Critical Analysis Of Preface To Lyrical Ballads

Sumit Sharma

Lyrical Ballads is a joint publication by William Wordsworth and an

equally accomplished poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which is cited
as the most prominent reason responsible for the launch of
Romantic Age in English Literature. Preface to this text therefore is
of utmost importance to me, being a student of English literature. It
is evident that this collection of poems is intended at the masses
and not merely the aristocracy or those highly placed as previously
the case would be, and specially so, common men. Never before
had poems dared to address the theme of ‘low and rustic’. This
quality defines well the reason why a work of this nature must be
called ‘revolutionary’. It didn’t only change the way humanity would
look at poems but also attempted to question the moral values of
the then society and hoped for much needed change, which brings
me to say that the intension of the initiative was as noble as the
cause.

Lyrical Ballads is an exhausting explanation (calling it defence might

outrage Mr. Wordsworth) which even though with initial reluctance,
later upon the insistence of good wishers is pursued rigorously and
presented before us as an imperfectly constructed litigation
document contradicting its own stand after every few pages. In the
very beginning Wordsworth denies the charges of reasoning the
reader into an approbation of his work, however in the very next
paragraph he very cleverly ridicules the works of everyone from
Terence to Shakespeare to Donne to Pope. He stoops to every low
possible, right from questioning the integrity and character of every
poet before him to calling the critics of his work as being in
unhealthful state of association, thus manifesting his bigoted self.

Further, another thing which is as perplexing as it is amusing is that

he chooses to see flaws in every aspect of the poets before him and
shamelessly endorses his ignorance of ‘vulgarity and meanness of
ordinary life’, of ‘men’ whom he repeatedly calls ‘flesh and blood’
and whom he so passionately boasts of including as a subject of his
poems, I however appreciate his choice being unostentatious in the
language of the poetic content. Perplexing because while it is a
commendable endeavour to include those who’ve been shunned for
ages, unaccepted by those whom he refers to as intelligent readers,
forget alone being muses of such an art, but what justification would
Mr. Wordsworth offer to the Poets whom he accuses of collecting
‘the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious
habits of expression, in order to furnish food for fickle tastes, and
fickle appetites, of their own creation’ not to mention being ‘slavish
and mechanical’, is not it then amusing that he relentlessly
advocates the cause of common men, knowing well of ‘the great
national events’, ‘accumulation of men in cities’ and ‘craving for
extraordinary incident’? Is he himself not appeasing a section of
men whom he predicts shall rule tomorrow? Is this not the kind of
description a man tired of atrocities of the upper class yearns to
hear?

His brilliance is sure worth a mention for how well he manipulates us

into affirming to his standards of morality. Though I am completely
empathetic with the mammoth task he’d ventured himself into and
the world of good that it had the potential to bestow upon the then
completely savagely world, but having said that, it is no justification
for all the callousness he’s offered to us which in fact has ended up
affronting the sensibilities of many, including me. I personally feel
that the Preface To Lyrics Ballads was least essential and has ended
up being a scar on the image of an otherwise marvelous Poet. The
wings of change had witnessed a flight of its own just when the first
volume of these poems was published without a preface.