A False Assumption?

I was listening to the excellent podcast from BBC Radio 4's In Our Time series on Wordsworth's The Prelude today and found myself thinking about the claim that poetry functions as an education of feeling. At one time I brought into Wordsworth's seminal idea completely, seeing it as one of the many justifications I could think of for teaching poetry in the classroom. And I'm not surprised I bought into it then. After all, The Prelude does provide a wonderful, extraordinary education of feeling.

But now I'm not at all sure of the validity, or even value of the concept, despite Wordsworth's persuasiveness (and, I should add, the persuasiveness of many other fine writers following in his wake in reassertion of the concept.) What changed my mind? The recognition that across the years I've met an awful lot of readers of literature, especially poetry, who haven't exactly impressed me as representing some kind of superiority of feeling - not to mention a fair few writers. (Yes, Ezra Pound, I'm thinking of you.) Indeed, my general sense is that such folks have generally been pretty much the same as everyone else.

So I suppose that what The Prelude offers us is, I'm afraid, beyond most of us to grasp, no matter how clever we may think ourselves. Sad, but salutary.

(Must read the poem again soon, though. Gosh, the discussion really whetted my appetite!)