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William Wordsworth was a famous English poet born on April 7 in 1770. He is most known for inventing a new style of poetry alongside his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This was a “… new style of poetry in which nature and the diction of the common man trumped formal, stylized language.” (Smoop). His poems were very much influenced by the Romantic Era. Not only did he write about all of the love going on in his life, but also wrote a fair share about death and his childhood. William’s main goal in his poetry career was to combine emotions, feelings, and most importantly nature which is why he is referred to today as a “Poet of Nature”.
The Romantic era was filled with very moody, deep, and stereotypical poets. “Artists disillusioned with industrialization and urbanization turned to nature for inspiration, valuing emotion over reason and feeling over rationality.” (Shmoop) The intention was to have readers be one with nature and to experience it as if they were surrounded in it as they were reading the material. One of his popular works of literature that really stuck out during this time period was Lyrical Ballads. His purpose of writing this was to get humans to get in touch with their emotions by looking over the the bad, and focusing on the good in people, even in their worst moments. Instead of focusing on an abstract or difficult characters, he chooses simple characters because it is easier to dig into them and take out their feelings. “Such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived…being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions.” (Preface to Lyrical Ballads) Simple people are just that; simple. This means that there is no need for critical thinking in order to figure out what it is going on inside them. There is no extra work needed to get to their emotions. Once achieved, their emotions are pure which will connect with the reader. The goal was to through words, achieve a “’spontaneous overflow of emotion,’ ( Preface to Lyrical Ballads).
William loved to be in tune with nature himself and that is how he found most of his inspiration. He would go outside and be immersed in nature by taking walks outside to basically feel what nature is feeling so it would come out through his poems. This is how he came up with the idea for another one of his famous poems, Daffodils. “The way the speaker attributes his own feelings to parts of nature, shows that he feels one with his surroundings when he is in this place.” (Daffodils Analysis) The poem has a very joyful, cloud-like feeling to it. The poem uses a lot of figurative language to relate humans to what is going on in nature around the author. For example, “wandered lonely as a cloud” and “fluttering and dancing in the breeze”. Certain word choice like “fluttering” and “wandered” are used in the poem to create a sense of relaxation and peace. It allows the reader to imagine that they were taking a long walk right alongside William and feeling exactly what he is feeling in this moment. “Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.” (Daffodils) William mentioning the stars creates a feeling of the reader being submerged in them and not submerged in the grassy nature anymore. He wanted the readers to feel as though they have changed locations and were not on Earth, but rather right next to the stars in the sky watching them “ dance”. “This stanza not only allows the reader to feel the sense of peace the speaker feels, but also to feel life.” (Daffodils Analysis). Everyone knows that stars are not living like humans but William making them “dance” brings life into the stars allowing the reader to feel a sense of connection. “For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.” (Daffodils) In this stanza, William is now referencing the flowers as if they are no longer in his presence; as if they are now a distant memory. This all traces back to his entire purpose of his literature. He wants readers to connect and get in touch with their emotions when reading his poems, therefore he is stating that no matter what state he is in physically or mentally, when he thinks back to the flowers and being in that happy place of his, he becomes calm. He becomes in tune with his emotions and everything is still and at peace.
Some critics were not on board with William’s poems, some did not like them at all. “Francis Jeffrey wrote damning reviews Wordsworth’s poems. Most notoriously, he wrote a Review, beginning with the infamous line ‘This will never do’.” (Responding to Wordsworth: A Critical History) Many people didn’t understand how easy William’s concept actually was. They were expecting something complicated and required a lot of work to truly understand which wasn’t the case here at all. “ He claimed that Wordsworth was arrogant, irresponsible, and ‘silly’; found the moral of Wordsworth’s poem obscure, and objected to his use of diction. He concluded that … Mr Wordsworth … is now manifestly hopeless, and we give him up as altogether incurable, and beyond the power of criticism’.” (Responding to Wordsworth: A Critical History) However, some critics did like William’s works and thought the exact opposite. “William Hazlitt agreed that Wordsworth was not a truly great poet.” (Responding to Wordsworth: A Critical History) The critics who liked his works had a great deal of respect for his works and loved the deep concept.
William Wordsworth was a poet no one will ever forget. He left a big mark on the Romantic era due to his ability to interpret his ideas about love and death in his poems. His idea of captivating and submerging the readers into nature through his use of specific wording and details will forever impact literature.
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