ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -"A Complaint” is a short poem by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth. Published in 1807, the poem is often taken as being about Wordsworth’s falling out with his close friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, though it can also be read as a commentary on the pain of lost love more generally.

Detailed explanation-2: -complaint, also called plaint, in literature, a formerly popular variety of poem that laments or protests unrequited love or tells of personal misfortune, misery, or injustice.

Detailed explanation-3: -It is a very reflective, personal poem, and the speaker can be considered an extension of Wordsworth himself. There is a change-and I am poor; Your love hath been, nor long ago, A fountain at my fond heart’s door, Whose only business was to flow; And flow it did; not taking heed Of its own bounty, or my need.

Detailed explanation-4: -Complaint is voiced in many forms, such as the protest poem, political song, satire, and sermon, as well as other modes such as narrative, lyric, ballad, drama, treatise, letters, and even romance.

Detailed explanation-5: -Wordsworth is best known for Lyrical Ballads, co-written with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and The Prelude, a Romantic epic poem chronicling the “growth of a poet’s mind.”