EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY

“WHY, William, on that old grey stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

“Where are your books?–that light  bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.

“You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!”

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:

“The eye–it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where’er they be,
Against or with our will.

“Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.

“Think you, ‘mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

“–Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old grey stone,
And dream my time away,”

Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth in Cumberland on 7 April 1770. His parents were John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson. He was a second child to his parents amongst five children. His father was Sir James Lowther’s attorney, the 1st Earl of Lonsdale. His mother died when he was 8, and five years later, his father died too.

He was very close to his younger sister Dorothy Wordsworth, who too became a famous poetess and diarist. His elder brother Richard Wordsworth became a lawyer, John, younger than Dorothy died in a ship wreck in 1805. The youngest one, Christopher became a scholar. William Wordsworth was very close to his sister, but he couldn’t stay in her company for long due to domestic problems after his father’s death.

His early education was at a low level school at Cockermouth and was taught by his mother. He was taught poetry by his father. He taught him works of famous poets like Milton, Shakespeare, and Spenser. He was influenced from his child hood by his surroundings, which were picturesque. His father also allowed him to take benefit from his library. He also spent a lot of his time at his mother’s paternal home in Penrith.

At Penrith, after his mother’s death he was sent to a school meant for the children of upper class. There he was taught by a lady Ann Birkett who used to teach her students the traditional and classical aspects of literature. This proved to be an important influence on his literary work.

In 1787, he published his first sonnet in “The European Magazine”, starting his journey as a poet. In 1791, he went on summer vacations, visiting places famous for their picturesque beauty. These included Switzerland, France, Europe and Italy. In France he fell in love with a French girl named Annette Vallon, who bore him a baby girl in 1792. Due to critical circumstances he didn’t marry her, but kept on supporting her and her daughter throughout his life.

French Revolution proved influential for his ideas and mental growth. He started understanding politics and its influences on common people, evoking sympathy for common people. After getting these experiences he composed his most remarkable poem “Descriptive Sketches”. Though, he calls his early work as “experimental”. His renowned poems include “An Evening Walk”, “Guilt And Sorrow”, “Lyrical Ballads” and “Tintern Abbey”. “Lyrical Ballads” was a joint venture of Wordsworth and S.T Coleridge, which was a result of their close friendship.

Most of Wordsworth’s work emphasizes on depth and sensitivity of human nature. His “Lyrical Ballads” were regarded as “the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers”. His diction in all his poems is simple, and he dealt the subject with realism. His other famous poems are: “To The Cuckoo”, “The Rainbow”; “To a Butterfly”, “Ecclesiastical Sonnets”, and “The Prelude”. His poems in “Lyrical ballads Vein” project “the still, sad music of humanity”.

In his later life, Wordsworth developed an estrangement with Coleridge. This deprived him of his powerful imaginative and mental sharpness, leaving him alone. In 1843 he got appointed as England’s poet laureate, and he died on April 23, 1850.

The poems in ‘Lyrical Ballads’ hold an important place because they had different subjects, a new poetic style, simple diction and easy to understand verses. They were a revolution in themselves. In the ‘Preface to Lyrical Ballads’, also a remarkable production of Wordsworth Nature-loving soul, also called the ‘manifesto’ of English criticism, Wordsworth has commented on ‘Lyrical Ballads’ as ‘experimental’:

“The majority of the following poems are to be considered as experiments. They were written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purpose of poetic pleasure.”

Coleridge and Wordsworth did not consider the classical and contemporary poems to be the true depiction of life. They thought that usage of high sounding and pompous words, and intricate metaphors can only be understood by a specific class, and thence they discuss the people of that class only. He condemned the contemporary literature as “a mechanical adoption of… figures of speech, … sometimes with propriety, but much more frequently applied… to feelings and ideas with which they had no natural connection whatsoever”.

To advocate his case, Wordsworth writes, “its influence in impressing a notion of the peculiarity and exaltation of the Poet’s character, and in flattering the Reader’s self-love by bringing him nearer to a sympathy with that character.”

The purpose behind the composition of ‘Lyrical Ballads’ was to make literature a true depiction of life; life of a common man. They worked for a simple style so that poetry could be read and understood by everyone easily. The reaction of critics at that time was modest, but many today comment that it is unfair to call these writings ‘lyrical’.

Poetry is ‘a spontaneous over flow of powerful feelings’ and that is what Wordsworth has done to compose his ballads. He chose to write whatever influenced Wordsworth from his surroundings came to paper. He was in love with Nature from his early child hood. His ‘lyrical Ballads’ comprises of poems that hold picturesque qualities. He has chosen incidents and happening from everyday life, so that anyone and everyone can relate himself to them.

The use of ‘rustic’ and rural description is again a reference of Wordsworth love of Nature. His simple language contains in it real and great values of life. His diction emphasizes that feelings no matter how delicate, can be easily described in a simple and plain language.

The poems in it are:

• Expostulation and Reply
• The Tables turned; an Evening Scene, on the same subject
• Old Man Travelling; Animal Tranquillity and Decay, a Sketch
• The Complaint of a forsaken Indian Woman
• The Last of the Flock
• Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near the Lake of Esthwaite
• The Foster-Mother’s Tale
• Goody Blake and Harry Gill
• The Thorn
• We are Seven
• Anecdote for Fathers
• Lines written at a small distance from my House and sent me by my little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed
• The Female Vagrant
• The Dungeon
• Simon Lee, the old Huntsman
• Lines written in early Spring
• The Nightingale
• Lines written when sailing in a Boat at Evening
• Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames
• The Idiot Boy
• Love
• The Mad Mother
• The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere
• Lines written above Tintern Abbey
• Hart-leap Well
• There was a Boy, &c
• The Brothers, a Pastoral Poem
• Ellen Irwin, or the Braes of Kirtle
• Strange fits of passion have I known, &c.
• Song
• She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways
• A slumber did my spirit seal, &c
• The Waterfall and the Eglantine
• The Oak and the Broom, a Pastoral
• Lucy Gray
• The Idle Shepherd-Boys or Dungeon-Gill Force, a Pastoral
• ‘Tis said that some have died for love, &c.
• Poor Susan
• Inscription for the Spot where the Hermitage stood on St. Herbert’s Island, Derwent-Water
• Inscription for the House (an Out-house) on the Island at Grasmere
• To a Sexton
• Andrew Jones
• The two Thieves, or the last stage of Avarice
• A whirl-blast from behind the Hill, &c.
• Song for the wandering Jew
• Ruth
• Lines written with a Slate-Pencil upon a Stone, &c.
• Lines written on a Tablet in a School
• The two April Mornings
• The Fountain, a conversation
• Nutting
• Three years she grew in sun and shower, &c.
• The Pet-Lamb, a Pastoral
• Written in Germany on one of the coldest days of the century
• The Childless Father
• The Old Cumberland Beggar, a Description
• Rural Architecture
• A Poet’s Epitaph
• A Character
• A Fragment
• Poems on the Naming of Places,
• Michael, a Pastoral

“There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually called poetic diction; I have taken as much pains to avoid it as others ordinarily take to produce it; this I have done for the reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of men, and further, because the pleasure which I have proposed to myself to impart is of a kind very different from that which is supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry.”

Though Coleridge worked in collaboration with Wordsworth, he only wrote 4 poems. His poems were not much liked as they comprise of supernatural elements, withholding a contradiction of Wordsworth’s effort of writing about the common people of middle and lower class.

Regardless of the era, literature depicts the ongoing life style of that era. It is a true depiction of human life. Different genres deal the subject differently. Different literary works men have chosen different subjects from the real life to comment and research. Wordsworth sticking to project a common man’s life holds a lot of attraction for the reader of modern era too.

Analysis means breaking down a subject to understand it in details and discover its essential features. Psychological critical analysis of literature means to break down literature in order to understand it on psychological grounds. This has helped out the critics to present various interpretations of a single phrase apparently looking simple and uncomplicated.

Literary criticism dates back to Aristotle with his publication of Poetics, in which he describes the meters of criticism. Plato also marked the criticism by calling poetry an imitative form of art. Most of the classical and medieval criticism; the birth period of literary criticism, is marked with criticism of religious texts.

With the passage of time, literature saw many developments and criticism as well. Going through medieval to renaissance, and then 19th century, literature was not spared from criticism. In the 20th century, however, criticism took a new shape and form from merely referring to the classical literary works or detailed descriptive analysis of the literary diction.

The early 20th century is marked with ‘Anatomy of Criticism’ by Northrop Frye, in which he criticized the style of critics who adhered to their own ideologies to analyze a literary piece. In this period, the criticism became a more subject based criticism than looking into an author’s personality. In psychoanalytic criticism of literature, literature is taken on psychological grounds. It is read as if it is not latent, a manifest, and a dream work.

Psychoanalytic literary criticism started with the development of psychoanalysis itself, and induced into literature by Sigmund Freud. This form of criticism essentially requires displacement and deep concentration operations. It is a keen study of symbolism and diction. Freud’s works include several extensive literary essays that explain the psychic exploration of the characters, texts and authors themselves.

Freud’s theory was acclaimed and followed by many like Jacques Lacan and Carl Jung. Though, Freud’s concepts of psycho analysis of literature circles around characters and authors’ psyche reading to explore the mysteries of literary narratives. It can have a wide scope by analyzing the diction and dialect, baffling symbols, actions, scene settings and content resemblance and reference. Psychological critical analysis of literature can also be divided into several branches as was done by Karen Horney’s approaches including womb envy.

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water’d it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil’d the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree

Children of the future Age,
Reading this indignant page;
Know that in a former time.
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.

In the Age of Gold,
Free from winters cold:
Youth and maiden bright.
To the holy light,
Naked in the sunny beams delight.

Once a youthful pair
Fill’d with softest care;
Met in garden bright.
Where the holy light,
Had just removed the curtains of the night.There in rising day.
On the grass they play:
Parents were afar;
Strangers came not near:
And the maiden soon forgot her fear.

Tired with kisses sweet
They agree to meet
When the silent sleep
Waves o’er heavens deep:
And the weary tired wanderers weep.

To her father white
Came the maiden bright:
But his loving look,
Like the holy book,
All her tender limbs with terror shook

Ona! pale and weak!
To thy father speak:
O the trembling fear!
O the dismal care!
That shakes the blossoms of my hoary hair.

“Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know.
“And, father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door.”

The Priest sat by and heard the child;
In trembling zeal he seized his hair,
He led him by his little coat,
And all admired the priestly care.
And standing on the altar high,
“Lo, what a fiend is here! said he:
“One who sets reason up for judge
Of our most holy mystery.”
The weeping child could not be heard,
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They stripped him to his little shirt,
And bound him in an iron chain,
And burned him in a holy place
Where many had been burned before;
The weeping parents wept in vain.
Are such thing done on Albion’s shore?

Once a dream did weave a shade
O’er my angel-guarded bed,
That an emmet lost its way
Where on grass methought I lay.
Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,
Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
Over many a tangle spray,

All heart-broke, I heard her say:
“Oh my children! do they cry,
Do they hear their father sigh?
Now they look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me.”
Pitying, I dropped a tear:
But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied, “What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?
“I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle’s hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home!”

Cruelty has a human heart,
And Jealousy a human face;
Terror the human form divine,
And Secresy the human dress.
The human dress is forged iron,
The human form a fiery forge,
The human face a furnace sealed,
The human heart its hungry gorge.

Sweet dreams form a shade,
O’er my lovely infants head.
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams,
By happy silent moony beams

Sweet sleep with soft down.
Weave thy brows an infant crown.
Sweet sleep Angel mild,
Hover o’er my happy child.

Sweet smiles in the night,
Hover over my delight.
Sweet smiles Mothers smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes,
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.

Sleep sleep happy child,
All creation slept and smil’d.
Sleep sleep, happy sleep.
While o’er thee thy mother weep

Sweet babe in thy face,
Holy image I can trace.
Sweet babe once like thee.
Thy maker lay and wept for me

Wept for me for thee for all,
When he was an infant small.
Thou his image ever see.
Heavenly face that smiles on thee,

Smiles on thee on me on all,
Who became an infant small,
Infant smiles are His own smiles,
Heaven & earth to peace beguiles.