Summary Notes on 'Why the ‘Lyrical Ballads’ The background, writing, and character of Wordsworth’s 1798 ‘Lyrical Ballads’.
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Course
Romanticism and Victorian Literature (EN5200)
Institution
University Of St Andrews
This document contains notes on John Emory Jordan's 'Why the ‘Lyrical Ballads’ The background, writing, and character of Wordsworth’s 1798 ‘Lyrical Ballads’. The document is 1 and a half pages long and contains all citation references and page numbers.
Why the ‘Lyrical Ballads’? The background, writing, and character of Wordsworth’s
1798 ‘Lyrical Ballads’
John E. Jordon
1976
University of California Press
Chapter Seven: Wordsworth’s Purpose in the 1798 Lyrical Ballads
156
- Notes that some poems that are in the 1800 edition, such as ‘A Whirl-blast
from Behind the Hill’, were written, or at least begun, by 1798 but were not
included in the original publication. There must be a reason for this.
157
- [of lines from a poem] ‘they capture significantly Wordsworth’s mood of the
moment at which Lyrical Ballads really came into being – the idea that any
sight which is pleasant or interesting for any reason, is a fit subject for poetic
description.’
160
- ‘Wordsworth’s point is that everyday subject matter has a valid human
interest, relates to real human passions and can be expressed poetically in
real human language – it needs no special ornamentation of poetic language.’
161
- ‘What Wordsworth aimed to do in the Lyrical Ballads was “by some invention”
of narrative, character, and setting, to charge the commonplace with feeling.’
167
- Notes that the majority of the characters in the collection do not have any
names. E.g. the maid from ‘We are Seven’ or the old man from ‘Old Man
Travelling’. Jordon claims they ‘represent maternity or childhood or man’s
relationship to property’ rather than specific stories
Chapter Eight: What is a “Lyrical Ballad”?
172
- ‘Why Wordsworth and Coleridge elected to call the collection of poems [LB]…
is one of the interesting and probably finally unanswerable questions of
literary history.’
173
- ‘In his 1815 Preface he puts ballads – along with hymns, odes, elegies and
songs – in the class of “the lyrical,” poems which require “for the production of
their full effect, an accompaniment of music”’ (QWQ)
- ‘That they meant something specific by their title, and did not use it facilely as
just as convenient conglomerate…is indicated by its last part: “With a few
other poems”’
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