WORDSWORTH'S DEFINITION OF POET

Sajida Parveen             

• Wordsworth declared that the most important thing in poetry was the poet's ability to record his spontaneous feelings. Poetry, he said, was "emotion recollected in tranquility".

• According to Wordsworth, a poet is a man speaking to men, endowed with more lively sensibility and he also say that the poet is such a human being who is overall in degree a far better human being than ordinary human being.

• "He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility,more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature..."This heightened sensitivity gives the poet the ability to imagine and recreate emotions and events.

• The poet’s imaginative power is greater than average human beings. By this, he can be “affected by absent things, as if they were present.’’

• The author defines a poet as "a man speaking to men," emphasizing that a poet is not isolated from humanity but is deeply connected to it.

• This concept actually revolts against the 18th century glorification of a poet as somebody separate and different from other human beings.

• However, a poet is not ‘‘different in kind from other man, but only in degree.’’ He has some extra qualities.

• Wordsworth defines a poet as a man of more comprehensive soul that allows him to perceive and appreciate life more intensely.The poet has a greater degree of imaginative power than other men, a power of looking from heaven to earth and earth to heaven.

• "A man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him..."

• The author argues that a poet should communicate in a way that resonates with the audience, using language that is familiar and relatable.

• The poet's role is to articulate human experiences and emotions, and to do so effectively, they must avoid overly complex or lofty expressions that could alienate readers.

• Wordsworth defines poetry as the spontaneous overflow of the powerful feelings. It is the poet’s business to embody in their poetry the general passions of men.

• The poet’s role is an emotional voyager and a skilled craftsman. The poet is both the seismograph recording the tremors of raw emotion and the sculptor chiseling those raw feelings into a work of art.

• The insight of the poet is higher than other people. That is why, a poet can create new ideas and present them to us with images and symbols.

• The poet has a unique ability to express emotions and thoughts vividly, more than the average person, because he often reflects deeply on these experiences within his own mind rather than relying on external stimuli.

• .The poet’s curiosity and interest in life is intense. Therefore, the poet depicts human life in different ways. His responsibility is great because, what other people can’t think or see, he is to present the incredible and invisible images to the readers.

• Other people also feel and think that but they don’t have the diversity of their sense perception as the poet has, that is why, the poet’s soul is very powerful and creative. The poet must have the knowledge of human life and human society because his main study is man society.

• However, Wordsworth suggests that even the poet's language might still fall short of capturing the true liveliness and truth of real-life emotions, which people experience under intense circumstances.

                               "But whatever portion of this faculty we may suppose even the greatest Poet

             to possess, there cannot be a doubt that the language which it will suggest to him, must often, in liveliness and truth, fall

short of that which is uttered by men in real life..."

• The end of the poet to write poetry is to give pleasure with a purpose of enlightening and purifying which is not formally conceived.

• He modifies the language he uses to ensure that his work brings pleasure, carefully selecting what to express to avoid anything unpleasant or jarring. Through this "principle of selection," he avoids exaggerating nature and remains truthful in his portrayal, recognizing that authentic, real emotions often hold more power than any fanciful language his imagination could create.

• The poet also observes humanity and nature interacting in a complex mix of pain and pleasure, capturing human responses to these experiences.

• Poetry, therefore, is a reflection of human experience and nature, free from the strict factual restraints that limit historians or biographers, who must stick closely to objective details. A poet’s only responsibility is to give immediate pleasure to the reader, focusing on universal human experiences rather than on technical knowledge or factual accuracy, as historians or other specialists must do.

• A poet is also a teacher. Wordsworth in a letter expressed his view-“every great poet is a teacher; I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing.’’ Here we see that Wordsworth is close to the doctrine of Horace.

• Thus Wordsworth elaborately describes not only about the poet but also the function of poetry in his critical essay" Preface to Lyrical Ballads". In both the cases he avoids classical tendencies and adopts romantic attitude.William Wordsworth described the poetic soul with such depth and accuracy that reveals his profound belief in the power of art to capture universal truths, emotions, and the beauty .