Hazlitt On The Poetry Of Wordsworth Published By 1825 - Essay Example

Hazlitt on the poetry of Wordsworth published by 1825 In his celebrated critical study The Spirit of the Age (1825), Hazlitt comes up with interesting analysis of the poetry of Wordsworth and he maintains at the outset of the essay “Mr Wordsworth” that the genius of Wordsworth should be realized as a pure emanation of the Spirit of the Age. According to Hazlitt, Wordsworth would never have been heard of, if he lived in any other period in the history of literature and he has difficulty to be satisfied with the hebetudes of his intellect and the meanness of his subject. Most significantly, Hazlitt remarks that Wordsworth’s poetry is based on setting up an opposition between the natural and the artificial, between the spirit of humanity and the fashion and of the world. The most essential remark that Hazlitt makes in The Spirit of the Age is that Wordsworth’s poetic style has the power of wiping out all the traditions of learning and the superstitions of the age. “His popular, inartifical style gets rid (at a blow) of all the trappings of verse, of all the high places of poetry: ‘the cloud-capt towers, the solemn temples, the gorgeous palaces,’ are swept to the ground, and ‘like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a wreck behind.’ All the traditions of learning all the superstitions of the age, are obliterated and effaced. We begin de nova on a tabula rasa of poetry.” (Hazlitt, 124) While making this remark, Hazlitt was referring to some of the important qualities of the poetry of Wordsworth that was published by 1825 and this paper makes a reflective exploration of these qualities of Wordsworth’s poetry to determine why Hazlitt made such a significant remark about Wordsworth. In a reflective exploration of the poems of Wordsworth that were published before 1825, William Hazlitt’s remarks about the poetry of Wordsworth in his The Spirit of the Age become lucid. Thus, the various poems in the collection Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (1798) such as “Simon Lee”, “We are Seven”, “Lines Written in Early Spring”, “The Thorn”, and “Lines Composed A Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” as well as those in Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (1800), including Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, “Strange fits of passion have I known”, “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways”, “Three years she grew”, “A Slumber Did my Spirit Seal”, “I travelled among unknown men”, “Lucy Gray”, “The Two April Mornings”, “Nutting”, and others reveal how Wordsworth’s poetry obliterate and efface the traditions of learning and the superstitions of the age. For example, in The Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, which was composed for the Second edition of Lyrical Ballads published in 1801, Wordsworth maintains that “the principal object which I proposed to myself in these Poems was to choose incidents and situations of common life interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of nature…” (Wordsworth, 244-5) Therefore, Wordsworth has been able to appeal to the elementary feelings and passions of human life and he wipes out the traditions of learning and the superstitions of his age. According to Hazlitt, Wordsworth’s popular, in-artificial poetic style has the power of getting rid of all the trappings of his verse as well as the high places of poetry. In his poetry, the readers begin de novo, on a tabula rasa of poetry. I other words, Wordsworth’s poetic style, which and wipes out the traditions of learning and the superstitions of the age, presents everything in a new manner and the readers are able to follow the style of the poet. “The purple palls, the nodding plume of tragedy are exploded as mere pantomime and trick, to return to the simplicity of truth and nature. Kings, queens, priests, nobles, the altar and the throne, the distinctions of rank, birth, wealth, power, ‘the judge’s robe, the marshal’s truncheon, the ceremony that to great ones’ longs’ are not to be found here. The author tramples on the pride of art with greater pride. The Ode and Epode, the Strophe and the Antistrophe, he laughs to scorn. The harp of Homer, the trump of Pindar and Alcacaeus are still.” (Hazlitt, 124) Therefore, Hazlitt refers to the basic qualities of Wordsworth’s poetic style when he maintains that his poetry wipes out the traditions of learning and the superstitions of the age. One may find these basic qualities of Wordsworth’s poetic style in “Lines Written in Early Spring”, one of the early poems by William Wordsworth, in which the poet makes a comparison of the state of nature and the state of mankind. In this poem, Wordsworth clearly manifests his belief that a poem should be based on true emotion, rather than intellect and style. This poem also reveals the general characteristic of Wordsworth’s poems which embody the revolt against contemporary English poetry. Thus, Wordsworth mentions the relationship between nature and the poor state mankind in the first stanza of the poem: “In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts / Bring sad thoughts to the mind. (Lines Written in Early Spring, Stanza 1, Lines 3-4) A profound understanding of his early poems confirms that Wordsworth has always been a lover of nature, and he has produced memorable lines celebrating the beauty of nature. He does not give much importance for the traditional ways of poetry composition, and he keeps his lines to the simplest style which wins the heart of the ordinary readers. Rather than availing himself of the advantages which nature or accident holds out to him, Wordsworth chooses to have his subject a foil to his invention and to owe nothing nut to himself. As Hazlitt maintains, Wordsworth stripes off the decencies of costume, the decorations of vanity etc. in his poetry and considers them as barbarous, idle, and Gothic. Similarly, he regards the jewels in the crisped hair, the diadem on the polished brow etc as meretricious, theatrical and vulgar. “He gathers manna in the wilderness; he strikes the barren rock for the gushing moisture. He elevates the mean by the strength of his own aspirations; he clothes the naked with beauty and grandeur from the stories of his own recollections.” (Hazlitt, 125) Thus, the simplicity of his lines as well as the attractiveness of his style is best illustrated by the poem “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”, in which the poet compares himself to a cloud which ‘floats on high o’er vales and hills’. “Continuous as the stars that shine / And twinkle on the milky way, / They stretched in never-ending line / Along the margin of a bay: / Ten thousand saw I at a glance, / Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.” (I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud, Lines 7-12) One of the most important qualities of Wordsworth’s poetry, according to various critics from time to time, has been his ability to elevate the ordinary elements of the world to very eminent aspects, and he achieves it with the help of his unparalleled imagination. Hazlitt emphasizes that no one has shown the same imagination as Wordsworth in raising the trifles into importance and no one excels him when displaying the same pathos in treating of the simplest feelings of the heart. Wordsworth loved pastoral scenes and every object in the nature becomes connected with thousand feelings in the poet’s imagination. In his “Composed upon Westminster Bridge”, the poet makes a link between the busy London city and his feelings. “Earth has not anything to show more fair: / Dull would he be of soul who could pass by / A sight so touching in its majesty: / This City now doth like a garment wear / The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, / Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky, / All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.” (Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, Lines 1-8) As Hazlitt maintains, Wordsworth has been effective in describing the objects in the nature in a way and with an intensity of feelings that no one else had done before him, and he has offered a new view or aspect of nature. Therefore, Hazlitt regards Wordsworth as the most original poet his period and that his writings could the least be spared as they do not have any substitute. “The vulgar do not read them, the learned, who see all things through books, do not understand them; but the author has created himself an interest in the hearts of the retired and the lonely student of nature, which can never die… There is a lofty philosophic tone, a thoughtful humanity, infused into his pastoral vein.” (Hazlitt, 127) Therefore, Hazlitt has been emphatic about the ability of Wordsworth to turn the ordinary things of life into supernatural elements. In a reflective analysis of the essay on Wordsworth in The Spirit of the Age by Hazlitt, it becomes lucid that the author has been greatly convinced about Wordsworth’s poetic style which makes use of the language of the ordinary people to deal with the most ordinary elements of life. In other words, Wordsworth was able to make use of his vernacular language style to present the absolute essence of truth and feeling. As David Rosen maintains, “Wordsworth’s muse, Hazlitt comments in The Spirit of the Age, is ‘a levelling one’: ‘his style is vernacular; he offers household truths’; his poetry only admits the ‘absolute essence of truth and feeling.’… Hazlitt recognizes both the revolutionary nature of Wordsworth’s early lyrics and the uniqueness of Wordsworth’s idiom in those poems.” (Rosen, 71) Therefore, it is important to realize that Hazlitt recognizes the basic qualities of Wordsworth’s poetic style which gets rid of all the trappings of verse as well as all the high places of poetry. In conclusion, the most essential remark that Hazlitt makes in his essay on Wordsworth in The Spirit of the Age has been concerning Wordsworth’s poetic style which, according to him, had the power of wiping out all the traditions of learning and the superstitions of the age. In other words, Wordsworth was able to rely on his theory of poetry and write in the language of the ordinary people which helped him to dispose of all the trappings of verse as well as the high places of poetry. “He has described all the objects in a way and with an intensity of feeling that no one else had done before him, and has given a new view or aspect of nature. He is in this sense the most original poet… and the one whose writings could least be spared: for they have no substitute elsewhere.” (Hazlitt, 126-7) In short, Hazlitt refers to these qualities of the poetry of Wordsworth when he maintains that Wordsworth’s popular, inartifical style obliterates and effaces all the traditions of learning and the superstitions of the age. Works Cited Hazlitt, William. The spirit of the age: or Contemporary portraits. John Wiley. 1849. P 126. Rosen, David. Power, plain English, and the rise of modern poetry. Yale University Press. 2006. P 71. Wordsworth, William. “Preface”. Lyrical ballads. R. L. Brett and A. R. Jones (Ed). London: Routledge. 1968. P 244-5. Wordsworth, William. “Lines Written In Early Spring.” Famous Poets and Poems. Jan 13. 2009. . Wordsworth, William. “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud.” Famous Poets and Poems. Jan 13. 2009. . Wordsworth, William. “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge.” Famous Poets and Poems. Jan 13. 2009. . Read More