Wordsworth and Coleridge

WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE

Wordsworth and Coleridge are often called the Lake District Poets, because all their poems are set in nature and they were inspired by the Lake District.

Wordsworth and Coleridge published together the Lyrical Ballads, that is a collection of poems. Together because they were friends and because in the Lyrical Ballads they represented two different aspects of Romanticism:

- Wordsworth is interested to nature, simple life;

- Coleridge is interested to the power of imagination.

In 1800 Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote a Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, which was considered as a English Romanticism Manifesto. In this Manifesto there is their idea of Romanticism poetry and themes.

Very important in the Wordsworth’s poetry is the POETIC PROCESS, based on:

- contact with nature:

- a violent emotion;

- recollection in tranquillity;

- essence of emotion.

The emotion is violent because there isn’t control of reason; this emotion is individual because it is subjective, but the romantic poets wants to be universal because he is convinced that this emotions are the same for everyman.

The aspect of Wordsworth’s poetry are:

- nature;

- memory;

- childhood;

- imagination

Nature is the place of consolation, source of inspiration. It is seen in a pantheistic way because nature was the link between man and transcendental reality; this transcendental reality was called Might Power, like God.

Pantheistic because nature is alive, animated by a vital spirit.

Memory is called “the inward eye”. It is important in the creative process because the poet recollects, after some time, the first emotion which now is “purged” of eny excesses and it becomes universal, so every man feel the same emotion.

Childhood was a myth; the child is superior to men because he is innocence, unspoilt by society.

Childhood is the first stage of life; youth is the second stage; adulthood is the third stage.

Imagination is a half-creative faculty, memory is other half. Imagination is a half-creative faculty because it has a colouring function.

Imagination is a concept very important for all the romantic poets because it is true instruments of knowledge of the transcendental reality and it is also important because it helps romantic poets to perceive the reality.

Coleridge divided imagination into:

- FANCY, the faculty of children;

- PRIMARY IMAGINATION, common to all men; it is the faculty which allows to explain concepts, make examples;

- SECONDARY IMAGINATION, typical of the poets; it dissolves, diffuses and dissipates in order to recreate. It decomposes reality and re-organizes its pieces in a new way. The result is an Unusual Reality, that it has an effect Uncanny, because there is Doubt that something can be real.