WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AS A ROMANTIC

POET

Introduction

1. The Poet’s Background

 It was rather this abuse of poetic diction than perhaps poetic
diction itself which Wordsworth originally disapproved.
 In the Lyrical Ballads of 1798, he stated that his object in
adopting a simpler diction for his poems was merely ‘to ascertain
how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower
classes of society was adapted to the purposes of poetic
pleasure’.

 The publication of a second edition of the Lyrical Ballads in 1800

provided his with the occasion to explain it. His principal object in
these poems, he says, ‘ was to choose incidents and situations
from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as
far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by
men, and at the same time, to throw over them a certain
colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be
presented to the mind in an unusual aspect.’

 Explaining why only low and rustic life was chosen for this
purpose, he says that in that condition, free from all outside
influences, men speak from their own personal experience and
‘convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated
expressions’.

 Such a language, therefore, ‘is a more permanent, and a far

more philosophical language, than that which h is frequently
substituted for it by poets, who think that they are conferring
honour 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.

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 Main features of a Pastoral

2. Background of the poem “Michael, a Pastoral”

The word derived from Latin “pastor” meaning

shepherd, refers to literary works dealing with

shepherds as rustic life. Pastoral poetry highly

conventionalised as it represents an idealised rather than

a realistic view of rustic life. Pastoral poetry can be

traced back to Classical Greek and Latin times around

3rd Century B.C. when the Greek poet Theocritus wrote

his idylls about the rustic life of Sicily for the

sophisticated citizens of Alexandria.

Common topics of pastoral poetry include love and

seduction; the value of poetry; death and mourning; the

corruption of city or country versus the “purity” of

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idealised country life, politics as political figures are

satirised.

A common Pastoral genre is the “eclogue”, a dialogue

between two shepherds; sometimes a shepherd and a

shepherdess with attempts of seduction made by the

shepherd.

Other features of pastoral poetry are lament over a dead

friend (“eulogy” or “elegy”, praise notable individual,

laudatory poems, songs of courtship and complaints of

a lovesick shepherd.

Conventional features of pastoral elegies include

invocation of the Muse; that is a source of inspiration to

a poet or other writer usually represented by a deity

called by the poet for assistance. In ancient Greek

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religion, the muses were nine sister goddesses, the

daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne (goddess of memory)

- Calliope – epic poetry

- Clio – history

- Erato – Lyric/Love poetry

- Euterpe – Flute music

- Melpomene – Tragedy

- Polyhymnia – Hymns

- Terpsichore – Choral dance and song

“Michael” by Wordsworth

Part 1 of the poem “Michael”

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  Location of the story – Greenhead Ghyll

 Boisterous brook

 Valley

 Dell

 Solitariness

 Sheep, lakes, rocks and stones

 Unhewn stones scattered beside the brook

 The tale is for entertainment and young poets are

the targets

 The tale could be related in memory of

Wordsworth when he dies

Part 2 of the poem “Michael”

 Introduction of main character – Michael

 Grasmere Vale was where Michael lived

 The vocation of shepherds

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  He was vigilant (“watchful more than ordinary

men”)

 Nature was incorporated into the life of the

shepherd cheering up his spirits.

 The hills had to be climbed with hardship, skill,

courage, joy or fear.

 Pleasurable feeling of blind love.

Part 3 of the poem “Michael”

 Introduction of Michael’s wife, Isabel and Luke his

son. They all lived by hard labour and hardwork.

Their 2 sheep-dogs were a proverb in the vale/for

endless industry

Part 4 of the poem “Michael”

The cottage was named The Evening Star.

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The location of The Lamp at the chimney- “an aged

utensil which had performed/service beyond all others

of its kind. Line 115/116

The lamp was a symbol of life, vivacity and industry

contrasted with Michael and Isabel’s neither gay nor

happy though they were industrious. The lamp was a

public symbol of life. The couple was thrifty in attitude.

Part 5 of the poem “Michael”

Michael loved Luke dearly as the boy was his source of

hope in his old age and forward-looking thoughts (spirit

of perseverance)

Michael rocked Luke’s cradle when he was a child and

pampered him.

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Part 6 of the poem “Michael” (Luke’s Youthful

Days)

Discipline: watchful care of Luke

The Oak tree – The Clipping Tree

The shears for sheep’s wool.

Part 7 of the poem “Michael”

Preparation for his profession as a shepherd

- When Luke was five year old, Michael made a

shepherd’s staff out of a winter coppice and gave it

to Luke. “he as a watchman oftentimes was placed

At gate or gap to stem or turn the flock;

And to his office prematurely called,” (p. 189)

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 - When Luke was ten years, he went out to look after

the sheep with his father as a companion.

- When Luke was 18 years, he was a source of

delight for his father, his comfort and his daily

hope.

Part 8 of the poem “Michael”

Distressful news came that Michael who had been

bound in surety for his brother’s son – a business man

termed “a man of an industrious life and ample means”

he had to lose half of his land. He had to sell his

patriomonarch fields.

This bad news had a severe effect on him as an old

person. Michael proposed that Luke should go to a

relative in the city and help to work for the repayment

of the loan that he had stood in for his relative. “And

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with his kinsman’s help and his own thrift/ He quickly

will repair this loss, and then/ He may return to us.

Richard Batesmen success story turned Michael into

sending Luke to the city.

Part 9 of the poem “Michael”

Luke went to the city after Isabel had been instructed to

make clothes for him to travel with. Initially Isabel

objected to their son going to the city as Luke was the

only child… “do not go away/For if thou leave thy

father he will die” (This statement is an irony) Later,

she gave in and allowed Luke to go. Kind assurances

came from their kinsman; “he would do/His utmost for

the welfare of the Boy (p. 191) The letter was read 10

times and sent round their neighbours.

Part 10 of the poem “Michael”

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Before Luke’s departure, Michael took him to the area

where the sheepfold was to be built. Over there Michael

related “two histories” to the boy. The birth and

development of Luke was narrated and he sobbed upon

hearing what he was told. The inheritance he obtained

from their forefathers was revealed to Luke for

sustenance. A covenant was signed between father and

son. Luke was admonished against evil temptations in

the city. Luke was however assured of love no matter

what the situation befell him. “whatever fate/Befall

thee, I shall love thee to the last” (p. 194)

Part 11 of the poem “Michael”

Upon arrival Luke sent back reports through letters.

These letters were “The prettiest letters that were ever

seen” and they pleased Luke’s parents. Presently, “Luke

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began To slacken in his duty, and at length/He in the

dissolute city gave himself/To evil courses; ignominy

and shame/Fell on him, so that he was driven at last/To

seek a hiding place beyond the seas. (p. 194). The

heavy news made Michael depressed and though he still

made attempts to work on the sheepfold but failed. That

many and many a day he thither went/And never lifted

up a single stone.” (p. 194). He was sometimes seen

with his dog sitting alone.

Part 12 of the poem “Michael”

Michael persevered for seven years and attempted to

build the sheepfold but unfortunately he “left the work

unfinished when he died”. The wife survived for 3 years

or a little more and “at her death the estate was sold,

and went into a stranger’s hand. As a result “The

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cottage which was named the “Evening Star”/Is gone –

the ploughshare has been through the ground/On which

it stood; great changes have been wrought/In all the

neighbourhood: - yet the oak is left/That grew beside

their door; and the remains/ of the unfinished sheepfold

may be seen/Beside the boisterous brook of Greenhead

Gyhll” (p. 195)

OUTSTANDING ROMANTIC FEATURES IN

“MICHAEL”

1. Rustic life referred to in the poem: pastoral

mountains, boisterous brook, hidden valley, rocks

and stones, kites fly overhead, solitude, dell (small

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 valley covered with trees) unhewn stone, Tale – (a

false story) (a mere story)

2. The objective of Wordsworth in writing Michael is:

- to entertain people “for the delight of a few natural

hearts”

- to develop/arouse young poet’s interest in the art of

Romantic poetry. They are trained to be the poet’s

“second self” when he dies.

3. Subterraneous music

Shepherd/flock

Storm

Traveller

Mountain

Green valley

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Streams and rock

Fields (the cheerful spirits he had breathed/The

common air)

4. - Diction is simple, homely (plain, simple in

nature) full of romantic features (references made to

nature). It is full of circumlocution (roundabout way

of speaking)

- symbolism eg. The lamp hanging at the chimney’s

edge, unhewn stone to be used for the sheepfold. The

house named The Evening Star, the Oak tree (The

Clipping Tree)

WORDSWORTH’S POETIC PHILOSOPHY

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 Diction: The language of Poetry should be the

language of the ordinary man according to what he

says in “From Preface to Lyrical Ballads”.

Colouring of Imagination to make incidents and

situations interesting by tracing them.

Transcendentalism: Going beyond usual human

knowledge or experience; super –eminent, excelling
surpassing others, supernatural or mystical. An idealist
philosophy that emerged in the mid-19th C in Boston
USA. It was a manner of interpreting nature in symbolic
terms. In religion, transcendence refers to the aspect of
God's nature and power which is wholly independent of
the material universe, beyond all physical laws. This is
contrasted with immanence, where a god is said to be
fully present in the physical world and thus accessible
to creatures in various ways

Spontaneity of Poetry: Romantic poetry is the

spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. Poetry to
romantic poets is not a craft but inspiration. The poet
does not care for the perfection of form or clarity of
expression. Most of the romantic poets in English are
full of melancholy and pessimism.

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 Aesthetics: Beauty of the language, stories, the

structure of his poems as well.

Pantheism: A doctrine that nature and the

universe reveal the essence of God. Doctrine of all

religions.

ROMANTICISM AS A LITERARY MOVEMENT

AND CONCEPT
The term "Romanticism" has been used in varying
contexts and has come to mean different things to
different people. The following definitions are pulled
from literary contexts.
Romanticism:
A movement in art and literature in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries in revolt against the Neoclassicism
of the previous centuries...The German poet Friedrich
Schlegel, who is given credit for first using the term
romantic to describe literature, defined it as "literature
depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form."
This is as accurate a general definition as can be
accomplished, although Victor Hugo's phrase
"liberalism in literature" is also apt. Imagination,
emotion, and freedom are certainly the focal points of
romanticism. Any list of particular characteristics of the
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literature of romanticism includes subjectivity and an
emphasis on individualism; spontaneity; freedom from
rules; solitary life rather than life in society; the beliefs
that imagination is superior to reason and devotion to
beauty; love of and worship of nature; and fascination
with the past, especially the myths and mysticism of the
middle ages.
English poets: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John
Keats
American poets: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau,
Herman Melville, Walt Whitman
Neoclassicism:
The dominant literary movement in England during the
late seventeenth century and the eighteenth century,
which sought to revive the artistic ideals of classical
Greece and Rome. Neoclassicism was characterized by
emotional restraint, order, logic, technical precision,
balance, elegance of diction, an emphasis of form over
content, clarity, dignity, and decorum. Its appeals were
to the intellect rather than to the emotions, and it prized
wit over imagination. As a result, satire and didactic
literature flourished, as did the essay, the parody, and
the burlesque. In poetry, the heroic couplet was the
most popular verse form. Writers: John Dryden,
Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison, and
Samuel Johnson.

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Source: Morner, K. & Rausch, R. (1997). NTC's
Dictionary of Literary Terms. Chicago: NTC
Publishing Group.
Romanticism:
The American Scholar A.O. Lovejoy once observed
that the word 'romantic' has come to mean so many
things that, by itself, it means nothing at all...The
variety of its actual and possible meanings and
connotations reflect the complexity and multiplicity of
European romanticism. In The Decline and Fall of the
Romantic Ideal (1948) F.L. Lucas counted 11,396
definitions of 'romanticism'. In Classic, Romantic and
Modern (1961) Barzun cites examples of synonymous
usage for romantic which show that it is perhaps the
most remarkable example of a term which can mean
many things according to personal and individual needs.
The word romantic (ism) has a complex and interesting
history. In the Middle Ages 'romance' denoted the new
vernacular languages derived from Latin - in
contradistinction to Latin itself, which was the language
of learning. Enromancier, romancar, romanz meant to
compose or translate books in the vernacular. The work
produced was then called romanz, roman, romanzo and
romance. A roman or romant came to be known as an
imaginative work and a 'courtly romance'. The terms
also signified a 'popular book'. There are early
suggestions that it was something new, different,
divergent. By the 17th c. in Britain and France,
'romance' has acquired the derogatory connotations of

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fanciful, bizarre, exaggerated, chimerical. In France a
distinction was made between romanesque (also
derogatory) and romantique (which meant 'tender',
'gentle', 'sentimental' and 'sad'). It was used in the
English form in these latter senses in the 18 th c. In
Germany the word romantisch was used in the 17th c. in
the French sense of romanesque, and then, increasingly
from the middle of the 18th c., in the English sense of
'gentle', 'melancholy'.
Many hold to the theory that it was in Britain that the
romantic movement really started. At any rate, quite
early in the 18th c. one can discern a definite shift in
sensibility and feeling, particularly in relation to the
natural order and Nature. This, of course, is hindsight.
When we read Keats, Coleridge and Wordsworth, for
instance, we gradually become aware that many of their
sentiments and responses are foreshadowed by what has
been described as a 'pre-romantic sensibility'.
Cuddon, J.A. (1991). The Penguin Dictionary of
Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Third Ed.
London: Penguin Books.

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