Preface to Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth Summary

Preface to Lyrical Ballads is an essay written by William Wordsworth for Lyrical Ballads, a collection of poems that laid foundations of romantic poetry. He wrote this essay keeping in view the then following tradition of the neoclassical writers. Neoclassical writers looked forward to Cicero and Horace as their role models and based on their standards, formulated their poems. However Wordsworth did not favor the rule based system of neoclassicists like Milton and Spenser. He advocated a simplistic style which suited the common man and his tastes.

Wordsworth’s Concept of Poetic Diction

In the Advertisement of the Lyrical Ballads of 1798 he states his idea in adopting a simpler diction (poetic language) for his poems: ‘to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society was adapted to the purposes of poetic pleasure’.  When Wordsworth came up with this approach he was attacked by conservative opinions which forced him to explain his point in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800). Thus he says his principal object in these poems he says ‘was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them throughout as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men, and at the same time, to throw over them certain colouring of imagination whereby ordinary things should be presented in an unusual aspect’. The reason for this choice was also because that in such situations men spoke from their own personal experience and ‘convey(ed) their feeling and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions’.

He thinks that some techniques used by neoclassicists like personification (The act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas etc.) and figures of speech are not suitable in this respect. So he has deliberately avoided personification of abstract ideas in his poems contributed to Lyrical Ballads. Other devices like the use of periphrases (A style that involves indirect ways of expressing things), inversion (The reversal of the normal order of words), antithesis (The juxtaposition of contrasting words or ideas to give a feeling of balance) etc. are also avoided in this respect.

Wordsworth also wants to maintain a similarity between the language of prose and the language of poetry. In his opinion ‘language of a good poem…should not differ from that of a good prose’. He says that the language of Thomas Gray’s poem On the Death of Richard West do not have this quality despite the poet’s arguments about it. Although Wordsworth calls for the omission of poetic devices he does not avoid metre in poetry which he thinks is as essential a part of poetry. However when we read his poems we can see that he could not maintain the claims he proclaimed in the Preface. Wordsworth also holds a contradicting opinion that metaphors and figures can be used. His greatest poems Tintern Abbey, Immortality Ode, Solitary Reaper and many other poems are not written in ‘a selection of language used by men’. This forces us to ask how far Wordsworth has succeeded in maintaining his prepositions regarding poetic diction.

His Concept of Poetry

After dealing with the language of Poetry Wordsworth moves on to talk about Poetry itself. He defines good poetry as ‘spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings and emotion recollected in tranquility’. Although he gives a well definition of poetry he does not say how such powerful overflowing of feelings will have metre which he thinks is necessary for poetry. Taking the second part of his definition we can assume that his poems were created as a result of the poet’s storing of images which he put into paper at a later peaceful occasion. So a touching sight like that of the Solitary Reaper or the Daffodils was seen during a walk, kept in the memory and recalled in the moments of calmness which finally reflected in the paper.

He then opines that poetry is the pursuit of truth; of man’s knowledge about himself and the world surrounding him. Whereas science pursues material truths and remains as the pleasure of a select few poetry in his opinion ‘cleave to us a necessary part of our existence’. Poetry is also seen as the breath and finer spirit of knowledge and as the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science and thus it is great source for good. Wordsworth’s aim in writing poetry was ‘to console the afflicted; to add sunshine to the daylight by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, and feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous’. From this idea he made a general conclusion that every great poet is a teacher. In this manner Wordsworth reflects the idea of Horace than Plato’s. Because Horace insisted on the principle of pleasure than just on Plato’s insistence on morality or goodness. Hence Wordsworth believes in relationship and love which he thinks the great function of poetry to promote. He thus differentiates himself from the necoclassicists who are worried about the intellectual pleasures derived from the rule based system of poetry.

The value of Wordswoth’s criticism is so great that he opposed neoclassicists’ ideals not only  because of his above mentioned findings but also because he found  neoclassicism seldom did give way for originality which many poets sought. He thus paved a novel path by stating the purpose of poetry and exhorted an extended appreciation of poetry from the hands of a learned few to the common public.