Summary to Preface to the Lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth

Summary to: Preface to the lyrical Ballads by William Wordsworth

In his Preface to the 1798 adaptation of the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth presented his poetic manifesto, indicating the extent to which he saw his poetry, and that of Coleridge, as breaking away from the artificiality, triviality or over-elaborate and contrived quality of eighteenth vitamin C poetry. The Preface is itself a masterpiece of English prose, exemplary in its lucid yet passionate defense of a literary style that could be popular without compromising artistic and poetic standards. Yet it is also vital for helping us to say what Wordsworth and Coleridge were rendering in their collection of verse, and also provides us with a style of assessing how successfully the poems themselves peppy up to the standards outlined in the Preface.
The Preface covers a number of issues and is wide-ranging in its survey of the place of the Lyrical Ballads on the contemporary literary scene. The topics covered include the adjacent:
1. The Principal object of the poems. Wordsworth, in this extract, places the emphasis on the attempt to deal with natural (rather than cosmopolitan) man, arguing that such men live much closer to nature and, therefore, are closer to the well-springs of benignant nature.



Behind this we can see how much Wordsworth owes to that eighteenth century preoccupation with natural Man, associated particularly with the writings of Rousseau. He sees his poetry, in its concerns with the lives of men such as Michael, as an counterpoison to the artificial portraits of Man presented in eighteenth century poetry. The cause is developed when he outlines his reasons for dealing with humble and rustic vivification.
2. For Wordsworth (and Coleridge) this choice of subject matter necessarily involves a rethinking of the run-in of poetry. Note, however, that Wordsworth admits to some license in tidying up the language of mine run men. Does this affect the persuasiveness of his...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com



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