Lyrical Ballads

One of the many important aspects of the “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” is that William Wordsworth writes his poems based on the common life of people and then he brings them alive in an unexpected way. He takes a situation in the common life and shows a different perspective of it. Wordsworth does something extraordinary with his poem “Nutting.” This poem is about a very simple situation in the common life, but Wordsworth goes the extra miles and makes his readers see through his own eyes. This poem is simple about a young boy who destroys a bower of hazelnut, yet it encompasses the principal object of the Lyrical Ballads. According to Wordsworth, his poems are about “incidents and situations from common life, and to related or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination…(148)” His poem “Nutting” showcases this with the imagery of a young boy breaking off a hazelnut tree for its nuts. In reality, no person who acts in this way will sit and think about what they’ve done to the tree and mourn over it. Wordsworth is doing something very differently by adding emotions to this poem. I think emotions play an important part in this poem and since we are able to feel his emotions, we can relate to it more. No common person destroys a tree and feels the pain that they’ve caused it since they’ve received what benefited them by destroying that particular thing. Wordsworth wrote the poem for a purpose. He wrote the poem so people and relate to it and take a moment to imagine things they’ve destroyed in the past and for them to realize these feelings that they didn’t have before. He’s right about adding colors to a common thing that is overlooked.  This also leads to his idea that poetry is a “spontaneous overflow of emotions.” This is what readers should feel when they read his poems.