What is the purpose of poetry? What does it do?

“For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; but though this be true, Poems to which any value can be attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling are modified by our thoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our past feelings;”

William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems, second edition (BABL 188)

This text comes from the preface to Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, a series of volumes of poetry. The preface was published with the second edition in 1800, and again in 1802.

Wordsworth was a poet during the late 1700s and early 1800s. His work that we read for class, Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, was about the beauty of nature and remembering to enjoy it, but his preface speaks to his intentions for the poem. Wordsworth is writing in a plainer style than common for the time because he wishes to show how humans truly are. Poetry is an art form that reflects the human soul, and therefore Wordsworth writes plainly to be understood. To him, poetry is emotion. It comes from emotion, it brings emotion. Poetry is steeped in feelings before it is produced, and it continues to be processed through feelings by the reader. The purpose of poetry is to show emotion, to give the reader something to hold onto and dive into. It is meant to bring thought to the mind, and being written by someone with in depth perception and responsiveness to others and the world at large, it is meant to broaden the perspective of the reader. Poetry being based off of emotion, and largely being created from emotion and sensibility means that poetry is part of the human soul- poetry is pure emotion.