Wordsworth as Critic and his views on subject matter of poetry

Name: Deepti Manishbhai   Joshi

Roll no: 05

Semester: 01

Paper: Literary theory and Criticism

Submitted to:   Dr.Dilip Barad

                           Department of English,

                            M.K. University, Bhavnagar.

                          Wordsworth as Critic

Introduction:

                        Wordsworth was primarily a poet and not a critic. He was left behind him no comprehensive treatise on criticism. The bulk of his literary criticism is small yet “the core of his literary criticism is as inspired as his poetry.”There is the same utter sincerity, earnestness, passion and truth in both. He knew about poetry in the real sense, and he has not said even a single word about poetry, says Chapman

  “Which is not valuable, and worth thinking over”

      Wordsworth’s criticisms of far-reaching historical significance. When Wordsworth started, it was the Neo-classical criticism, which held the day. Critics were preoccupied with poetic genres poetry was judged on the basis of rules devised by Aristotle and other ancients, and interested by the Italian and French critics. They cared for rules, for methods, for outwards form. And had nothing to say about the substance, the soul of poetry.Wordsworth is the first critic to turn from there poetry to its substance; builds the theory of poetry, and gives an account of the nature of the creative process. His emphases are novelty, experiment, liberty, spontaneity, inspiration and image as contrasted with the classical emphasis on authority, tradition and restrain. His ‘Preface ‘is an unofficial manifesto of the English romantic movement giving it a new direction, consciousness and program. After Wordsworth had written, literary criticism could never be the same as before.

   Wordsworth through his literary criticism demolishes the old and the faulty and opens out new vistas and avenues. He discards the artificial and restricted forms of approved 18^th century poetry. Disgusted by the “Gaudiness and Innes phraseology “of many modern writers, he criticizes poets who:

“……..separate themselves from the sympathies of man,

And indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression,

In order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle

 Appetites,of their own creation.”

        Discarding formal finish and perfection, he stresses vivid sensation and spontaneous feeling. He says:

“All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”

Scott James says:

“His discards Aristotelian doctrine for him, the plot, or situations, is not the first thing. it is the feeling that matters”

Reading against the artificiality of 18^th century poetry, he advocates simplicity both in theme and treatment. He advocates a deliberate choice of subject from “humble and rustic life.”Instead of being pre-occupied with nymphs and Goddesses, he portrays the emotions of collage girls and peasants. There is a healthy realism in his demand that the poet should use “The language of common men “and that he should aim at keeping, “The readers in the company of flesh and blood”

There is, no doubt, his views in this respect are open to criticism .Scott James points out, the flash and blood and emotions of a townsman are not more profound. Besides, by confining himself wholly to rustic life, he excluded many essential elements in human experience. Thus, he narrowed down his range.

“His insistence on the use of a selection of language really used by men is always in danger of becoming trivial and mean”

There is also, no doubt, that he is guilty of over-emphasis every now and then, and that it is easy to pick holes in his theories.Colerdge could easily demolish his theories of poetic diction and demonstrate that a selection of  language as advocate by Wordsworth would differ in no way form the language of any other man of common sense.

All the same, the historical significance of his criticism is very great. It served as a corrective to the artificial and inane phraseology and emphasized the value of a simpler and more natural language. By advocating simplicity in theme, he succeeded in enlarging the range of English poetry. He attacked the old, outdated and trivial and created a taste of the new and significant. He emphasized the true nature of poetry as an expression of emotion and passion, and so dealt a death blow to the dry intellectuality of contemporary poetry. In this way, he brought about a revolution in the theory of poetry, and made acceptance of the new poetry, the romantic poetry, possible.

Unlike other romantics, Wordsworth also lays stress on the element of thought in poetry; he has a high concept of his own calling and so knows that great poetry cannot be produced by a careless or thoughtless person. He says:

“Poems to which any value can be attached were never

Produced on any variety of subject but by a man who, being passed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply”

Poetic process is a complex one. Great poetry is not produced on the spur of the moment. It is produced by only when the original emotion is contemplated in tranquility and the poet passions anew.

Wordsworth goes against the neo-classic view that poetry should both instruct and delight, when he stresses that the function of poetry is to give pleasure, a pleasure of a noble and exalted kind, pleasure which results from increased understanding and sympathy. If at all it teaches, it does so only indirectly, by purifying the emotions, uplifting the soul, and bringing it nearer to nature. 

The credit for having democratized the conception of the poet must go to Wordsworth. According to Wordworth, the poet is essentially a man who differs from other men not in kind, but only in degree. He is essentially a man speaking to men. He has certain gifts in a higher degree than others. He has a more lively sensibility, a more comprehensive soul, and greater powers of observation, imagination and communication. He is also a man who has thought long and deep. Others also have these gifts, but the poet has them in a higher degree. Wordsworth emphasizes his organic oneness as also the need for him of emotional identification with other men.

  

Conclusion 

We can do no better than conclude this account of the achievement of Wordsworth as a critic with the words of Rene Wellek: 

“Wordsworth thus holds a position in the history of criticism which must be called ambiguous or transitional. He inherited from neo-classicism a theory of the imitation of nature to which he gives, however, a specific social twist: he inherited from the 18th century a view of poetry as passion and emotion which he again modified by his description of the poetic process as. “Recollection in tranquility”. He takes up rhetorical ideas about the effect of poetry but extends and amplifies them into a theory of the social effects of literature, binding society in a spirit of love. But he also adopts, in order to meet the exigencies of his mystical experiences, a theory of poetry in which imagination holds the central place as a power of unification and ultimate insight into the unity of the world.

              

Wordsworth’s view on the subject matter of poetry

Introduction:

                   In the ‘Advertisement’ to the 1798 edition of Lyrical Ballads,Wordsworth and Coleridge state the poem in the collection were intended as a deliberate experiment in style and subject matter.Wordsworth elaborate on this idea in the “Preface” to the 1800 and 1802 edition which outline his main ideas of a new theory of poetry.

And rejecting classical notion that poetry should be about elevated subjects and should be composed in a formal style, Wordworth instead championed more democratic themes-the lives of ordinary men and women, farmers, popupers, and the rural pour. In the “Preface” Wordworth also emphasized his commitment to writing in the ordinary language of people, not a highly crafted poetical one. True to traditional ballad form, the poems depict realistic characters in realistic situations, and so contain a strong narrative element.

Wordsworth’s views on the subject matter of poetry

Object:-

            The principle objects, and then proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate and describe them, throught, as far as possible in a selection of language really used by men, and at the same time, to throw over them a certain coloring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in a unusual aspect; and further and above all ,to make these situations and incidents interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly as regard the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.

Humble and Rustic Life

    Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passion of our heart finds a better soil in which they can get their maturity. are less under restrain, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that conduction of life, our elementary feeling co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from these elementary feelings, and from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and lastly because in that condition the passion of men are in carp rated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.

Language:-

      The language, too, of these men has been adopted purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike and disgust because such men communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their rank, in society and sameness and narrow circle of intercourse, being less under the influence of social veriety,they convey their feelings out of the repeated experience and regular feeling is a mare permanent, and a rare more philosophical language, than that which by poets, who think that they are conferring honor upon themselves and their art, in preparation as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, end indulged in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, in order to furnish food rar appetites of their own creation.

 Conclusion:-

                      Thus, Wordsworth’s views on poetical style are the most revolutionary of many modern writers. He insists that his poems are written in ‘Selection of language of men in a state of vivid sensation’. His views of poetic diction can be summed up: thre neither is nor can be any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition