Lyrical Ballads written and published in 1798 hold a special place in the world of literature. It was a joint venture by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge; a result of their close friendship. It is remarkable in establishing Romantic Movement, which broke away from the prevailing norms of the contemporary era.
The poems in ‘Lyrical Ballads’ hold an important place because they had different subjects, a new poetic style, simple diction and easy to understand verses. They were a revolution in themselves. In the ‘Preface to Lyrical Ballads’, also a remarkable production of Wordsworth Nature-loving soul, also called the ‘manifesto’ of English criticism, Wordsworth has commented on ‘Lyrical Ballads’ as ‘experimental’:
“The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purpose of poetic pleasure.”
Coleridge and Wordsworth did not consider the classical and contemporary poems to be the true depiction of life. They thought that usage of high sounding and pompous words, and intricate metaphors can only be understood by a specific class, and thence they discuss the people of that class only. He condemned the contemporary literature as “a mechanical adoption of… figures of speech, … sometimes with propriety, but much more frequently applied… to feelings and ideas with which they had no natural connection whatsoever”.
To advocate his case, Wordsworth writes, “its influence in impressing a notion of the peculiarity and exaltation of the Poet’s character, and in flattering the Reader’s self-love by bringing him nearer to a sympathy with that character.”
The purpose behind the composition of ‘Lyrical Ballads’ was to make literature a true depiction of life; life of a common man. They worked for a simple style so that poetry could be read and understood by everyone easily. The reaction of critics at that time was modest, but many today comment that it is unfair to call these writings ‘lyrical’.
Poetry is ‘a spontaneous over flow of powerful feelings’ and that is what Wordsworth has done to compose his ballads. He chose to write whatever influenced Wordsworth from his surroundings came to paper. He was in love with Nature from his early child hood. His ‘lyrical Ballads’ comprises of poems that hold picturesque qualities. He has chosen incidents and happening from everyday life, so that anyone and everyone can relate himself to them.
The use of ‘rustic’ and rural description is again a reference of Wordsworth love of Nature. His simple language contains in it real and great values of life. His diction emphasizes that feelings no matter how delicate, can be easily described in a simple and plain language.
The poems in it are:
* Expostulation and Reply
* The Tables turned; an Evening Scene, on the same subject
* Old Man Travelling; Animal Tranquillity and Decay, a Sketch
* The Complaint of a forsaken Indian Woman
* The Last of the Flock
* Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near the Lake of Esthwaite
* The Foster-Mother’s Tale
* Goody Blake and Harry Gill
* The Thorn
* We are Seven
* Anecdote for Fathers
* Lines written at a small distance from my House and sent me by my little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed
* The Female Vagrant
* The Dungeon
* Simon Lee, the old Huntsman
* Lines written in early Spring
* The Nightingale
* Lines written when sailing in a Boat at Evening
* Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames
* The Idiot Boy
* Love
* The Mad Mother
* The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere
* Lines written above Tintern Abbey
* Hart-leap Well
* There was a Boy, &c
* The Brothers, a Pastoral Poem
* Ellen Irwin, or the Braes of Kirtle
* Strange fits of passion have I known, &c.
* Song
* She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways
* A slumber did my spirit seal, &c
* The Waterfall and the Eglantine
* The Oak and the Broom, a Pastoral
* Lucy Gray
* The Idle Shepherd-Boys or Dungeon-Gill Force, a Pastoral
* ‘Tis said that some have died for love, &c.
* Poor Susan
* Inscription for the Spot where the Hermitage stood on St. Herbert’s Island, Derwent-Water
* Inscription for the House (an Out-house) on the Island at Grasmere
* To a Sexton
* Andrew Jones
* The two Thieves, or the last stage of Avarice
* A whirl-blast from behind the Hill, &c.
* Song for the wandering Jew
* Ruth
* Lines written with a Slate-Pencil upon a Stone, &c.
* Lines written on a Tablet in a School
* The two April Mornings
* The Fountain, a conversation
* Nutting
* Three years she grew in sun and shower, &c.
* The Pet-Lamb, a Pastoral
* Written in Germany on one of the coldest days of the century
* The Childless Father
* The Old Cumberland Beggar, a Description
* Rural Architecture
* A Poet’s Epitaph
* A Character
* A Fragment
* Poems on the Naming of Places,
* Michael, a Pastoral
“There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually called poetic diction; I have taken as much pains to avoid it as others ordinarily take to produce it; this I have done for the reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of men, and further, because the pleasure which I have proposed to myself to impart is of a kind very different from that which is supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry.”
Though Coleridge worked in collaboration with Wordsworth, he only wrote 4 poems. His poems were not much liked as they comprise of supernatural elements, withholding a contradiction of Wordsworth’s effort of writing about the common people of middle and lower class.
Regardless of the era, literature depicts the ongoing life style of that era. It is a true depiction of human life. Different genres deal the subject differently. Different literary works men have chosen different subjects from the real life to comment and research. Wordsworth sticking to project a common man’s life holds a lot of attraction for the reader of modern era too.
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