Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads Analysis

                I chose the following quote from Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads for its curiousness: “The principal object, then proposed in the Poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life and to relate not describe then throughout, as far as possible in a selection of language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should ne resented to the mind I an unusual aspect; and, further and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously , the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.” In other words, Wordsworth was warning his readers that in his poems, he took ordinary moments and enhanced them with his own imagination and suggested the in a new light. These moments then become “eternal truths” in human nature, especially in regards to how “we associate ideas in a state of excitement.”

                I said I chose this quote for its curiousness and it is indeed curious. Wordsworth, it seems, thought he was breaking new ground with this “project” of his. He was not. Poetry is commonly a huge exaggeration of emotions, ideas, time, places, people, and facts. Later in the Preface, Wordsworth states that, “For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”  It is an expression in metered rhyme of what regular words cannot express so well. To take an incident and make it more than it really is, as mentioned before, is not a novel concept in the field of poetry, or even for human nature.  Wordsworth’s aim definitely ties in with the common belief held by many Romantic Poets that they, in their own way, were changing the world, one stanza at a time.

To me, this beginning section of the Preface almost comical. The tone of the Preface is very serious and matter of fact but the diction and syntax are very flowery. Then the ideas discussed in the Preface also seem a bit silly because at first Wordsworth explains to the Reader that he did not want to partake in this project at all but he was pressured by his friends and so then he decided to do it even though he didn’t want to. If we translate the language into modern, common language, the entire “project” seems, at least to me, a bit ridiculous. It is not much of a project. It has been done before and by many of Wordsworth’s colleagues, to use poetry to make a point. Romantic poetry especially was almost a intellectual-political movement. Nevertheless, this quote offers more insight into the Romantic Poetic mindset.

                The Poets and Wordsworth both used the imagination to transform the mundane into the magnificent. The Romantic Poets believed very much that the imagination was transformative and by using it to enhance the things that “men” live through, the Poets could teach a lesson or perhaps save the intellectual world from the clutches of the Enlightenment. Usually they did this by presenting a common event in a light much different from the conventional take so as to highlight its flaws, curiosities, and perfections. The lessons that the Romantic Poets hoped to teach were, as Wordsworth indicates in his Preface, “primary laws of our nature,” or simple facts regarding human nature that we may or may not realized the full profoundness of until it was explained to us by an “Author.”

                Human nature is very complex and has many facets; therefore it cannot be described by one instance or in way. This is probably why Wordsworth chose a particular topic to explore and explain. The topic he chose to emphasize was “the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.” As mentioned before, poetry can be an exaggeration of emotions ideas and things. This in addition to Wordsworth’s admission that he made these instances more than they really were, to make a point, nevertheless, is augmented his choice to pick instances in which the human nature is in a state of excitement. It is not uncommon for the human mind to embellish events into something much more that it really is. It is in our very nature. (Perhaps this is because life is so utterly unexciting that we must make things up in order to “feel” and “live”, almost like many Romantic Poets resorted to drugs and alcohol or inspiration or solace from their depression?)