Tameka Banks-Davis
Professor Tracy Harris
American Literature
2 June 2014
Naturalism
Late 18th Century marked the beginning of Naturalism, a literature technique that had its origins in Europe, but was quite popular in the American literature. Naturalism has been associated closely with realism due to its emphasis on illustrating surface reality with a view of presenting human behavior as hereditary and can be controlled by physical and environmental impulses. William Wordsworth’s popular literature, the Lyrical Ballads, expressed naturalism to a new level best leading to a poem revolution. Wordsworth transformed the poetry definition and was able to brand it to a more composed formally styled literature championing the stories of democrat lives of just ordinary people without emphasizing a lot about their economic status. True to the traditional ballad form the Preface Lyrical ballad illustrated realistic personalities in real life scenarios that would essentially capture the strong narrative element. Wordsworth principal defense from the critics was that poetry ought to be a language for an ordinary man and not the lofty…show more content… Wordsworth praise for rural people was evident due to their less restrained lifestyle and were artificial when expressing their feelings as utterances too were at par with the environment. In his definition of a relevant poetry, he described it as an impulsive overflow of superior emotions or feelings written by people who have seen incidents in their memories that the words spontaneously come out in rhythm and rhyme. Wordsworth would further depict in the ballad that a good poet was uncommon since they exhibit thoughts that completely represent peoples past feelings irrespective of their background (Goetz et.al,