Against Neoclassical Poetic Practices in Mary Wollstonecraft’s “On Poetry” and William Wordsworth’s “Preface” to the Lyrical Ballads

Abstract

This essay offers a comparative investigation of Mary Wollstonecraft’s “On Poetry, and Our Relish for the Beauties of Nature” and William Wordsworth’s “Preface” to the Lyrical Ballads, to explore how their poetic principles are at odds with neoclassical poetic practices. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads had a seminal influence on the development of Romanticism in Britain, and his criticism of neoclassical poetic practices in the “Preface” to the 1800 edition has been widely recognized by contemporary critics and modern scholars alike. However, he was not the only writer to criticize contemporary poetic practices. Wollstonecraft contributed an essay titled “On Poetry” to the Monthly Magazine in April 1797, in which she disapproves of contemporary poetic principles and argues for the importance of the poet’s own feelings as the main inspiration for poetry. By comparing these two contrasting views on poetry, this essay provides a new perspective on Wordsworth’s “Preface,” and at the same time investigates Wollstonecraft’s lesser-known view of poetry. It argues that both Wollstonecraft and Wordsworth highlighted the power of genuine feeling and imagination in poetry and repudiated neoclassical poetic practices, though the central points of their criticisms differ. While Wollstonecraft focused on the borrowing of images from ancient literature, Wordsworth paid greater attention to language, particularly neoclassical poetic diction. This essay begins by exploring these two main features of conventional poetic practices, which they object to in their texts. It then explores Wollstonecraft’s and Wordsworth’s views on poetry by examining their criticisms of neoclassical poetic conventions.