Question: How does Wordsworth justify metre in poetry?
Introduction
William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) is an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, assisted to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798). He prescribes the use of metre in poetry but he criticizes poetic diction. metre brings coherence through poetic diction is capricious.
Reasons of using metre in poetry
According to Wordsworth, Metre is a very important thing to write poetry because it is the main difference between poetry and prose. He himself uses metre in poetry for the following reasons.
- Metre is an additional source of pleasure.
- It can give pleasure event without the use of poetic diction, even when the language is simple and naked.
- Metre has a restraining and tempering effect on the flow of emotion and passion.
- Ideas and feelings do not follow one another in the usual or regular order.
- It tempers and softens the gainful.
- It imparts passion to the words and so increases emotional intensity.
More Notes of Criticism
Conclusion
In termination, we can say that ST Coleridge criticizes Wordsworth’s recommendation for using metre in poetry but Wordsworth presents his logic that to write poetry, metre has no other alternative than metre because it makes difference between prose and poetry.
