The Cambridge Companion to William Wordsworth Chapter 6 + 7

1. Presented By:
Areeba Aftab (CMS: 23450)

3. Prose by Wordsworth:
Wordsworth’s interest in current affairs of
his time could be seen in his essays.
“Convention of Cintra” was written
relying on British newspapers from
middle of September 1808.
Convention of Cintra was an agreement
between French and Portugal during
Peninsular War.
In his essay, he expressed his opinion on
the matter.

4. Delay in Publishing:
 His initial plan was to express his opinion on
this matter at a Country Meeting, but later
published a series of entries in the daily
newspaper.
 There was a delay in this project.
 Most of his prose were not published in his
lifetime. The Letters to the Bishop of
Llandaff, Essays on Morals and Essays on
Epitaphs.
 “Lyrical Ballads” reached the level of
appreciation that Wordsworth thought was
necessary for art.

5. Alternating between poetry and
prose:
Wordsworth could be seen alternating
between poetry ad prose in the same
piece of writing.
In his essay on Kendal and
Windermere Railway, he also wrote
verses from “The Prelude” for
describing Simplon Pass.

6. Wordsworth’s prose:
 Through Wordsworth’s prose, one can
know about his commitment to truth of
judgments of private and public matters.
 To him opinion mattered.
 Wordsworth is compared to Bruke and
Bentham.
 They established the standard of social
authority so strongly that individual
opinion looked fanaticism in front of them.
 For both of them, individual judgment was
rogue.

7. Lyrical Ballads:
 Wordsworth’s poetry differs from others.
 In his poetry, feelings are deprived from
circumstances, and completely
determined.
 Importance of moral judgment ad
aesthetic judgment.

8. Wordsworth’s taste:
 Wordsworth’s description of taste
foregrounds a preference for poetry of
psychological depth.
 Wordsworth thinks poetry’s obligation is to
present things as they seem.
 According to Wordsworth, the most
experience students of poetry have the
best taste.

10. Arnold about Wordsworth:
 Matthew Arnold says that Wordsworth’s
poetry is inevitable like the nature itself.
He has no style.
 He says:
“Nature herself seems, I say, to take
the pen out of his hand, to write for him
with her own bare, sheer, penetrating
power.”

11. Poetry:
 Wordsworth rejected the neoclassical
principles of poetry to declare that “all good
poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feelings
 Poems show how the emotions recollected in
tranquility turns into powerful feelings and
gives deliberate craft.

12. .
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude
And then my heart with pleasure
fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.