Michael H Wordsworth Research Paper

Wordsworth started a new kind of poetry during the romantic era. Prior to the romantic era most poetry and poets were attempting to imitate some of the ancient greats like Homer and Virgil, in a period called Neoclassicism. Neoclassical poetry focused on an ordered structure, regular meter and intricate word choice. Wordsworth broke free of this tradition by submitting the idea that poetry should be more spontaneous and focus on the mundane events in everyday life. He took away the belief that every poem had to deliver a bigger meaning to the people and that it’s only meant to be for the educated class. He sought to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, and with this mind set, he brought about a new type of poetry and influence many great …show more content…
Wordsworth specifically chose this topic to be one of his stories because it was not a fantasy like tale that many neoclassical poets focused their writing on, but instead a much simpler relatable tale. The entire plot line is focused on the modest life that Michael leads as a farmer and how his life is shaped by that. In the first part of the poem, Wordsworth prefaces the change in style by saying, “a story – unenriched with strange events, yet not unfit, I deem, for the fireside, or for the summer shade. It was the first of those domestic talks that spake to me.” He immediately informs the readers that there is not going to be any strange or unrealistic events happening, like they might be used to, in this story. This sets up the rest of the story as something that the majority of the people reading during this time period would be able to relate too. With the neoclassical poems, it was all aimed towards the upper class, luxury and fantasy event that the common people would be isolated due to the fact that they were not a part of that social class. Having the story centralize around a more common tale broadens the audience it is able to reach. The subtitle of “a pastoral poem” indicates that Wordsworth is attempting to reflect more towards a relatable subject topic. The use of pastoral shows the shift from an aristocratic make believe fantasy story to a more humble and rustic life style. The small shifts that …show more content…
Wordsworth started the change that influences some of the great poets that came after him. He made the push to focus poetry more on the beauty that can be found in the common life, and stop repeating what has already been done in the ancient times. He considered a lot of his poetry to be experiments to see how they would change the language of the lower social classes and how that in turn would put different pressures on other poets. Michael shows off how Wordsworth thought to change the out dated form of poetry to a new class. He brought about the notion of common themes written in a language and form that people from all social classes can understand, while focusing on getting them to feel real emotion. Wordsworth accomplished all of this and started a new class of poetry that was well adapted to the interest of