Thesis
The "real language of men" and the "dialect of common sense" in the prefaces of William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2009
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/102847
Abstract
This work deals exclusively with the works of William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman. Specifically, the prefaces of their most important poetic collections are used to address how each poet initiated a shift in the reading and composing of poetry between the late eighteenth to mid nineteenth centuries. Wordsworth engages a new class of readers by the utilization of the "language of real men." This new language centered on a kind of realism not wholly supported by his Romantic movement, and yet Wordsworth is still celebrated as among the greatest of Romantics. In the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth argues that this is the kind of language necessary to create honest poetry, poetry that is not tainted by the will or ego of the poet. Whitman propels Wordsworth's goals in his Preface to Leaves of Grass, advocating a "dialect of common sense" in the poetry of his generation. Whitman's goals align with Wordsworth's, and Whitman builds off of the work that Wordsworth had laid forth in his own Preface. Whitman's Preface, however, differs from Wordsworth's in that it is essentially a free verse poem, written in language not unlike his poetry. Such a seemingly small observation speaks to the differences in Wordsworth and Whitman's approaches to the same goal - a goal that sought to pull poetry from its perch atop a literary hierarchy, down to the common people.
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Details
- Title
- The "real language of men" and the "dialect of common sense" in the prefaces of William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman
- Creators
- Rachel Marie Sanchez
- Contributors
- Augusta Rohrbach (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- English, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; Pullman, Wash. :
- Identifiers
- 99900525386201842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis