This document provides an introduction and overview of William Wordsworth's preface to Lyrical Ballads. It discusses Wordsworth's definition of poetry as the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" that are "recollected in tranquility." It also summarizes Wordsworth's ideas that poems can depict low and rustic life, that feelings are more important than action in poetry, and that poetry gives pleasure. The document provides biographical details of Wordsworth and positions him as a poet of nature and critical thinker.

1. Topic: Preface to Lyrical
Ballads
By William Wordsworth
Welcome
to this Class in the
Department of English
Uttara University

2. Conducted By:
Monir Hossen
Lecturer
Department of English
Uttara University
Email: monir.eng.cou@gmail.com

3. Introdution
William Wordsworth was an influential British Poet because he
contributed a lot of masterpieces and masterworks in the field of
poetry. Being an orphan at the age of 13 was not a hindrance to him
to reach his goals and dreams in life, instead he used it as an
inspiration to make his life better together wit his beloved and
neurotic sister Dorothy. Lyrical Ballad was his first masterpiece that
gives a lot of privileges to him as a poet. In the following years he
started to write large and philosophical poems. William Wordsworth
made a big impact in the field of poetry and was a successful poet
during his time and became a patriotic, conservative public man.

4. William Wordsworth
In 1798, two young English poets
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772-1834) published a book of
poems called Lyrical Ballads.
In 1800 an expanded edition was
published, with a preface-a kind
of poetic manifesto-by
Wordsworth. This is generally
regarded as the official beginning
of Romanticism in England.

5. Biography of Wordsworth
 British Poet
 Born April 7, 1770 in Cockermouth,
Cumberland, in the Lake District
 Continued his studies at Cambridge University.
 He made his debut as a writer in 1787, when he
published a sonnet in The European Magazine.
 Poet of Nature
 Critical Thinker

6. The Poet of Nature

7. Definition of Poetry
“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings: it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in tranquility.”
William Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads

8. 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

9. 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”

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

11. 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.”

12. Thank you