Preface to the

Lyrical Ballads
Study Guide by Course Hero

poetry should reflect everyday language rather than fit itself to

What's Inside
j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1
a Main Ideas .................................................................................................... 1
d In Context .................................................................................................... 2
a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 4
k Plot Summary ............................................................................................. 5
g Quotes ........................................................................................................... 7
m Glossary ...................................................................................................... 10
e Suggested Reading .............................................................................. 10
established formulas, such as form, meter, and poetic diction,
as it had in the past. The Preface has been called
"Wordsworth's best-known critical work, and his most original
essay in aesthetics." It continues to be read and discussed in
the study of Romantic literature, as well as of succeeding
centuries of realism and modernism in poetry and prose.
ABOUT THE TITLE
After first publishing his Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth felt the
need to explain and defend his new techniques in poetry, in the
hope of attracting an audience who would continue to
understand and appreciate his work. He wrote a Preface for
the first edition in 1800 and made revisions throughout his life.
The 1802 version formed the basis for the final edition of 1850.
The title, "Preface," was never changed, giving it a sense of
ongoing novelty.

j Book Basics a Main Ideas

AUTHOR
William Wordsworth
Poetry as the Language of
YEAR PUBLISHED
1850
Common People
GENRE The Preface to Lyrical Ballads presents Wordsworth's
Argument, Nonfiction, Philosophy explanation for the new type of poetry he published in 1798. He
continued to revise the Preface in the hope of gaining a larger
AT A GLANCE reading audience and further recognition by other writers. He
The Preface is considered a revolutionary step forward in rejects previous conventional approaches to literature as
introducing Romantic poetry to world literature. Wordsworth emotionally barren, overlooking the connection he values
and his close friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) between the thoughts and language of common people and
collaborated in explaining their new ideas of poetry and the the poet's ability to transmit the experience at the same
poet's task. These views on poetry are based on a love of accessible level. He speaks of poetry as existing from the poet
nature and on the use of common feelings and language, away as one person to other persons, with minimal or no
from what Wordsworth and Coleridge saw as the falseness intermediary needed. He recognizes some refinement of
and needless complexities of the past. Wordsworth believed anything considered vulgar or offensive would need revising,
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Study Guide
but otherwise no real barriers need exist. As a Romantic,
Wordsworth values the humble, rustic ways of countryfolk,
people who he believes have directly experienced the truths of
nature. Their experiences can be transmitted in poetry that
includes the same honesty and directness that he finds in
homogenous rural settings. Poems he creates spring from the
overflow of genuine feelings. These lead to reflection and
simple wisdom and then are restated in ordinary language to
recreate the original emotion.
The Preface rejects reliance on standards from the Classical
or Enlightenment eras—Pope and Johnson among the British
poets he names—because they overlook the lives of common
people who speak humble and unadorned language.
Prose and Poetry
Devoting much attention to emphasizing the close connection
of poetry with prose, Wordsworth shows little patience for
efforts in past eras to perfect standards for either poetry or
prose at the expense of the other. For him, both share the
same purpose: to speak plainly and honestly in language
reflecting the lives of living people and not close themselves
off to the other form. He does not believe in a separation of
poetry and prose as two opposed approaches but instead
states repeatedly they come from the same origins and spirit
and should be accessible at equal levels.
Wordsworth places little value on the factual or scientific in
literature. He is far more interested in the emotions arising
from an immediate experience that is later reflected upon,
assimilated, and understood. He can see the significance of
scientific inquiry and knowledge, but for speaking the truths of
the lives of his contemporaries, he keeps a distance between
instinctive literature and applied scientific literature. For
Wordsworth, this type of literature does not unite the scientist
with ordinary people on a daily basis, but instead keeps him
isolated in a world of facts. Writing as he was in the first years
of the 1800s, he could not anticipate the enormous role
scientific research and experimentation has assumed since
then. The Preface ushers in a new world of literary sensibility,
and is focused ahead of that changing world. However,
scientifically, it seems naïve.
Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.
In Context 2
Role of the Poet
At the heart of the Preface, Wordsworth gives extended
treatment to the role of a poet, according to the views he has
expressed on language and content. The poet is a person of
the common people, attuned to them and sensitive to their
experiences, and at the same time the poet is someone in a
special position. Wordsworth explains, "The poet, singing a
song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the
presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion."
The poet is the "rock of defense for human nature; an upholder
and a preserver, carrying everywhere with him relations and
love." Wordsworth adds, "The poet binds together by passion
and knowledge the vast empire of human society ... and over all
time."
As the new scientists of Wordsworth's time forged ahead in
chemistry and botany, so the poet represents "the first and last
of all knowledge ... as immortal as the heart of man ... The poet
will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration" into
knowledge. But for Wordsworth and others he hoped to
inspire, the role of art stands far apart from applied science of
any kind. The poet remains a special person, an individual who
can take the ordinary experiences of common people and
articulate those experiences coherently into felt passions and
controlled emotions that touch on moral truth and rightness.
d In Context
Wordsworth and Other Writers
Wordsworth was very conscious of many figures in the history
of English literature. In his own education, he had read the
great writers, appreciating some and finding others not to his
taste or to his desire to write in a new form and style. The
previous century, up to around the time of Wordsworth's birth
in 1770, had produced the famous Augustan Age of poets and
essayists, such as Alexander Pope (1688–1744). These writers
relied on classical models; often used elegant but unnatural
diction (word choice) and quotations from Latin; and aimed for
sophistication, wit, and urbanity, or refined manners. They
exalted reason as capable of controlling the baser instincts
associated with nature, which the Augustans distrusted as wild
and unshaped by society. With little interest in the lives of
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Study Guide
ordinary people, Augustans frequently portrayed high society
and nobility in carefully crafted and often satiric works.
As the Augustan Age waned, Samuel Johnson (1709–84) and
others of his time rejected neoclassicism and instead relied
heavily on reason and common sense to control excesses of
imagination and sentiment. Language was used deliberately to
instruct, but writers still took little interest in common people or
themes. However, poets such as Thomas Gray (1716–71),
William Blake (1757–1827), and Robert Burns (1759–96) are
sometimes called proto-Romantics, or those in the early stages
of Romantic thought. In their work they dispensed with
formulaic classical models, such as rhyming couplets, in favor
of blank, or unrhyming, verse. Poetry became more immediate
and accessible in plainer speech and vocabulary, calling
objects what they really were. And in poems like "Elegy Written
in a Country Churchyard" and "Is There for Honest Poverty,"
everyday people emerged as serious poetic subjects.
Looking back at his predecessors, Wordsworth wanted to build
on these innovations and, at the same time, accomplish
something more radical, even revolutionary for the aesthetics
of his time. In the Preface he does not hesitate to give
examples of the type of poetry he dislikes as insufficiently
down to earth. Seeking to unify simplicity in life and in art,
Wordsworth believed he could write to bring about this
realization. Although he knew Samuel Johnson's work was
greatly esteemed, he contrasted some of Johnson's lines with
those from a popular folk ballad and found Johnson's lines
"neither interesting ... nor [leading] to anything interesting; the
images neither originate in that sane state of feeling which
arises out of thought, nor can excite thought or feeling in the
Reader." This analysis became the standard by which
Wordsworth was to judge the craft of the poet he hoped to be
in his own time.
Rise of Romanticism
Wordsworth is one of the most important Romantic writers,
and the Preface to his Lyrical Ballads is considered a manifesto
for understanding Romanticism. The Romantic movement is
generally dated from late in the 18th century through the first
decades of the 19th. Critics have noted 1798 and the
appearance of Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads in
that year as the actual starting point of the movement. The
Preface Wordsworth wrote to explain those poems plays a
large role in clarifying the aims of Romanticism as a way of
Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.
In Context 3
thought and as a watershed moment in European and
American culture.
Romanticism influenced all the arts, not only literature. Most
Romantic writers worked independently, but others, like
Wordsworth and Coleridge, collaborated, despite differing
views. They did not refer to themselves as Romantics, for the
term came into popular use much later with critics and
anthologizers. Later in the 19th century, other movements,
such as realism and naturalism, arose under the influence of
science and changing conditions in urban and rural life.
Romanticism then came to be associated with an earlier
outpouring of emotions and new ways of looking at life that
were superseded by the course of history.
Romantic writers shared certain common beliefs, among them
a strong bond with nature. This bond manifested itself in a
desire to live in rural settings and a preference for land work
over factory production despite the prevailing industrial
development. In addition, they believed in the power of
literature to bring about social change and to explore new
horizons and passions, not conforming to old or "accepted"
wisdom. In their preference for individual consciousness over
the collective expressions of ideas, Romantic writers relied on
the imagination to form a new vision of the world. Finally, a
belief in the purity and simplicity of childhood was the lens for
understanding in the Romantic worldview.
Critics have noted that in the past, for the most part, art
reflected reality and followed certain principles of the artist.
However, in Wordsworth's poetry, for the first time, art tended
to illuminate the real from within by revealing the soul and
nature of things rather than the external reality itself. In a
simplified sense, everything is feeling, not fact, as in the
episode in Wordsworth's Prelude in which the young boy fears
being pursued by a vengeful mountain after taking a boat. The
mountain is capable of neither feeling nor motion, but to the
frightened child it is full of meaning. Ordinary people may
experience similar feelings, which a poet may emulate. To the
Romantics, this kind of experience leads to poetry, as
Wordsworth explains in the Preface.
Coleridge and the Preface
Although his poems often focus on the pleasures of solitude,
Wordsworth was influenced all his life by other people, places,
and events. The closest collaboration came from poet Samuel
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Study Guide
Taylor Coleridge, whom he met in 1795 and with whom he
began an important literary partnership. Together they
conceived the idea of the Lyrical Ballads, which they published
anonymously in two editions, the first in 1798. The subsequent
1800 edition was published with only Wordsworth's name.
Although they had a loose agreement to work equally on the
ballads, Wordsworth—steady, industrious, and
organized—wrote much more than the unstable, opium-
addicted Coleridge. For a time the Wordsworth and Coleridge
families lived near each other and traveled together, but the
two men became estranged in 1810 after Coleridge received
reports of critical remarks Wordsworth had made about him.
Their work together ended, and Coleridge died in 1834.
Critics often have studied Coleridge's influence on
Wordsworth—rather than the reverse. When Wordsworth
speaks in the Preface about "friends" advising him to write an
explanation for his new poetry and strong beliefs he wished to
spread, "friends" is widely assumed to be Coleridge.
Wordsworth sometimes claimed much of the abstract theory
behind the Preface was not his and originally responded to his
friend's urging by stating he "never cared a straw about the
theory—and the Preface was written at the request of
Coleridge out of sheer good nature."
Coleridge had strong opinions about what his friend had
written and disagreed with many of the changes Wordsworth
made in later versions. Coleridge claimed the Preface placed
too much emphasis on pure association with nature and not on
poetic creativity. He did not fully agree with Wordsworth's take
on the almost identical natures of poetry and prose and the
essence of "poetic diction." Because the two men's works are
so different—and given their on-again, off-again friendship—it
is unlikely Coleridge would have fully aligned himself with his
friend's statements about poetry. He found Wordsworth
exaggerated in some of his theoretical ideas, and these
judgments may have contributed to the decline of
Wordsworth's reputation in the last decades of his long life.
a Author Biography
Childhood and Education
William Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland,
England, on April 7, 1770. He was the second of five children
Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.
Author Biography 4
born to John Wordsworth, a lawyer and rent collector, and his
wife, Anne. The children lost their mother in 1778, and at age
nine William was sent to a local grammar school near
Windermere, England, a setting that figures in many poems in
the first two books of The Prelude. He was orphaned by age 13,
and his education came under the care of his uncles. In 1787 he
entered Cambridge University, where he began writing poetry.
While studying at Cambridge he embarked on a long walking
tour of France and Switzerland, especially the Alpine regions,
that also figures in The Prelude.
In 1791, after receiving his degree from Cambridge, he returned
to France, which was in the throes of the French Revolution
(1789–99 social and political upheaval of the monarchy and
feudal system). There he fell in love with a woman named
Annette Vallon, who bore Wordsworth a daughter, Caroline, in
1792. The impoverished Wordsworth was forced to return to
England, and after war broke out between the two countries he
was separated from Vallon for years. Eventually he was
reunited with his daughter Caroline and for many years
contributed to her upbringing. His experiences in France
influenced him greatly in his ideas on the need for liberation of
human rights and reform of living conditions for the people.
Publication
Back in England, Wordsworth was influenced by the writing of
William Godwin (1756–1836), who championed the rights of
man and questioned all social controls and authority. The
young poet published his earliest work in 1793 in two
collections, An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches. In 1795
he went to live with his sister Dorothy in Dorset, England. He
met fellow Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772–1834), and they became fast friends. In fact, he and
Dorothy moved in 1797 to Alfoxden House, near the village of
Nether Stowey, to be close to Coleridge. Both his sister and
Coleridge had strong influences on the development of his
work.
His first success came with the 1798 publication of Lyrical
Ballads, a collaboration with Coleridge. The landmark collection
marked the beginning of the Romantic movement in English
literature and included such famous poems as Wordsworth's
"Tintern Abbey" and Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
The Preface Wordsworth wrote for the second edition of the
Ballads became a Romantic manifesto for poets in many
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Study Guide
cultures. It included his famous description of poetry as "the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings [that] takes its
origin from emotion recollected in tranquility." It represented a
sharp break with the literature of the previous century, placing
great emphasis on the emotions of the individual rediscovering
lost sources of natural wisdom in harmony with the divine.
Wordsworth began writing his epic autobiographical poem The
Prelude in 1798 while living in Germany, and he would continue
writing and rewriting it for a half-century, until his death. He
settled in England's Lake District in the north with Dorothy in
1799 and in 1802 traveled to France to meet with Annette
Vallon and their daughter. On his return to England he married
a longtime friend, Mary Hutchinson, with whom he would have
five children, two of whom died in infancy. He went on to write
some of his best-known poems, including "I Wandered Lonely
as a Cloud" and "Ode: Intimations of Immortality." Both were
published in his 1807 collection Poems, in Two Volumes. The
Preface to his Ballads continued to engage his interests as he
revised and expanded it significantly. In his Collected Works of
1850, the text of the Preface follows closely the words from
1802.
Fame and Legacy
In the course of his life, Wordsworth was deeply affected by
several family deaths. He lost a beloved brother, John, in 1805
and in 1812 experienced the deaths of two of his young
children. After being named to a post as Distributor of Stamps
for Westmorland, England, he moved in 1813 to another home
in the Lake District in Rydal Mount, Westmorland. While he was
estranged from Coleridge for a time, the other poet's praise of
his work helped to spread his fame. By the 1830s
Wordsworth's home was often visited by admirers who
sometimes numbered in the dozens each day. He continued to
write as a public figure and became poet laureate of England in
1843, remaining in this post until his death on April 23, 1850, at
age 80. The famous autobiographical epic, The Prelude, was
published by his wife three months later.
Among the most influential of all writers, Wordsworth remains
a towering figure of the Romantic movement and one of the
best-loved poets in the English language. His ideas on the
special, inspired role of the poet and the capacity to inspire
and teach common language to ordinary people are essential
to the Romantic theory of art over the centuries. His Lyrical
Ballads are part of the heritage of English verse, as is their
Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.
Plot Summary 5
foundational explanation in the Preface.
k Plot Summary
The Preface to Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge
appeared after the first publication of the poems and then in
numerous revised forms until the end of Wordsworth's career.
It remains the clearest statement of Romantic principles as it
lays out the purpose and practice of writing poetry and its
close relation to prose. It also explains the profession, or craft,
of the "poet" and the role of poetry in giving a voice to
contemporary and simplified ways of living that stay close to
the truths of nature. For Wordsworth, as for all the Romantic
writers, one discovered these primary laws of nature through
experiences in the natural world—experiences that, when
combined with emotion, produced poetry.
Importance of Subject Matter
Wordsworth emphasizes why and how he chooses the
subjects for his poems. He separates his work from that of
past ages and literary figures, showing they have been too
"literary" by emphasizing formal or classical models of artificial
conventions. Rather than the recording of actual observations
or events, Wordsworth believes emotional truths and fidelity to
nature are the keys to providing ordinary readers with insights
into their own conditions of life. He favors a "humble and rustic"
rural existence (yet without narrating anything unsettling or
violent) to urban life because it seems simpler and more
natural. Wordsworth also favors a more unified, common
population that shares similar experiences. In cities like rapidly
expanding London, the permanence of natural truths seems
absent. The short-lived values of shifting populations give no
connection to the past or the promise of future tranquility for
the common people, whose experiences can form the basis for
poetry as well as prose. Wordsworth sought to make ordinary
experiences seem more extraordinary and enduring. As nature
reveals permanence and unchanging truths, the new literature
Wordsworth proposes would share the simplicity, and depth, of
people's lives.
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Study Guide Plot Summary 6

into being "a man speaking to men," he essentially erases the

Characteristics of Poetry
Wordsworth says poetry must arise from the "spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquility." Although a poet should make a poem
seem spontaneous, the creation of it is not. Poetry must reflect
emotion, or passion—not simply record observations. The poet
must draw from real-life experiences and describe them in
ordinary language, and the poet must "throw over them a
certain coloring of the imagination, whereby ordinary things
should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect." It is the
imagination that permits the poet to touch on the eternal,
making the surrounding world new and connecting the people
with that world.
Wordsworth analyzes what he sees as four parts of the poet's
creative process. The poet first observes something that
creates a powerful emotion. Then he tranquilly contemplates
and reflects on the emotion. During this period the poet may
recall other things that relate to the observation itself or to the
past in some way. Such contemplation is personal, intended
only for the poet. The tranquility of contemplation disappears
after a time, and then the poet distills all these thoughts,
eliminating some and keeping others so that the original
emotion is recreated in a way that is more universal. Finally the
poet is ready to write, with the aim of sharing the emotion with
an audience.
lines separating prose from poetry. He sees the distinction of
both as opposed to science, as he understands it, because the
relatively new field of science focuses on the factual.
Moreover, he sees the scientist as making discoveries on their
own, away from others, and not influencing the common
condition, which for Wordsworth is the essence of poetry. For
Wordsworth, who favors free, straightforwardly rhymed lines
over traditional rhyme and meter in poetry, the use of most
meter produces a forced type of "verse" rather than the
"naked," simpler poetry that shares truths with prose.
He explains that he chooses to write poetry—with a proper and
natural "Poetic Diction"—rather than prose because it offers
more possibilities for his imagination to explore the natural
passions of men and give them form. However, he refuses to
acknowledge any strict separation between poetry and prose
because both must spring from emotion and reflection.
Wordsworth writes, "They both speak by and to the same
organs ... their affections are kindred, and almost identical, not
necessarily differing even in degree." He ends the Preface by
saying that whether he writes in prose or verse, the essential
principle of his art—made of imagination and sentiment—will
employ "one and the same language" of meter or prose.

Poetry, therefore, doesn't arise from classical models or

through an immediate inspiration on any supernatural level. It
arises through experience on an ordinary level—understood
and reflected upon. Wordsworth rejects elaboration or literary
devices as artificial and uses numerous examples of earlier
poets' work in his discussion. He hopes to lead readers to
meditate on their own emotions and arrive eventually at a more
moral and true conception of themselves and of life. Poetry
can achieve the finest level of art by being simple and
straightforward.

Poetry and Prose

Wordsworth devotes much of the Preface to examining his
views on poetry and prose. He rejects past distinctions of one
being more heroic or a higher art than the other. His aim is to
reveal both as sharing the most important characteristics of
"the language of men." As he simplifies the art of being a poet

Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Study Guide Quotes 7

theory for the type of poetry he wants to create on the actual

g Quotes lives of ordinary people living at that time, not on classical
models. He says his diction—word choice and vocabulary—will
come from the common people, too, filtered through him.
"Several of my friends are anxious
for the success of these Poems ...
"Humble and rustic life was
and ... have advised me to prefix a
generally chosen because ... the
systematic defense of the theory."
passions of the heart ... can attain
— Narrator their maturity ... and speak a
plainer and more emphatic
Wordsworth notes that others, most likely his friend Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, recognized that the Lyrical Ballads were so language."
different from familiar forms of poetry in the past that an
explanation would help their reception and sales. — Narrator

Wordsworth relies on the simple truths of nature and claims to

"There would be something like find them in the countryside rather than in the city. He is not

impropriety in abruptly obtruding interested in the faster and more diversified state of urban life.
He prefers straightforward and sometimes one-dimensional
upon the public ... poems so situations in which truths may emerge without ambiguities.

materially different."

— Narrator
"Such a language, arising out of
repeated experience and regular
Wordsworth believed he (together with Coleridge) had entered feelings, is a more permanent, and
new and different terrain from what the English reading public
was familiar with. He apologizes for such newness and hopes a far more philosophical language."
he will encourage more readers to try to follow his work.
— Narrator

"The principal object ... in these Wordsworth rejects poets of the past who realistically record

Poems was to choose incidents their own experiences in elevated language that is artificial,
capricious (fickle), and arbitrary. Such language has little or
and situations from common life ... nothing to do with the event. Wordsworth aims to express the
permanent meanings of natural truths.
in a selection of language really
used by men."
"Causes, unknown to former times
— Narrator
... blunt ... discriminating powers of
This is the heart of Wordsworth's Preface. The poet bases his
the mind ... and reduce it to savage

Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Study Guide
torpor ... Great national events ...
are daily taking place, and the
increasing accumulating of men in
cities."
— Narrator
Wordsworth rejects the pressures of urbanization, mass
events, and confusing communications. These sentiments
typify his reaction to growing industrialization and the shift
from rural to urban life. He issues a call for the literature he
would like to create: a literature of the common people and
common needs. The Preface is his hope for action—to live
simply, avoid urbanization, and communicate through emotion
and imagination.
"My purpose was to imitate, and as
far as it is possible, to adopt the
very language of men."
— Narrator
Wordsworth rejects the standard "poetic diction" of elevated
language, figures of speech, and personifications using false
phraseology. He hopes to achieve this purpose with no
falsehoods of language, clichés, and emptiness. He aims for
good, honest poetry and good sense in a language all can
understand.
"Some of the most interesting
parts of the best poems will be
found to be strictly the language
of prose when prose is well-
written."
— Narrator
Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.
Quotes 8
Wordsworth devotes much attention to proving for his readers
that the old distinctions between prose and traditional poetry
are not valid. He prefers simple, rhymed poetry rather than the
forced diction of meter, which has characterized so much of
poetry in the past. He finds no essential differences between
good prose and good poetry when the language and content
of both aspire to the common good and truth.
"Poetry sheds no tears "such as
Angels weep," but natural and
human tears ... the same human
blood circulates through the veins
of them both."
— Narrator
As an example, Wordsworth criticizes the poetic language of
John Milton as being unnatural and forced, not the common
images people know from their own lives. Like prose, poetry
will not be true and moral in regard to life if it uses such
expressions. It will merely follow meter and form—the
opposites of good prose and poetry both. Wordsworth
reiterates his belief that diction should not distinguish poetry
from prose.
"It shall appear to some that my
labor is unnecessary, and that I am
like a man fighting a battle without
enemies."
— Narrator
Wordsworth knows his struggle to gain acceptance for the
type of poetry he is writing may seen futile. Most people are
unaware of the false excesses of the past and don't object to
them because they associate them with poetic tradition.
Wordsworth thinks he has the unenviable task of breaking
through and revealing more honest and meaningful expressive
powers. Recognizing many readers will not see the sense of
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Study Guide
his commitment to a different approach, he wants to introduce
a new value system for all literature and at best is unsure
how—and if— his ideas will be understood or accepted.
"The Man of science seeks truth ...
in his solitude. The Poet sing[s] a
song in which all human beings
join with him."
— Narrator
Wordsworth makes many sharp contrasts in the Preface. One
of the most memorable juxtaposes the solitary new man of
science, whose impact on humanity is presumed to be solitary.
In contrast, the poet lives among the people, listening to and
repeating their language. The idea of solitary science without
connection to ordinary lives dates from a time when sciences,
as modern times know them, were young.
"The poet is chiefly distinguished
from other men by a greater
promptness to think and feel ...
and a greater power in expressing
such thoughts."
— Narrator
Poetry, Wordsworth states, is the spontaneous expression of
feelings that must be reflected on to express human truths.
Not all men reflect with equal talent, however. As a poet,
Wordsworth believes that the ability to reflect rapidly and
truthfully is what makes the poet one with people and yet apart
as a creator.
"Poets do not write for Poets
alone, but for men ... [a poet] must
express himself as other men
Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.
Quotes 9
express themselves."
— Narrator
Wordsworth has in mind for himself, and for others who may
be inspired by his Preface, the task of being among the people
and also somehow separate. His passions are the same as
those of others, and he must use the language of others. But at
the same time, he refines and shapes it and, in his special role,
leads his readers toward a better sense of what is moral and
significant in life.
"Poetry is the spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings: it
takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquility."
— Narrator
Wordsworth bases his theory of poetry on strong and universal
emotions. These feelings may be experienced to the fullest
when the poet is undistracted. Wordsworth encourages quiet
contemplation of the emotion until the time for thought ends
and composing the poem begins. This way, the poet can best
recapture the original emotion. Although it may be long gone
by this time, the poet makes it alive again.
"Of two descriptions ... well
executed, the one in ... verse will
be read a hundred times where the
prose is read once."
— Narrator
Wordsworth emphasizes the basic connection of good poetry
and good prose. But he himself continues to write poetry
because it offers him more opportunities in language and more
creativity. He greatly admires honest prose writing but is
convinced poetry will endure longer and be more meaningful
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads Study Guide Glossary 10

over time. Halmi, Nicholas. Wordsworth's Poetry and Prose. Norton, 2013.

Hobsbaum, Philip. William Wordsworth: Selected Poetry and

Prose. Routledge, 1989.

m Glossary Owen, W.J.B. Wordsworth as Critic. U of Toronto P, 1969.

adduce (v) to cite as evidence
adverted (v) referred to; mentioned
affinity (n) closeness to or liking for something
Owen, W.J.B. Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads.
Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1957.
Owen, W.J.B., and Jane W. Smyser. The Prose Works of William
Wordsworth. Oxford UP, 1974.

approbation (n) approval; praise

betwixt (adv, prep) archaic form of between; not like either one

dissimilitude (n) strong difference

faculty (n) mental or physical power; in the Preface,

specifically mental power

frantic novels (n pl) sentimental, sensational literature

germinate (v) grow; develop, as a seed

ichor (n) fluid said to be in the veins of the Greek gods

metre or meter (n) arrangement of words in lines of poetry for

rhythmic effect

obtruding (v) imposing forcefully; intruding

pernicious (adj) dangerous, harmful

poetic diction (n) language and vocabulary of verse as

opposed to prose; Wordsworth says in the Preface that he
tries to avoid it

prosaisms (n. pl) ordinary familiar language of the common

people, not elevated or literary

superadd (v) to add to something that has already been

supplemented

e Suggested Reading
Abrams, M.H. Wordsworth: A Collection of Critical Essays.
Prentice-Hall, 1972.

Drabble, Margaret. Wordsworth. Arco, 1969.

Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.