Introduction:
Wordsworth was one of the leaders and protagonists of English Romantic Movement. Coleridge and Wordsworth were the two great pioneer leaders who made the transition from classicism to romanticism in poetry during 19th century. The two poets set themselves to two opposite tasks of romanticism. Wordsworth took upon himself to make natural things look strange. Coleridge was to take the supernatural things and bring them down to the level of the natural. Neo-classicism despised sentiment in poetry. It frowned upon 'free imagination', but approved of 'fancy' which created picture of the things known to the urban society of the day. The English Romanticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge broke down the barriers which Pope's Neo-classicism had erected around English poetry. Intentionally, and by efforts, the two poets revised and aroused the Romantic spirit in English poetry.
Love for Nature and Representation of Different Aspects of Nature's Beauty:
All the poets of the Romantic School were lovers of Nature and they represented in their poems various aspects of Nature's beauty and also the truth embodied in the influence of Nature. But Wordsworth is the first and probably the greatest poet of Nature in the sphere of English poetry. There are two theories about his love of Nature. On the base of one theory, he was a born lover of Nature and the other theory says, he turned to Nature under the great influence of Rousseau, the great French philosopher and political theorist.
Going Aside the Rules and Regulation in Composition of Poetry:
Wordsworth started the revolt against the poetic subject and manner of the neo-classical poetry of the 18th century, and employed a new manner and style of writing on subjects which had hither to been ignored. His Lyrical Ballads is a sign of his revolt against conventional subjects and manner. It shows his originality in matters of poetic subjects and technique. Wordsworth's originality lies in his treatment of the most depraved, miserable of men, like tramps, beggars, paddlers, insane persons and delinquents in a way as if he were treating the higher-ups in society. Although he was influenced by several poets and thinkers, he carved out in the end his own path, and wrote in his own manner. He learnt much from others, but mainly depended on his own experience to guide him.
His Mysticism Introducing the Spirit of Romanticism in Poetry:
Wordsworth's mysticism was something new which poets of the classical school had never experienced. He had visionary experiences, and communed with Nature very frequently. A. C. Bradley calls him a mystic and remarks: “He saw everything in the light of visionary power." He apprehended all things, natural or human, as the expression of something which, while manifested in them, immeasurably transcends them. He had a mystical apprehension of the presence of a Divine Spirit behind the natural phenomena, and described this presence in his poetry.
Wordsworth's Theory of Poetry and Poetic Diction:
Disgusted with too much 'literalness' and 'artificiality' of the 18th century poetry, Wordsworth was eager to bring his poetry to Nature and life by making it as simple and artless as was possible. For this, a revolt against existing conventions of poetry was necessary, and Wordsworth did not hesitate in raising the voice of revolt. His preference was for a simple and plain language which was used by common people in their ordinary speech. He was opposed to the artificial language, 'gaudiness' and inane phraseology of the 18th century poetry, and of many contemporary poets. Conscious of the triviality and meanness both of thought and language of his contemporaries, Wordsworth used and advocated the use of the simple rustic language in poetry. Indeed it was the beginning of the new romanticism and Wordsworth paved the way by making the language of poetry more real and more natural than it used to be in the eighteenth century. Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction broke away all points with the classical poetry of nineteenth century particularly in its formal side.
Romantic Elements in His Lyrics, Odes and Sonnets:
Wordsworth's romantic attitude is also seen in the subjectivity of much of his poetry, his adoption of various lyric-forms such as the ode, the sonnet, etc., and his development of blank verse, and his abandoning of conventional subjects and manner. A strong romantic note may be discerned in his poems such as "The Solitary Reaper', To the Cuckoo', To a Skylark', The Reverie of Poor Susan', ’I wandered lonely as a cloud', and so on. Music, emotional excitement and imaginative supremacy which were the hall-marks of the poetry of romanticism, were introduced in the finest measure possible. Heroic couplet was given up and a variety of metrical experiments were made by the poet in poems of rare beauty and charm.
Thus, there are numerous other excellences which made him the leader of the Romantic Movement and put him under the category of the out-standing poets of the period of the Romantic Revival in English. Grierson and Smith consider him to be "a mountain, the most massive in that lofty range which we call the Romantic Revival."