Humble and rustic life in Wordsworth’s poetry

In Preface to the Lyrical Ballad, William Wordsworth tells that he had chosen low and
rustic life for treatment in his poems, unlike the Neo-classical poets who chose the
life and manners and morals of the urban people, specially of the aristocratic class,
to be the fittest subject for poetry. According to him, the humble and rustic life
enables the essential passions of the heart to find a better soul in which they can
attain their maturity. In this condition of life, the essential passions of the persons
are less restraint and therefore express themselves in a plainer and more emphatic
language.
Wordsworth also says that the elementary feelings of human beings co-exist with
the low and rustic life in a state of greater simplicity, and can therefore be more
accurately contemplated and more forcibly communicated. The manners of rustic
life germinate from those elementary feelings, and because of the
necessary character of rural occupations, those manners are more easily
comprehended. Finally in humble and rural life, the passions of men are incorporated
with the beautiful and permanent form of nature.
According to Wordsworth, person living in the country side and pursuing rural
occupations are the most suitable for portrayal in poetry because these people live in
an environment which is more favourable to the growth and development of the
essential passions of the human heart and because in this environment people do
not suffer from any and therefore speak a plainer and more forceful language. These
people lead simple lives and their feelings are of an elementary kind. They do not
have the vanity which people in the cities possess. These people live in contract with
the beautiful and permanent objects of nature (mountains, streams, trees, flowers
etc.) This contract favours the natural maturing of the feelings and passions in the
hearts of these people.
Wordsworth collects all the traces of vivid excitement which are to be found in the
pastoral world. Simplicity is to be the keynote of his theme as also of his style. He is
to treat the things of everyday life, to open out “the soul of little and familiar things.”
In We are Seven, the poet talks with a little girl who tells him of her brothers and
sisters. In another poem, a female vagrant tells the artless tale of her life.
Another poem concerns a shepherd, “a Crael by name,” and another pertains to a
leech-gatherer. Thus, Wordsworth shows that even in the poorest lives there is
matter for poetry, schemes that can stir the imagination and move the emotions.
Thus, Wordsworth democratizes poetry. This democratic outlook is something new
in poetry. He seeks his subject among forsake women, old men in distress, children
and crazy persons, in whom the primary instincts are emotions showed themselves
in their simplest and most recognizable form.
The corruption of civilized, urban society also makes Wordsworth choose his subject
from humble and rustic life. In choosing them from rural rather than city life he is
biased and influenced, no doubt, by the fact that he himself is country bred. He is
convinced that among humble and rustic folk, the essential passions of the heart
find a better place to mature in and are more durable. There is the closer intimacy
which isolation forces on rural households; there is the sharing of common tasks
and even, in the shepherds’ life, of common dangers. There are other virtues also like
contentment, neighbourliness, ad charity, which can flourish in the kindly society of
the country.
In Biographia Literaria, Coleridge analyses Wordsworth’s theory regarding the choice
of theme. Coleridge has a different thought on this subject. He believes that it is not
necessary to choose characters low and rustic life. He does not think that a close
contact with the beautiful and permanent objects of nature produces any
wholesome effect on the rustic persons; rustic life does not necessarily help the
formation of healthy feelings and a reflected mind. To him the negation of rustic life
put as many obstacles in the way of this formation as the sophistication of city life
does. In fact, Coleridge even believe that Wordsworth has followed his own theory
loosely in his poems.
Coleridge has certainly explained his case well. But there are certain considerations
which he has not taken into account. Wordsworth’s aim is to find the best soil for the
essential passions. By avoiding artifice, he looks for simplicity. He has found poet
extravagantly pre-occupied with the affairs of artificial beings like nymphs and
goddesses. He therefore wants to turn his attention to the emotions of village girls
and of peasants. Wordsworth is not trying to unite familiar anecdotes on nursery
tales; he is seeking the fundamentals of human life by contemplating it in its
simplest forms.
Yet the fact remains that Wordsworth’s theory has a limiting effect on poetry. The
democratization of the theme of poetry is certainly to be welcomed, but to confine
the poet only to humble and rustic life is to debar him from the rest of life. Human
life is very wide and humble. Rural life is only one sphere of human life.
So, in conclusion, we can say that Wordsworth’s whole idea of low and rustic life in
poetry is not without its faults. But at the same time its merit cannot be ignored. It
has a far-reaching importance. It changes the tendency of having much
flown diction for poetry.