Reading Wordsworth as a Poet

Wordsworth is a poet of nature; he is believed to be a poetic revolution himself. He is known far and wide as the pioneer of a movement in poetic art known as romantic poetry. The movement began in 1798 with the publication of collaborative work called “The Lyrical Ballads” which was an anthology of poetry by S. T. Coleridge and Wordsworth himself. The poetry that the collection contained was of a novel kind, it shook the conventions and gave a new perspective of poetry altogether. When we come to Wordsworth he is infamous for being the poet of nature. He derives his subjects and content of his work from the rawest forms of nature and many critiques have argued that he believes that the best form of poetry comes from the raw life of the country. He himself has stated that the interaction of human being with nature creates the purest form of emotions which are necessary for good poetry. And a poet writes for people and that too for all kinds of people which also include the people from raw country life as a poet is a “man speaking to men”. 

A reader of Wordsworth would be fascinated by his interest in country life as opposed to sophistication of the conventional poetry of 18^th century Wordsworth invests his time and energy contemplating upon the life of people close to nature. He himself has faced both the phases in his life, he was raised up in countryside and then he moved to London and he reflects his city life experiences to be illusionary and mere pretense. In his poem “Tintern Abbey” he illustrates his auto biographical experience of enjoying nature and he proclaims nature to be the source of joy and claims himself to be a “worshipper” of nature. His other poems like “London”, “Solitary Reaper”, “Brook” etc are excellent examples for the clichéd Wordsworthian poetry reading.

The best known work of Wordsworth known as “The Prelude” which is also the longest poem that he wrote is an autobiography in verse, where he documents his journey of life from boyhood till he is mature. The plot of the poem is a buildings-roman in nature. The poem illustrates the progress of his love for nature and his dislike for city life. Reading the poetry of Wordsworth will for sure pose nostalgia of going back to rural life and rethinking our relationship with nature.

Assef Ali
StoryMirror