Questions on the Preface

We'll start class on Thursday by finishing with this group work on Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800); be sure to bring the work you've already done and remember your group members. Answer these questions based on Wordsworth's statements in the Preface. Give a page number and paraphrase his statement.

 

1. What does he say the poems are aimed to achieve?What was he trying to do, according to the preface?

 

2. Why, according to the Preface, are many of the poems about poor or disenfranchised people (an abandoned pregnant woman, a crazy old mariner, a poor old lady who collects wood to keep herself warm in the winter, a dying Indian)?

3. What exactly distinguishes these poems from “popular poetry”? What is wrong with popular poetry? On a related topic, what, according to Wordsworth, is wrong with the *style* in which most poems are written?

4. How does he describe the poet’s process of composition? How are good poems produced, according to Wordsworth? What do you find unusual about this process as he describes it?

 

5. For Wordsworth,what is the point of writing in meter, of writing poetry, when there is no “essential difference” (179) between poetry and prose? If both poetry and prose convey powerful sentiments, what is the purpose of breaking ideas into lines with meter and rhyme?

6. What is the point of this document? Why do you think he wrote it? [Here, you might think about the answers to the previous five questions and speculate from them]