In the preface to Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth explains his theory of poetry. He argues that literary tricks and devices such as personification make it difficult for writers and readers to speak simply and directly about their feelings. He hopes to combat this with his work.

1. Welcome to Preface to Lyrical
Ballads (Part II)
You Tube link: https://youtu.be/ZYhdKHhlEEU

2. Mohammad Jashim Uddin
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Northern University Bangladesh

3. Ideas of about Poem
• Poems are different
• Manner in which we associate ideas in a state
of excitement
• Low and rustic life
• Poems have a purpose
• Feelings more important than action
• Poetry – the image of man and nature
• Poetry gives pleasure
• Poetry is universal

4. Definition of a Poet
A poet:
→ “is a man speaking to men”
→ Knows a lot—“greater knowledge of
human nature”
→ Is tuned in to emotions—his own and
others’: “a lively sensibility”
→ Has a good memory and can imagine
distant things as if they are present
→ And has “greater promptness to think
and feel without immediate external
excitement”

5. Language of Poetry
"There neither is, nor can be, any essential
difference between the language of prose and
metrical composition."

6. • The language of the poetry which is “ really
used by man”.
• It should be colouring with the imagination/
• No difference between the language of
poetry and prose.

7. “The Principal object, then, proposed 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
coloring of imagination, whereby ordinary
things should be presented to the mind in an
unusual aspect;”(154)

8. “Accordingly, such a language, arising out of
repeated experience and regular feelings, is a
more permanent, and a far more
philosophical language..”(154)

9. “Humble and rustic life generally chosen,
because, in that condition, the essential
passions of the heart find a better soil which
they can attain their maturity, are less under
restraint, and speak a plainer and more
emphatic language;” (154)

10. “The reader will find that personifications of
abstract ideas rarely occur in these volumes,
and are utterly rejected, as an ordinary device
to elevate the style, and raise it above prose.
My purpose was to imitate, and, as far as
possible, to adopt the very language of men;
and assuredly such personifications do not
make any natural or regular part of that
poetry.” (155)

11. Also, Wordsworth emphasizes that the
language of a poetry should be;
• Simple
• Not moral
• No personifications
• Not to educate people, but to transmit
feelings

12. “The verse will be read a hundred times
where the prose is read once.”(162)

13. About poetry
“Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all
knowledge; it is the impassioned expression
which is in the countenance of all science.”

14. He defines a good poem as: “spontaneous
overflow of powerful emotions that recollected
in tranquillity.”

15. • Spontaneous over flow.
• Recollected in tranquillity
• The contrast in the deffination
• For him poetry is the talk of a man to man.
• It should be in simple language.
• The subject matter is nature .
• It is conterary to the definition itself.

16. • "the naked and native dignity of man.”
• Function of poetry: „is the breath and finer
spirit of all knowledge, the impassioned
expression that is in the countenance of all
science‟.
• Poetry should present some morality.

17. • According to Wordsworth poet is the man
talking to man.
• More sensitive then the sensitive man.
• More comprehensive then the common
man. more ethical then any moral man.
• More imaginative and having colourful
thought with curious eyes.
• Having power to express his feeling with
justify the poetry.

18. • According to Wordsworth, a poem should
be;
• Talking to man
• Ordinary
• Not liar at all, he should speak the
truths as well
• Presenting ordinary things
• Unique, individual, original

19. Wordsworth says that the subject of a poetry
should be;
• Common life, ordinary things
• Regular feelings
• Anything in real world
• Beauty of the nature
• Situations through emotions rather
than emotions through situations