William Wordsworth and Rustic Life
William Wordsworth and Rustic Life
William
Wordsworth is a famous writer in the romantic period. He has written so many poems.
William Wordsworth had the deepest admiration for nature and his whole work was
an attempt to establish a relation between man and nature. He entered The world of English poetry when the literary test of
the people was already debased by the barren and artificial poetic diction of
the neoclassic poets.
William
Wordsworth spent much of his boyhood among the rural people and in the midst of
the beauty of nature. Living away from the corruption of civilized life and
under the influence of the picturesque countryside, William Wordsworth learned
faith in humanity and developed a love for the elemental things of life.
In
1795 William Wordsworth met Coleridge. His friendship with Coleridge which
developed during this period did a lot to stimulate his genius.
In1798
the two poets, William Wordsworth and Coleridge published “The Lyrical Ballads”
a small volume of poems jointly and this year they visited Germany. In this
little volume of poems, Wordsworth broke with the tradition in respect of style
and subject matter of poetry. He sought his subjects in the humble and rustic life
of the countryside in the doings and feelings of the children and in the
emotions aroused in his own heart by the rural sights and sounds. He employed a
new language of his poetry, taking for his model the speech of the humble
people of the rural areas, freed of its dialects and its grammatical lapses.
William
Wordsworth’s “Preface To The Lyrical Ballads” is known as an unofficial
manifesto to the English romantic movement. It brought about an important change
in the literary arena with its emphasis on imagination, spontaneity, feeling, and simplicity.
In his “Preface to the Lyrical Ballad”,
Wordsworth tells that he had chosen low and rustic life for treatment in his
poems. He chose this life because, according to him, in that condition, the
essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain
their maturity. In humble and rustic life the essential passions of the persons
are less under restraint and therefore express themselves in a plainer and more
emphatic language.
Elementary Feeling:
Wordsworth
also says that the humble and rustic life and the elementary feelings of human
beings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity and can, therefore, be more
accurately contemplated and more forcibly communicated. The manners of rural
life germinate from those elementary feelings, and because of the necessary character of rural occupations, those manners are more easily comprehended.
Finally, in humble and rustic life, the passions of men are incorporated with
the beautiful and permanent form of nature.
Living in the Countryside:
Thus in
Wordsworth’s opinion, a person living in the countryside and pursuing rural
occupations are the best fitted for portrayal in poetry because these people
live in an environment which is more favorable to the growth and development of
the essential passions of the human heart and because in this environment
people do not suffer from any inhabitations and therefore speak a plainer and
more forceful language. These people lead simple lives and their feelings are
of an elementary kind. They do not have the vanity which people in the cities
possess. These people live in contract with the beautiful and permanent objects
of nature (mountains, streams, trees, flowers, etc.) This contract favors the
natural maturing of the feelings and passions in the hearts of these people.
Simplicity:
Wordsworth collects
all the traces of vivid excitement which are to be found in the pastoral world.
Simplicity is to be the keynote of his theme as also of his style. He is to
treat the things of everyday life, to open out “the soul of little and familiar
things.” In We are Seven, the poet talks with a little girl who tells him of
her brothers and sisters. In another poem, a female vagrant tells the artless
tale of her life. Another poem concerns a shepherd, “A Cruel by name,” and
another pertains to a leech-gatherer. Thus Wordsworth shows that even in the
poorest lives there is a matter for poetry, schemes that can stir the imagination
and move the emotions. Thus Wordsworth democratizes poetry. This democratic
outlook is something new in poetry. He seeks his subject among forsake women,
old men in distress, children and crazy persons, in whom the primary instincts
are emotions showed themselves in their simplest and most recognizable form.
Corrupted World:
It is to a
large extent, the corruption of civilized society which makes Wordsworth choose
his subject from a humble and rustic life. In choosing them from rustic rather
than urban life he is influenced, no doubt, by the fact that he himself is
country-bred. He is convinced that among humble and rustic folk, the essential
passions of the heart fid a better place to mature in and are more durable.
There is the closer intimacy which isolation forces on rural households; there
is the sharing of common tasks and even, in the shepherds’ life, of common
dangers. There are other virtues also like contentment, neighborliness, ad
charity, which can flourish in the kindly society of the country.
Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life, our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and consequently, maybe more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate from these elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily comprehended, and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.
William
Wordsworth has chosen incidents and situations from common life in the rural
areas and described them, as far as possible, in a selection of language really
used me. But this selection of common life does not mean photographic
reproduction. He has given to the ordinary incidents a coloring of imagination
to present them in an unusual way, to make them interesting by tracing in them the primary laws of human nature. William Wordsworth has put forward certain
reasons for choosing his themes from humble and rustic life:
v The
essential passions of the heart find an unrestrained, free, and frank expression
in humble and rustic life.
v The
elementary feelings of the human heart co-exist in a state of greater
simplicity in rustic surroundings than in the city life and so they are
communicated more accurately and forcefully.
v The manners
of rustic life are not sophisticated. They spring directly from their
elementary feelings and can be understood easily .social vanity does not
prevent them from a frank expression of their feelings. The poet’s aim is to
understand human nature, it can best be understood in the simple condition of
rural life.
v In the
humble and rustic condition, human passions are deeply associated with the
beautiful forms of nature and that is why they are more noble and permanent
than the emotions of the sophisticated people of cities.
As for the choice of rustic language, Wordsworth
says that he has used it after having purified it of its coarseness and other
defects. The rustic people can hourly communicate with the best object of
nature from which the best part of language is derived.
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