Yelled Elvis Costello on his superior album 'Get Happy'. Good stuff.
So, is it wrong that I don't like William Wordsworth?
I feel like it is. I feel like, as an english literature student, I should be loving the Lyrical Ballads; I don't. And when I do, its Coleridge's poetry that I prefer. Here's why.
1) He (Wordsworth) over-sentimentalises things. I know that in the introduction he says he's looking at people in the extremes of emotion, and that's fine, but it makes it all seem so... implausible.
2) His style; his choice of words, although I get that they're ballads and have to be long and a bit sing-songy, it annoys me and I don't like reading it.
3) They hardly ever 'pack a punch'. All too often a poem that has rambled on for 4 pages concludes with almost nothing resolved, nothing really said, and you have to do A LOT of interpreting to get to any 'message'. And it's usually the same one; Nature is awesome. For everyone.
I get that it was a seminal publication at the time, that it was revolutionary and all that... But I just don't think it's that relevant. Not that I shouldn't be studying it, I should, I want to. I just don't love it.
Not so Sq.
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