BY JOHN CROWE RANSOM

OUR poet was one of the giants. We cannot say less, for
Wordsworth did what Burns and Blake could not do: he re-
versed the direction of English poetry in a bad time, and re-
vitalized it. But in order to do this he had to speculate upon
what was possible, and what was advantageous, by virtue of
the very constitution of a poetic action; he had to study poetry
as well as write it. He was driven to a conception of poetry
which was more radical, or thoroughgoing, than that of any
of his predecessors, but it justified itself in his own poetic
production. It is Wordsworth's innovations in the theory upon
which I should like to offer some notes, as my tribute to the
poet: in the theory, because he theorized as well as practised;
and notes, because my impressions are speculative and im-
perfect, and in what has always been an area of speculation
do not aspire anyway to be demonstrative.

The first notes have to do with the famous doctrine of poetic
diction as laid down in the Preface. I had written, the "notori-
ous" Preface, for it was a monstrous indiscretion, such as no
other important poet ever committed so far as I know: giving
his enemies two targets instead of one. There was a saving
rightness in it, but its valor was that of an innocent, while the
stubbornness which kept on republishing it indicated a man
with a philanthropic intention.

In the Preface Wordsworth declares that the language of
poetry is not different from the language of prose. He enters
qualifications, however. He calls it once the language of "good"
prose, and again the language of prose "when prose is well
written." Nor does he claim that this neutral language is the
language of all poetry, but that it is the language of much of

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