Lyrical Ballads Research Articles

‘Willingness for the Everyday’: Ordinariness and Agency in Three Romantic Prefaces

Taking its cue from Stanley Cavell's framing of Romanticism as a ‘quest of the ordinary’, this essay revisits the amplification of the category of the ordinary in the English literature of the Romantic era. Focusing on a specific genre, the preface to poetry, it examines the construction of poetry as a special case of that category in three Romantic prefaces: Wordsworth's ‘Preface’ to Lyrical Ballads (1800) Hazlitt's prefatory lecture ‘On Poetry in General’ in his Lectures on the English Poets (1818) and Shelley's ‘Preface’ to Prometheus Unbound (1820). By tracing and comparing the conceptual bases of these prefaces, it attempts to nuance and discriminate their differing versions of ordinariness. Variations notwithstanding, the reciprocal characterisation of poetry and ordinariness, at the heart of the poetics of three major Romantic writers, is shown to be fundamental also to their arguments for agency and their resistance to what Cavell calls ‘the drive to the inhuman’.

Austen’s Wordsworth

There is only one direct reference to William Wordsworth in all Jane Austen’s writing. This essay asks why it might be there and what it might mean, weighing up the evidence – stylistic, thematic, journalistic, biographical, naval, and historical – for and against Austen’s possible knowledge of Lyrical Ballads and its author. Their shared ground is discovered in habits of allusion and quotation; in the treatment of memory, forgetting, suffering, damage, and loss; in a commitment to noticing and praising the habitually overlooked; and in transformations of the natural world into a possession of the mind and heart. Mansfield Park, it is argued, proves the most Wordsworthian of Austen’s books.

Nature as a Spiritual and Moral Guide: Analysing the Romantic Ideals in Wordsworths Lyrical Ballads

Nature as a Spiritual and Moral Guide: Analysing the Romantic Ideals in Wordsworths Lyrical Ballads

Turgid Bombast or Economic Reason

This research paper delves into the contrasting interpretations of the muse by Mary Wollstonecraft and William Wordsworth, as evidenced in their seminal works A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, respectively. The paper critically evaluates how each interpretation shapes contrasting truths about the production and consumption of literature. Wollstonecraft, advocating for reason as her muse, challenges societal norms and seeks to empower women through education. In contrast, Wordsworth embraces feeling as his muse, aiming to directly communicate with the heart of his reader. Through a comparative analysis, this paper explores how these distinct muses inform the authors’ approaches to subjects such as education, uniformity, and gender. Furthermore, it examines the Rousseauvian influences on their views, and how each author’s position of power shapes their narrative. Ultimately, it highlights the radical nature of both texts in the democratisation of poetry and the elevation of the female sex.

Unity Between the Human and the Nonhuman in Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy Gray, or Solitude’

In 1798, Wordsworth and Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads, which included the poem ‘Lucy Gray, or Solitude’. Since then, it has consistently been analyzed alongside Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy Poems’, another set of poems that ‘Lucy Gray, or Solitude’ does not belong to. The result is a reductive interpretation of ‘Solitude’ that this paper aims to amend, arguing that ‘Lucy Gray, or Solitude’ holds value independent of the ‘Lucy Poems’. It is particularly prominent when considering Lucy Gray as one of Alan Bewell’s ‘marginals’ or people who live on the fringes of human society. Then, the paper focuses on the form and rhythm of the poem ‘Lucy Gray, or Solitude’, as well as Lucy Gray’s identification with young animals and light. Furthermore, Lucy’s symbolic passage of the bridge and the landmarks of its path are analyzed, leading to the question of how Lucy and her parents perceive her disappearance differently. The paper concludes by saying that Lucy Gray achieves unity between the human and the nonhuman.

Cultural Nationalism in Women's Lyrical Ballads of the Harlem Renaissance

Cultural Nationalism in Women's Lyrical Ballads of the Harlem Renaissance

Distorting Reality through the Crystal Mirror: Dialogue Between Literature and Painting in Waterhouse’s Representations of the Lady of Shalott

“The Lady of Shalott” is a lyrical ballad written by the English Victorian poet Alfred Tennyson. There have been a wide variety of interpretations of this poem. It has also been a source of inspiration for various artistic expressions, such as art, literature, and music. The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of reverse ekphrasis in two paintings produced by the painter John William Waterhouse: The Lady of Shalott and I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, Said the Lady of Shalott. On the other hand, Nicole (Nick) Loven’s film adaptation of the poem incorporates a circular intertextuality process that revolves around the interaction between images and words. Thus, the narrated text becomes a visual image. The conversion stage of the process of reverse ekphrasis, in which Tennyson’s source text is transformed into Waterhouse’s target text, depends on a specific moment depicted in the poem “The Lady of Shalott,” as conveyed through the lady’s words. Waterhouse’s intertextual dialogue with Tennyson’s poem involves a process of reverse ekphrasis. This interaction between image and word is later transformed into another visual representation. The word transformed into an image is then converted back into an image using a film version.

워즈워스의 정동적 물질주의

This essay aims to analyze Wordsworth’s works from the affective materialist framework, which emphasizes dynamic, affective interactions between a multitude of bodies, real or abstract, and further explain the significance of his works on contemporary ecological-environmental thoughts. As is shown in many poems composed during the Lyrical Ballads project period, particularly “Tintern Abbey,” “Lines Written in Early Spring,” “Goody Blake and Harry Gill,” “Peter Bell,” and poetic fragments, Wordsworth embraces contemporary physiological ideas on human cognition and emotion. He describes a natural world where all entities constitute interdependent relationships, delicately capturing the flow of dynamics operating in such affective, material relationships. In doing so, his poetry presents an awareness of a new form of ontology that breaks away from anthropocentric thinking and the obsession with human exceptionality.
 Affective materialism presupposes that humans and objects around them are working on, and are being worked upon by, each other. It opts for embodied consciousness rather than the transcendentalist perspective based on the autonomy of imagination through disembodied consciousness. By combining affects and ecology to describe phenomena where humans and nonhumans are connected through the material and physiological processes, his affective materialism helps us understand the accidental, ever-changing, and sometimes chaotic everyday world intertwined with beauty and ugliness more realistically.

워즈워스의 「폐허가 된 오두막」과 영국 낭만주의

This paper explores how Wordsworth’s “The Ruined Cottage” embodies and directs the course that Romantic poetry will take, predating his poetic world, the meaning of his poetry, and the essence of poetic theory proclaimed in the Preface to his poetry collection, Lyrical Ballads. In doing so, this paper shall focus on the representation of nature and suffering, considering the dramatic frame as the focal point through which we can glimpse the transformation of Wordsworth’s thought. In “The Ruined Cottage” Wordsworth chooses an ordinary person, Margaret, as the subject matter for a tragic poem, and undertakes the work of mourning. This approach overturns or deviates from the dominant principles of Neo-classicism, allowing Wordsworth to implement his empathy for common people within the realms of literature and criticism. I shall argue that this choice represents novelty and poetic experimentation, serving as a revolutionary declaration about poetry, and impling a subdued form of political engagement. The attitude towards nature and humanity displayed by the wandering peddler and his meditative mind is similar to Wordsworth's perception of nature and humanity revealed through the ruined monastery in “Tintern Abbey”.

Reflections of Nature in the Poems of William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth, one of the greatest poets in England, is known as the poet of nature. His poems took on greater significance in English literature. The purpose of this study is to cram his source of forming and the process he expressed his ideal in singing highly of the nature. Wordsworth sought to bring a more individualistic approach and his poetry avoided high flown language however the poetry of Wordsworth is best characterized by its strong affinity with nature. Wordsworth was often dismayed by what he saw and he sought solace in the grandeur and beauty of nature. Wordsworth offered not just a beautiful picture of nature but also illustrated the healing power of nature on the spirit of man. William Wordsworth was deeply interested in the interaction between nature and humanities and their influence on each other. Having been inspired by many cases reported by Erasmus Darwin, he composed his great poems. He wrote this relationship in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads: stimulate and enlarge that inherent capability of the human mind and so become to believe in that human power and devote himself to fostering it. Wordsworth's poetry "Begins in delight and ends in delight” Wordsworth recognized here the capability of the human mind, so he repeated the words “inherent and indestructible qualities”.

Unparalleled Intimacy with Nature in Wordsworth's Poetries

This study delves at William Wordsworth's unique relationship with nature as it appears in his poetry. Wordsworth's poetry is defined by a deep and personal connection to nature that goes beyond simple poetic adoration. This research examines Wordsworth's lyrical ballads and love rhymes to show how nature functions in his poetry as an allegory, a reflection of the self, a guide to morality, and a reflection of the human condition. Wordsworth's representation of nature is what sets him apart from his contemporaries and makes him a forerunner of the Romantic movement, which is explored in depth here. Wordsworth's contribution in establishing modern environmental consciousness is also highlighted, as is the influence of his lyrical connection with nature on following generations of poets and environmental philosophers. Our study aims to honor Wordsworth's literary legacy by illuminating the timeless truth of his words in an urbanized, technological age. In doing so, we attest to the perennial relevance of the natural world as both muse and metaphor for the intricacies of the human experience.

Romantic Survival: Disaster Beyond Repair in Lyrical Ballads

ABSTRACT This article explores representations of disaster and survival in the 1798 edition of the Lyrical Ballads. It starts with Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere,” a poem exemplary of the survival narrative, a poetic articulation of disaster fraught with fragmentation, repetition, and stagnation, in form and content. The article then reads the survival narrative in William Wordsworth’s “Simon Lee” and “The Last of the Flock,” arguing that, in Wordsworth’s poems, what has been affected by disaster can exist beyond repair. I focus on disastrous thinking, considering it another aspect of disaster that penetrates thought. Disastrous thinking appears in Wordsworth’s poems but also in our critical tradition, from New Criticism to more recent post-critical readings. It attempts to ameliorate catastrophe even when disaster has eliminated the historical and philosophical causes that make it comprehensible. The article finally re-turns to Coleridge’s poem to highlight the presence of active passivity, a mode of being that resists productivity and marketability while it emphasizes political thought over thoughtless action. Active passivity constitutes a form of arresting resistance that bears the potential for radical world change through the practice of patience, another name for constant laboring without quantifiable results.

“A slumber did my spirit seal”: Wrestling with Paul Fry on His Own Wordsworthian Terrain

This essay focuses on Fry’s theory of poetry, especially as he develops it in A Defense of Poetry: Reflections on the Occasion of Writing (1995) and Wordsworth and the Poetry of What We Are (2008), by examining his various discussions of Wordsworth’s lyric, “A slumber did my spirit seal.” For Wordsworth in the “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” meter, rather than being imbricated with meaning, is “superadded,” and for the anti-formalist Fry what distinguishes poetry from other forms of discourse is not verse but rather its relation to what he calls “insignificance.” In examining “A slumber” against Fry’s discussions of the poem, I argue both that its meaning cannot be separated from its meter, as Fry’s analysis itself paradoxically reveals (in other words, that Wordsworth’s practice is at variance from his theory), and that the poem’s meter reveals an intertextual connection that allows it to be read as having a significant moral message. Against the postmodern perspective that Fry delineates in A Defense, I conclude (somewhat quixotically) by arguing that poetry needs to be defined and defended in terms of verse.

낭만주의 시와 교정: 코울리지와 워즈워스의 시에 나타난 감옥 개혁

This paper seeks to examine the relationship between Romantic poetry and correction by reading together Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem and William Wordsworth’s printed in Lyrical Ballads (1798). Both Coleridge and Wordsworth participated in prison reform which was part of the great movement to reform British society in late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I argue that Coleridge and Wordsworth wrote “The Dungeon” and “The Convict” respectively in response to John Howard’s demand for prison reform. Moreover, both poets appropriate Caleb Williams’ lamentation over the horrible conditions of the dungeon that marks unjust and unhealthy treatment of the incarcerated in William Godwin’s novel Caleb Williams. Both Coleridge and Wordsworth were equally fascinated and obsessed with the themes of crime and punishment in their early poems. More precisely, Coleridge deeply elaborates upon the mysterious effects of guilt and repenting process in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Osorio. Wordsworth, meanwhile, endeavors to grapple with the question of guilt and the miscarriages of the legal justice in the Salisbury Plain Poems and The Borderers. While Coleridge focuses on the physical condition of the prison in “The Dungeon,” Wordsworth’s poem penetrates into the heart of the condemned in “The Convict” through the observer-speaker’s sympathy. Yet both poems emphasize the efficacy of wholesome environment that helps prisoners to repent their crimes and consequently to redeem the criminals from their guilt. In conclusion, both Coleridge and Wordsworth urge the necessity for correction of the correction system by critiquing the limits of the legal institution and prison facilities.

‘Uncertain notice’: Unearthing Wales in William Wordsworth’s ‘Simon Lee’ and ‘Tintern Abbey’

One of the defining attributes of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s 1798 Lyrical Ballads was the poets’ focus on subjects of ‘low and rustic life’, and especially on the potentials for enhanced human understanding accessed through the language of people of such social stations. This essay examines Wordsworth’s ‘Simon Lee’ and ‘Tintern Abbey’, two entries set in Wales that in contrast to the collection’s manifesto do not feature the voices of the local inhabitants. Recent scholarship has effectively compounded the Welsh locals’ status: in addition to the comparatively little consideration given to the Welsh social history that would cover these topics, scholars have also at times re-set the poems in England, and even suggested that the Welsh inhabitants actually symbolise or otherwise represent English people. Minimising, disregarding, and altering the poems’ Welsh settings limits, and even misshapes, any meaningful poetic analysis. I argue that in each poem a deep understanding of the local cultural histories of the respective Welsh setting – Cardiganshire in ‘Simon Lee’ and Monmouthshire in ‘Tintern Abbey’ – produces a more comprehensive appreciation of the poems themselves. Furthermore, rather than acting as signs of a people unchanged since antiquity (another consensus among many literary scholars), these poems’ muted Welsh residents record the results of far-reaching social change, specifically the loss of traditions, community life, and economic stability. Such an approach enhances our understanding of wider contexts, including: Wordsworth’s authorship; Romantic Wales; the Welsh in the English imagination; and eighteenth-century Wales. I demonstrate these points by incorporating primary materials to complement my accounts of each poem, including contemporary histories of Cardiganshire in my examination of ‘Simon Lee’, and English poems of the period on Tintern Abbey and Monmouthshire in my examination of ‘Tintern Abbey’.

"Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth as a Romantic Poem

This article describes why the poem "Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth is called a romantic poem. The poem was included in the "Lyrical Ballads", a joint production of Wordsworth and Coleridge. The publication is "Lyrical Ballads"is taken by many as the beginning of Romanticism in English Literature. But, the inclusion is not a proof of the poem being called a romantic poem. This article justifies the claim of "Tintern Abbey" as a romantic poem.

Watershed and; The Last Word and; O'er

Watershed and; The Last Word and; O'er Zaffar Kunial (bio) Watershed From Minneapolis, ripplesgrow. And grow. Minneapolis.That polis whispers of policebut speaks of the city, the sameword going back. Minnehahais Dakota for waterfall—chains of water, in a shockingdrop. In the suburbs of a wordare old outpourings, arrestedsounds, but there is no h nowin Minnehapolis. Cityof waters. Quiet as a ghost,that h. Quiet as watching clouds.In the state of Minnesota,state of sky-reflecting waterwaters ripple wider, widerwith the Mississippi River.If breath has a letter, it's thatsound huh—the soft h at the endof breath—breath like a dry river.Not as hard as streets, nowhallowed, rules that ring hollow,but the h that alters what standsbefore it and makes hard endingsnot stop but breathe on, like the hin watershed or the h in worth [End Page 57] or the h in death or the hin birth or the h in "Mother—Mother," last words of a Britishsoldier, on the ground, near to death—is it wrong for me to go there?—from the wetlands of French trenchesto Minneapolis, watercity—from a century backto a locked-down May, two years back—from a man who's white to a manwho's black. Should I go quiet?—as a cloud in water, quietas that old lost h in the heartof Minnehapolis, or sound outlike the h in human. Waterwears the uniform of chevronsand ripples. Isn't it the jobof ripples to move outwardand wider? Isn't it the jobof rivers to enter othermouths? Matter and mother are oneword, going back. Is one "Mother,Mother" or "Mama! Mama! Mama!"—a grown man's cry to the first source,the birth of breath—not the same cry,not a matter of the same worthas anotheras anotheras anotheras another [End Page 58] The Last Word In spite of difference of soil and climate, of language and manners, of laws and customs, in spite of things silently gone out of mind and things violently destroyed —william wordsworth, Preface to the Lyrical Ballads All my life I've listened for noise suddeningdownstairs. Signifying nothing. Or mattering.Once more I'm on the landing, at a late hourfrom that hall to this, down carpeted airand now at now's open door, the loud brinkof our first living room. Thunk. Thunk.Dad's on the sofa, fist pounding the table.The low legs jump, the glass ashtray trembles.The mother of all battles has begun.Dad, it's late, it's not fair on us, on Mum.She needs to wake up early. "Son, the bastards,look what they are doing." A cigarette in Dad'smouth, the ashtray like a cymbal to the table'sdrum. Thunk. Upstairs the family Bible sits quietly with the Quran, huge and high.Dad, the whole house is shaking. In a few hoursI've got school. He turns from the telly. "Son,will you write a letter?" A what? "To Guardian."This is our first live war. I hear the wordsresolution and air raid and avoidcivilian casualties and hope he'll forgethis question. On the television set an elephantsits. The ashtray is still catching nothing. [End Page 59] Dad's fist lands at the sight of a jet. Thunk.Through smoke, says his school was bombed from the air.School stopped forever. Thunk. He hides in the river.Miles off I put my hand on his shoulder.The burning matter of Mum needing to sleep and wake up early to teach. A betting slipblushes near the paper on the sofa. A smallred pen from Ladbrokes like the one in my schoolblazer. Our coal fire. But from this special reporton the night war started in the Gulf, good night.And now the weather. "Son, you will write?"It will feel raw in the east as the windsfreshen up but will feel much milderin the...

:Infectious Liberty: Biopolitics between Romanticism and Liberalism

:<i>Infectious Liberty: Biopolitics between Romanticism and Liberalism</i>

A Spirit of Resistance: A Comparative Study of William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” and Yu Chi-hwan’s “Daffodil”

This paper discusses two poems about daffodils and their respective ideas about poetry: one poem by British Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850) and one poem by twentieth-century Korean poet Yu Chi-hwan (1908–1967). Although scholars have performed comparative studies on Wordsworth and Korean poets including Kim Jeoung-hee, Kim So-wol, and Hwang Seok-woo, there is no research comparing Wordsworth and Yu. Thus, this study expands the field of comparative studies of Korean and British poets and enhances our understanding of British Romanticism and the Korean Life School. It argues that both poets used their poems as a medium for expressing resistance under repressive social atmospheres. On the one hand, presented in the preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” (1807) epitomizes his poetic principles by challenging conventional poetic practices to introduce his own approach. By using plain language and choosing daffodils as his subject matter, he demonstrates the possibility of composing a beautiful poem without following convention. On the other hand, Yu used his poem “Daffodil” (1939) to imply his resistance to the Japanese colonial government’s oppression. Given the likely difficulty explicitly expressing anti-Japanese sentiments and longing for independence, Yu describes the situations around the speaker and the daffodils, tacitly criticizing Japan’s brutal rule over Koreans. The poem’s focus on the resilient nature of the daffodil encourages both readers and himself not to give up hope for independence. This paper argues that despite their differences, Wordsworth and Yu both employ poetry in defiance against the things they object to.

A Greimassian Reading of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Abstract Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, first appearing as the opening poem to Lyrical Ballads, has proved to be highly enigmatic since its publication. The blending of supernatural and reality along with the intricacy of the underlying structure seem to have added to the complication. The present article is an attempt to read the poem through the lens of Algirdas Julien Greimas’s actantial model and semiotic square to shed some light on the semantic richness of the poem. The results seem in line with Coleridge’s idea of imagination as the Mariner’s imagination in co-presence with his will, along with the Moon as the source of Nature’s benignity and his muse, assist him with his object-value: the unity between man, Nature, and the Creator. Moreover, the Mariner’s suffering and atonement could be attributed to his moments of reasoning and free-will, devoid of imagination or spirituality and associated with the presence of the sun or diurnal elements. Greimas’s model offers the possibility to elucidate the moments of confusion as ‘void’ or ‘all’ phoric states of passion in which the absence of diurnal and nocturnal elements or their co-presence could justify the Mariner’s wanton murder of the Albatross or his survival.