Literary Criticism A summary of The Preface To The Lyrical Ballads

1. PRESENTATION
Presented By:
AtiQa Qureshi

2. TOPIC
“THE PREFACE TO
THE LYRICAL
BALLADS”

3. What is Ballad?
Ballad “a poem meant for singing, quite
impersonal in material, probably connected in its
origins with the communal dance but submitted to
a process of oral traditions among people who are
free from literary influences and fairly
homogeneous in character.”
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to
music. Ballads derive from the medieval French
chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally
"danced songs".

4.  The Lyrical Ballads was first
published in 1798 and to this edition
Wordsworth merely added a short
Advertisement or introduction.
 To the second edition of the Lyrical
Ballads, published in 1800, he added
a more detailed Preface.

5. Wordsworth outlines three principles guiding the
composition of such lyrical ballads.
First, the poetry must concern itself primarily with nature
and life in the country.
Wordsworth's second reason for writing lyrical ballads is
that they emphasize the status of poetry as a form of art.
He intends to enlighten his readers as to the true depths
of human emotion and experience.
Wordsworth argues that good poetry doesn't have to be
overly complicated or ornamental in order to capture the
reader's imagination. Clean, simple lines are best, in his
opinion.

6. According to Graham Hugh, Wordsworth
wrote this Preface with two aims in view:
1. To defend his poems in the Lyrical
Ballads.
2. And to relate poetry to common life.

7. Summary of the Preface:
The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads and the Appendix may be summarized under
seven categories.
1. Defence of his Poems:
“The Lyrical Ballads” was an experiment to ascertain, metrical
arrangement, selection of language, pleasure and quantity of pleasure.
The experiment , says Wordsworth has succeeded more than his
expectations.
He did not give a systematic defence but a preface.
He explain the important points about his poems for the guidance.
a) He has chosen incidents and situations from common life.
b) Selection of language really used by men.
c) Colouring of imagination to present ordinary things in an unusual
aspect.
d) Made interesting by tracing in them the primary laws of human nature.

8. He chose the rustic life, as a subject and their language as
a style of his poems.
There are four reasons:
1. In humble and rustic life, the essential passions of the
heart find a better soil, speak a plainer and emphatic
language.
2. Simple and accurate and more powerfully
communicate.
3. Rural life are more easily comprehended and durable.
4. Passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful
and permanent forms of nature.

9. Poetry is a combination of feeling and thought.
“For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow
of powerful feelings and thought”
Wordsworth by writing these poems, prove that” the
human is capable of being excited without the
application of gross and violent stimulants.”
The duty of a writer or poet, is to produce or enlarge
capability.
He praises the works of Shakespeare and Milton for
creating such capability.

10. 2. Diction and style of the poems:
Aim of his poems, he throws light on the style of
the poems.
He has avoided personifications of abstruct
ideas. He has also avoided poetic diction.
He rejects those expressions which, in
themselves proper and beautiful.
The Aim behind all this is to please the people
and bring his language near to the language of
men.
The loftiness of style comes from the loftiness of
emotion, not from artificial similes.

11. 3. The Poet and His Duty:
Wordrsworth says poet is gifted person, having power to conjure at
passion, with observations and a power in expression.
Poet should be” to bring his feelings, written in modifying language, for
a purpose of giving pleasure.
Wordsworth quotes Aristotle as having said that Poetry is the most
philosophic of all writings.
“Poetry is the image of man and nature”
Wordsworth tells the work of a poet:
1. He consider man as a subject, that acting and reacting, produce pain
and pleasure.
2. Man his own nature, convictions, intuitions and deduction.
“Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge- it is immortal as the heart
of man.”

12. 4. Use of Metre and its Justification:
■ “The poets thinks and feels in the spirit of human
passion”, he does not write for poets alone, but for
men; he differs from other men not in kind but in
degree.
■ Wordsworth give reasons of metre:
1. Metre is more capable of giving pleasure than prose.
2. Metre perceive that pleasure which arises from the
realization of Unity in the midst of diversity.
3. Metre has been found to be more effective and
popular.

13. 5. Process of Poetic Creation:
“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings: it takes its origin from emotion.”
Emotion of whatever kind, and whatever degree,
from various causes, is qualified by various
pleasures.
“Of two descriptions, either of passions, manners,
or characters, each of them equally well executed,
the one is prose, and the other in verse, the verse
will be read a hundred times where the prose is
read once.”

14. 6. An Appeal to the Readers and the
Critics:
Wordsworth admits that he “may have sometimes written upon
unworthy subjects.”
His feelings and ideas with particular words and phrases.
He means to say that he has not been able to flow strickly, he
ready to correct himself if he is convinced of his fault.
Poetry in which though the language is simple, the subject is
not inspired by genuine feelings. Every reader judge his
poems by himself not be guided by the opinions of other
people.

15. 7. Appendix: On Poetic Diction:
Appendix deals with origin and characteristics of the phraseology
which he condemned under the name “Poetic Diction”.
The earliest poets wrote from passions excited by real events, and
their for language was appropriate.
The people looked upto the poets as men of genius and authority.
Poetic language without poetic feelings, makes it artificial and as
much unture.
He concludes his observations in these words: “ in works of
imagination and sentiment, in proportion as ideas and feelings are
valuable, whether the composition be in prose or in verse,.”

16. THANK YOU