![]() This music genre could be traced back to the oral tradition of songs sung during slavery. There is a similar trend seen in music, where the artist will take on the underdog persona in society, and with regards to the roots of rap this is the systemic reality of the social hierarchy. However, what is most important in his choice of subject matter is the elevation of an often disenfranchised group in 19 th century England. ![]() Wordsworth’s portrayal is a simplified version of an iconic, rustic hero, a throwback to traditional values before the age of industrialization and the corrupting influence of urban life. Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity (561). In regards to his chosen subject matter the poet states, In his specific choice of subject matter Wordsworth provides a sense of agency to a group who had often been overlooked by society in artistic representations, and began the trend towards democratizing the practice of poetry. Following the outline of Wordsworth’s justification for his poetry, and the ideas built upon that foundation by Shelley in A Defence of Poetry, rap music becomes an extension of the Romantic ideology, wherein emotion is a valuable contribution to the aesthetic experience of art, and can be used as a form of resistance against the established order of society. ![]() This trend has continued into 21 st century productions of lyrical art, and, most notably, one can draw many parallels between the ideals first professed by Wordsworth in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads and themes in popular music, expressly within the genre of rap. In the transition from enlightenment to Romantic thought, the subjective, emotional experience was given value as a form of universal truth, in its ability to both reflect and shape reality. Past writers, such as Hume or Kant, had focussed on the unattainable ideal of a universal truth professed through channels of reasoning and logic, but such a practice was ultimately exclusionary to those who fell outside the margins of their aesthetic definitions. However, the pursuit of individual truth is an interesting shift which occurred in the Romantic age. The purpose behind poetry in the Romantic period, as expressed in the manifestos of Wordsworth and Shelley, is really no different than that which came before it ultimately art has, and always will, be used to facilitate a deeper understanding of the world, and man’s experience within it.
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