After contemplation, the initial or primary emotions and sensations get purified and filtered and what is left is considered as universal and all-important truth. The emotions of the first phase hang in the mind of the poet until the unwanted emotions, which were random and secondary, precipitated.

There might be a gap of many years between the initial or primary sense of emotions and the contemplation of it. After this, in the second stage, there will be recollection or remembrance of those emotions and sensations in tranquility and contemplated upon. Then he lets these emotions bog down together with the sensation which it has stirred. It creates forceful feelings and emotions in the poet’s mind. Read More: Romanticism in English Literature Poetic process:Īccording to Wordsworth, four stages are needed to complete a poetic process:Īt the outset, the poet observes certain things, characters, or circumstances. The insistence on imagination, feeling, passion, and emotion is an explicit withdrawal from the neoclassical emphasis on “ reason” and “ objectivity”. Without these fundamental aspects, good poetry cannot be composed. The foundational aspects of poetry are passion and emotion. Poetry’s starting point is the emotions in the heart, not the reason of intellect.

Poetry develops from the passion and emotion of the poet. From Wordsworth’s definition of poetry, it is comprehensible that poetry is a subject of imagination and motivation. The definition that Wordsworth put forward in 1802 is crucial, he says: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling, it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility…” (William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads).

Wordsworth’s use of common-man’s language.

Preface to lyrical ballads