SOURCE: "Poetry," in William Barnes, Twayne Publishers, 1984, pp. 16-68.

In the following excerpt, Parins explores Barnes's poetic technique and surveys his love and religious poetry, as well as his folklore verse and "homely rhymes. "

Barnes as a Dialect Poet

Barnes established himself as a writer of dialect poetry in 1844 with the publication of Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect. Here he turned to what he knew best for the subject matter of his art—the region and people of Dorset—and used as poetic language for those subjects the only appropriate one—the local dialect. Like Robert Burns, Barnes was an originator and a preserver of local tales and legends. The Dorset poet uses the dialect to produce atmosphere and to enhance the local color of his region as well; his language furnishes his descriptions of the countryside with a fresh point of view. His humor...