Poetic diction is the language that we use in poetry. It is entirely different from the language which we use in everyday life. It is the language that is commonly used in novels, by its style, vocabulary, and use of figurative language.
William Wordsworth was born in the Lake District of northern England. He was one of the founders of English Romanticism. He has contributed to the development of romantic criticism. His theory about poetic diction can be seen in his work, The Preface to the Lyrical Ballad. His prime concern was to denounce such superficial and over-decorated language. Wordsworth says that poetry should present the life of rustic people. Poetry, for Wordsworth, must be like part of daily life speech. It should be written in a language that we use in day-to-day life. Then everyone can read and understand literary work easily, including the common people.
Wordsworth rejected the artificial and stagnant poetic diction both in theory and practice. He asserted that in place of the stereotyped poetic diction he will use the real language of men and that too of the rustics whose language, like their way of living, is most natural and not artificial.
Wordsworth’s theory of poetic diction can be seen in his work The ‘Preface’ to the Lyrical Ballads. He says that, Since every poet’s mode of experience is peculiar to him, it will find expression in a style appropriate to it. Consequently, no general poetic style can be prescribed for all poets to follow. The language used by stylistic devices and figures of speech can be natural things with earlier writers, but it looks artificial with later writers.
Coleridge is another romantic critic. Though Wordsworth and Coleridge were co-poets in writing and published Lyrical Ballad in 1798. Though there is a number of similarities between Wordsworth and Coleridge, there is a number of differences as well. Coleridge did not agree with Wordsworth in his theory of poetic language as he explained in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge’s theory of poetic diction can be seen in his work, Biographia Literaria
Coleridge also supported Wordsworth’s criticism of the artificiality and unnaturalness of poetic diction as it stagnates the creative writer’s abilities or skills, but he disagrees with Wordsworth’s view that the language of poetry should be ‘the language of natural conversation of men under the influence of natural feelings.’ Coleridge objected to this view for three reasons which he elaborates thus:
Wordsworth believed that there is no essential difference between the language of prose and poetry or metrical composition. But Coleridge argues that there is an essential difference between the language of prose and poetry. Further says that even though some words are common in both prose and poetry, they are arranged differently in both prose and poetry. Meter is an essential part of a poem. Therefore there must be an essential difference between the language of prose and poetry.