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Title: Lyrical ballads 1805
WonderClub
Item Number: 9780746303825
Number: 1
Product Description: Lyrical ballads 1805
Universal Product Code (UPC): 9780746303825
WonderClub Stock Keeping Unit (WSKU): 9780746303825
Rating: 4.5/5 based on 2 Reviews
Image Location: https://wonderclub.com/images/covers/38/25/9780746303825.jpg
Weight: 0.200 kg (0.44 lbs)
Width: 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Heigh : 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Depth: 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Date Added: August 25, 2020, Added By: Ross
Date Last Edited: August 25, 2020, Edited By: Ross
Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
$99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub (9294 total ratings) |
Chris Cass
reviewed Lyrical ballads 1805 on October 24, 2017Who wants a revolution?
Well Wordsworth and Coleridge certainly did. Their writing existed in the intellectual aftermath of the French revolution; thus, they tried to radicalise it and revolutionise it. With Lyrical ballads they, undoubtedly, changed the destiny of English literature. Granted, that’s a huge sweeping statement to make but, nevertheless, it is a true one.
No longer would poetry be the lofty language of the elites, a means for the bourgeoisie to demonstrate their intellect; it would now be the language of the common man: it would exist in a natural form, simple, basic even, so that that everybody could understand it and appreciate its beauty. Whist the two were not the first to start writing in such a way, Blake came much earlier on with his Songs of Innocence and Experience, though they were the first to actually set down what they were trying to do, to explain it and provide a critique of what they were actually doing rather than just doing it.
This work is brave and experimental and it would help to create a new class of poetry. Poetry, above all things, should have a purpose; it should aim to present human emotion and experience in a clear and considerate way. It’s not about who has the best diction or control over metrical forms: it’s about whom can portray life and human nature with the most honesty, at least, according to the preface Wordsworth added to the second edition. It’s really worth considering whist reading how many of these goals to two actually achieved.
Compare this work to something written by Shakespeare, Pope or Milton and you will clearly see the difference in complexity. The style of this poetry is far more accessible and easier to understand, but, that being said, would you have agreed if you were a common man in the early nineteenth century? Possibly not. The educated would have appreciated what was happening here, but the uneducated would not have even been able to read it never mind afford a copy. And that’s why they are “Lyrical Ballads.†Again, like Blake’s work, many of these poems were meant to be read aloud and as such would have been easy to memorise and understand upon hearing them; thus, in a way, the two poets achieved their goals.
Coleridge’s Nightingale
Lyrical ballads is undeniably one sided. Wordsworth wrote most of the poems in here, though Coleridge contributed, arguably, one of the best poems written in the English language: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I didn’t want to talk about that here though, I’ve already reviewed it separately so here’s the next best one he included:
The Nightingale
And hark! the Nightingale begins its song,
'Most musical, most melancholy' bird!
A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought!
In Nature there is nothing melancholy.
I like it so much because it is so deeply personal. Just like Wordsworth, Coleridge explicitly voices his opinion on the beauty of nature and life; he also mocks those “venerable†poets who try to emulate these ideas but fail to do so; they are inexperienced and don’t speak with a voice that is one with nature. They write from the deplorable ball room, and spend their lives in theatres; yet, they attempt to write poetry about nature. Coleridge was one of the Lakers, a poet who wrote in the Lake District from a voice of first-hand experience, so he was a little bit of an expert. I could fell the sarcasm and annoyance oozing out of his words, but also a sense of literary superiority. Coleridge clearly felt like his voice was prominent in these matters:
My Friend, and thou, our Sister! we have learnt
A different lore: we may not thus profane
Nature's sweet voices, always full of love
And joyance! 'Tis the merry Nightingale
That crowds and hurries, and precipitates
With fast thick warble his delicious notes,
As he were fearful that an April night
Would be too short for him to utter forth
His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul
Of all its music!
You could call these words arrogance, but I think his ego is deserved. And, if you haven’t already guessed, the Nightingale is clearly Coleridge. Well, he and the other early romantic poets; they make up the flock. I love the symbolism here; he suggests because he was one with nature, he could express it perfectly in his poems. He and his friends could provoke each other’s songs and make them sweeter in the process. It’s a quaint image, and perhaps alludes to how he and Wordsworth improved each other’s art.
Wordsworth’s Wonderers
Wordsworth’s poems are not quite as varied as Coleridge’s. After reading many the lines between each become blurred as he often repeats similar themes and ideas. Sometimes he takes an old poem, and uses it to make a new one by expanding upon the ideas and depicting it in a more artful way. He would do this often, and here “Old man Travelling†felt like a very early version of “The Old Cumberland Beggar.â€
Both poems depict an aged wonderer, someone who exits in nature and is vitalised by it. He roams through the landscape seemingly unaffected by the troubles of the world and mortality. But that is a lie. Under the surface, as Wordsworth reveals, is a constant preoccupation with death. It will never escape us not matter how far we may wonder. The two exist together and as such behind the surface of the wonderers is knowledge of their eventual demise or the demise of their loved ones:
Old man Travelling
“The little hedge-row birds,
That peck along the road, regard him not.
He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression; every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak
A man who does not move with pain, but moves
With thought—He is insensibly subdued
To settled quiet: he is one by whom
All effort seems forgotten, one to whom
Long patience has such mild composure given,
That patience now doth seem a thing, of which
He hath no need. He is by nature led
To peace so perfect, that the young behold
With envy, what the old man hardly feels.
—I asked him whither he was bound, and what
The object of his journey; he replied
"Sir! I am going many miles to take
A last leave of my son, a mariner,
Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,
And there is dying in an hospital."
The old man’s reply ushers in a sudden change of tone; it’s almost shocking and abrupt, but read the poem again and you will see the subtlety. The poem is simple, more so than Coleridge’s, but is also extremely effective at what it does.
These two men changed poetry forever with this; they helped to make popular a model that would eventually be adapted by later generations. This poetry is a true pleasure to read.
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