‘Language’ according to the “Preface”
Wordsworth asserts that the rustic language has been adopted in the
poems after purging it of its slangness, coarseness, faulty syntax and other defects. This is because firstly the rustic people “hourly communicate with the best objects from which human language is originally derived”. Secondly, emotions find a simple expression in this sort of language. Thirdly as the rustic are within a narrow range, their language is more intense, vivid and emotionally coherent. Fourthly, the language of the common people is more accurate and conducive to understanding. H.W.Garrod asserts, “No other part of the Prefcae to the Lyrical Ballads have been criticized than the one in which Wordssworth affirms that the language of poetry is, ‘ a
selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid understanding .’Coleridge seized upon said of ‘selection’ exclaims at once that a language which has submitted to this selective process will in result not differ from the language of any other man of common sense.
He has used language fitted to their respective importance .i. a more elevated language for a more elevated subject and vice-versa. If the selection is made with true taste and feeling, then it will be free from the vulgarity and coarseness of ordinary life. Wordsworth also exclaims that ‘prosaisms’ do not matter for there neither is, nor can be, any essential
difference between the language of prose and metrical compositions.” They are closely akin in their nature function and appeal. They spring from the same source, apply the same material and appeal to the same faculties. The only difference is in the use of metre. Wordsworth illustrates the same by putting forward a sonnet, Thomas Gray’s” on the Death of Richard West”:
“I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear,
And weep the more because I weep in vain.”