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E491: History of Literary Criticism William Wordsworth Study Questions Alfred J. Drake. Office: 423 University Hall "Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1802" (1800, 1802) 1. How does Wordsworth, in delineating the "principal object" of his poems, describe the language he claims to have selected for them? How does he describe the language used by "many modern writers"? (649-50) 2. What sorts of "incidents and situations" does Wordsworth claim to have chosen for his poems? Why does he choose situations from "humble and rustic life," and what is the presumed state of the "essential passions of the heart" for those who live in the countryside? (650) 3. What is the relationship of the "essential passions of the heart" to language and to to the "beautiful and permanent forms of nature"? (650) 4. In explaining the purpose of his poems, Wordsworth declares that "all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: but ... Poems to which any value can be attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man ... who had also thought long and deeply." What effect does the language following "but" have upon the first part of Wordsworth's statement about expression? (651) 5. What meditative process leading to composition does Wordsworth outline immediately following the statement quoted in question 4? (651) 6. What, according to Wordsworth, is the relationship in his poems between feeling and action? (652 top) 7. According to Wordsworth, "one being is elevated above another in proportion as he possesses" what capability? (652) 8. What are some of the causes, "unknown to former times," combining to reduce men's minds "to a state of almost savage torpor"? (652) 9. What does Wordsworth think of the distinction between the language of prose and metrical composition? Why? How does he deal with the issue of meter in poetry? (653-55) 10. What are some of the characteristics of the poet? What is his relationship to his "own passions and volitions"? What is the relationship between his feelings and the "goings-on of the Universe"? (655-56) 11. What sort of truth does poetry give? How is this truth communicated? To what tribunal does it appeal? (656 bottom - 657) 12. Of what is poetry the image? Under what one restriction does a poet write? What sort of information may he expect his reader to possess? (657 top) 13. What sort of "song" does the poet sing, according to Wordsworth, and what effect does it have for "the vast empire of human society"? How does Wordsworth conceive of the relationship between "man and nature," and between "the mind of man" and the "most interesting qualities of nature"? (657-58) 14. Why, according to Wordsworth, can't "the Man of Science, the Chemist and Mathematician" accomplish the same thing as the poet for human society? What is the difference, that is, between the kind of knowledge science can give us and the kind poetry provides? (657-58) 15. How, in Wordsworth's view, is the poet "chiefly distinguished from other men"? What characterizes his "passions and thoughts and feelings"? With what are they connected? (659) 16. What, according to Wordsworth, is the "great spring of the activity of our minds"? (661) 17. Poetry is defined by Wordsworth as a spontaneous what? From what does poetry take its origin? Then what happens? In what mood is "successful composition" carried on? (661) 18. Wordsworth's "Preface" has been said by some to displace the French Revolution's three main ideals (liberty, equality, fraternity) into a theory about the way poetry is composed and the effects it ought to have. What, then, are the "Preface's" theoretical equivalents to liberty, equality, and fraternity? (general question) 19. Compare Wordsworth's most impassioned statements about the poet and poetry (657-58 would be a good example) with Shelley's boldest statements in "A Defence of Poetry." Which author seems more cautious in his claims? Explain your response. Edition: The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: Norton, 2001. ISBN: 0393974294.
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