poetry of his contemporaries, the late-Neoclassical writers, Wordsworth’s poems in Lyrical Ballads engage with the lives of the peasantry and are written in stripped-down, common language.

Wordsworth was alone in his effort; he penned the Lyrical Ballads with the help of his good friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. With friends like Coleridge, Wordsworth hopes to produce a new class of poetry, which will focus on “low and rustic life”—Wordsworth finds that the common people are less restrained and more honest because they are in constant communion with the beauty of nature. This new class of poetry will also use the language of the common people, as this language carries a certain universality and permanence, having none of the fickleness of poetic diction.

Wordsworth feels that much of the poetry of his contemporaries is far too trivial and crude, relying on sensationalism to appeal to readers. This sort of poetry—along with modern industrialization and urbanization—dulls the minds of readers. To Wordsworth, good poetry should have a purpose other than superficial entertainment. The purpose of Wordsworth’s ballads is to allow cosmopolitan readers to vicariously experience nature so that they can be revived from the mind-dulling aspects of modernity.

Wordsworth also sees great importance in emotions. Indeed, in poetry, emotions are more important than the plot and actions—he writes that “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of emotion” that “takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” It is important that the poet recollects his emotions in tranquility, as taking this time to contemplate the experience allows the poet to incorporate not only passion, but also profound thought in their work. Poetry ought to be a profound experience. Wordsworth disdains the trivialization of poetry: no matter how simple the meter of a poem, the contents of the poem still ought to be taken seriously by poet and reader alike.

Other than these larger ideas about poetry, Wordsworth also briefly digresses into the importance of meter. Wordsworth relates that he has chosen to write poetry and not prose because meter adds a certain charm to the work. Furthermore, the regularity of meter can help temper emotions that may grow to be too much if the work were written with the stylistic freedom of prose. Wordsworth ends the “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” on the note that there is nothing more he can do except allow the reader to experience his ballads for themselves.

 

Summary

Wordsworth explains that the first edition of Lyrical Ballads was published as a sort of experiment to test the public reception of poems that use “the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation.” The experiment was successful, better than Wordsworth was expecting, and many were pleased with the poems.

Wordsworth acknowledges that his friend (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) supplied several poems in the collection, including Rime of the Ancient Mariner. He then relates that he and his friends wish to start a new type of poetry, poetry of the sort seen in Lyrical Ballads. Wordsworth notes that he was initially unwilling to write the preface as some sort of systemic defense of this new genre, because he doesn’t want to reason anyone into liking these poems. He also says the motives behind starting this new genre of poetry are too complex to fully articulate in so few words. Still, he has decided to furnish a preface: his poems are so different from the poems of his age that they require at least a brief explanation as to their conception.

Wordsworth claims that just as authors have a right to use certain ideas and techniques, they also have a right to exclude other ideas and techniques. In every age, different styles of poetry arise, and people expect different things from poetry. He goes on to cite many great yet different poets of old, from Catullus Terence to Alexander Pope. Wordsworth wants to use the preface to explain why he writes poetry the way he does, so that people don’t see his nonconformity as laziness.

Wordsworth relates that his principal goal in writing the poems in the Lyrical Ballads was to portray common life in an interesting and honest way, and to appeal to readers’ emotions by generating “a state of excitement.” He chose to depict common life because in that situation, people are generally more self-aware and more honest. The feelings that arise in that condition are simpler, more understandable, and more durable. Furthermore, the language of the peasantry is pure, as common people are in constant communication with nature and far away from “social vanity.”

 

The language of the peasantry carries a certain permanence, unlike the lofty language of the late-Neoclassical writers. The late-Neoclassical poets believe that the lofty poetry they write bring them as well as poetry itself honor. However, Wordsworth perceives many things to be wrong with these poets and their lofty language: “they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary capricious habits of expression in order to furnish food for fickle tastes and fickle appetites of their own creation.” To Wordsworth, these poets are utterly unrelatable for the general literate masses.

On the other hand, Wordsworth states that triviality and lack of profound thought is a larger problem than lofty language among his contemporary poets. He prides himself in the fact that his poems actually have “a worthy purpose.” His poetry—like all good poetry—“is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Of course, it is also necessary that the poet “thought long and deeply” prior to writing the poem. Wordsworth believes that if someone continuously observes and contemplates their feelings, they will be enlightened, develop better taste, and have their “affections ameliorated”; someone who processes their feelings will become a better person. This process of observance and profound thought is necessary, as the poet must have their “taste exalted”. The poet is, in a sense, elevated from their peers.

Wordsworth then declares the purpose of his poems: “to illustrate the manner in which our feelings and ideas are associated under a state of excitement,” or, more specifically, “to follow the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when agitated by the great and simple affections of our nature.” The purpose of his poems is to depict the thoughts and feelings present during certain emotional experiences. Wordsworth then cites a few of his ballads and relays how those particular poems follow this purpose. He declares that “the feeling [developed in his poems] gives importance to the action and situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling.” He claims that readers will understand his statement better after reading two of his ballads, “Poor Susan” and “Childless Father.”

Wordsworth strongly believes that “the human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants.” It is the writer’s job “to produce or enlarge this capability,” especially during Wordsworth’s present day, as there are many modern forces and “great national events” dulling human minds. Modernity leads humans to crave sensationalism and instant gratification. This manifests in literary trends: people of Wordsworth’s era crave the “frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse” of the late-Neoclassical writers rather than the invaluable works of writers like Shakespeare and Milton. Wordsworth is disgusted with these trends and their mind-dulling force, but still believes that given “certain inherent and indestructible qualities of the human mind” and the power of nature, there is hope for revival.

Wordsworth turns to the subject of style. He notes that in the Lyrical Ballads, he avoids personifying abstract ideas because he wants to use the language of the common man and “keep [his] Reader in the company of flesh and blood.” Wordsworth also avoids what he calls “poetic diction” in order to keep the language in his poetry as simple and as honest as possible—he sees this as “good sense.” This avoidance prevents him from using from phrases and figures of speech that are considered to be “the common inheritance of Poets,” but it also prevents him from using phrases that have become vulgar from overuse by bad poets.

Wordsworth observes that there are many critics who disapprove of poems in which the language, “according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of prose.” However, Wordsworth approves of these “prosaisms,” as they can be found in many great poems, including those by the great poet Milton. He cites a sonnet by John Gray, “On the Death of Richard West,” as an example of a poem whose most effective lines are written in a prosaic style.

Wordsworth reiterates that there is no essential difference between the language of poetry and the language of prose. People often personify poetry and painting as sisters, but Wordsworth thinks poetry and prose are even closer: “they both speak by and to the same organs […] their affections are kindred and almost identical, not necessarily differing even in degree.” He explains that poetry and prose are both altogether human: “Poetry sheds no tears ‘such as Angels weep,’ but natural and human tears.” Likewise, poetry and prose both bleed real, human blood; poetry “can boast of no celestial Ichor.”

Wordsworth realizes that some people may think  rhyme and meter distinguish poetry from prose, but he thinks that this sort of “regular and uniform” distinction is different from that between common language and poetic diction. In the latter case, the reader “is utterly at the mercy of the Poet respecting what imagery or diction he may choose to connect with the passion”; in the former case, both poet and reader submit to a certain form and there is no interference. Why, then, has Wordsworth chosen to write poetry instead of prose? Simply because he finds metrical language more charming. Furthermore, if meter restricts him, Wordsworth has “the entire world of nature” to write about. To those who criticize Wordsworth for using rhyme and meter but not poetic diction, he replies that readers have read with pleasure poems with simpler language than the language in his ballads.

Wordsworth also sees a great benefit in using rhyme and meter: poems can excite painful emotions, and the presence of something “regular” may help soften and restrain those painful emotions “by an intertexture of ordinary feeling.” This is why people feel they can reread the tragic parts of Shakespeare, but not of Clarissa Harlowe or of James Shirley: Shakespeare tempers his work with rhyme and meter, so that in the end, his works still gives more pleasure than pain. Furthermore, readers generally associate certain types of meter with certain emotions. The poet can use these associations to his or her advantage and affect certain emotions, especially if the poet’s diction is insufficiently evocative.

Wordsworth remarks that if the “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” were a sort of systemic defense for his poetic theory, then he would need to go through all the ways that metrical language can lead to pleasure. As the preface is not intended to be such a thorough defense, he will simply say that one of the chief pleasures of metrical language is “the pleasure which the mind derives from the perception of similitude in dissimilitude.” Wordsworth briefly elaborates, saying that “this principle is the great spring of the activity of our minds and their chief feeder,” before claiming that the limits of the preface prohibits him from speaking more on the subject, and “[he] must content [himself] with a general summary.”

Wordsworth proceeds to explain the process of poetic creation. The poet must first recall their emotions in “tranquility” and contemplate those emotions in peace until they dissolve away and a new, kindred emotion comes into place. Then the poet can begin the composition process, and the poet will feel pleasure. The poet must always be careful that readers of their poem will feel more pleasure than the deeper passions that the poem addresses. People tend to read poetry, and not prose, over and over again because of this pleasure. Wordsworth cites Alexander Pope as an example of a poet who produces pleasurable poems from “the plainest common sense.” Poetry can be a vehicle to convey truth in a pleasurable way.

Wordsworth addresses possible faults of his ballads: he may have written on an unworthy subject, and he may have made arbitrary connections between things that no one would understand except himself. He is not sure yet which of his expressions are faulty; thus, he refrains from correcting anything. Wordsworth believes that a poet who corrects his own work too often could easily lose his or her confidence. Furthermore, the imperfect reader may also perceive certain poems as faulty when they are actually fine.

There is one fault that Wordsworth assures readers they will never find in his poetry: the fault of writing about a trivializing poetry. Samuel Johnson’s poem “I put my hat upon my head,” lampooning the basic ballad meter, exemplifies this fault. Wordsworth terms this lampoon “a mode of false criticism”: ballad meter is intended to be simple, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be a medium for serious subjects. Wordsworth then cites a stanza from another poem by Johnson, “The Babes in the Wood,” to show an example of simple meter communicating a worthy subject. Through quoting and analyzing these two poems by Johnson, Wordsworth shows that it is the subject, not the meter, of a poem that decides whether it is trivial.

Wordsworth asks readers to form their own feelings and opinions, and not go by what others think, when judging his poetry. Wordsworth also tells readers that if they thought one poem was good and others were bad, they should go back and review those they thought were bad. Reading and judging poetry is an acquired talent, and a review would only be just to the poet. Wordsworth doesn’t want readers to make quick judgments about his poetry; as such judgments are often wrong.

Wordsworth declares that there is nothing more he can do but let the reader read his ballads and experience the pleasure they offer firsthand. He realizes that asking readers to try his experimental ballads means that they must “give up much of what [they] ordinarily enjoy” in poetry. Wordsworth wants to show that his poetry is better and offers pleasure “of a purer, more lasting, and more exquisite nature.” It is not his intention to denounce other forms of poetry; rather, Wordsworth wishes to promote a new genre of poetry that he feels will help keep humans human. He waits to hear from readers whether they think he has achieved his purpose, and whether that purpose was worth achieving.