Examine Wordsworths's views on the nature and function of a poet.
Answers
Answer:
His concept of poet is new. According to him, a poet is a man speaking to men. He is a man like other men. He has a social function to perform. He writes not only for his own pleasure but also for communicating his emotions and feelings to others. He tries his best to communicate them to the public.
Explanation:
A poet is a flesh and blood. His language should be the same to the language of common men. Thus the critic represents himself as a real lover of man.
A poet must feel the pulse of the common man. He is the poet of common humanity but not for the poets only. He says that poets should not write only for poets. Poets have to write for only common men in common or rustic language. man who has all these qualities cannot be similar to the rest of mankind. The totality of these differences is so significant as to constitute a difference of kind. A man is habitually impelled to create. This impelling is enough to institute a difference of kind. The difference between a poet and an ordinary man is similar to that between imagination and sensation. This difference is realized by realizing emancipation from the accidents of space, time and casualty. A poet is pleased with his own passions and volitions. Here he is not active like the rest of mankind. He is self-satisfied and yet is more alive to life. He observes human activities. So he takes an unusual delight in communicating them in a mood of tranquility.
A poet has a greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks and feels. This alone makes him a poet in the strict technical sense of the term. Thus he is capable of entering into the feelings of others. He identifies his own feelings with their feelings. In this sense, he has a more than usual organic sensibility. At the same time, he must have thought long and deeply. This deep thinking is no other than the process of recollections and contemplation.
Wordsworth wants to say that there is no difference between a poet and a common man. A poet differs from an ordinary man not in kind but in degree. Because he has a comprehensive soul which rustic people do not have. He is endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness. He has a greater knowledge of human nature and a more comprehensive soul. He has a greater imaginative power. So he can feel and react emotionally to the events and incidents which he not directly experienced. He is affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present. He can share the emotional experiences of others and identify himself with the emotions of others. He can express the emotions of others easily. Moreover, a poet has a great power of communication. He can communicate even those thoughts and feelings which arise in him without any immediate external excitement. Hence, these are Wordsworth's views on the nature and functional qualities of a poet.