I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud
Abstract: William Wordsworth, as the leading figure of the English Romantic Movement in poetry, has made great contribution in poetic theory. His poetic beliefs and achievements have always been the focus of literary studies. In this paper, his most representative poem “ I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” is closely examined to demonstrate how Wordsworth applies his poetic principles to his own creations, especially how Wordsworth realize the fusion of reality and strong emotion in this poem by using his great imagination.
Key Words: William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, poetic principles, language, imagination William Wordsworth is the leading figure of the English romantic poetry, the focal voice of the romantic period. The most important contribution he has made is in the field of poetic theory. He thinks that “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling”, and poetry originates from “emotion recollected in tranquility”. His poetic principles are well illustrated in the preface to Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth, p.159): “The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain coloring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.”
Here, we can see that Wordsworth actually sets the principles for poetic writing in three aspects: a) the raw material—the scenes and events of everyday life; b) the language—speech of ordinary people; and c) the creation process—using imagination to realize the fusion of the
Key Words: William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, poetic principles, language, imagination William Wordsworth is the leading figure of the English romantic poetry, the focal voice of the romantic period. The most important contribution he has made is in the field of poetic theory. He thinks that “all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling”, and poetry originates from “emotion recollected in tranquility”. His poetic principles are well illustrated in the preface to Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth, p.159): “The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain coloring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and, further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature: chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.”
Here, we can see that Wordsworth actually sets the principles for poetic writing in three aspects: a) the raw material—the scenes and events of everyday life; b) the language—speech of ordinary people; and c) the creation process—using imagination to realize the fusion of the
Bibliography: 1. Bloom, Harold, ed. Romanticism and Consciousness. New York: Norton, 1970. 2. Gilpin, George H. Critical Essays on William Wordsworth. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall, 1990. 3. Pinion, F. B. A Wordsworth Companion. London: Macmillan, 1984. 4. Wordsworth, William. Preface to Lyrical Ballads, With Pastoral and Other Poems. In The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: Norton, 1986.