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WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S THEORY OF SIMPLICITY

By
Benette Shepherd Robinson

M

AN ABSTRACT

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English

Year 195k

Approved ‘ / [w L. (11'; laugh

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l.

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:‘I 2.;1‘, q" '4:

RENETTE ROBINSON

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to illuminate one aspect
of Wordsworth's thought-his theory of simplicity. But this
idea was not new with Wordsworth and, since it underwent many
changes before his time, I have studied the history of the
idea to determine what argumentsijmsexponents had to advance
about it. My primary purposes are, however, (1) to show
Just how Wordsworth used the idea, (2) to find out why he
used it and its effect, and (3) to evaluate lordsworth's use
of it.

The carrying out of these purposes led to a detailed
study of ”The Preface“ to theALyrical Ballads, “The Appendix”
published in 1802, ”The Preface" to the edition of 1815, and
'The Essay Supplementary to the Preface of 1815.‘ A careful
examination was made of the poems which comprised the Lygiggl
figlladg and all of the other short poems to see if he actually
carried out the theories which he stated in the prefaces.
Since the study deals with the poetical theory which was the
core of Wordsworth's thought, I have had to re-read very
carefully 2n; Prelude. Wordsworth called The Prelude an
autobiographical poem. It conducts the history of his mind
to the point when he felt that he was mature enough to enter

upon the ardous work which he had proposed for himself. For a

33867:

BENETTE ROBINSON 2

text, I have used the Cambridge edition of Wordsworth's poetry
edited by Andrew George which is a standard edition. Although
all of my quotations come from the Cambridge edition, I have
also had close at hand the excellent text edited by Mr.
deSelincourt and have found the notes very illuminating.

Works by Wordsworth scholars have been beneficial, and I have
quoted from them freely. Professor Raymond D. Havens' Egg
gind of a Poet and his article in the January, 1953 ggurnal of
the History of Ideag, “Simplicity.a Changing Concept", have
been especially helpful.

The major findings of this study are: (l) simplicity
was not a new idea with Wordsworth; (2) much of Wordsworth's
best poetry deals with simple people and simple incidents;

(3) Wordsworth proved that poetry written about the humble is
advantageous as it strikes down deeper into the soul; (h) his
theory of poetic diction has been often misunderstood; (5) in
a great number of his poems, his theory is in accord with his
practice; (6) he proved that the real language of men could
eXpress imaginative truth and reality; (7) there are close
similarities between Wordsworth's treatment of shepherds and
peasants and the idea of primitivism; (8) although many of his
poems dealt with savages, he did not show that he believed

that this was the best life; (9) the chief sources of simplicity

BENETTE ROBINSON 3

and power in Wordsworth's poetry are solitude, silence, and
loneliness; (10) Wordsworth's poetry has a firm basis in
realism; (11) Wordsworth achieved simplicity in his treatment
of the simple affections of human nature; and (12) Wordsworth

gave to the idea of simplicity a new importance.and signifi-

cance .

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH'S THEORY OF SIMPLICITY

By
Benette Shepherd Robinson

A THESIS

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English

195%

PREFACE

In an age so complex as the present, some Justification
()f a study of Wordsworth's Theory of Simplicity may well be
expected. Almost all of the arts, politics, economics, and
science have become more and more complicated, less and less
simple. The idea of simplicity, which has hitherto been
neglected, formed a great part of Wordsworth's thought.

The present age resembles.in many respects Wordsworth's.
His was an age influenced by science and abstract psychology.
At first Wordsworth welcomed science and psychology, but they
soon became repulsive to him. In our age, science has gone
much farther than Wordsworth could possibly have imagined.
It would seem that Wordsworth could be a guiding light for
this generation. Matthew Arnold very aptly described Just
‘what Wordsworth achieved:

'In a wintry clime, in an iron time
Wordsworth taught us to feel.“

In nature, it was the simple, the abiding, and the
changless for which Wordsworth cared most deeply, and he
'valued silence, solitude, and lonely places because they in-
tensified his consciousness of the enduring in the external

world.

The English language owes Wordsworth a debt of gratitude
:for the purity and abstience of his style and for encouraging
c>thers to take a delight in simple things.

Because the concept of simplicity was not a new idea
‘llth Wordsworth, I have devoted the first chapter of this
study to show how the temperament and complexion of the idea
changed through the course of a few generations.

The main part of the study shows Wordsworth's use of
the idea. In many of his poems, simplicity directed the style,
language, subJects, meaning, and incidents. Wordsworth be-
lieved that poetry should deal with the elementary feelings,
humble persons, and plain lives, and should be easily under-
stood.

This attitude brought to Wordsworth a storm of criti-
cism but not always unfavorable. To show in what esteem his
work was held during his lifetime and after his death, I have
made some estimate of his reputation in an effort to establish

his place among the English poets.

111

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to eXpress her sincere thanks to Dr.
I)avid V. Erdman, visiting professor at Michigan State College
(during the 1953 summer term, for suggesting the subJect to
tier and telling her that it would be of value.

She is greatly indebted to Dr. Herbert Weisinger and
‘Dr. Branford P. Iillar for advice, guidance, interest, and
instructions during this study.

Grateful acknowledgments is also due to Dr. C. C.
Hamilton for suggestions, guidance, and encouragement.

Her gratitude to Wordsworth scholars is greater than

she can possibly express.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER Page
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

II. HISTORY OF THE IDEA . . . . . . . . . . 6
III. WORDSWORTH'S USE OF THE IDEA . . . . . . . 17
The Simple Life . . . ._ . . . . . . 17

Theory of Language . . . . . . . . . 23

The Noble Savage. . . . . . . . . . l

Solitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . 0

IV. WHY WORDSWORTH USED THE IDEA AND ITS EFFECT . . uh

v. EVALUATION AND SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . 65
IBIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this study is to illuminate one aspect
«of Wordsworth's thought-his theory of simplicity. But this
idea was not new with Wordsworth; and since it underwent many.
changes before him, I have studied the history of the idea
to determine what arguments its various exponents had to
advance about it. My primary purposes are, however, to:
(1) show Just how Wordsworth used this idea; (2) to find out
why he used it and to what effect; and (3) to evaluate

Wordsworth's use of it.

Since, as I have stated, the idea has changed so much,
I shall state briefly Wordsworth's interpretation of it. The
clearest statement of Wordsworth's theory of simplicity is in

the preface to the "Lyrical Ballads“. In these poems,

Wordsworth explains;

Humble and rustic life was generally chosen,
because, in that condition, the essential
passions of the heart find a better soil...
and speak a p1ainer...1anguage; because ...
our elementary feelings coexist in a state of
greater simplicity...because the manners of
rural life germinate from those elementary
feelings, and...are more easily comprehended.1

1William Wordsworth, Preface to the Lyrical Ballads in

Complete Poetical Work, ed. Andrew W. George (Cambridge, 190M)

p. 791. Hereafter quotations from the text will be cited as
Works.

Wordsworth's concern was that every feature of these
'Vballads' should be simple: that they should deal with ele-
mentary feelings, humble persons, and plain lives and that they
should be easily understood. The incidents and situations
vvere likewise to be simple since they were chosen from common
Zlife and since ”the feeling ... deveIOped in the poems was
intended to give importance to the action and situation, and
not the action and situation to the feeling." For to Words-
'worth, the imagination, the prime requisite in poetry, was
"the faculty which produces impressive effects out of simple
elements“ and which ‘may be called forth ..imperiously ... by
incidents ... in the humblest departments of daily life.‘

‘The language and style were also intentionally simple, 'Gaudi-
:ness and inane phraseology...personifications....(and) poetic
diction‘I being avoided in favor of 'the very language of men,"
that is of “humble and rustic men,” who convey their feelings
and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. The meter
too-the ballad stanza and similar simple verse forms and a
generally uncomplicated prosody-was of a piece with the lan-

guage and subJect matter.2

2
Raymond Havens, Simplicity a Changing Concept,JHI,
Vol. XIV (1953) p. 27.

Wordsworth considered the poet, in addition to the
feeling which he claimed for him, to be a philOSOphical thinker,
£18 well as one who recollects, reflects, and selects, and I
ailthough the poet's work may be described as the I'spontaneous
(everflow of powerful feelings,‘ and though his immediate aim
118 to give pleasure, he is directly concerned with seeking
‘for truth. The Common, therefore, is the nearest manifestation-
of the Divine; the purest emotion is tranquillity.

Wordsworth stated that the poet had a high office, yet
Ihe remains a man speaking to men. He is a man endowed with
Inore lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness; and
is one who has a greater knowledge of human nature and a more
comprehensive soul than are supposed to be common among men.
IHe brings to poetry the image of man in nature. His only
:restraint is to give an overbalance of pleasure.

If the poet is to feel, think, and write only as a
specially intense, ordinary person, and to express himself in
language which is essentially the same as the language of
jprose,he should not make his expression specifically different
from prose. Wordsworth gave two reasons for this: first,
'verse is a restraint on the possible excesses of passion.
Passionate feeling and the excitement which are inseparable

from the design of poetry are kept within bounds by the

regularity of meter. Second, meter not only gives regularity

to language but divests language from a certain degree of its

reality and throws a sort of half-consciousness or unsubstan—

tial existence over the whole composition. This touch of

artificiality enables us to bear pathos, which would be other-
wise intolerable in the hard, everyeday truthfulness of prose.
It is evident that Wordsworth believed sincerely in
simplicity. He expounded this belief directly or indirectly
in his poetry; and he embodied it in the lowly characters that

people his verse: children, beggars, peddlars,leech-gatherers,

“10113618, Peter Bells} What is more, Wordsworth lived his

belief and lived it willingly, choosing for his home a region
lFhat was "the assured domain of calm simplicity.“t
Imagination is another quality which Wordsworth dis-

cussed at length. To him imagination, should be required of

a11 poetry. It produced impressive effects out of simple
elements and could be called forth by incidents in the humblest

c[Gnartments of daily life. An interesting feature of this

\

31bid., p. 23.

4Ibid., p. 31.

conception is that the imagination is by no means limited to
posts and artists. It is universal because it enters into all
perception and is therefore employed by the everyday world of
concrete obJects, commonplace or wonderful. The imagination,
he said, does not require for its exercise the intervention
of a supernatural agency, but may be called forth ”imperiously
.. .by incidents within the compass of poetic probability, in
the humblest departments of daily life.” Professor Beatty

states that Wordsworth was influenced by associationistic

phillosOphy.5

 

 

 

5Arthur Beatty, William Wordsworth, His Doctrine and

Amie—13‘ Their—Iflétorisslmations (Madison, 1927), p. 237':

CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF THE IDEA

Like most ideas that have passed through a succession
of human minds, the concept of simplicity has changed so
frequently that exponents of the idea during one period would
hardly recognize it during anOther period. This concept had
a common origin with the glorification of reason in the
philosOphy of the enlightenment. The philosOphy of the En-
lightenment in regards to the laws of nature were: (1) the
laws of nature are immutable; (2) they are eternal; (3) they
are universal and uniform; (it) they are simple and easy of
comprehension; and (5) .they are knowable by all men.1 These
1"Zlve principles, stated not very differently, were fundamental
t3C3 the philosophy of the Cambridge Platonists. The strength
01' these ideas lay in their dependence upon each other. If
tfilers were such a thing as uniform and immutable truths, they
had to be simple, fundamental, and broadly applicable. If
tihey were binding on all nations at all times, they had to- be

I‘eetdily discoverable and recognizable, and man had to be able

\\ v—v—
1Lois Whitney, Primitivisp} and Pro ress in POpulgg
fighteenth Century Poetry (Ealtimore, I? , p. 7.

to discover and recognize them without the necessity for any

special revelation. Professor Walter Bate has stated that the

earlier portion of the Enlightenment marked the final subsiding

of the European Renaissance. Much of its inheritance consisted

of a collective system of values to which the broad and
chameleon-like word ”humanism” has often been applied. He de-
fines the humanistic contention by saying that ‘man possesses
an end of his own; that his distinctive privilege consists in
his ability to conceive the character of this ideal end, and
that for man to be natural does not mean for him to live in
accordance with what he Judges the phenomenal world to be -—
88 both romantic primitivism and empirical science were, in
their varying ways, to encourage him to do - but rather to
manifest the absolute and centrally unified 'nature', the
JOint ethical and rational fruition, which is at once his
Obligation and prerogative to encourage him to do."2

Professor Whitney gives us five corollaries to the above
laws which form a starting point for many diverse lines of
1"'4'515lsoning, some of which eventuated in radical primitivism.

(1) There is a natural tendency towards goodness among men

and a light of nature by which even the most ignorant man may

\‘

( 2Walter Jackson Bate, firom Clagsic to Romantic
Cambridge, 19%), p. 1.

know natural law. The laws of nature may often be more
graciously followed among peasants and simple men than among
learned peOple. (2) Civilized men have so degenerated that
they no longer readily recognize or follow the laws of nature.
(3) There are some souls who are so good by nature that they
follow the laws of nature unconsciously. (ll) What is natural
is to be preferred by what is acquired by art. And (5) there
is a. natural tendency to benevolence and a recognition of
benevolence as one of the primary laws of nature.3

The most widely accepted fundamentals of these laws
are clearness and simplicity of eternal and immutable truths
and their self—evidence. If truth could be recognized without
res.aoning, then primitive man could follow the laws of nature
as Well as civilized man. A11 men are provided with a faculty
for finding out the laws of Nature for themselves. For this
reason, there is a universal recognition of identical laws of
“attire.

During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth cen—
1“Piles, many thinkers were agreed that there are only a few
81"Iple, self evident, and immutable truths easily knowable by
eVen the humblest intellect. Ethan Allan argued that a gradual

R“;

3Lois Whitney, 02, gig;, p. 11.

perfection of reason would bring about a progressive know-
ledge of natural law and hence a general progress in society.u
The extraordinary regard in which simplicity was held
during the eighteenth century came in part from the support
it received from science. Kepler, Galileo, Torricelli,
Descartes, Pascal, Huygens, Boyle, and Newton through their
epoch-making discoveries had given unprecedented authority to
science and the mathematical interpretation of nature. Science,
in its turn, threw the full weight of this authority behind
simplicity.5 The principle likewise received from Newton its

supreme illustration in the laws of gravity.6

All generaliza-
tion is simplification, and the law of gravity, the greatest
of scientific generalizations, simplified a confusing mass of
phenomena by showing it to be the manifestation of a single
simple law.7 Many eighteenth century thinkers sought to apply
the physico-mathematical method of science to all spects of
life.

Common to all of these believers in the simple life was

the notion that something was wrong with society, that what

thid., p. 17.

5Raymond Havens, Op, Qi£., p. 4.
6Ibid., p. 5.

71b1d., p. 5.

10

was wrong with it was the abnormal complexity and sophistica-
tion in the life of civilized man, the multiplicity and
emulativeness of his desires, and factitiousness and want of
inner spontaneity of his emotions. Miss Fitzgerald has pointed
out that ”the Golden Age of antiquity had been a sunshiny era
wherein war was not, nor trade, nor commerce, nor wealth-a
halycon period that had degenerated all too soon into an iron
age of avarice, cruelty, and conflict."8 These believers in
the simple life thought that “art,” the work of man, had
corrupted nature, that is man's own nature. The model of the
normal individual life and the normal social order, or at least
a nearer approximation to it, was to be found among savage
peoples, and it possibly may have been realized also in the
life of primeval men. There were many very different reasons
why men turned to simplicity. Some turned to it because they
loved indolence and ease, others because they loved hardship
and austerity; some would escape from the restraints of
accepted moral codes and some deplored the corruptness of
luxurious society; Christian moralists sometimes pointed to

the noble savage as a better exemplar of the evangelical virtues

than was often to be found among those who had been reared

 

6Itargaret N. Fitzgerald, First Follow Nature(New York,
19W). p. 9.

11

under the Christian teaching and had supernatural means of
grace at their disposal. Throughout Western history, cultural
primitivism has been the form oftenest taken by communism and
equalitarianism; the argument went that man's lapse from the
natural order took place when private prOperty in land was
intrOduced and inequalities of economic conditions.9

In the eighteenth century, especially in its second
half, the idea of simplicity reached a climax. Never before
had expressions of the idea of simplicity in literature been
so abundant. Nearly all of the writers of the eighteenth
century used 'nature' to sanction whatever they had to advance.
The writings of Rousseau and the accounts of voyages to
America, Africa, and especially the South Sea Islands, stirred
up unusual enthusiasm for the simple, idyllic life close to
nature.10 Such a life had a strong appeal even in the days
of.Addison and Pope because of the Indian chintzes, Chinese
embroideries, lacquer and porcelain, Italian and French silks,
and other luxuries which the rapid expansion of commerce and

the improvements in agriculture, transportation, and industry

 

~-

9A. O. LoveJoy, “Forward,” Lois Whitney, Primitivism
WIOgress, p. XIV.

loHavens, Op, Cit., p. 9.

12

were pouring upon the English people.11 Mandeville defended
these luxuries in his “Fable of the Bees.” The supreme value
of simplicity was asserted in the field of ethics as it had
already been in the very different fields of science and

esthetics.12

Political philosOphers like William Godwin, Thomas
Paine, and Mary Wollstonecraft had much to say about the idea
of simplicity. Godwin stated in Political Justice that:
"The road to the improvement of mankind is in the utmost
degree simple, to speak and act the truth."13 Although Godwin
started out with the conception that a sound political institu-
tion was necessary to promote the individual good, he later
simplified government almost to the point of elimination. He
transferred the seat of government from thrones and parliaments
to the reason in the breast of every man. On the power of
reason, working freely to convince all the armed unreason of
the world and to subdue all its teeming passion, he rested his
'boundless confidence in the "perfectibility' of man-or, at
least, according to the more cautious phrase in his capacity

of ”indefinite progress towards perfection.-14

 

11Havens, Loc. Cit., p. 9.
12Havens, Loc, Cit., p. 9.

13William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice,
ed. Raymond A. Preston, London, 1793, p. 9 .

 

1hCharles Herford, ghe Age qgiWordgworth (London, 1889)
p.7-

13

Thomas Paine, who called government “a necessary evil,
said in Common Sense: “Government like dress is the badge of
lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins
of the bowers of Paradise."15 Paine believed that there should
be a return to nature, that man should be studied in the
earliest stages of his existence, and that the laws of nature
should be found out. He said in the “Rights of Man“ that if
we really studied primitive society, we would find that men
were created and driven into a society and with social affec-
tions that made society his greatest source of happiness.

“The more perfect Civilization is, the less occasion has it
for government, because the more does it regulate its own
affairs and government itself.... All the great laws of society

.16

are laws of nature. Paine praised the settling and organiz-

ing of the government in America. “Contact with nature“,
he said, “enlarges the mind."17 The central principle that

.18

nature has to teach is simplicity. He wrote in Common

Sensg that he drew his idea of the form of government from a

 

15Thomas Paine, Common Sense The_§;fe and Works of
Thomas Paine, ed. Wm. Vander Veyde (New Tori: I925) II, p. 98.

16Thomas Paine, Works, Op. Cit., VI, p. 66.
17113.19... p. 66.
181bid., p. 66.

14

principle in nature which no one can overturn: that the more
simple a thing, the less liable it is to be disordered, and
the easier repaired when disordered.19

Nary Wollstonecraft had much to say about the necessity
of simplification. To her, also, modern governments were
corrupt. In Ag_§ig§orical:andggpral View of the gpggin and
Progregg_of the French Revolution“, she praised primitive man;
“Let us examine the catalogue of the vices of men in a savage
state, and contrast them with those of men civilized; we shall
find that a barbarian considered as a moral being, is an angel
compared with the refined villain of artificial life.20 The
reasons for this, she argued, were those unJust forms of
government which have been formed by peculiar circumstances
in every part of the globe. Like Godwin and Paine, she be-
lieved that simplification was the cure for political ills.
“But when courts and primogeniture are done away with an simple
equal laws are established what is to prevent each generation
from retaining the vigor of youth?... The French Revolution
is a strong proof how things will governmen.when simplepndnciples

begin to act with one powerful spring against the complicated

wheels of ignorance."21

 

19Thomas Paine, Works, Op, Cit., p. 99.
20This statement was teken directly from Lois Whitney's
Primitivism and Progregg, p. 233.

21;bid., p. 100.

In England, the idea of simplicity came in Opposition
to the new economic developments of the period. It was a time
in which trade engaged the attention of mankind and commercial
gain was sought with general emulation. There was a shift of
economic and potitical power from agriculture to the great
industrial areas. The doctrine of simplicity was in Opposition
to the interests of those peOple who had become rich because
of the Industrial Revolution. Nore than any time previously,
poets used trade and commerce as a theme. Yet literature gave
ground slowly because the industrial revolution with its ugli-
ness and its further heightening of economic inequalities lent
a greater appeal to the primitivist's picture of the ideal
life close to nature. In the first half of the eighteenth
century, there began to dawn, both in the popular drama of
sensibility and in academic philosOphy, a greater faith in
man's instinctive and emotional nature. Hark Akenside versi-
fied the theory that the response.to beauty and truth was a
natural impulse. There were writers like Thompson who pointed
out the value of the humble life in his Sggggpg. Thomas Gray
expressed democratic sentiments in his “Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard“, and an interest in the ruder and simple

ages of mankind in “The Bard“and “The Descent of Odin.“

16

In the latter half of the century, Goldsmith's Qggggpgg
Xilléfifi deplored the decline of country villages with their
lovable inhabitants, a decline attributed to the growth of
luxurious cities. Robert Burns proved that the best poetry
ought to spring from life close to nature and to the heart of
common people. The Ossian poems of McPherson seemed to Justify
the theory that the earlier periods were nobler than civilized
modern times and more conducive to genuine poetry.

Finally, the explosive possibilities in some of these
ideas broke forth in the American Revolution, and even more
violently in the French. These events indicated to the world
that changes in the feelings of mere men of letters could
ultimately destroy a long established social order and endeavor
to establish one nearer to the heart's desires. It was in
Wordsworth's twenty-second year (1792), when he was in Rev-
olutionary France, that his heart was for the first time all
given to human beings and that his love was theirs. This was
the Opening of an epoch in his spiritual history, for from
thenceforth Ian was coequal nature in his consciousness.
Nature was ever an inspirer, a teacher, but his deepest '
thought and feeling were centered in humanity - “Hy theme no
other than the very heart of man.“ (The Prelude, Book XIII,

l. and)

CHAPTER III
WORDSWORTH'S USE OF THE IDEA
Simple Life

In the Lyggcal Ballads published in 1798, Wordsworth
strove to make every feature simple-humble lives, plain per-
sons, and simple incidents. The first section of this chapter
deals with his idea of the simple life. Thirteen of the poems
that Wordsworth contributed to the gyricel Ballads deal with
human characters and indicate the poet's spiritual attitude
toward humanity.1 The account of how he came to make so
remarkable a selection is found in Book XIII of The Prelude,

which was written only six years after the publication of

the poems:

Long time in search of knowledge did I range
The field of human life, in heart and mind
Benighted; but the dawn beginning now

To re-appear, twas proved that not in vain

I had been taught to reverence a power

That is the visible quality and shape

And image of right reason.

 

1Solomon Francis Gingerich, Essays in the Romantic Move-
ment (New York, 192“), p. 120.

 

2. Works, p. 212.

18

For this Power taught him
To look with feelings of fraternal love
Upon the unassuming things that hold
A silent station in this beauteous world.3
Thus he found in humble man “an obJect of delight, of
pure imagination, and Of love.“ He then began a search to
find how such virtue and happiness those possess who labor by

bodily toil, carrying on his observations:

Among the natural abodes of men
Fields with their rural works.

He became convinced that the formalities which go under
the name of Education have little to do with real feeling and
Just sense, and that such books as seek their reward from
Judgments of the wealthy few I'are misleading and debasing.“
This conviction was confirmed by the fact that he himself had

heard:

From mouths of men obscure and lowly truths
Replete with honor; sounds in unison
With loftiest promises of good and fair.5

“The Old Cumberland Beggar“ belongs to the time of the

hygical Bglladg and is important as illustrating Wordsworth'e

feelings for simple humanity. He described the old man as an

__‘

3worke, p. 212.
“Works, p. 21h.

5Works, p. 21“.

l9

infirm old beggar who went around begging alms. Wordsworth
said to the statesmen or political economists who were trying

to rid the world of these nuisances:

Tis Nature's law
That none, the meanest of created things,
Of forms created the most vile and brute,
Divorced from good-a spirit and pulse of good,
A life and soul, to6every mode of being
Inseparably linked.

The villagers would remember, as the old man went from
door to door, “a record of past deeds and charity.“ This man
should be left alone, the poet continued, as the young and
prosperous would all behold in him a silent monitor. If he
were allowed to live, the villagers would be inspired to
tender offices and quiet reflection:

Then let his pass, a blessing on his head:
And while in that vast solitude to which

The tide of things has borne him, he appears
To breathe and live but for himself alone,
Unblamed, uninJured, let him bear about

The good which the benignant law of Heaven
Has hung around him: and, while life is his,
Still let his prompt the unlettered villagers
To tender offices and pensive thoughts. 7
--Then let him pass a blessing on his head!

There will be happiness for the old man if he is allowed
to breathe the freshness of the valleys and listen to the

singing of the woodland birds.

 

6Works, p. 95.

—_

7Works, p. 95.

20

And long as he can wander, let him breathe

The freshness of the valleys; let his blood
Struggle with frosty air and winter snows;

And let the chartered wind that sweeps the heath
Reverence the hope whose vital anxiousness 8
Gives the last human interest to his heart.

In Wordsworth's shepherds we see an exaltation of the
simple life. Michael in the story of “Michael“ found pleasure
in the fields and hills around his home. He felt that only
gain could come from the little acts which he performed, such
as, feeding, and sheltering dumb animals. This pleasurable
feeling of “blind love“ which Hichael has for simple living
is the pleasure which there is in life itself. In a note, the
poet tells us that “the domestic affections are always strongest
amongst men who live in a country not crowded with pOpulation,
if these men are placed above poverty.“ These men are free;
though they work and endure many hardships, free from the
temptations of city life and from the dangers of intellectual
ambition.9

Matthew, his schoolmaster in the two poems “The Two
April Nornings“ and “The Fountain“, is an elemental person, a

plain countryman, a dweller amid beautiful scenery, who knows

the heights and depths of sorrow because of his simplicity.

 

8Loo. Cit., p. 95.
9Works, p. 849.

21

The sighs which Matthew heard were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew's eyes
were tears of light and gladness.

Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup

of still and serious thought went round
It seemed as if he drank it up--

He felt with spirit so profound.

--Thou soul of God's best earthy mould!
Thou happy Soul! and can it be

That these two words of glittering gold
Are all that must remain of thee? 0

The Wanderer in The Excursion shows a peasant's ideas
about the world, a view which Wordsworth considered the best
one. As the poet and the Wanderer stroll through the Lake
(3ountry, they talk about simple and human incidents which they
encounter, the history of the Ruined Cottage, and an humble
funeral.

In the most naked simplicity, he presents the old
leechgatherer in “Resolution and Independence“. The old man
lure

As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie

Couched on the bald top of an eminence

Wonder to all who do the same espy,

By what means it would thither come, and
whence

So that it seems a thing endued with sense:

Like a seabeast crawled forth, that on a

shelf 11
Or rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself;

10Work_s_, p. 117.
“lame. p. 261

22

The old man related to him his hardships, how he roamed
from moor to moor, housed by choice or chance; and in this way
he was able to maintain himself. The old man's pitiable plight
troubled the poet at first. As he continued his discourse,
Wordsworth noticed that the leechgatherer:

Cheerfully uttered, with demeanor kind,
But stately in the main12

When the old leechgatherer finished his discourse, Wordsworth

said:
I could have laughed myself to scorn
to find
In that decIepit man so firm
a mind. 3

In "The Complaint of the Forsaken Indian Nolan,“ the
poet illustrates the power of maternal love. The heroine of
the poem, left in sickness by her tribe in a solitary place to
die, consoles herself with the grand spectacle of the heavens.
She is fortified with the hOpe that if she were reunited with
her child, she could die happy:

My poor forsaken Child, if I
For once could have thee close to me,
And my last thought would happy be;

But thou, dear Babe art far Easy,
Nor shall I see another day.

12Work , p. 282.

13work . p. 252.

11‘lork , p. SM.

23

Wordsworth embodied his belief in the simple life in
his lowly characters-Michael, leechgatherer, beggars, peddlars,
and children. Wordsworth found virtue and happiness in humble
living. He tells us in The Prelude:

...the lonely roads

Were open schools in which I daily read

With most delight the passions of mankind,

Whether by words, looks, sighs, or tears, revealed
There saw into the depths of human souls

Souls that appear go have no depth at all
To careless eyes.1

Theory of Language

A second edition of‘gyrical Ballads was published in
1800, and in this were included a good many additional poems.
The ”Lucy Poems“, for example, first appeared before the
public in this edition. It was to this second edition that
Wordsworth attached his famous Preface, in which he sets out,
in prose style, the objects of his work, the effects he wanted
to obtain, and the vices he wished to avoid. The principal
obJect in these poems was:

To choose incidents and situations from real
life, and to relate them throughout, as far as
was possible in a selection of language really
used by men....The language, too, of these men

has been adapted because such men hourly com-
municate with the best objects from which the

 

15works, p. 212.

24

best part of language is originally derived;

and because from their rank in society and

the sameness and narrow circle of their inter—
course, being less under the influence of

social vanity, they convey their feelings

and notions in simple and unelaborated express-
ions. Accordingly, such a language, arising

out of repeated eXperience and regular feelings
is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical
language, than that which is frequently substit-
uted for it by Poets, who think that they are
conferring honor upon themselves and their art
in prOportion as they separate themselves from
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.16

From the many ideas in this passage, there stands out
the one essential objecteto treat of the essential passions
of the heart in simple and unelaborated expressions, and to
avoid as being too much under the influence of social vanity,
and arbitrary capricious habits of expression. Because
this idea had been overlaid by false taste, it was far less
likely to win acceptance in 1800 that it is to-day.17 Words-
worth drew attention to the fact that the affecting parts
of Chaucer were almost always expressed in language pure and

universally intelligible even to this day.

 

16Works, p. 212.

1.’George Mallaby, Wordgworth (Oxford, 1950), p. 31.

25

The danger in aGOpting a central principle of this kind

was that anyone incapable of writing poetry in the specialized

D

elaborate, and pelished language of eighteenth century verse
makers and with their well-regulated attention to form and
design, might take refuge in this new and looser theory of the
poetic art and spill upon the world mean trivialities, not in
artificial taste but in no taste, nor dictated by complex and
allusive thinking.18 It is for this purpose that Wordsworth
insisted that every poem must have a worthy purpose. He also
insisted that every poem should have a purpose that arises
spontaneously from the strength of feeling and the depth of
meditation. He condemned the empty and meaningless rhyming of
some poets:

Now the co-prescence of something regular
something to which the mind has been accustomed
in various moods and in a less excited state,
cannot but have great efficacy in tempering and
restraining the passion. This unquestionably
true; and hence though the opinion will first
appear paradoxical, from the tendency of metre
to divest language, in a certain degree, of
its reality, and thus to throw a sort of half
consciousness of substantial existence over
the whole composition, there can be little
doubt but that more pathetic situations and
sentiments, that is, those which have a greater
proportion of pain connected with them, may be
endured in metrical cpmposition, especially in
rhyme, than in prose. 9

 

“f ——

131b1d., p. 31.
19

 

Works, p. 796.

26

”What is a poet?', Wordsworth asked. “To whom does he
address himself?" "And what language is expected of him?“ "He
is a man speaking to men: a man it is true, endowed with more
lively sensibility and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge
of human nature that are supposed to be common among mankind....
He has acquired a greaterandiness and power in expressing what
he thinks and feels, and especially those thoughs and feelings
which by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind
arise in him without external excitement."20 "The poet“,
Wordsworth continues, “singing a song which all human beings
Join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible
friend and hourly companion. Poetry is the breath and finer
spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression
which is the contenance of all Science. He is the rock and
defence for human nature; and upholder and preserver, carrying
everywhere with him relationship and love. In spite of dif-
ferences of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws
and customs: in spite of things silently gone out of mind, and
things violently destroyed; the poet binds together by passion
and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is

spread over the whole earth, and over all time.'21

 

20319359. 10. 795.

211925;. p. 795.

27

Those excerpts from the Preface are intended to illus—
trate the basis of Wordsworth's theory of language-a theory
on which he worked in all his best period, the two editions
of Lyrical_§gllad§ themselves and the two volumes which he
published in 1807. The Preface caused a great deal of contro-
versey at the time, even among his own friends. When the
principles were first enunciated, they were new and challenging.
But Leigh Hunt, who ridiculed much of Wordsworth's poetry,
did not question the wholesomeness and the Opportuness of his
theory. Writing in a note in his Egast of Poetg, a satire in
which Wordsworth was made to play an ignomimous part, he says:

Now the object of the theory here
mentioned has clearly nothing in the
abstract, that can offend the soundest
good sense or the poetical ambition. In
fact, it is only saying in other words,
that it is high time for poetry in general
to return to natural style, and that he
will perform a great and useful work to
society, who shall assist it to do so....
The truth which he tells, however obvious
is necessary to be told and to be told
loudly: and he should enjoy the praise
which he deserves of having been thg
first in these times to produce it. 2

Mr. H. W. Garrod in his Wprdsworth Lecture§_ang_§ssay§
tells us that Coleridge's criticism of Wordsworth's theory of

language is overrated. He states further that Coleridge had

 

22
Kallaby, Op, Cit., p. 39.

28

greatly undervalued Wordsworth's poetry.23 The quarrel over
the theory of language has been a bitter one, and Wordsworth's
enemies have had an easy victory because they have not paid
much attention to what he said.2u The passage on page one of
this section clearly indicates that Wordsworth meant poetic
diction and nothing more. Professor Beatty is right when he
asserts that it is unfair to argue that he is here setting
himself and peasant speech up against Shakespeare and other
authors. He was not opposing ”the real language of men to
that of Shakespeare and Milton but identifying these and 0p-
posing them to the perversions of language which had been
brought about by Poetic Dictionfzs

Regarding the statement that there is "no difference
between the language of prose and metrical composition, the
real language of men and the language of the great poets,
Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer have the quality of reality,
permanence, and philosophical character, as contrasted with

poetic diction?26

233. W. Garrod, Wordggorth Lectures and Essay; (Oxford,
1927) p. 16}.

augoc, Cit., p. 162.
asAuthur Beatty, Willégm Wordsworth (Madison, 1927), p.64.

26M- o p0 65-

wll..r't"' k .
. 4
.
I

7,

 

29

In those chapters of Bioggaphia Literaria in which

 

Coleridge criticizes Wordsworth's theories of poetry, he pays
no attention to the related subjects of Imagination as Words-
worth conceives it, nor does he refer to Wordsworth's explana-

tion of the effects of metre by similitude in dissimilitude,27

Because Wordsworth had not contemplated arguments in this field

Coleridge seemedto win the victory.

In 1815, Wordsworth returned to the theory of poetic
diction in the ”Appendix to the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads".
Here he clearly stated that his objections to the theory of
poetic diction were based on the grounds of reality and truth:

The earliest poets of all nations generally
wrote from passion excited by real events; they
wrote naturally,and as men; feeling powerfully
as they did, their language was daring and fig-
urative. In succeeding times, Poets, and Men
ambitious of the fame of Poets, perceiving the
influence of such language, and desirous of
producing the same effect without being ani-
mated by the same passion, set themselves to
a mechanical adaption of these figures of
speech, and made use of them, sometimes with
prOpriety, but much more frequently applied
them to feelings and thoughts with which they
had no natural connection whatsoever. A
language was thus insensibly produced, differ-
ing materially from the real language of men
in any situation....Poets, it is probable who
had before contented themselves for the most
part with misapplying only expressions which
had at first been dictated by real passions

 

2719431. . p. 66.

30

carried the abuse still further, and intro—
duced phrases composed apparently in the
spirit of the original figurative language
of passion, yet altogether of their own
invention, and characterized by various
degrees of ggnton deviation from good sense
and nature.

Language, which is different from ordinary language,
becomes hardened and artificial.

This plain diction or prose-poetry diction which Words-
worth defends on principle, and adOpts for himself, is best
shown in his story of'Michael'. The old shepherd had seen his
son Luke go out to seek his fortune, but not till he was sworn
to return with means to save the humble estate, and strength
to help his father complete the building of the stone sheepfold,
and finally the old man has the news that Luke has plunged
into dissolute ways of the city and fled for his misdeeds beyond

the seas. Nevertheless:

among the rocks
He went, and still locked up to the sun and cloud,
Performed all kinds of labour for his shggp,
And for the land, his small inheritance;

though.he went as usual to the sheepfold;

tis believed by all
That many and many and many a day he thither went,
And neverljfted up a single stone.30

 

251223;. p. 801.
29Works, p. 2th.

30Works, p. 24h.

31

These lines from the "Solitary Reaper" are another good

illustration:
Whate'er the theme the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,

The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.31

The Neble Savage

There are close similarities between Wordsworth's treat-
ment of peasants and shepherds and the idea of the “return to
nature.‘ Professor Fairchild states in his book.1hg Noble
Savage that Wordsworth would have been shocked at the thought
of comparing the peasants of the Lake Country and of Switzer-
land to savages. Nevertheless, Professor Fairchild adds, ”the
comparison is tempting.“ One may at least say that the dales-
man and the Noble Savage are similarly motivated. They spring
from the same revulsion against corrupt society and preach the

same gospel of innocent simplicity.32

 

31Works, p. 298.

3aHoxie Neale Fairchild, The Noble Savage (New York,
1928) p. 180.

32

Before citing several poems in which Wordsworth makes
references to the idea of primitivism, the writer shall attempt
to explain Wordsworth's primitivism. From reading his poetry,
one never gets the idea that Wordsworth wants to settle in a
savage region. Unlike Coleridge and Southey, he never seriously
considered ”trying the experiment of perfectibility on the
banks of the Susquehanna.'33 He intended to achieve his plain
living and high thinking at which he aimed in his own life
within the existing frame of English society; he wanted to live
in the country rather than in the city, but not necessarily in
the unspoiled wilderness.

All of his poems did not reveal the primitive in a
favorable light. The young man in the story of “Ruth” and the
'Squalid creature»in the "Excursion” represent the unfavorable
aspects of primitivism. Nor do all the poems reveal Wordsworth's
mature views. His general views, however, evidence his abiding
faith in the common mannHis firstone was written under the in-
fluence of his youthful enthusiasm for the French Revolution.

In The Degcriptive Sketchgg, Wordsworth represents the Swiss

 

mountaineer as bearing the traces of primeval man, free and
restrained by none, obeying no law except that dictated by his

reason:

.._¥

33Charles Norton Coe _19rdsworth and the Litergture of
Travel (New York, 1953) p. #9.

33

Once Man entirely free, alone and wild,

Was bless'd as free—for he was Nature's child,
He, all superior but his God disdain'd

Walk'd none restraining and by none restrain'd
Confess'd no law but what his reason taught,

Did all he wish'd, and wish'd but what he ought,
As man in his primaeval dower array'd

The image of his glorious sire display'd

Ev'n so, by vestal Nature guarded, here

The traces of primaeval man appear.

The native dignity no forms debase

The eye sublime, and surly lion grace.

The slave of none, of beasts alone the lord,

He marches with his flute, his book, and sword
Well taught by that to feel his rights, pregflr'd
With this the blessings he enjoys to guard.

The primitive man is to be admired because his life is
in some respects harder and fraught with greater danger.
Wordsworth admired the Swiss because of their simplicity and
independence. He wrote of the dangers encountered by the
Swiss mountaineers:

Ye dewy mists the arrid rocks o'er spread
Whose slippery face derides his deathful tread!
-To wet the peak's impracticable sides

He opens of his feet the sanguine tides,

Weak and more weak the issuing current eyes
Lapp'd by the panting tongue of thirsty skies
-At once bewildering mists around him close,
And cold and hunger are his least of woes

The Demon of the snow with angry roar
Descending, shuts for aye his prison door.35

 

3“Works, p. 16.

35Works, p. 17.

31+

Of the poems in the edition of 1800, the one that most
clearly shows Wordsworth's interest in primitive people is
"Ruth”. In the poem, Wordsworth introduces a young man who
relates his experiences among the Cherokeess in Georgia:

There came a Youth from Georgia's shore—
A military casque he wore,

With splendid feathers drest;

He brought them from the Dherokees;

The feathers nodded in the breeze,

And made a gallant crest)6

In the Prglgge Wordsworth praised the American Indian
as a noble savage. However, in the characterization of the
degenerate hero in ”Ruth" Wordsworth showed that an "ideal
environment“ was no positive guarantee of good behavior. If
the natural environment, however beautiful is too luxuriant,

it may contribute toward loose conduct and indolence. The

Youth from Georgia's shore who married and then deserted Ruth

was a true child of nature:

With hues of genius on his cheek

In finest tones the Youth could speak:
-While he was yet a boy,

The moon, the glory of the sun,

And streams that murmer 37 they run,
Had been is dearest joy.

 

36Works, p. 119.

37Works, p. 119.

35

After describing his life among the Indians and the

exotic foliage of the southern part of America, the youth

depicts for Ruth the happy, carefree life they could lead

together:

Sweet Ruth! and could you go with me
My helpmate in the woods to be,

Our shed at night to rear;

Or run my own adapted bride

A sylvan huntress at my side,

And drive the flying deer.3

After their marriage, Ruth looked forward eagerly to

life in America on the green 'savannahs.‘ Unfortunately,

however, she never got there, partly because of the influence

of her husband's former companions with whom his boyhood had

been spent:

But ill he lived, much evil saw,
With men to whom no better law

Nor better life was known;
Deliberately and undeceived,

These wild men's vices he rggeived,
And gave them back his own.

This, combined with the climate that had nourished him, over-

came his genuine attempts to lead a nobler life.

The characterization of Ruth's suitor seems to be out

of keeping with Wordsworth's beliefs. However, his behavior

38

Works, p. 120.

39Works, p. 121.

36

can be accounted for without refuting the poet's faith in the
beneficent effects of a natural setting on man's moral and
spiritual develOpment. The youth's unsuccessful struggle
against his lower and wilder impulses serves merely to define
more specifically the kind of natural man whom Wordsworth
thought ideal. Wordsworth admired the noble savage, not be—
cause he was loose-living, indolent, and free from moral
restraint, but because he is relieved of the artificial
demands imposed by an unnatural society.

In discussing Qescriptive Sketcheg, I have shown that
Wordsworth regarded the Swiss mountaineer as possessing some
attributes of primitive man, and as living in surroundings
calculated to deve10p the highest qualities in him. Another
primitive type that Wordsworth admired was the American Indian.
He must have learned about the Indian entirely from his wide
reading in travel books.“0 There was, however, one remark in
the seventh book of The Prelude in which he described some of
the spectacles that the city of London offers to the traveler:

All moveables of wonder, from all parts,

Are here—Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfe...

All out-o—the way far-fetched, perverted things,
311m23eaks of nature, all Promethean thoughs

All jumbled up together, 30 compose
A parliament of Monsters. 1

 

49221_§i£.. p. 15.

ullork , p. 173.

37

The Indian is here merely regarded as an oddity. On at
least one other occasion, as we shall see in looking at the
39.11.18.192. Wordsworth represents the Indian in an unfavorable
light; but most times he held the Indian in high esteem. Al-
though as a young man recently graduated from Cambridge he
may have regarded him as a freak of nature, gazing upon him,
as he told us in 1Q; Preludg, with the curiosity of a sight-
seer in a strange metrOpolis, he was soon to discover in the
Indian many admirable qualities that are often lacking in more
highly civilized men. An examination of certain passages in
The ageludg shows that Wordsworth associated the Indian with

 

some of his most cherished concepts: with childhood, with
simplicity, and with solitude.

In the idyllic picture that he painted his own child-
hood, he compared his freedom and activity with that of an

Indian:

Oh! many a time have I, a five years' child,

A naked Boy, in one delightful Hill,

A little Mill-race sever'd from his stream,

Made one long bathing of a summer's day ...
as if I had been born

On Indian Plains and from my Mother's hut

Had run abroad in wantoness to sport,

A naked savage, in the thunder shower.

 

quorks, p.12h.

38

In the conclusion to the seventh book, "Residence in
London", Wordsworth compared the simplicity and dignity of the
Indian with the plight of the city dweller:

Living amid the same perpetual whirl

Of trivial objects, melted and reduced

To one identity by differences ”3

That have no law, no meaning, and no end.
Wordsworth felt that because of his own boyhood sur-

roundings, his

early converse with the works of God
Among all regions; chiefly where appeflfi
Host obviously simplicity and power,-

Although he could understand more than the city dweller,
Wordsworth's early visit to London served mainly to strengthen
his preference for the simplicity of country life. Yet in
describing the contrast between city and country in The Prgludg,
he used not only recollections of his own boyhood, and adds

one striking passage in which he advises us to think of the

noble savage:

Think, how the everlasting streams and woods,
Stretched and still stretching far and wide, exalt
The roving Indian: on his desert sands,

What grandeur not unfelt, what pregnant shgw

Of beauty, meets the sunburnt Arab's eye.

“3Works, p. 177.

uufll‘fl a p o 178 .

nBWorks, p. 178.

 

 

 

 

39

The Wanderer in Thg’§}9_gsion shows evidences of primi-

tivism. There is much of the poet's autobiography in this

character. This point was made by Fausset in The Lost Legggg.

According to Fausset:

The character at least of The Pedlar, or

The Wanderer, as he was later called...was,
in fact, the consummation of such characters
as Wordsworth had dramatized in some of the
"Lyrical Ballads". Fred from domestic ties
and the struggle for survival, he lacked the
pathos of those earlier figures. But he was
better qualified thereby to personify Words-
worth's ideal of the complete man anfl to be
the voice of his mature convictions. 6

For his images and symbols of what plain living and
high thinking might be or ought to be, Wordsworth seized upon
the Swiss mountaineer and American Indian, rustic or savage
man,1iving remote from towns. Wordsworth used his primitives
to illustrate such inspiring concepts as the golden age of
man, the free and simple life of a Swiss canton, and the roving
freedom and childlike spontaneity of the Indian whose life is
contrasted favorably with that of the city dweller.

v— V ——-w-—

6Charles Norton Coe, Wordsworth and thengterature
9f Travgl (New York, 1953) p. 87, derived from Hugh Fausset,

The Lost Leadeg.

Solitude

Solitude, silence, and lonely places are the chief
sources of simplicity and power in Wordsworth's poetry. Pro-
fessor Raymond Havens has stated that Wordsworth used "alone”
in the sense of solitary some one hundred and fifty times in
his poetry; 'solitary' (excluding The Solitary in The Excur-
5123) about seventy-five times; “solitude" or 'solitudes"
about one hundred and five times; “lone,' ”lonely,” “lonesome,“
'10neliest,‘ ”loneliness' approximately two hundred and fifteen
times; he employs 'silent' or ”silence” some three hundred and
fifty times.n7 His use of the term is distinctive since he
commonly applies it to places or natural objects, rarely to
states of mind, and almost always employs it to suggest some-
thing that is desirable.“8 The lovely flowers, birds, clouds,
and brooks in lonely places were almost always a pleasure to
him.

In his lone characters which he depicts with the most
naked simplicity: the pensive traveler while he treads his
lonesome path in ”A Night Piece”, William in 'Expostulation

u
rt -.. .__

u7Raymond Havens, Thefngnd of a Post (Baltimore, l9hl)
p. 57.

u
SEA-2° D p. 550

#1

and Reply", the boy who sits alone mimicking the hooting of
owls in ”There Was a Boy", ”The Cumberland Beggar” who travels
along solitarily begging alms, Michael, The Wanderer in The

Excursion, the leechgatherer in "Resolution and Independence",

 

Margaret in the first book of the Excursion, Lucy Gray a
solitary child who had no mate or comrade, and the "Solitary

Reaper.I
In a note to "Steeping Westward", Wordsworth stated:

While my fellow traveler and I were
walking by the side of Lock Ketterine, one
fine evening after sunset...we met in one
of the loneliest parts of the solitary re—
gion two well dressed women, one of whom
said to us...What, you are stepping westward749

He used loneliness to refer to places and almost never
did it suggest something unpleasant. Inversneyde, the home
of The Highland Girl is a lonely place, but very beautiful.
Ruth in the story of "Ruth" wished to go with the youth from
Georgia to some lonely spot in America.

Clifford, in "Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle”,

had found:

Love in huts where poor
men lie
His daily teachers had been
woods and rills
The silence that is in the starry sky
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.5O

uglsrks. p. 229.

50Works, p. 360.

#2

In lonely places, one could think through his troubles.

They had restorative powers. In the mountains, the Wanderer

in the Excursiog could

...feel his faith

All things, responsive to the writing here
Breathed immortality, revolving life,

And greatness still revolving, infinite:
There littleness was not; the least of things
Seemed infinite; and there his spirit shaped
Her prospects, nor did he believe, he saw.51

The incidents which seemed most important to him oc-

curred in silence and solitude. In 'Tintern Abbey“, he thinks

of earlier times when he beheld the mountains that on a ”wild

secluded scene impressed thoughs of deep seclusion.” Often

when he was in lonely rooms "amid the din of towns and cities

he felt sensations sweet" and his mind was tranquilly restored.

There was so much joy in solitude that he said:

...Therefore let the moon shine on thee in thy
solitary walk;

And let thy misty mountains winds be free

To blow against thee: and in after years,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure...

If solitude, or fear or pain or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou reggmber me,

And these my exhortations!

 

51

52

Works, p. 410.

_____§_WOI‘k 1 p0 93-

”3

Some of the best evidence of how Wordsworth loved
solitude, silence, and loneliness is to be found in his power
of describing them:

He had been alone
Amid the heart of many thousand mists,
That came to him, and left him, on the heights;
...they
who journey thither find themselves alone
With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites
That overhead are sailing in the sky.
(Michael p. 2&0)

There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the term a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,
In symphony austere.
(Fidelity p. 321)
Nowhere does Wordsworth reveal his peculiar power more
than in those lines which deal with solitude, silence, and

lonely places.

CHAPTER IV
WHY WORDSWORTH USED THE IDEA AND ITS EFFECT

Before Wordsworth can adequately be understood, one
must know the poet's own evolution, his early life among the
northern hills, the growth of his passion for nature, his
faith in the common man and in the French Revolution, his
ardent espousal of rationalistic thought, his loss of faith
in the French Revolution, his need for something to believe in,
then his strong revulsion from all kinds of doctrinnaire in-
tellectualism, and his return to his belief in the saving
power of nature on man's emotional and imaginative intuition.1
If these things are known, then Wordsworth's reasons for
adopting the concept of simplicity will be better understood.

An account of his early life is given in the first

four books of 2;; Prelude. Nature, to him, was divine, and

 

it permeated everything. He said in Book II of The Prelude:

... Wonder not
If High the transport, great the joy I felt
Communing in this sort of earth and heaven
With every form of Creature, as it looked
.Towards the Uncreated with a countenance
Of adoration, with an eye of love.2

 

1Douglas Bush, ”Wordsworth: A.Minority Report”, Words-
worth Centennary Studies presented at Cornell and Princeton
Universities, ed. Gilbert T. Dunklin (Princeton, 1951), p. 6.

2Works, p. 137.

1*5

Upon his return from Cambridge during a summer vacation
to his native vales and mountains, he told of his extreme
happinesS. But he was himself apart from external nature and
realized that his soul was free, creative, and possessed im-
mortal powers:

Ghntly did my soul
Put off her veil, and self transmuted, stood
Naked, as in the presence of her God...
-Of that external scene which round me lay,
Little, in this abstraction, did I see:
Remembered bliss; but I had inward hOpes
And swellings of the spirit was rapt and soothed,
Conversed with promises, had glimmering views
How life pervades the undecaying mind;
How the immortal soul with God's power
Informs, creates, and thaws the deepest sleep
That time can lay upon her.3

He then became dedicated to a power outside himself.
As he walked home one morning, he told how he became consecrated

to that power:

The morning rose, in measurable pomp,

Glorious as e'er I had beheld...

Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the brim

My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows

Were then made for me; bond unknown to me

Was given, that I sRould be, else shining greatly,
A dedicated Spirit.

Along with this attitude toward nature was an innate
respect for humanity. He saw the shepherd independent, strong,

a free man:

 

3Works, p. 1M7.
”Works, p. 150.

M6

Thus was man
Ennobled outwardly before my sight,
And thus my heart was easily introduced
To an unconsciou love and reverence
Of human nature.

It was in (1792), when he was in Revolutionary France,
that his heart was for the first time all given to human beings
and that his love was theirs.6 Man was coequal with Nature in
his consciousness; Nature was ever an inspirer, a teacher, but
his thoughts and feelings were centered in humanity.7 In 1793,
he published.pescriptive Sketches, which told of the spirit of
Freedom that animated the Swiss peOple. His enthusiasm reached
a new high when he saw in France Freedom in the making. He
denounced the tyrant kings and appealed to the Almighty to
give victory to the Revolutionary cause:

0 give, great God, to Freedom's waves to ride

Sublime o'er Conquest, Avarice, and Pride,

To break, the vales where Death with Famine Scow'rs,

And dark Oppression builds her thick ribb'd tow'rs

And grant that every sceptred child of clay,

Who cries, presumptious, ”here their tides shall
stay,“

Swept in their anger from their affrighted sacre,
With all his creatures sink-to rise no more.

 

512mm. p. 151.

6Solomon Francis Gingerich, Essayggin the Romant;g
Movement (New York, l92h), p. 95.

7Ib1d., p. 96.

Swag. p. 19.

”7

During this period, the poet's ideas were of so general
a character that he had not develOped a distinct philosophy of
life. It was a period of moral conflict with him, and of a
political crisis as well as a.time of change and growth.9

In (1793), England declared war on the French Republic.
Though his soul was tossed about in a whirlwind, he did not
resort for relief to distinct Christian love or mercy, but only
fortified himself by his former revolutionary Opinion, which
clung to his mind “as if they were its life, may more, the
very being of the immortal soul.” And when the worst came,
France herself turning traitor to the cause of Freedom, and
he was "endlessly perplexed" to the point of despair, he sought
consolation not in the graces of Christian fortitude, but in
speculative thought an in the study of abstract science, with-
out, any appreciable success.10 His sister Dorothy's devotion
and the ministry of Nature led him back through Opening day
to the sweet counsels between head and heart.11 Thus emerged
the great Wordsworth of the Mrical Ballads. Here was an enter-

prise that was both novel and daring; and in it Wordsworth

9Gingerich, Loc. Cit., p. 100.

1°1b1d., p. 101.

lllbid., p. lou.

M8

played the dominant part. Douglas Bush in "Wordsworth: A
Minority Report" stated that it was Wordsworth's share in the
Lyrical Balladg that inaugurated a poetical and spiritual rev-
olution (The Ancient Mariner, "though it rose far above most
of Wodsworth's contributions, was unique and altogether in-
imitable".)12 Bush went on to say that later volumes showed
that poetry could be written in simple language about humble
life. It was Wordsworth who set forth the romantic religion
of nature that was to fill a growing vacuum, who upheld,
against the claims of scientific and logical reason, the higher
validity of imagination.and intuition, who proclaimed the
native grandeur of the human soul and the soul's affinity with
the creative spirit that rolls through all things, who main—
tained.that man may be delivered from the bondage of actuality
because he has free access to outward and inward sources of
enduring beauty and joy and wisdom.13 Here, he told the world
that he, with the help of Coleridge and his sister, had escaped
suffering and disillusionment.

During the first part of the nineteenth century,

Wordsworth failed to win popularity among the general reading

 

1
2Bush,_1_.oc. Cit., p. u.

13Ibid., p. h.

”9

public. The first unsympathetic criticism came from Jeffrey
in the Edinburgh Review. Not all of his criticism was un-

 

favorable. He put Wordsworth in the "Lake School" and against
it he fought very hard. He called the Lake school a brother-

hood of literary heretics and dissenters. In an essay in the

gfiggbgggh_fiezggg, Jeffrey stated:

This will never do! It bears no
doubt the stamp of the author's heart
and fancy: but unfortunately not half
so visibly as that of his peculiar
system. His former poems were intended
to recommend that system and to bespeak
favour for it by their individual merit;
but this we suspect, must be recommended
by the system, and can only expect to
succeed where it has been previously
established. It is longer, weaker, and
tamer than any of Mr. Wordsworth's other
productions; with less boldness of
originality, and less even of that ex-
treme simplicity which wayfired so prettily,
in the "Lyrical Ballads.“

Jeffrey, here, had reference to "The Recluse", or the
:ftrst book of the Excursion. In a note to the same essay, he
had this to say:

I can easily understand that many whose
admiration of "The Excursion”, or the "Lyrical
Ballads“, rests substantially on the passages
which I too should join in admiring, may view
with greater indulgence than I can do, the
tedious and flat passages with which they are
interspersed, and may consequently think my
censure of these works a great deal too harsh

 

1hFrances Jeffrey, Essays on English Poets and Poetry

(London, 1519) P- 525-

50

and uncharitable. Between such persons and me,
therefore, there may be no radical difference

of opinion, or contrariety as to principles of
judgment....Now I have been assured not only
that there are such persons, but that almost

all those who seek to exalt Mr. Wordsworth as
the founder of a new school of poetry, consider
these as by far his best and most characteristic
productions; and would at once reject from their
communion any one who did not acknowledge in
them the traces of,a high inspiration.1

The Lake School was always imitating somebody especially
Milton,he explained. Of Tge Excursion, he said:

We have imitations of Cowper, and even
of Milton here; engrafted on the natural
drawl of the Lakers, and all diluted into
harmony by that profuse and irrepressible
wordiness whidh deluges all the blank verse
of this school of poetry, and lubricates
and weigens the whole structure of their
style.

Throughout the essay, he put Wordsworth in a school.
Wordsworth belonged to no brotherhood, even in the first issue
of Lyrical Ballads, Coleridge hardly c00perated.17

Another phase of criticism came from William Hazlitt.
Through his views changed later, the first criticism was al-

together unfavorable.

15
Lbid., p. 525.

16Ibid., p. 526.

1
7David Watson Rennie, Wordsworth and His Circle (London,
1907), p. 316.

51

The spirit of Jacobin poetry is rank
egotism. We know an instance. It is of
a person who founded a school of poetry on
sheer humanity, on idiot boys, and mad
mothers, and on Simon Lee, the old huntsman.
The secret of the Jacobin poetry and the
anti Jacobin politics of this writer is the
same. His lyrical poetry was a cant of the
commonest peOple, to level the great with
the small; and his political poetry is a
cant of loyalty to level Bonaparte with
kings and hereditary imbecility ....The
person admires nothing that is admirable,
feels no interest in anything interesting,
no grandeur in anything grand, no beauty
in anything beautiful. He tolerates noth-
ing but what he himself creates; he sym-
pathizes only with what can enter into no
competition with him, with.the bare earth
and mountain bare, and grass green in the
green field. He sees nothing but himself
in the universe. He hates all greatneig
and all pretensions to it but his own.

Two years later, Hazlitt wrote differently of Wordsworth.

He not only gave Wordsworth's weaknesses but his strengths as

well:

Fools have laughed at wise men scarcely
understand them. He takes a subject or a
story merely as pegs or loops to hang thought
and feeling on; the incidents are trifling,
in proportion to his contempt for imposing
appearances; the reflections are profound,
according to the gravity and aspiring pre-
tensions of his mind....His popular, inarti-
ficial style gets rid (at a blow) of all the
trappings of verse, of all the high places
of poetry: “the cloud capt towers, the

 

18

Ibid., p. 320.

52

solemn temples, the gorgeous palaces,"

are swept to the ground, and "like the
baseless fabric of a vision, leave not

a wreck behind.'....Kings, queens, priests,
nobles, the altar and the throne, the dis-
tinctions of rank, birth, wealth, power,
”the judge's robe, the marshal's truncheon,
the ceremony that to great ones longs," are
not to found here....He gathers manna in

the wilderness; he strikes the barren rock
for the gushing moisture. He elevates the
mean by the strength of his own aspirations,
he clothes the naked with beauty and grand—
eur from the stores of his own recollections.19

The best exposition of this kind of criticism is found
in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Biographia Liteggggg, though
Coleridge bore a chief part in the work. When Wordsworth pub-
lished an exposition of the theory of this work, Coleridge did
not agree with all of it. A large part of Biographia Literarig
was a disagreement with Wordsworth's doctrine of imagination
and poetic diction and an examination of the inconsistencies
between his theory and his practice:

My own differences from certain supposed
parts of Mr. Wordsworth's theory ground them-
selves on the assumption that his words had
been rightly interpreted, as purporting that
the proper diction for poetry in general con-
sists altogether in a language taken, with
due exceptions, from the mouths of men in real

life, a language which actually constitutes the
natural conversation of men under the influence

 

19William Hazlitt Lectures on En lish Posts, in Selec—
tions from His Writings (London, 1889), p. 153.

53

of natural feelings. My objection is,

first, that in any sense this rule is
applicable only to certain classes of

poetry; secondly, that even to these

classes of poetry it is not applicable,

except in such a sense, as hath never by

any one been denied or doubted; and lastly,
that as far as, and in that degree in which

it is practible, yet, as a rule, it is use—
less, if not injurious, and therefore, either
need not or ought not to be practised....

Now it is clear to me that in the most in—
teresting of the poems, in which the author

is more or less dramatic, as "The Brothers",
'Michael', 'Ruth', “The Mad Mother: etc.,

the persons introduced are by no means taken
from low or rustic life in the common ac-
ceptation of those words; and it is not less
clear that the sentiments and language, as

far as they can be conceived to have been
really transferred from the minds and conversa-
tion of such persons are attributable to causes
and circumstance not necessarily connected
with their occupations or abode. The thoughts,
feelings, language, and manners of the shepherd-
farmers in the vales of Cumberland and West-
moreland, as far as they are actually adOpted
in those poems, may be accounted for from
causes, which will and do produce the same
results in every state of life, whether in

town or country....0n the other hand, in the
poems which are pitched at a lower note, as
the "Harry Gill”, "The Idiot Boy', the feel-
ings are those of human nature in general;
though the poet has judiciously laid the

scene in the country, in order to place him-
self in the vicinity of interesting images,
without the necessity of ascribing a senti-
mental perception of their beauty to the
persans of his drama.2O

 

20 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ”Biographia Literaria'
.Antholtmm of Romanticism; ed. Ernest Bernbaum (New York, l9u8),

p. 336-

5n

Toward the end of Biographia Literaria, Coleridge talked

 

about the real value of Wordsworth's poetry as it was known to
him:

Last and preeminently, I challenge for
this post the gift of imagination in the high-
est and strictest sense of the word. In the
play of fancy, Wordsworth, to my feelings, is
not always graceful, and sometimes recondite.
The likeness is occasionally too strange, or
demands too peculiar a point of view, or is
such as appears the creature of predetermined
research, rather than spontaneous presentation.
Indeed his fancy seldom displays itself as mere
and unmodified fancy. But in imaginative power
he stands nearest of all modern writers to
Shakespeare and Milton; and yet in a kind perfectly
unborrowed and his own....His fame belongs to an—
other age, and can neither be accelerated nor
retarded. How small the pr0portion of the de-
fects are to the beauties, I have repeatedly
declared; and that no one of them originates
in deficiency of poetic genius. Had they been
more and greater, I should still, as a friend
to his literary character in the present age
consider an analytic display of them as pure
gain; if only it removed, as surely to all re—
flecting minds even the foregoing analysis must
have removed, the strange mistake, so slightly
grounded, yet so widely and industriously pro-
pogated of Mr. Wordsworth's turn for simplicity!
I am not half as much irritated by hearing his
enemies abuse him for vulgarity of style, sub-
ject, and conception, as I am disgusted with the
gilded affected admirers, with whom he is for-
sooth, a sweet simple poet!2

Coleridge did not attack Wordsworth with the bitterness

(If Hazlitt in his earlier criticism. His friendliness of tone,

_—
W vi

21Ibid., p. 368.

55

most likely, caused many readers unsuspectingly to form their
Opinions from Coleridge while overlooking the alienation of
spirit that had subtly altered the aspect of what Coleridge
wrote. The impression that Biographia Literarig gave of
Wordsworth was disappointing. Coleridge is the one person
that could have given an interpretation of Wordsworth, the
poet, because of their once intimate understanding and oneness
of mind.

Although Thomas DeQuincey was an early acquaintance of
Wordsworth's, his criticism came late. In September 1845, he
published in gait's Magazine, an essay of Wordsworth's poetry.22
He reopened the old problem of Wordsworth's diction and sub-
Jects. Of the former, he concluded, as did Coleridge before
jhim, that had Wordsworth not brought forward a theory of dic—
tion in his early Prefaces, no issue would have been raised by
the poetry itself in the minds of either critics or readers.
DeQuincey agrees that at the time of Lyrical Ballads bad taste
111 the language of poetry was prevalent, but he points out that
Wordsworth's eXperiment in purity of diction, in the use of

1flne language of ordinary life, was nothing new.

”rm-”'—

wvr—f ..— “——

22
James Venable Logan, Wordsggrthian Criticism
(Columbia, 191+?) p, 1&2.

56

Spenser, Shakespeare, the Bible of 1611,
and Milton-how say you, William Wordsworth
are these sound and true as to diction, or
are they not? If you say they are, then what
is it that your are proposing to change?

What room for a revolution?....If the leading
classics of the English Literature are in
quality of diction and style, loyal to the
canons of good taste-then you cut away the
locus standi for yourself as a reformer:

the reformation apBlies only to secondary

and recent abuses. 3

DeQuincey seemed unaware that Wordsworth was not trying to rev-
olutionize English poetry but was returning to the true and
native style of the language.

In spite of the dogmatic Journalism and personal par-
tisanship, Wordsworth was an influence on the thought and
poetry of his day. This evidenced by Keat's references to
Wordsworth in his letters. In a letter to Reynolds, dated
May 3, 1818, Keats had this to say:

....Ihave nothing but surmises, from
an uncertainty whether Miltons (sic) ap-
parently less anxiety for Humanity proceeds
from his seeing further or no than Wordsworth:
And whether Wordsworth has in truth epic
passion, and martyrs himself to the human
heart, the main region of his song...I will
return to Wordsworth whether or no he has
an extended vision or a circumscribed grandeur-
whether he is an eagle in his nest, or on the
win...I will put down a simile of human life
as far as I now perceive it; that is, to the
point to which I say we both have arrived at.
Well I compare human life to a large Mansion

 

231big., p. #2.

57

of Many Apartments, two of which I can only
describe, the doors of the rest being as yet
shut upon me. The first we step into we

call the infant or thoughtless chamber, in
which we remain as long as we do not think.

We remain there a long while, and notwith-
standing the doors of the second Chamber remain
wide Open, showing a bright appearance, we care
not to hasten to it; but are at length imper-
ceptibly impelled by the awakening of the
thinking principle within us-we no sooner get
into the secondChamber, which I shall call the
Chamber of Maiden Thought, than we become in-
toxicated with the light and the atmosphere,

we see nothing but pleasant wonders, and think
of delaying there for ever in delight. However
among the effects this breathing is father of
is that tremendous one of sharpening one's vision
into the heart and nature of Man-of convincing
one's nerves that the world is full of Misery
and Heartbreak, Pain, Sickness and Oppression-
where-by this chamber of Maiden Thought becomes
gradually darken'd and at the same time on all
sides of it many doors are set Open-but all
dark-all leading to dark passages. We see not
the balance of good and evil. We are in a mist.
We are now in that state-We feel the "burden of
the Mystery'-To this point was Wordsworth come,
as far as I can conceive when he wrote Tintern
Abbey....Here I must think Wordsworth is deeper
than Milton, though I think it has depended more
upon the general and gregarious advance of fin-
tellect, than individual greatness of Mind.

Victorian criticism did not have the bitterness or
partisanship that characterized the best contemporary criticism

of the poet. Most of the Victorians expressed approval of the

2n1bid., p. nu. Derived from The Letters of John Keatg,
ed” M. B. Forman, (London, 1931).

 

58

theory expressed in the Prefaces. In regard to Wordsworth's
statement that the language of common speech must be purified,
David Masson said "This would leave us a very select language
indeed, the sap and flower of all pOpular speech.n25 J. C.
Shairp commented "Seeing truth and beauty in many things
hitherto considered unfit for poetry, Wordsworth Opened up

vast tracts that had been lying waste and brought them into the
domain of poetry."26 Arthur Hugh Clough remarked that Words-
worth's theory, as directed not against style in general but
against the prevalent vices of style, was useful perhaps, but
his practice was far more meritorious.“7 Wordsworth achieved
the harmony between thought and word, which Clough said is

no light thing, for style is so much more than ornamental.

The poetic eloquence of Wordsworth was pointed out by Swinburne.
The poet, he said, at times achieved a music educed "from the
simplest combinations of evidently spontaneous thought with

apparently Spontaneous expression."28

The final Judges of any poet's real values are the body

of cultivated readers including scholars and literary critics.

 

2521932.. p. 60.

26Ibid., p. 61.

27Ibid., p. 61.

281bid., p. 62.

59

Literary critics during the nineteenth century were the natural
guides for the public at large.29 Wordsworth was pretty
thoroughly estimated by many critics, especially Coleridge,
and, though some did him no service by making him a builder of
a system, on the whole the estimate was Judicious.

It was the consciousness of a lofty and consecrated
purpose in all he had written that enabled him to withstand
the pitiless storm of abuse which beat upon his head, that
made him tell his friends who became anxious about the future
of his poems: ”Trouble not yourself upon their present re—
ception; of what moment is that compared with which I trust
is their destiny?-to console the afflicted; to add sunshine
to daylight, by making the happy happier; to teach the young
and the gracious of every age to see, to think, and to feel,
and, therefore, to become more actively and securely virtuous."3O

A very fine tribute was paid to Wordsworth by the
American poet, James Russell Lowell. “Wordsworth has won for
himself a secure immortality by a depth of intuition which
makes.only the best minds at their best hours worthy, or in-

deed capable, of his companionship, and by a homely sincerity

 

 

——— ——

29Douglas Bush, A Minority Report, p. 7.

30Andrew W. George, ”Biographical Sketch,“ Complete
_P_getical Work; of William Wordsworth; Cambridge ed., p. x.

60

of sympathy which reaches the humblest ear. Our language owes
him gratitude for the habitual purity and abstinence of his
style, and we who speak it, for having emboldened us to take
delight in simple things, and to trust ourselves to our own
instincts.“31 It was in the summer of 1839 that Wordsworth
was permitted to realize that for which he labored so assid-
uously and prayed so earnestly, when, by the foremost University
of his land, he was honored as one of the chief glories of
English poetry and the greatest name since Milton. Mr. Keble,
the professor of poetry in the University, introduced him to
the Vice Chancellor as being "one who has shed a celestial
light upon the affections, the occupations and the piety of
the poor."32

To most readers, Wordsworth had a special message con-
cerning man and nature. Although his mature experience was a
continuation of his childhood and his youth, it was not any
spontaneous growth; it was a strong and conscious revolt
against the scientific view of the world and man. In the
century or more since Wordsworth died, science more than he
could have ever anticipated has mechanized civilication and
the heart of man and a good deal of modern poets and readers,

‘but actually he means very little to a goodly number of them.33

 

——

31i2ig., p. xxxviii,

32Ibid., p. x.

_

33Bush, Op, Cit., p. 9.

61

No one had ever praised Wordsworth more than Matthew
Arnold, though he did not always understand him. However, no
one either wrote more earnestly of the poet's healing power:

He too upon a wintry clime

Had fallen-on this iron time

Of doubts, disputes, distractions, fears.
He found us when the age had bound

Our souls in its benumbing round;

He spoke, and loosed our hearts in tears
He laid us as we lay at birth

On the cool flowery lap of earth;

Smiles broke from us and we had ease.
The hills were round us, and the breeze
Went o'er the sunlit fields again:

Our foreheads felt the wind and rain
Our youth return'd: for there was shed
On spirits that had long been dead,
Spirits dried up and closely-furl'

The freshness of the early world.3

These lines, written in 1850, eXpressed what Arnold and his age
owed to Wordsworth. Almost thirty years later, in the essay
that prefaced his anthology, Arnold delivered the verdict that
Wordsworth was and would remain the greatest English poet after
Shakespeare and Milton and that he wassmperior to all modern
continental poets, because the ample body of his poems, espe-
Cially the many good short ones, were superior in power, in
interest, in the qualities which give enduring freshness, to
that which any of the others have left.35 The memorial tribute

<nM3ted was an admission that the poet did not meet but withdrew

“K

 

31"Bush, Ibid., p. 10. Derived from Matthew Arnold,
Memor. ial Verses .

351nd,, p. 12.

62

from the problems of the modern mind. Of course, Arnold was
Just one person, not an authority for the age. Wordsworth
was no escapist and did not avert his eyes from human suffer—
ing, but fully recognized the common lot.

Professor Douglas Bush divided Wordsworth's good poetry
into two kinds: one kind or group comprised some short poems
in which nature is subordinate to humanity and in which there
is little or no phiIOSOphizing. Of these "The Solitary Reaper"
stood as a perfect example. Here the slightest of rural in-
cidents which could have occured in any country in any age, is
not artifically heightened but simply realized, with a power
of verbal and rhythmical suggestion that is at once homely and
rich, concrete, and magical. And to that he added some other
pieces of similar timeless and "Commonplace Universality",
such as the best of the "Lucy Poems." The second group which
he praised most was Wordsworth's sonnets.36

In his lecture at the Cornell Centennary Celebration,
Professor John Crowe Ransom had much praise for Wordsworth:

Our poet was one of the giants. We
can not say less, for Wordsworth did what
Burns and Blake could not do: he reversed
the direction of English poetry in a bad
time and revitalized it. He was driven to
a conception of poetry which was more

radical, or thorough~going than that of any
of his predecessors, but it Justified itself

 

36:919.... p. 21.

63

in his own poetic production. It is
Wordsworth's innovations in the theory
upon which I should like to offer some
notes, as my tribute to the poet: in
the theory, because he theorized as well
as practised;and notes, because my im-
pressions are speculative and imperfect,
and in what has always been an area of
speculation do not aspire anyway to be
demonstrative.37 .

Mr. Ransom paid tribute to the innovations in poetic theory
which were set forth in the Preface. Coleridge, he thought,
could have said more for them than he did. There followed a
revealing commentary, in terms of modern critical theory on
the approach to experience and the poetic devices in which
Wordsworth excelled. He admired, especially, the plain style
of "Michael", "The Solitary Reaper", the Lucy poems, and “The
Prelude".

When satirists and critics called Wordsworth's poems
childish, they spoke the truth, although not in the sense which
they gave to the word.38 The poems are childish in their
attempt to recapture the attitude of the child, to look at the

world, as does the modern artist, through the unsophisticated

37John Crowe Ransom, William Wodsworth: "Notes Toward
.An Understanding of Poetry , Wordsworth Centennary Studieg
Presented at Cornell and Princeton Universities (Princeton,

I§515, p. 91.

36Raymond D. Havens ”Simplicity a Changing Concept",

9gp; (New York, 1953). p. 36.

61+

eyes of childhood.39 "The poet is one who carries the simplicity
of childhood into the powers of manhood; who with a soul unsub—
dued by habit, unshackled by custom, contemplates all things

with the freshness and wonder of childhood.”0 This definition
of the poet, by Coleridge, is the spirit which these poems were

intended to embody.

39.11219. . p. 30.

no
IQ;Q., p. 30.

CHAPTER V
SUMMARY AND EVALUATION

Wordsworth was a poet of reaction. Although he lived
through one part of the Revolution and was a part of it, he
.rebelled against the attitude of life which it approved as
he rebelled against the disillusionment and loss of hOpe which
Revolutionary thought and action brought upon the world. At
this point, Wordsworth's mature poetry began. He did not sink
back into the Old but looked forward into the future. The pub-
lication of Th§_Lygiga1 Ballagg was a reaction from what is
known as the Artificial School of Dryden and Pope. By the
authority of Shakespeare and Milton, he Judged the practices
in which the theorists and practitioners of artifical “Poetic
Diction' indulged, and set out to classify the ideas of the
time on poetic theory by calling attention to the main tra-
ditions of the English language, and by pointing out that any
permanent and "philosophic" language must be based not on the
mere authority of critics but on the real experiences of real
peOple.

Most of the poems in the Lyrical Ballad; deal with
human characters and indicate the poet's attitude toward hu—

manity. Among the personages represented are a neglected young

66

man of genius, a female vagrant, a little girl who insisted
her dead brother and sister were alive, an outcast woman
suspected of child murder, a poor shepherd who has lost his
flock, a mad mother, an idiot boy, a very old man, and a
forsaken Indian woman. He found in humble man an obJect of
delight, of pure imagination, and love. He became convinced
that formal education had little to do with real feeling and
Just sense, and that books which were Judged by the wealthy
few were misleading and debasing. He believed, however, that
wherever grace and culture were utterly unknown, where oppres-
sion, poverty, and labor were in excess, love and truth could
not thrive. He portrayed his characters in the simplest
language, and in a very realistic manner. He used a speech
born of the individual heart and not of conventional lips.
There was no studied phrase making, no scholastic forms, nothing
got up for effect. Instead, he used for his medium common,
actual things.

One Of Wordsworth's greatest merits lay in the treat-
ment of these common, homely, and familiar themes. I think
that he was aware of the fact that in the homes of the wealthy
there were sorrows, patient virtues, tender ministries, sweet
compassions, and strong, clean, sweet, and gentle souls. But

Of them poetry had always been mindful. It was full time, he

67

felt, that other sections of humanity should be so honored.
The homes of the poor and unhonored had their brave, true,
tender hearts, their treasures of modest, gentle, heroic
virtues. Poetry written about the humble has this special
advantage, that it strikes down deeper into the soul for being
less supplied with the means of expression. Wordsworth did a
great service for the rich as well as the poor, for he made
them know that the poor may be as rich as they and even richer.
The story of "Michael”, published after the hygiggl
gallgdg is one of Wordsworth's greatest achievements. It was
a tragedy of broken hopes, the tale of a shepherd's loss of
his only son. It especially illustrated the distinction that
Wordsworth claimed for all of his poems-”the feeling therein
develOped gives importance to the action and situation and
not the action and situation to the feeling.” The deepest
affections, the incurable sorrow, the unconquerable spirit of
the Old man are the qualities which were the moving force of
the poem. The simplest literary devices were used. The plain
presentation without exaggeration of detail from Michael's
family life made the hero and admirable one. "Resolution and
Independence”, often classified as a companion poem to "Michael",
is another good example of Wordsworth's making the most of a
slight, almost trivial incident. The old leechgatherer was

presented in the most naked simplicity possible.

68

Regarding his theory of poetic diction, I have attempted
to show that Wordsworth identified the real language of men
and OpUOSed it to the perversions of language which had been
brought about by artificial poetic diction. The classicists
had an inventory of words and phrases such as plain, everyday
people never used. They believed this to be the only language
for poetry. Wordsworth held that poetry was not and ought not
to be made the creature of fashion, that it had its birth in
the human heart, and that its domain was as broad and general,
in every respect, as the source from which it sprang-the human
heart. Then, too, he held that there was no essential dif-
ference between the language of prose and the language of
poetry. He maintained that where the feelings and thoughts
are the same in both, the language has a right to be the same
also; apart from the conditions of metre and rhythm,neither
the words nor the arrangement of them need to differ at all.
Coleridge pointed out the weaknesses of Wordsworth's reasoning
0n the aesthetic side of poetry, but paid no attention to
Wfibrdsworth's explanation of the effect of metre by the principle
or similitude in dissimilitude.

Wordsworth proved that language which differed from
Ordinary language became hardened into an artificial one and

never was the real language of men in any situation. This

69

artificial and unreal language could never be the medium of
the reality of life, contemplated by the imagination; only
the real language of real men and real poets could express
imaginative truth and reality.

The poet was aware that among the common people there
are many individuals whose speech teems with phrases fit for
use in either verse or prose. He meant simple peOple with
their families, very tenacious of their ancestral acres and
manners, of simple and homely tastes, yet intelligent and
thoughtful, grave and sober livers with good habits and morals.
The language of these people breaks from them spontaneously and
is better for poetic use than those of the highly educated
as it has more truth in it. Wordsworth's practice runs in
accordance with the foregoing. In "Michael“,iand "We Are
Seven”, the language is so clear and simple that a child may
understand it, yet so pure and true that the best minds could
not fail to appreciate it. Usually, when his themes were
common life, his diction was simple. When his thoughts were
of another region, as in the great "Immortality Ode", the
language was different.

Although there are close similarities between Words-
worth's treatment of peasants and shepherds and the idea of

primitivism, I do not think that he thought Of-them as savages.

70

They both sprang from the same revulsion against corrupt

society and preached the same gospel of innocent simplicity.

f“

'9'

The poems which dealt with primitivism showed an interest in
the ids; but they did not always reveal the primitive in a
favorable light nor did all of them express Wordsworth's mature
views. His interest in the idea of the noble savage stemmed
from the fact that the savage was relieved of the artificial
demands imposed by an unnatural society. Wordsworth used his
primitives to illustrate such inspiring concepts as the golden
age of man, the free and simple life of a Swiss canton, and

the freedom and childlike spontaniety of the Indian whose life
is contrasted favorably with that of city dwellers.

The chief sources of simplicity and power in Wordsworth's
poetry are solitude, silence, and loneliness. His use of these
terms was distinctive, as he ordinarily applied them to natural
obJects, rarely to states of mind, and almost always employed
them to suggest something that was desirable. He showed that
lonely places where one could think through one's troubles had
restorative powers.

Though Wordsworth's style is sometimes a little heavy
and cumbrous, one could never call it ornate. He always sought
for pure, intelligible English. Sometimes his style is so

pure, so simple, so penetrating, and of such perfect transparency

71

as to cheat the sense; it causes you to see nothing but the
thought it enshrines. “The Highland Girl", "Stepping Westward",
and "The Solitary Reaper” are good examples.

Wordsworth's poetry, with all of its beauty and sweet-
ness of tone, has a firm basis of realism. He showed that
the finest Of poetry could be extracted out of things very
close to us and always in our sight. The impulses and the
materials of his work are drawn from the common realities of
nature and man. He thought the poet's business was to exalt
the real rather than to attempt to realize the ideal. His
loftiest poetry had a fusion of the lowly and a pulsing of
real human blood. Even when its form was most radiant with
celestial light, still it breathed an odor of fact, and home-
like fragrance of earth. To him, the poetic expressed the
inner heart of man, the deepest secrets of the human mind,
the responses of heart and mind to nature. He worked toward
this end because he believed that poetry can be a true thing.
His method was to look steadily at the obJect. He watched in-
tently the surfaces of things so as to read their inner meaning
and listened to the words of simple people, beggars, children,
rustics, even idiots to draw from them hints and signs of

ultimate truths.

72

Beyond all poets, Wordsworth is the poet of the home.
He loved to be at home with the ideas and emotions of simple
minded peOple and to voice the poetry that dwelt in them. He
found meanings and interest in plain, common, homefelt reali~
ties lying right about his path.

Wordsworth achieved simplicity in his treatment of the
simple affections. Among these simple affections of human
nature is the love that a mother has for her children. “The
Forsaken Indian Woman,“ I'The Idiot Boy,” ”The Mad Mother," and
"The ThornI are good representatives. Fatherly love is ex-
pressed in "Two April Mornings,“ and “The Fountain" and fra-
ternal love in "The Brothers.” A number of other poems were
directed toward the assertion of some all-important thing in
humanity. The poems ”The Last of the Flock" and "Michael” are
poems based on the love of prOperty. The first is a very simple
situation: the man has fallen into poverty and has lost his
manliness; he "weeps on the public roads alone!“ In "Michael"
the property involved is landed property, and because with
this love of property is united love for his son, Luke, the
two loves strengthened each other, and in the end the love of
prOperty sustained him after the son left.

. The account of the Wanderer's life in the Excursion

restated the theme expressed earlier in the “Preface", namely,

73

that "In Humble and rustic life, the essential passions of
the hear find a better soil in which they can attain their
maturity ...speak a plainer and more emphatic language and
are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of
nature."

From his native hills
He wandered far; much did he see of men,
Their manners, their enjoyments, and pursuits
Their passions and their feelings, chiefly those
Essential and eternal in the heart,
That mid the simpler forms of rural life,
Exist more simple in their-elements,
And speak a plainer language.1

Wordsworth's ideal of human character may be said to
culminate in this, that the simplicity of the child should be
kept by the mature man or should be regained by meditation and
choice. I think that he best summed up this idea in this
little poem:

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
80 was it when my life began;
So be it when I shall grow old,
0r let me did!
The child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.2

Critics have mocked at, over emphasized, and misunder-

stood Wordsworth's simplicity. But it lies at the very core

 

”*——

lflgrks, p. 427.

2Workg, p. 277.

7%

of his art. He sought and tried to express the truth with
the least possible deviation. In all his artistic experiments,
his salvation lay in the integrity of his imagination and in
his single minded devotion to what he knew within:

Love had he found where poor men lie;

His daily teachers had been rocks and rills,

The silence that is in the starry sky,

The sleep that is among the lonely hills.3

The Prelude reconstructs the real basis of the grounds

on which Wordsworth felt impelled to select themes from rustic
life in his poetry. The peasants and dalesmen had already
stood glorified and transfigured to the childish imagination
of the poet because of the sublime background of Nature against
which their life is placed. The spiritual value of rustic
life was doubly endearing to him on his emergence from the
abyss of despair into which he was plunged on the failure of
his revolutionary dreams. At a time when he had lost all faith
in human nature, rustic life was revealed to him as a welcome
refutation of his morbid and pessimistic fancies and as a happy
confirmation of his faith in the innate nobility and dignity
of man, even in his lower grades. He had wandered to eternal

truth and he indicated this way. It is the story of his soul's

adjustment in a changing age. He began with the French

 

———

3msg. p. 360.

75

Revolution and recoiled from it when he saw where it led; he

had the singular fortune of being in France from 1790 to 1792

and to become so deeply involved in it as to be a part of it.

His message here seems to be that when the life of the mind

draws its sustenance from reality, through childhood, youth,

and maturity, the mind deve10ps towards Truth, Reason, and

Imagination. Despair and loss of hOpe and faith in life come

to those who build on the foundations of other peOple’s opinions.
In the Thirteenth Book of The Prelude, he showed from

 

what depths of his soul came the light that transfigured for
him the face of rustic life:

When I began to inquire,
To watch and question those I met, and speak
Without reserve to them, the lonely roads
Were open Schools in which I daily read
With most delight the passions of mankind,
Whether by words, looks, sighs, or tears, revealed:
There saw into the depth of human souls,
Souls that appearuto have no depth at all
To careless eyes.

In Wordsworth's poetry, there is a deep concern for the
life of humbleness and quiet, a search for peace, a sense of
the burdens of this life. There is a belief that the bonds

of society ought to be inner and habitual, not merely external

i
write. p. 21“.

76

and formal.5 There is the consciousness of the neighbor, his
impulse to bring into the circle of significant life those
who are simple and outside the circle of social pride, and
also those who, in the judgment of the world, are queer and
strange and useless.

This, then, is a study of what lay at the core of
Wordsworth's thought-simplicity. Poets before him had stressed
the importance of a poet's need for strong feeling, have felt
the need for solitude, silence, and loneliness, have distrusted
reason, have known the value of the imagination, have known
that there was virtue in the simple life and simple living.

But these poets did not attach to these ideas the importance
and significance that Wordsworth gave to them; it remains for

him to eXplain them in their most pure and profound form.

————

5Lionel Trilling, ”Wordsworth and the Iron Time",
Wordsworthwgentennary Studieg (Princeton, 1951), p. 132.

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