Bridge course : wordsworth's preface to lyrical ballad.
This blog is a response to a task given by Dr. Barad sir, and in this blog I'm going to discuss some important points about Wordsworth's preface to lyrical ballad in this blog.
What is the basic difference between the poetic career of "classicism " and " romanticism".
First of all, classicism and romanticism are artistic movements that have influenced many things, for example visual arts, music, and architecture of western world over many countries. Although the characteristics of those movements are frequently at odds, both schools of thought continued to influence western art into the 21 st century.
Classicism:
Basically the term classic or classical came into use in the seventeenth century. This describes the art culture of the ancient civilisations of Greece and rome. The following of the principles of these ancient civilisations in art, architecture and literature is referred to as classicism.
Here is some pictures of architecture of this age-
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Leeds town hall |
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Parthenon
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And here is one painting of this age-
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Gaulli apotheosis of the franciscan order. |
Classicism defines true beauty as that which demonstrates balance and order, with its origins in the ancient Greek and Roman societies.
The name "classical" was given to the Greeks and Romans by renaissance writers. Renaissance literally means " rebirth", and renaissance thinkers and artists saw themselves as the heirs of that world following the middle ages. The ideals continued to influence into the age of Enlightenment in the 1774 and 18 th centuries.
In English literature, classicism values traditional forms and structures, the roman poet virgil left an order for his masterpiece " The Aeneid" which burned at his death, because a few of its lines were still metrically imperfect. The italian poet Dante Alighiery, whose divine comedy contains over 14,000 lines written in a strict rhyming pattern known as terza rima. We can say that other characteristics of this movement include balance, order and emotional restraint.
Romanticism:
Romanticism developed in the 18th century as a reaction against the ideas of classicism, and it expresses beauty through imagination and powerful emotions.
Here is a picture of paintings of this time-
Romanticism is a somewhat confusing term, since modern English speakers tend to associate the word "romance" with a variety of love. This is an artistic movement that celebrates all strong emotions, not just feelings of love. Romantic artists valued the search for beauty and finding meaning in all aspects of life. As the rather than reason.
We can differentiate classicism and romanticism by the treatment of emotions, that is how they deal with emotions. The romantics placed a higher value on the expression on the strong emotion than on technical perfection.
Those are some basic differences between Romanticism and classicism.
Why does Wordsworth say " what is a poet?" rather than "who is poet"?
Wordsworth gave definition of poet. According to Wordsworth "a poet is a man speaking to man: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness.
Poet has a greater knowledge of human nature, knows human nature very well, and a more comprehensive soul, than one supposed to be common among mankind.
He is a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him. Delighted to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings on the universe, and habitually compelled to create them where he does not find them.
Poets can better remember things produced by real events which other men can't.
From his practice, he has a power in expressing things that he thinks and feels. And especially those thoughts and feelings which, by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external excitement.
What is poetic diction ? Which sort of poetic diction is suggested by wordsworth in his preface?
" Preface to lyrical ballads " is an essay written by william worsworth which serves as an important piece of literary criticism. This essay is the bible of romanticism because it throws powerful insights into the romantic notions of the school of poetry and understands the main idea behind it.
This poetic diction is the essay that suggested by wordsworth that what is " real language of men. He has selected to communicate and to connect with common people, that they can understand. Each and every poem has its own "purpose" to share and evoke " pleasure" by common language.
He argues that the " language of men" is refined when the " humble and rustic elements are used as a setting in the poem. He defended that if a man speaks and communicates with another man for hours that is best " objects" where the " best part of language is derived .
He also highlighted that the " language which comes from regular life and " repeated experience " are permanent and more philosophical.
Lastly, he further argues about the poetic diction that reduction of rhetorical devices has a typical reason. The reason behind it was
" bring my language closer to the language of man.
He added that the " pleasure" he impacts in poetry is different from others.
What is poetry?
In 1802, william wordsworth tried to explain his views on poetry. He tried to explain how poetry functions and the nature of the craft itself. He also explains what a true poet is. He did all of this in his " preface to lyrical ballads."
William Wordsworth says that he has selected incidents and situations of common life. He describes them by selection of common life. He describes them by a selection of languages really used by men. In the past this ordinary life of the ordinary people has never been a subject of poetry.
They suffer from social vanity. Wordsworth says in the lyrical ballad that humble and rustic life has been chosen as the theme of poetry, because the essential passions of the heart find a better soul in which they can attain their maturity in life. He also says that this humble and rustic life holds simplicity, serenity and tranquility.
According to Wordsworth poetry is "poetry sheds no tears, such as angels weep, but natural and human tears." Another important idea of wordsworth about poetry is that the function of poetry is to give pleasure to readers by presenting the incidents and situations of their lives.
Therefore Wordsworth agrees with Aristotle, " poetry is the most philosophical of all writings, the subject of poetry is general and operative truth which is its own testimony."
According to J.C. Smith, an eminent critic," the nature of poetry will appear more clearly when we have considered its end or purpose, or the function of the poet in a civil society."
The poet's main business is to describe human life in its very form and to establish a relationship between man and the universe.
So Wordsworth says that poetry is the first and last of all knowledge; it is as immortal as the heart of man.
Discuss " Daffodils" i wandered lonely as a cloud with reference to wordsworth's poetic creed.
Introduction-
Before one can understand daffodils we should go through what is the Wordsworth poetic creed.
Wordsworth writes in a subjective style. He examines his state of mind before attempting to write a creative work. This is largely why he fell in love with nature and became a nature worshiper. He believes in a primordial relationship between the mind of man and the nature around him.
Wordsworth's poetic creed.
Wordsworth believed that a real language of poem should be in common and rustic language, so that common and rustic people can understand poems and also he believes that poetry should contain events from real and common, everyday life. He believes that a poem should be spontaneous and that it should arise out of powerful emotions which are recollected in tranquility. He also believes the mind of man is capable of achieving ecstasy even without the influence of drugs.
Wordsworth was a worshiper of nature, and he believes that nature is his religion. He loves nature deeply.
This shows Wordsworth poetic creeds. This is how he gave his understanding of poetic creed.
Daffodils - william wordsworth
This poem is written by william wordsworth. Wordsworth was known as the fountainhead of romanticism.
This poem describes how the spontaneous emotions of the poet's heart sparked by the dance of daffodils, help him to write this sweet little poem.
On 15 april 1802, wordsworth and his sister Dorothy came across a host of daffodils around glencoyne bay in the lake district and this event was the inspiration behind the composition of wordsworth's lyrical poem.
Explanation-
The speaker of this poem is wandering down the hills and valley when he stumbled upon a beautiful field of daffodils. The daffodils look waving, fluttering, and dancing among the waterside. They are even the lake and trees are fluttering and shifting as they are blown by the breeze.
Speaker notes how the flowers seem to go one without ending. Alongside a bay. Speaker guesses that there are many thousand daffodils.
Near the daffodils, the water waves are shining by sunlight on the bay. But the daffodils seem to look more joyful than waves, the speaker stares at daffodils, without yet realizing the full extent of that positive effect.
After this beautiful experience he lies on the couch, remembers all things, imagining all things he fills with joy and his mind starts dancing with the daffodils.
Structure of poem-
This poem is composed of four stanzas of six lines each.
It is a quatrain couplet rhyme scheme, ABA BCC.
Every line conforms to iambic tetrameter.
Consonance and alliteration are used to create rhymes.
There are four iambs in each line.
Poem written in first person point of view.
Figurative language and poetic devices.
Wordsworth makes use of several literary devices in this poem. Similes, hyperboles, personification, and allusion, these include but are not limited.
The daffodils are even made anthropomorphous to create a human portrayal of mother nature.
Themes
Theme of nature
Memory
spirituality
Symbolism
This poem begins with a symbolic reference to the cloud.
Tone and mood
Emotive
Hyperbolic
Expressive
Thoughtful
Conclusion-
To conclude we can say that william wordsworth was great figer of that time and he point out some important things in his essay "preface to lyrical ballad".
Here i embeded link of preface to lyrical ballad youtube video-