Nutting and Wordsworth's Preface

In his preface to Lyrical Ballads, William Wordsworth sets out his notion of poets and poetry, and the motivating principles behind his specific style of poetry. Chief among his claims are that poetry need not restrict itself to then-common poetic tropes such as meter, rhyme, and lofty 'poetic diction' - because if poetry relies too heavily on being formulaic, there can be no "spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions." He sought to accomplish his goal of illuminating human nature by filtering common incidents through a certain level of imagination, and a core component of this was remaining well enough within the boundaries of what he deemed common speech. Also important to his approach was the component of contemplation - that the truth in a poem must come from deeply pondering it, and cannot simply be a gut reaction. Almost like a poem version of this preface, his poem "Nutting" makes use of pretty much all of these approaches.

Perhaps among the easiest aspects of Wordsworth's style to observe at a glance in "Nutting" are the lack of a strong meter or regular rhyme scheme. To listen to this poem, one could be forgiven for assuming it wasn't a poem at all. Lines regularly break in the middle of a phrase just to keep the lines of even length, and the poem itself is just one long 'stanza.' These, along with the more or less 'common' diction, serve to distance the poem from other forms, and indicate that it's more in line with Wordsworth's mission in his preface.

Aside from the mechanical distinctions from other kinds of poetry, "Nutting" serves as a solid example of Wordsworth's goals of arriving at truth through contemplation, communicating human nature, and demonstrating intense emotion. Wordsworth gives a clear sense that the speaker has thought deeply about this incident, as he recalls "one of those heavenly days that cannot die" (indicating it was a singular experience), and admits he might "confound [his] present feelings with the past" (suggesting he has developed a different perspective through repeatedly thinking about it). He also gives us a sense of the "laws of our nature" through the plot of the poem - the speaker is able to stop and enjoy the great beauty of the thicket he discovers, but ultimately 'defiles' it for personal gain, demonstrating two competing interests in the speaker that should be quite familiar to the reader - even if they've never had quite the same experience as the speaker. Finally, the poem aptly demonstrates emotions appropriate to the speaker's conflicting attitudes at the incident. When the speaker finds the thicket, he is "blest with sudden happiness" and feels the "sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay tribute to ease," describing at length the joy of discovering such a beautiful spot. When he cuts the trees' limbs for their nuts, he uses darker language, describing the thicket as "mutilated" and feeling pain as he observes "the intruding sky." The intense emotion communicated through the language used throughout the poem demonstrates Wordsworth's idea of "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" quite well.