Poetry’s Tears and Blood Symbol Analysis

In the “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads,” Wordsworth personifies poetry and speaks of her tears and blood, using them to represent the idea that poetry should be written in the language of the common people. He writes: “Poetry sheds no tears ‘such as Angels weep,’ but natural and human tears; she can boast no celestial Ichor that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose; the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both.” Poetry’s tears and blood represent the essence of poetic language—according to Wordsworth, poetic language is merely the language of the common people, and not the lofty thing that the late-Neoclassical writers have made it out to be. Instead of “celestial Ichor”—the blood-like substance thought to run through the gods’ veins—poetry bleeds real, human blood. This ties into Wordsworth’s aim in the “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” to “keep [his] Reader in the company of flesh and blood”—to use stripped-down, common, prose-like language and write about real life (“Low and rustic life”) as the masses experience it. Through this metaphor with the tears of poetry, Wordsworth demystified poetry, demonstrating that it is human and not sublime; consequently, poetic language ought to be down-to-earth instead of lofty.