Prepared by- Urvi Dave
Course- M.A.
Sem- 2
Paper no.- 5
Paper name- Romantic Age
Enrollment num.-
14101009
Batch- 2014-16
Guidance- Heenaba Zala
Submitted to- Smt. S.
B. Gardi Department of English
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Question-
What are the salient features of William Wordsworth and Coleridge as Romantic
poets?
ð
William
Wordsworth was an eminent English poet. He was born on 07 April 1770 in
Cockermouth, an old market town in the district of Allerdale in the country of
Cumbria in the North- West of England. Together until the famous poet Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, he launched the Romantic period and school of thought of
English literature with their Lyrical Ballads first published in 1798.
In 1807, the
third edition of what was to become a classical work was supplemented with a
long- awaited introduction written by Wordsworth. Having defined what poetry is
according to Wordsworth, he defines it as:
“ He is a man speaking to men; a man, it is true, endued with
more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater
knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to
be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own passions and volitions, and
who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him;
delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the
going-on of the universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does
not find them.”
Eventually, Coleridge and
Wordsworth lived close to each other in the North of England in the lake
district, which in fact would end up earning them together with Robert Southey,
the label of “Lake poets.” Wordsworth was clearly part of larger circles of
contemporary literary figures in England as well. Wordsworth is celebrated for,
amongst others, his Lucy poems, which are a series of five poems written
between 1798-1801.earlier versions of four of them, however, had already been
published in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1800. He was to attempt
to write in as pure as possible English and thus try and touch as much as
communicate through prose the high morals of love, beauty, nature, death and
longing amongst other ideals. In 1807, Wordsworth published poems in two
volumes which includes poems entitled “Resolution and Independence”, “I wandered as a
lonely cloud” (known as Daffodils), “My Heart Leaps Up”, “Ode: Intimations of
Immortality”, “Ode to Duty”, “The Solitary Reaper”, “Elegiac Stanzas”,
“Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”, “London, 1802” and “The World is too much with us.”
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The
complete poetry work of Wordsworth is too much big. It also includes Guide to the Lakes
(1810), The Excursion (1814), and Laodamia (1815). Both Durham University and Oxford University awarded him with the
honorary Doctor of Civil Law Degree in 1838 and 1839. When his friend and poet
colleague Robert Southey died in 1843, Wordsworth became the new poet Laureate
in Great Britain, a title he would keep until his death. He died in 1850 at the
age of 80 at Rydal Mount, a house in the Lake district near Ambleside, made
famous as the home where he lived and died. The cause of his death was a re-
aggravating cause of pleurisy, which is an inflammation that prevents breathing
by causing terrible pain when one does so. It is typically the result of
pneumonia. Life of both Coleridge and Wordsworth, in particular, their
collaboration on the important Lyrical Ballads is at the heart of the film Pandaemonium (2000). Some of his
major works are- “Lyrical Ballads”, “Simon Lee”, “We are Seven”, “Lines
written in Early Spring”, “Expostulation and Reply”, “The Tables Turned”, “The
Thorn”, “She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways”, “I Traveled among Unknown men”,
“Lucy Gray”. Now, when we
talk about Romantic poetry, it is the break from the set rules and regulations.
The Romantics showed interest in the country life. In their poetry, they
discard the glamours of artificial life and turn to the elements and
simplicities of a life lived in closer touch with the beauties and charm of
nature. Every genius is a rebel and so was Wordsworth. He protested against the
traditions and usages setup by the poets of the pseudo- classical school during
the Eighteenth century. The three main principles of his poetic diction are-
`1) The language of
poetry should be the language really used by men but it should be a selection
of such language.
2) It should be the
language of men in a state of vivid sensation. It means that language used by
people in a state of animation can form the language of poetry.
3) There is no essential
difference between the words used in prose and in metrical composition. The
elements of simplicity and ease that we come across in his poetry are
principally due to his adoption of a language well within the reach of common
people.
Wordsworth’s theory of poetic diction
was disapproved by Coleridge and in the pages of Biographia Literaria, he found numerous defects in
Wordsworth’s theory. In spite of his shortcoming’s, Wordsworth rendered
remarkable service to poetry by effectively putting an end to the use of false
poetic diction. He brought back the natural beauty and simplicity of poetry.
Wordsworth’s poetry exhibits Romantic characteristics and for his treatment
towards Romantic elements, he stands supreme and he an be termed a Romantic poet
on a number of reasons. The Romantic movement of the early Nineteenth century
was a revolt against the classical tradition of the Eighteenth century; but it
was also marked b y certain positive trends. Wordsworth was, of course, a
pioneer of the romantic movement of the Nineteenth century. With the
publication of The Lyrical Ballads, the new trends became more or less
established. The reasons why he was called a Romantic poet are-
1) Imagination- where the Eighteenth century poets used to
put emphasis much on ‘wit’, the Romantic poets used to put emphasis on
‘imagination’. Wordsworth uses imagination so that the common things could be
made to look strange and beautiful through the play of imagination. In his
famous “Intimation Ode” it
seems to him as to the child “the earth and every common sight” seemed
“appareled in celestial lights.” Here he says
“There
was a time when meadow, grove
And
stream
The
earth and every common sight,
To me
did seem
Appareled in celestial light.”
Moreover, in this poem, we find a sequence of picture through his use of
imagery. Through his imagination, he says,
“The
rainbow come and goes,
And
lovely is the Rose,
The
Moon doth with delight
Look
round her when the heavens are bare.”
Similarly, in the poem Tintern Abbey, the poet sees the river, the
stream, steep and lofty cliffs through his imaginative eyes. He was
enthusiastically charmed at the joyful sound of the rolling river. Here he says,
“Once
again
Do I
behold those steep and lofty cliffs
That
on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts
of more deep seclusion and
Connect
The
landscape with quiet of the sky.”
In this poem, the poet seems that the nature has a healing power. Even
the recollection of nature soothes the poet’s troubled heart. The poet can feel
the existence of nature through imagination even when he is away from her, he
says,
“In
lovely rooms and ‘mid the dim
Of
towns and cities, I have owed to them
In
hours of weariness, sensation sweet.”
2) Nature- He is especially
regarded as a poet of nature. In most of the poems of William Wordsworth,
nature is constructed as both a healing entity and a teacher or moral guardian.
Nature is considered in his poems as a living personality. He is a true worshiper
of nature: nature’s devotee or high priest. The critic Cazamian says:
“To
William Wordsworth, nature appears as a formative influence superior to any
other, the educator of senses or mind alike, the shower in our hearts of the
deep laden seeds of our feelings and beliefs.”
He dwells with great satisfaction on the prospects of spending his time in groves and valleys and on the banks of streams that will lull him to rest
with their soft murmur. For Wordsworth, nature is a healer and he ascribes
healing properties to nature in Tintern Abbey. This is a fairly obvious
conclusion drawn from his reference to “Tranquil Restoration”, that his memory
of the Wye offered him “in lovely rooms and mid the in/ of towns and cities.”
3) Subjectivity- it is the key
note of Romantic poetry. He expresses his personal thoughts, feelings through
his poems. In Ode: Intimation of Immortality,
the poet expresses his own/ personal feelings.
Here he says, that he can’t see the celestial light anymore which he
used to see in his childhood. He says,
“It is not how as it hath been of yore
Turn wheresoever I may,
By might or day,
The things which I have seen I now can
Seen on more.”
4) Pantheism and Mysticism-
These two are almost interrelated factors in the nature poetry of the Romantic
period. Wordsworth conceives of a spiritual power running through all natural
objects- the “presence that disturbs me with the law of elevated thoughts”
whose dwelling is the light.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on 21 October 1772
and was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who with his friend
Wordsworth was a founder of the romantic movement in England and a member of
the Lake poets. He died on 25 July 1834. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan as well as the major prose
work Biographia Literaria.
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His critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was
highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to
English- speaking culture. He coined many familiar words and phrases, including
suspension of disbelief. He was a major influence of Emerson and American
transcendentalism. Throughout his adult life, Coleridge suffered from crippling
bouts of anxiety and depression; it has been speculated that he suffered from
bipolar disorder, a condition not identified from poor physical health that may
have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever and other childhood illness. He was
treated for these concerns with laudanum, which fostered a lifelong opium
addiction. His opium addiction now began to takeover his life: he separated
with his wife Sarah in 1808, quarreled with Wordsworth in 1810, lost part of
his annuity in 1811, and put himself under the care of Doctor Daniel in 1814.
His addiction caused severe constipation, which required regular and
humiliating enemas. He is one of the most important figures in English poetry.
His poems directly and deeply influenced all the major poets of the age. He was
known by his contemporaries as a meticulous craftsman who was more rigorous in
his careful reworking of his poems than any other poet, and Southey and
Wordsworth were dependent on his professional advice. His influence on
Wordsworth is particulary important because many critics have credited
Coleridge with the very idea of “Conversational Poems”.
The idea of utilizing common language to express profound poetic images and ideas for which
Wordsworth became so famous may have originated almost entirely in Coleridge’s
mind. It is difficult to imagine Wordsworth’s great poems, The Excursion or The Prelude, ever having been written without the
direct influence of Coleridge’s originality. As important as Coleridge was to
poetry as a poet, he was equally important to poetry as a critic. His
philosophy of poetry, which he developed over many years, has been deeply
influential in the field of literary criticism. This influence can be seen in
such critics such as A O Lovejoy and I A Richard’s. Coleridge is probably best known for his long
poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mainer and Christabel. Even those who have never
read the Rime have came under his influence: its words have given the English
language the metaphor of an albatross around one’s neck, the quotation of
“water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink”, and the phrase “a sadder and
a wiser man”.
The phrase “all sadder great and small” may have been inspired by the Rime:
“He prayeth best, who loveth best;/All things both
great and small;/For the dear god who loveth us;/He made and loveth all.”
Christabel is known for its musical rhythm language and its Gothic tale.
Kubla khan or A Vision in a Dream, A Fragment, although shorter is also widely
known. Both Kubla Khan and Christabel have an additional Romantic aura because
they were never finished. Stopford Brooke characterised both poems as having no
rival due to their “exquisite metrical movement” and “imaginative phrasing”.
Some of his conversational poems are-
The Eohian Harp (1795)
Fears in Solitude (1798)
This Lime- Tree Bower my Prison
(1797)
Dejection- An Ode (1802)
To William Wordsworth (1807)
Frost at Midnight (1798)
The above listed poems are entitled
“Conversational Poems”. The term itself was coined in 1928 by George McLean Harper, who borrowed the subtitle of The Nightingale: A Conversational Poem (1798) to describe the
other poems as well. The poems are considered by many critics to be among
Coleridge’s finest verses; thus Harold Bloom has written, “With Dejection, The
Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Frost at Midnight shows Coleridge at his most
impressive.” They are also among his most influential poems. The last ten lines
of Frost at Midnight were chosen by Harper as the “best example of the peculiar kind of blank verse Coleridge had evolved, as natural-seeming as prose, but as
exquisitely artistic as the most complicated sonnet”. The speaker of the poem
is addressing his infant son, asleep by his side:
“Therefore
all seasons shall be sweet
To
thee,
Whether
the summer clothe the
General
earth
With
the greenness, or the redbreast sit
And
sing
Betwixt
the tufts of snow on the bare
Branch
Of
mossy apple tree, while the nigh
Thatch’Smokes
in the sun-thaw; whether the
Eave-drops
fall
Heard
only in the trances of the blast, or if the secret ministry of frost,
Shall
hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly
shining to the quiet moon.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge is one of the remarkable poets of Romantic
period. He was a most intimate friend of Wordsworth and their influence on one
another was most productive. Coleridge’s poems are removed from the gravity
and high seriousness of Spenser, Milton or Wordsworth.
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