language of poetry

 

How does Wordsworth describe the language he claims to have selected for his poems?

 

Or,

What does Wordsworth say about the language of poetry?

 

Ans. According to Wordsworth, the language of poetry must not be separated from the language of men in real life. Figures, metaphors, similes and other ornaments of language should not be used unnecessarily. The main recommendations of Wordsworth for the language of poetry are as follows.

(i) Wordsworth says that some poets believe they must "use a peculiar language". On the contrary, he asserts, a poet "must descend from this supposed height" and "express himself as other men express themselves".

 

(i)               Wordsworth states that the language of real people should be "purified indeed [by the poet] from what appears to be its real defects". Therefore, poetry becomes not the real language of people, but a selection from this real language: "a selection of the language really spoken by men".

(iii) Wordsworth feels poems should be "alive with metaphors and figures" and also should be written in regular metre, De although he concedes these are seldom, or not even, used in "real life".

 

(iv) Wordsworth opposes the use of ponderous words and phrases, personifications of abstractions, inversions and other elaborate rhetorical patterns, mere listings and catalogues, stereotyped allusions and elegant words, and inflated figures of speech.

 

(v) It should have a certain colouring of imagination.

 

(vi) There is no essential difference between the language of prose and that of metrical composition.