Abstract:
This paper tends to apply William Wordsworth’s poetic premises on his famous Prelude, observing whether he remains loyal to his own novel and revolutionary theories. In doing so, it will have a look on the traditional debate of Wordsworth’s poems, being oral or written expression of the nature poet, using Saussurian linguistic principles for a better understanding of such a debate. The "naturalness" of "a man speaking to men" flows over into the text to create a so- called authentic voice in nature, but scenes of writing, being more "artificial," as it were, are also more instructive about the ways in which the poet translates the landscape, experience, and himself-into language. Issues of poetic distance, rustic life, recollection and their reliance on memories will be discussed and justified by bringing a number of examples from The Prelude. When it comes to tranquil spontaneity of poetic recollections, it will apparent that his theory is full of paradoxes, not contradictions of course; since they would nullify the authenticity of any theory.
Machine summary:
"The "naturalness" of "a man speaking to men" flows over into the text to create a so- called authentic voice in nature, but scenes of writing, being more "artificial," as it were, are also more instructive about the ways in which the poet translates the landscape, experience, and himself-into language.
Wordsworth, Prelude, Lyrical Ballad, memory, voice, letter, poetic distance, recollection, tranquility, rustic, spontaneous Keywords: Let us have some important excerpts from Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads before applying his theories on The Prelude, examining whether he has materialized his beliefs: The principle object [...
The "naturalness" of "a man speaking to men" flows over into the text to create a so-called authentic voice in nature, but scenes of writing, being more "artificial," as it were, are also more instructive about the ways in which the poet translates the landscape, experience, and himself-into language (Kneale, 1986, p.
The only radical difference between neo classic and his theories that created this chasm between these ideologies is the difference of their references; while neo classics have a kind of inter scholarly attitude when it comes to refine writing, having their fixed versions of nature and how to imitate it, Wordsworth invites us to have a glimpse to the very source of artistic creations, which is mother nature as it is worth mentioning that when he claims that he is writing poems which could be considered materialized instances of oral poetry- that is, the nearest form of poetry in connection with rustic people, the language he is using is not rustic and unrefined."