Wordsworth as Literary Critic

Name: Hina Chauhan
Sem: 1
Roll No. : 12
Batch: 2018-20
Enrollment No. : 2069108420190006
Paper No. : 03 Literary Theory and Criticism-Western  Poetics
Topic: Wordsworth as a literary critic
Email ID: hinachauhan36511@gmail.com
Submitted to: Smt.S.B.Gardi Department Of  English,M.K.Bhavnagar University.

         Introduction:
 

            Wordsworth mainly was a poet, and he has started to criticize literary work just because of poetry the reason is that poetry inspired him to do so. In Neo-Classical age Wordsworth has started criticism. Most of Critics usually judge the work by the rules of poetry and genres which has decided by ancients like Aristotle has influenced and interrupted by French and Italian authors and critics.

                                  A poet has to follow the method, rhyme system and such regulations to write poem because there were the rules for writing poetry at that time. There were lack of creativity and novelty. To write poetry there was a particular form without any sense of substance. The firstly Wordsworth as critic has suggested to concentrate on the soul of poetry, and the idea of a new theory and poetry also was given by him. Through his criticism he has given the sense of creativity to the process of writing poetry.

      Novelty, Experiment, Liberty, Spontaneity, Inspiration and Imagination-all these elements are given by him. Classical rules were different from all these new ideas.  In his ‘Preface’ he has given his views towards literary criticism and he has very simply described the manners of writing poetry.

  Preface to Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth:-
 

 The final edition has come out with the all new theories and ideas of poetry in 1802 after two editions of Lyrical Ballads in 1789 and 1800

Þ    Wordsworth’s poetical concept:-

 In order to know that how people accepts the common language in poetry?, and how they get pleasure from it? Coleridge and Wordsworth have written poetries in lyrical Ballads as experience. And from it he has given some theories to write poetry as under; 

1. Object:-

To choose the object from common things is the very first concept of writing poetry. And it should be from the life of an ordinary people’s situations and incidents, after that they are presented as the imagination of a poet, which reflects an original object and creates a kind of a novelty. Wordsworth has rejecting all the classical forms of writing and after choosing a subject of common life, he has composed it in a formal style of writing.

 He has projected a very simple situation in his poem table Turned and the situation is that a person is reading book and a poet is telling him to be with nature rather than sitting on a chair and be with books, here are some lines,

Up! Up! My friend, and quit your books;

Or surely you’ll grow double:

Up! Up! My friend, and clear your looks,

Why all this toil and trouble?

And further in poem, there is a description of a nature and comparison of books and nature.

2.   Routine life:-
 

 He has depicted the character’s routine life incidence in their language after taking a subject from common life.  Wordsworth has given an importance to 

“Spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings”

 He used to encounter some incidence and beautiful sights of nature in his evening walk because he used to go for evening walk. He spontaneously overflows his feelings as he experienced after viewing sights and incidences.

He has seen the beautiful sight of Daffodils, and in his poem Daffodils he has expressed his evening walk experience,

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills

When all at once I saw a crowd,

Here we can see a creative imagination of Wordsworth that he was wandered as a “lonely crowd” as aimlessly he was wandering.

 He has depicted his another experience in his another poem The Solitary Reaper that he has written a poetry after heard a song from a tribal woman working in a farm

                             

                             I listened, motionless and still;

And, as I mounted up the hill

The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more.

In his poetry we can see his theory which was later on accepted by critics and other poets also.

3.   Diction:-

Wordsworth strongly believed that language of poetry should be very simple and it would be able to connect with the heart of an ordinary people, it should be presented realistically, so uneducated person could also understand it as well as educated person.

Wordsworth’s idea of experiment of his poetry with vernacular dictions and this idea got success at that time. According to his theories his view towards the diction that a poet should be,

“Man speaking to men”

Wordsworth has chosen common life with vernacular language to communicate with all the readers. He firmly believed that a language of a common people could affect in better way rather than philosophical language. In the poem My Heart Leaps Up, he has used the simple and vernacular language,

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky;

 He has described his love for rainbow, in his poem My Heart Leaps Up with very simple and vernacular language. He has depicted his experience of playing with butterfly and his attempts to catch it in his another poem. And in this poem he tells the butterfly to stay near him so he could watch it for long time because he likes to watch butterfly.

4.   A Poet:-

 

Some qualities of poet is given Wordsworth by saying that

“What is Poet?”

Rather than telling who is poet. He concluded some qualities like;

       Man speaking to men;

      A man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness;

      He has a great knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than supposed to be common among mankind;

      Who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him;

According to Wordsworth these qualities a poet should have and he has given the description in his Preface of Lyrical Ballads and said that the one who can express his thoughts very well than a common person to common person is a poet. He has that genius.

        
Wordsworth’s self Contradiction:-

 About diction of poetry, Wordsworth has given so many theories. He himself was failed to follow the theories of his own. In his some poetries he used the language which is not a common people’s language, but highly imaginative and against his nature. He was known as a nature poet but in his poem London 1812, when it was time of French influence, and all the works was criticized highly, and there were boundaries to write poetry, he recalls the memory of Milton and he is telling Milton that you should be here at this time, because England is in bad need of your kind of a brave man.

Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need to thee:

She is a fen of stagnant waters: altar,

By saying that all the people are blindly following such rules and have staying stagnantly in their life in a particular manner he has used a metaphor of stagnant water. As all knows that john Milton has written many rebellious works towards society, and he has shown the reality of life without any fear of critics and political aspects, his anti-Christian view was also famous. Further in the poem he says,

“We are selfish men; Oh! Raise us up, return to us again”

Again he is telling the soul of Milton to rise the country up because men have become selfish and self centered. He reminds his works that always helped people to think in new ways.

       Wordsworth in his explanation to what is poet said that a poet should be very simple in his diction, but sudden after that he also says that a poet should has a genius mind, thus he himself has a contrast in his statement.

      He concludes a poet as a common man, but further he says that a poet is quite different than a common man in expressing his thoughts. He has an imagination power than a common person has.

      He has a strong belief that poetry should be a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, but he himself has used more Tranquility. He used to recall his memories after his experience. In most of his poetries there in contradiction between spontaneity and tranquility. 

      As in the very famous poetry of Wordsworth daffodils, first three stanzas are in present tense which shows spontaneity and the last stanza is in the past tense which is tranquility. In solitary reaper also there is a first stanza is in the present tense and others are in past tense.

      With his self contradiction he has gain widely attention towards his poetries and his theories, and got acceptance from readers and critics.

 

Conclusion:-

 

Wordsworth has presented his works in very simple diction, with such realistic characters, realistic situations, though he has contained strong narrative element which not only gain attention of common people but also an educated people also. It is also an art to be in a simple manner and understand the common people’s perspective. Wordsworth’s poetry does not only delight us but teaches us a moral lesson to live life.