Spontaneity and Real Language: How Wordsworth Reconciles His Philosophies Anonymous College

Poets have long argued over what constitutes real and decent poetry, but how well do these poets exemplify their arguments in their own work? In William Wordsworth’s 1802 “Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” the English Romantic poet outlines two major criteria for what he considers effective poetry. He writes that poetry should be a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Gill 598) and use language that coincides with “the real language of men” (Gill 595). Yet the 1807 and 1815 versions of Wordsworth’s famous “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” conform to his two criteria in some parts but not others. The 1815 emendation of his poem reveals how Wordsworth’s “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Gill 598) battles “the real language of men” (Gill 595) over where figures of speech, diction, and syntax belong in good poetry.

Wordsworth reworked his famous poem in 1815 after poor reviews of the 1807 original volume that contained his works (Byron 686). As such, a comparison of the two versions sheds light onto Wordsworth’s adherence to his two writing philosophies in revising “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” He amends “[a] host of dancing Daffodils; / Along the Lake, beneath the trees, / Ten thousand dancing in the breeze” (1807,...