How does Wordsworth portray real people in The Lyrical Ballads? Essay

Lyrical Ballads, and in particular the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, is considered a central work of Romantic literary theory. In it, Wordsworth discusses what he sees as the elements of a new type of song, bingle based on the genuine language of men and the work itself avoids the poetic diction of much eighteenth-century poetry, whose well-nigh famous exponent was John Milton in Paradise Lost, which benefitted from drastic overexploitation of verbose Latinate vocabulary. He felt this wasnt an accurate reproach of real mickle, and sought to portray them through use language which they used. In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth famously exposit poetry as the free overflow of powerful feelings from emotions recollected in tranquility, and wrote to justify in a priori terms his practice of writing a new and experimental poetry, one whose language is fitting to metrical arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation.He rejected the M iltonic approach to poetry, and alternatively favoured much more Anglo-Saxon words, for their amyloidal implications appropriate for a publication in which most of the poems are pore around bothday people and situations. Unsurprisingly, these are very pastoral poems, many a(prenominal) of which solely include story. Although this may seem mundane for such a famous poet, this was Wordsworths statement of protest against the style of the time, and his digression instead led to a new style of poetry in which life language is valued highly, as it allows a sense of man discourse to man, and is a more accessible style of poetry than his predecessors.In Michael, a poem about a father and son who form an without end bond (Michael, an eighty-year old shepherd, and Luke, his son), Wordsworth portrays the relationship between the two. The first indication we uplift of the tight-knit paternal bond is the use of language when describing Michaels apportion for Luke. On two occasions, M ichaels affection is emphasised by using particularly matriarchal language Michael had done him Luke female service and female hand . Wordsworth tries to hold the strength of the bond between the two in an familiar working family a clear diversion from the traditional poetry of the time. Michael is evidently a plain, hard-working, content and fulfilled man, besides the land he has worked and lived on has to be sold on when his brother defaults on a loan that Michael had guaranteed. From line 236 ( Isabel, said he, ), Wordsworth uses dialogue for the first time to print the sense of a soliloquy in the poem.Michael speaks with a Shakespearean gravitas he is more upset that he is soon to lose his land, and his family go away be affected, than that his brother has betrayed him. The nature of the poem itself is something which concentrates itself around the ostensibly ordinary it is, by definition, a pastoral poem. It describes the life of a shepherd and his family, but even this varies from the traditional meaning of the word, as the country scene is outlying(prenominal) from idyllic. After hearing that his land will have to be sold, and move off his son in order to make enough coin for the family to still be comfortable, Michael goes about constructing a sheepfold, of which Luke lays the cornerstone.This is, again, a seemingly worthless detail, especially given the content of contemporary poetry, but in the stage setting of a shepherds life, this is more than a mere detail, and indoors the context of the poem, it is critical. Firstly, it provides us with possibly the best example of typically Wordsworthian language in the whole poem the building materials are described as a Straggling heap of unhewn stones, a set phrase which exemplifies the fricative consonants and drawn-out vowels of inherently Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. The sleep of stones is also essential to the poem as it signifies the transient impermanence and brevity of life, which leads us into opinion of Michaels life he has worked for 70 years for everything he owns, and it is to be taken from him in a relative instant.The sheepfold itself is never finished, as Michael learns that Luke has become a criminal and must flee beyond the seas every day for the rest of his life, Michael goes to mourn the death of his son at the pile of stones, and, seven years later, he dies. The poems obvious sub deed is to support his notion that a pastoral life is pure, moral, and happy. Wordsworth believed that living secretive to nature, living an uncomplicated, spiritual life devoted to honest labor was the ideal. His narrative suggests that if Luke had remained in the natural valley with his parents and continued to live the pastoral life, he would have retained his moral character and would have later deliver his parents from years of grief.Although Michael is the prime example of Wordsworths portrayal of real people in The Lyrical Ballads, several other poems display his wis h to convey the lives of real people through techniques such as language and routine situations.