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Notes and some key passages from Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802)
Rewriting the contract: In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth begins by describing an implicit contract between the poet and the reader:
It is supposed, that by the act of writing in verse an Author makes a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of association; that he
not only thus apprizes the Reader that certain classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that others will be carefully excluded. (142)
The rest of the Preface is devoted to rewriting that contract, or at least to justifying his violation of the old one. It is a complete violation in that it
involves both the subject matter and the language that a reader would have expected in a poem. Although Wordsworth doesn't explicitly offer a new
contract, the result is a revision of the rules that govern a poet's relationship to his or her audience, and an entirely new conception of what poetry is, its
source, its purpose, and so on.
My aim here is to point out a few of the passages that help define the new contract.
What is the appropriate subject matter for poetry and why?
The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems 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 a certain colouring of
imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and
situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature. . . . Low and rustic life was generally chosen,
because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a
plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity, and, consequently,
may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from those 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 passions
of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. (143)
But on a deeper level, Wordsworth's poetry is really about the the poet's own inner life. It is only that the deeply sensitive poet is tapped into the same
"elementary feelings" and "elemental passions" that characterize "low and rustic life." Thus the purpose is something other than a description, or
'mimetic'-- it is "expressive" of the poet's own inner life.
What is the purpose of poetry?
The "purpose" of his poetry, Wordsworth writes is "to illustrate the manner in which our feelings and ideas are associated in a state of excitement. But,
speaking in language somewhat more appropriate, it is to follow the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when agitated by the great and simple affections of
our nature." As a result, "the feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation, and not the action and situation to the feeling" (144).
But there is also a social purpose. Wordsworth is responding to what he takes to be a loss of sensitivity as a result of modern life:
a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for
all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking
place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which
the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies. (145)
Wordsworth's aim is to awaken a blasé public to those "elemental passions" that join us in a common humanity. You might think about whether his
complaints about life in 1800 could be applied even more forcefully to today.
What is a poet?
The first and longest description of the poet opens with an affirmation of the poet's similarity to other people, but then offers a long list of the
characteristics that distinguish him from others:
He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of
human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and
who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the
goings-on of the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them. To these qualities he has added a disposition to be
affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present; (1) an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from being
the same as those produced by real events, yet (especially in those parts of the general sympathy which are pleasing and delightful) do more nearly
resemble the passions produced by real events, than any thing which, from the motions of their own minds merely, other men are accustomed to feel in
themselves; whence, and from practice, he has acquired a greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks and feels, and especially those
thoughts and feelings which, by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external excitement. ( 147)
Later he emphasizes what he apparently takes to be the chief distinguishing characteristics of the poet:
The sum of what I have there said is, that the Poet is chiefly distinguished from other men by a greater promptness to think and feel without immediate
external excitement, and a greater power in expressing such thoughts and feelings as are produced in him in that manner. (147)
What is the appropriate language of poetry?
The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these Poems 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. (142-3)
I do not doubt that it may be safely affirmed, that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical
composition. (147)
This does not mean that Wordsworth wrote the way spoke; it only means that he avoided "the gaudiness and inane phraseology" that he felt was
characteristic of "what is usually called poetic diction." Look at the example he gives from Thomas Gray, and you will see that this is not the type of
language he uses in his own poetry except when he wants to call attention to the artificiality of his feelings at that particular moment (as in the opening
stanzas in "Resolution and Independence").
So what is poetry, anyway, and where does it come from?
"all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (143) and again later, we read,
I have said that Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquillity: the emotion is
contemplated till by a species of reaction the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of
contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind. In this mood successful composition generally begins, and in a mood
similar to this it is carried on. (151)
Poetry originates with the poet, deeply in touch with the common springs of humanity. The subject matter is the occasion for the poem, the vehicle for a
more profound message; it is not the source of the poetry.
What makes poetry pleasurable?
The following is verbatim from the Preface. I have only broken it up to make Wordsworth's point easier to follow:
- the music of harmonious metrical language,
- the sense of difficulty overcome,
- the blind association of pleasure which has been previously received from works of rhyme or metre of the same or similar construction,
- an indistinct perception perpetually renewed of language closely resembling that of real life, and yet, in the circumstance of
metre, differing from it so
widely,
- all these imperceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight, which is of the most important use in tempering the painful feeling which will always be
found intermingled with powerful descriptions of the deeper passions. (151)
In other words, the sensations of reading poetry "temper" the painful feeling associated with "the deeper passions" and make them more palatable, even pleasurable.
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