This document provides a summary of William Wordsworth's preface to Lyrical Ballads. It discusses the context of 18th century England, including industrialization, urbanization, and the dominance of neoclassical poetry. Wordsworth sought to break from these conventions by focusing on ordinary life and everyday language. He believed poetry should be "a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" and that poets should communicate truths to other men using simple language. The preface was influential as a romantic manifesto that emphasized emotion, nature, and common speech over rigid neoclassical rules.

1.  Name : Makwana Vijay K.
 Roll no : 46
 Enrolment no : 2069108420180035
 Email : vijaykm7777@gmail.com
 Submitted to : Department of English
M.K.B.U

2. Wordsworth’s Preface

3.  Wordsworth was the important writer of
English Literature. He was born 7 april 1770
and he died in 23 april 1850.
 Preface to the lyrical Ballads, written by
Wordsworth, is a landmark eassy in the
history of English Literature.
 Considered to be the Romantic manifesto on
poetry and society.

4.  The preface to the “Lyrical Ballads” frist
appeared in the 2nd edition of the poetry
collection Lyrical Ballads (1801) and later
expanda in the 3rd edition (1802).
 It would be helpful for us to first familiarize
ourselves with this historical context of 18th
century.

5.  1) Massive industrialization and urbanization
:
During this period, London became the
urban centre of industrial development and
huge masses of people migrated to the cities
in search of jobs.

6.  2) The Backdrop of the Neoclassical :
The neoclassical works were known for
their adherence to rules and regulations of
satire and their strict definition of what is
poetry.
Their language was far from what people
used in daily conversations and they spoke of
extraordinary subject. Neoclassicism was
followed by Romanticism.

7.  3) Rise of Romanticism :
Romanticism is different form of
Romantic movement which sought to break
away from old norms and beliefs by
revolutionizing the way people thought about
society in 18th century.
Inspired by the ideas of the French
revolution - to sake up the foundations of the
old hierarchical structure.
In Romanticism Wordsworth set out to
challenge old notions regarding poetry.

8.  Wordsworth’s relation to nature that is
celebrated us the nature poet because of his
beautiful descriptions of nature, rural and
countryside areas.
 However, to reduce his work to just an
imitation of trees and flowers would be
immature.
 Wordsworth believed that the city life made
the masses dull and stagnant.

9.  The highly elevated topic of neoclassical
poets and their over-complicated language,
Wordsworth wanted “to make the ordinary
extraordinary”.
 Wordsworth found inspiration from everyday
figures of everyday life.
 The famous work like “Solitary Reaper” or
“Daffodils” – Wordsworth’s poetry flows to
admire the simple beauty that exists within
daily life.

10.  For Wordsworth, a poet is simply “a man
speaking to man” – a follow human just like
all of us to communicate his perception and
experience of truth and beauty.

11.  Wordsworth famously defined poetry as “a
spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling
which are recollected in tranquillity”.
 Simply speaking, the highly sensitive poet is
able to experience the beauty life, capture
his own emotion and finally space to use his
imagination to recollected these emotion and
finally write about them.

12.  Wordsworth believed that the “real language
of man” – ordinary daily language – should be
used to write poetry.
 Wordsworth refined this common language to
purer form without losing the essence of it’s
simplicity.

13.  It will be safe to sat those modern-day poets
who hold ideas like self-expression and
sensitivity so dear to their hearts truly owe it
to Wordsworth’s works to reinforce ideas so
simple yet so revolutionary.