Discuss Wordsworth's view on subject matter/ themes of poetry

Discuss Wordsworth's view on subject matter/ themes of poetry

The poetry of the Pseudo classical school was very artificial and unnatural. It was extreme limited in its themes. It was confined exclusively to the city of London, and in that City to the artificial and unnatural life of the fashionable lords and ladies. It did not care for the beauties of Nature or for the humble humanity – farmers, shepherds, wood-cutters, etc. – which lives its simple life in the lap of nature. Wordsworth reacted sharply and sought to increase the range of English poetry by taking his themes from “humble and rustic life”. Himself living in the lap of nature, he was well-familiar with the life of these humble people, and he has rendered it in his poetry, realistically and accurately.

There are various reasons why Wordsworth preferred “incidents and situations from humble life”, as the themes of this poetry. 

For one thing, in this way he could enlarge the scope and range of poetry and make a whiff of fresh air to blow through the suffocating atmosphere of contemporary poetry. 

Secondly, he knew this life intimately, was in sympathy with it, and so could render it accurately and feelingly.

Thirdly, he believed that a poet is essentially a man speaking to man. Since he is a man, and he has to appeal to the heart and mind of man, he must study human nature, and try to understand, “the primary laws of our nature”. Now these primary instincts and impulses which govern human conduct can best be understood by studying the simplest and most elementary forms of life. He chose rustic and humble life, because the village farmers, leach-gatherers, even idiots, represent human life reduced to its simplest. It is for this reason also that he glorified the child and stressed the value of childhood memories and experiences. In such simple forms of life, behaviour is instinctive and manners are natural and uninhibited. Feelings and passions are expressed without any reserve and human conduct is guided and controlled, not by artificial social codes, as in more sophisticated city societies, but by instincts and impulses. In humble and rustic conditions of life, man is more natural, and so a proper subject of study for a poet who must write “on man, on nature and on human life”. He did not think city life to be a proper subject o poetry, because there the fundamental passions of the human heart are not expressed freely and forcefully but are inhibited by social codes and considerations of public opinion...........

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