Wordsworth: Preface to Lyrical Ballads

William Wordsworth was born on 7 April, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England.The theory he produced, and the poetics he invented to embody it, caused a revolution in English literature.

Developed throughout his life, Wordsworth’s understanding of the human mind seems simple enough today, what with the advent of psychoanalysis and the general Freudian acceptance of the importance of childhood in the adult psyche. But in Wordsworth’s time, in what Seamus Heaney has called “Dr. Johnson’s supremely adult eighteenth century,”  where Wordsworth could be closer to his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Together, Wordsworth and Coleridge began work on a book called Lyrical Ballads, first published in 1798 and reissued with Wordsworth’s monumental preface in 1802.

The publication of Lyrical Ballads represents a landmark moment for English poetry; it was unlike anything that had come before, and paved the way for everything that has come after.


According to Wordsworth poetry means - “spontaneous overflow” of emotions, as Wordsworth wrote in the preface, Wordsworth and Coleridge made it their task to write in the simple language of common people, telling concrete stories of their lives. According to this theory, poetry originated in “emotion recollected in a state of tranquility”; the poet then surrendered to the emotion, so that the tranquility dissolved, and the emotion remained in the poem. This explicit emphasis on feeling, simplicity, and the pleasure of beauty over rhetoric, ornament, and formality changed the course of English poetry, replacing the elaborate classical forms of Pope and Dryden with a new Romantic sensibility. Wordsworth’s most important legacy, besides his lovely, timeless poems, is his launching of the Romantic era, opening the gates for later writers such as John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron in England, and Emerson and Thoreau in America.

*What is the basic difference between the poetic creed of 'Classicism' and 'Romanticism'?

# Romanticism and classicism they are two different ideologies or 'school of thought'. And given idea about dominance of certain things.Difference between classicism and romanticism is that classicism put out restrictions,whereas romanticism believes in liberty. Classicism presents urban life , whereas romanticism presents rural life. classicism believe on subjectivity and romanticism believes in objectivity. classicism is about intellectual and romanticism is about imagination...

*Classicism:in classicism aesthetic attitude and principals manifested in the art architecture and literature if ancient Greece and Rome and characterized by emphasis on form simplicity proportion and restraint.

*Romanticism: Romanticism was an artistic literary musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of 18th century.



*Why does Wordsworth say 'What' is poet? rather than Who is poet?

# A poet is man speaking to men, a man, it is true, endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness.Wordsworth has greater knowledge of human nature through the emotions like observation, heightened. He also uses platonic, more comprehensive soul.


*What is poetic diction? Which sort of poetic diction is suggested by Wordsworth in his Preface?

# Poetic diction means 'Choice of Word'- unique style of authors that he or she chooses his or her own language, which is understood by rustic people; who closure to reality and more genuineness the language should be natural not ornamental. Wordsworth's argument is that he is interested in writing poems in lyrical ballads. And the language "as really used by men". Wordsworth also answers to Coleridge that he finds humble and rustic life, a men who closer to reality or more genuineness. Wordsworth preferred rustic men rather than city dwells.

*What is poetry?

#Wordsworth's  definition of poetry  :
    " Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings it takes origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. "

# Poetry is to teach moral lesson with a feeling of delight. It is to give instruction and delight by connecting people with the poet and his imagination.

*Discuss 'Daffodils - I wandered lonely as a cloud' with reference to Wordsworth's poetic creed...

#   " I wandered as a lonely cloud....."
       Daffodils is the best example of Wordsworth's definition of poetry " poetry is a spontaneous overflow of a powerful feeling, recollected in tranquillity".
Many times, we capture beauty of nature by our eyes, but we cannot recollect and express that delight in tranquillity.  Wordsworth does this amazingly. He enjoys the nature and represents it beautifully.  We can say nature is at its best in this poetry. Delight of a particular moment and it's memory are represented all together.

Thank You..... 😊