Wordsworth's "The Idiot Boy" seems to abide fairly closely by his poetic aims as put forth in his preface to the Lyrical Ballads of 1802 -- at least, to the simpler and more concrete aims. His use of scenes and characters from "low and rustic life", the presentations of states of mind and feeling under "states of excitement", and the general avoidance of what would at that time have been considered self-consciously flowery poetic conceits and diction, can all be seen in the briefest of glances through the poem.

To this might be added another of his aims, to which the last mentioned above is in fact a corollary, that is, "[to use] as far as possible, a selection of language really used by men . . ." This may at first glance pose problems, for "The Idiot Boy" is, after all, a metered, closely patterned poem; but if Wordsworth's own qualifications to this idea are kept in mind, the problems disappear.

I have proposed to myself to imitate, and as far as possible, to adopt the very language of men . . . (Preface)

It is not the actual, natural spoken language that Wordsworth is aiming to give us, but rather a poetic imitation thereof.

Interestingly, Wordsworth includes in the poem a deliberate reminder to his readers of this desire to avoid what he disparagingly refers to as "poetic diction": the muses he invokes at line 349 to help him tell what the retarded boy has perhaps been up to reject him, leaving him to his own, presumably more down-to-earth devices.

Next we consider the more complex aims outlined in the Preface. The prosaicness of the subject matter should have "[thrown] over [it] a certain coloring of imagination whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way . . ." The poem is full of things like owls which "shout" to each other while the protagonist is feeling extreme fright and stress; whereas they "in tuneful concert strive" during her much healthier frame of mind after recovering her son, etc. The most striking example, once again almost a broad and bold reminder to his readers of what Wordsworth is up to, is the boy's reporting of the owls' calls as the crowing of cocks and the moon's appearance as the shining cold of the sun; the fact that this boy is in some way retarded points up in an extreme way that that which is "low and common" may, when "colored over with imagination", have something fundamental to reveal to us about the world and ourselves. Wordsworth in fact said elsewhere: "I have often applied it to idiots in my mind, that supreme expression of Scripture, that 'their life is hidden with God....'" (Quoted in Jonathan Wordsworth's The Borders of Vision).

One of the poet's more ambitious projects is to "make these [prosaic] incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them . . . the primary laws of our nature, chiefly as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement." This would beg a knowledge of what exactly Wordsworth thought these primary laws were, which would require a lengthy monograph; at this point we content ourselves with pointing out that the boy's mother imagines progressively worse things happening to her son the longer he is away and the more worried she becomes about him -- any parent of a young child will tell you that this is fundamental human nature in action.

Finally, the most difficult challenge to the reader: "Each of these poems has a worthy purpose." Wordsworth seems to have in fact several purposes vying for his own distinction of worthiness -- for example, that of improving the state of contemporary literature generally --

When I think upon this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation, I am almost ashamed to have spoken of the feeble effort with which I have endeavoured to counteract it. (Preface)

-- to which one can only remark that the general state of the literary arts is as degraded now as it ever was in Wordsworth's time, so, like Phaeton, "greatly did he fail, but greatly had he dared." He would have been more pragmatic had he stated his aim in this regard to be simply to add a large body of work to that tiny sub-section of all published literature which is of truly lasting value; this he did; but his hubris was not that pronounced.

Joe Vos and group