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William Wordsworth Said A Poet Should Be "A Man Speaking To Men." Why Was This Considered A Revolutionary Statement?

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shagufta jabeen Profile
shagufta jabeen answered
When words worth appeared on the scene, classical poets paid importance to the kings and queens, poetry was merely concerned with life of ordinary man, the language of poetry was also difficult, ordinary man can hardly comprehend it, whereas wordswoth being romantic believed that poet is not an extraordinary man sitting on ivory tower and contemplating, rather an ordinary man who distinguishes himself due to his degree of attributes. With rise of French revolution Rousseau raised the slogan that man is born free but is in chains everywhere, words worth being a revolutionary believed that we can bring change in society only when people are able to comprehend poetry, because it's more concerned with feelings and emtions.He described that poert should be written in simple language and its subject matter should be common man. So his words 'poet is man speaking to man" played revolutionary role to change the subject matter of poetry from pope's elite class to the ordinary man and women. He was the first one who wrote about solitary reaper and cuckoo
Will Martin Profile
Will Martin answered
Wordsworth wrote these words in the Preface to the second (1802) edition of the "Lyrical Ballads" a collection he published jointly with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. By this time the first edition had already attracted a good deal of hostility because it dealt with subjects, such as poor people's lives, not considered "poetic" and even more because the authors, especially Wordsworth, aimed to use simple, everyday language. This is what Wordsworth was defending when he made his famous statement (of course, in the idiom of the day, "men" was assumed to include women.) At the end of the 18th century, despite the influence of radical writers like William Blake, there was still a fondness for "poetic diction," words and phrases chosen especially because they were not part of everyday speech. So birds would be described as "feather'd songsters" and so on. Wordsworth and his peers wanted poetry to be real and accessible, not a precious, artificial thing like a porcelain vase, to be kept for special occasions only.

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