For me, the experience of reading Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, and especially the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, was both disheartening and inspiring.
In my first read of Wordsworth’s preface, I found it to be a little bit frustrating. I think this is because the way I felt this preface contradicted many of his goals in writing the Lyrical Ballads. His preface was a ten-page piece that introduced, attempted to explain, and justified Wordsworth’s works found in the ballads. What initially irritated me about this preface was the idea that Wordsworth seemed to be obsessed with writing in the style of the “common man,” but despite this, his preface was a sort of plea for acceptance seemingly directed at literary scholars and other poets of the period. Because of this disconnect, I looked at Wordsworth’s relationship to the “common man” a little more cynically.
One aspect of the preface that I couldn’t help wanting to criticize was the way Wordsworth described the emotions of what he sees as the “common man.” In discussing why he wanted to focus on the common man in Lyrical Ballads,Wordsworth states, “Because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity” (Wordsworth, 305.) This attitude from Wordsworth reminds me of an American traveling to a less developed nation and thinking about how “beautifully simple” the natives’ lives are. How these people don’t have to worry about having a high-profile job or responding to emails or posting on Instagram, because of their “simple” nature. This way of thinking is a wildly inaccurate generalization that discounts the suffering and complex emotions of this hypothetical foreign country. I understand Wordsworth’s goal in trying to speak to a broader audience, it’s just that the preface made this obsession with the common man seem like a tool Wordsworth was using to be more relatable rather than a product of genuine expression.
Perhaps my favorite part of the preface is Wordsworth’s discussion of how important it is for humans to have the ability to be “excited” without the use of “gross and violent stimulants.” I found this section particularly inspiring because it is an issue we are dealing with now, perhaps more than ever. My mother is an author, and she frequently talks to me about how sad it makes her that people are losing the ability to simply sit for an hour or two and read. In an age of overwhelming stimulation from phones, TVs, computers, etc. it has become increasingly difficult to build this capacity that Wordsworth describes as, “one of the best services in which, at any period, a writer can be engaged.” This is quite inspiring because it shows me that this is an issue that people truly care about – and have cared about for a long. It is easy to look at the last twenty years and feel that we have gone down a path that perhaps Wordsworth would be appalled by, but I find solace in knowing that, both then and now, people understand and are fighting for this natural excitement.
Hi Peter,
While I agree with some of your points, namely how interesting Wordsworth’s criticism of contemporary literature is, I believe that your characterization of his Preface is somewhat misguided.
The Preface itself may be addressed to an educated audience, this is true — but perhaps it can stand in contrast to his actual poems? If Wordsworth is to succeed in his aims, then such an introduction would serve no purpose for a common man; the poetry would be self-explanatory. The only people who would need ‘convincing’ in the first place, so to speak, would be those accustomed to an abstract and ‘elevated’ style of poetry. Although I have not read much poetry of Wordsworth’s time, comparatively speaking, I have some familiarity with poetry from the early 1900s to today, and I will use this to base my argument. I write poetry myself, and when I am home, work at a farmstand, spending most of my time among the “working class,” for what class distinctions are worth. I find myself frequently frustrated with abstractions and esotericism in modern poetry, which I believe contributes to the average person’s disinterested attitude towards poetry.
While Wordsworth’s description of the “simplicity” found among the common man could be interpreted as insensitive, I think he is hitting at some truth, even if somewhat obliquely. The lives of common people are often fairly predictable day-to-day, featuring events which are not, and especially were not at Wordsworth’s time, considered grounds for high literature. Wordsworth’s point is perhaps that a modern, industrialized/urbanized individual lives a life better suited to, or more immersed in, abstraction. Food comes from a less direct source, family and community take on different roles in a city where the majority of faces are unfamiliar, working for survival assumes several layers of distance under a more complex economic system etc. Simplicity, after all, is not necessarily a bad thing.
Overall I greatly appreciate the points you raised.