Preface to Lyrical Ballads

 

 Justify the remark that the value of the Preface to Lyrical Ballads lies in its healthy realism and the fact that priority is given to the personality of the poet.

 

Introduction

 

The Lyrical Ballads promised to be a revolutionary experiment in poetry, It purported to be a break from neo-classical tradition. In his Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth expresses his dislike for the artifice and restricted forms of approved eighteenth century poetry. He also expresses a break-away from formal authority. Disgusted by those who practised "gaudiness and inane phraseology" in poetry, he disapproves of the poets who "separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes and fickle appetites, of their own creation". He wanted to remove 'artifice from poetry. He aimed to find the best soil for the essential 'passions', which he felt was the basic concern of poetry. He brought a realistic touch to poetry in his demand for simplicity and humanity in both subject and language.

 

Poetry has no artificial heights

 

Wordsworth wanted poetry to come closer to humanity, to descend from the artificial heights to which it had been elevated in the eighteenth century. It is not to say that Wordsworth's concept of poetry was low. Nothing would be farther from the truth. He merely wanted to bring poetry closer to the common people, to the basic feelings and passions of humanity. It was an approach towards realism. It was a healthy trend coming as it did when poetry was being more and more confined to the 'aristocracy', to 'wit' and to the 'intellect' rather than to passions and feelings. When poetry was full of abstract ideas and thoughts, and written in a special 'poetic diction', Wordsworth came on the scene with a demand for the real language of men" and the necessity of keeping the reader in the company of "flesh and blood". Both in subject matter and in language, Wordsworth thus shows his healthy realism.

 

Importance given to feeling

 

Wordsworth said that all good poetry is the spontaneous . overflow of powerful feelings". For him, the plot, or situation, is not the first thing. It is the feeling that matters. The poet feels and in his feelings, which are naturally strong and intense, are revealed primary laws of our nature" However, these primary laws are to be traced 'truly'. In his Lyrical Ballads, he proposed to make "incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them ....primary laws of our nature; chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement." But the primary laws would be traced 'truly', though not ostentatiously.

 

Humble and rustic life: true subject for poetry

 

The best soil for the essential passions" which was to be the concern of the poet, was in the "humble and rustic life". The subject of many poets of his day, he felt, concentrated on the affairs of nymphs and goddesses. He felt the need for poetry to associate itself with the feelings and emotions of the common folk, and to show that incidents from common life could be made to look interesting through a colouring of the imagination. But the imaginative colouring would in no way detract from the 'reality'. He asserts: "I have at all times endeavored to look steadily at my subject."

 

Revolt against artifice, convention and shams

 

Wordsworth was impatient of artifice, convention, and shams. He desired to get back to 'nature', to fact and reality. He was conscious of the ever widening sense of the value of that fundamental manhood which underlies all class distinctions and is one and the same in lettered and unlettered, in peer and ploughman. His chosen theme was to be "no other than the very heart of man" and "men as they are men within themselves". He sought his types of strong and noble characters in the Cumberland shepherd, the pedlar, and the leech-gatherer. He stood out as the poetic interpreter of the new democratic faith. He would consecrate common things and "breathe grandeur upon the very humblest face of human life."

 

Selection of real language of men

 

The humble subject was to be matched by the language used by the poet. It was to be a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation. "The gaudiness and inane phraseology of the eighteenth century poets was to be rejected. Of course, the language would be free of triviality and triteness. The immediate object of the selection was realistic: "I wish to keep my Reader in the company of flesh and blood". The poet has to express himself as other men express themselves, for the poet thinks and feels in the spirit of human passion. His language cannot differ in any material degree from that of all other men who feel vividly and see clearly. It is the essence of Wordsworth's crusade against the unreality of 'poetic diction as it was understood by his generation. However, it is to be noted that he does not advocate complete 'realism'. He insists on a 'selection of language of men in a state of vivid sensation by a colouring of imagination

 

Conclusion

 

Wordsworth, then, reacted against a pretentious diction as well as against the sum of false parade in the poetry most admired and imitated in the time in which he wrote. He was desirous of recalling art to a sense of its human connections. "Poets do not write for poets alone, but for men." They represent common humanity, and are not to indulge in an inherited tradition of "tricks, quaintness, hieroglyphics, and enigmas". The poet must come down from his supposed height. Wordsworth was well aware that the office of a poet was 'prophecy', that he belonged to an order of men who are rapt, possessed, and uttering more than they knew, as H.W. Garrod observes. Wordsworth was fully aware of the ecstacy of poetry. But when he wrote the Preface, he was primarily concerned to emphasise the connection between what is greatest in human nature and what is most lowly; to discover in the inferior ranges of feeling unsuspected grandeur. In the process, he commits the mistake of over-emphasis and exaggerated forms of expression. There are times when he seems to come close to losing hold altogether of the real and the solid distinctions, which do in fact subsist, between art and nature, poetry and prose.