William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Preface to Lyrical Ballads
Selected Poems
British
Romanticism
As a young man, Wordsworth memorized passages from Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and John Milton. His lyrical poetry, therefore, bears the imprint of the musical quality of the early modern poets who lived before him. From Milton’s concept of the sublime, he created work that celebrates the sublimity of the natural world. Wordsworth, who is now considered the premier poet of the Romantic movement, enjoyed most of his acclaim long after his death. During his lifetime, his work was overshadowed by the more immediate popularity of Lords Tennyson and Byron. When the Romantic Movement spread to other parts of Europe and America, however, Wordsworth’s connection of nature and the human imagination sparked an immense following.
Together with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey, Wordsworth’s literary circle became known as the “Lake Poets,” named after the Lake District in England. In 1798, Wordsworth and Coleridge published their collaboration, Lyrical Ballads, which was popular and brought them some financial success. The book contained one of Wordsworth’s best-known poems, “Tintern Abbey,” the study of a natural location with thematic undertones of loss and consolation. The book also contains one of Coleridge’s famous poems, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Much to the chagrin of the literary establishment, the innovation of Lyrical Ballads influenced a rising, younger group of poets such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats.
In the Preface to the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth proposes a theory that connects poetry and the workings of the human mind. His intended audience is not the high-brow literary elite, but the common men and women. For example, he addresses those who were caught in the industrial confines of cities due to the loss of common land in the country in his poignant poem “Michael.” In the “Preface,” Wordsworth writes, “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility,” an example of which he demonstrates in “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” Perhaps his most powerful and influential poem, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” captures the human mind and its connection to the natural world.
Consider while reading:
- Discuss lines from “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” that illustrate Wordsworth’s idea of “emotion recollected in tranquility.”
- Discuss lines from “Michael” that demonstrate the heartbreak of broken family tradition.
- Discuss lines from “Immortality Ode” that demonstrate humanity’s reliance on nature.
Written by Karen Dodson