WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE’S VIEW ON POETRY

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE’S VIEW ON POETRY.                            

Coleridge and Wordsworth collaboratively published 'Lyrical Ballads' in 1798, marking the rise of the British Romantic movement.

According to Coleridge, in their collective plans it was agreed Coleridge would compose a series of lyrical poems exploring the Romantic and supernatural, and seeking there to earn a readers’ “poetic faith,” while Wordsworth decided to use the nature and the everyday as his subject in poems.

William Wordsworth’s view about poetry:-

In the preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth defines poetry

"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's view about Poetry:-

 “The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other, according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity that blends and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical power to which we have exclusive appropriated the name of imagination. This power, first put in action by the will and understanding and retained under their irremissive, though gentle and unnoticed, control (laxis effertur habenis [i. e. driven with loosened reins]) reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the general, with the concrete; the idea, with the image; the individual, with the representative; the sense of novelty and freshness, with old and familiar objects; a more than usual state of emotion, with more than usual order; judgment ever awake and steady self-possession, with enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement; and while it blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature; the manner to the matter, and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry."

— “Biographia Literaria”, Chapter 14

William Wordsworth

S.T.Coleridge

1.)He sought to give the charm of novelty to things of everyday objects of nature by colouring it with the power of imagination. 2.)Presented the common and simple life of peasants and shepherds – realistic description of his experience. 3.) He remained of the earth and his   own time. 4.)Teacher- moralist 5.)Lack musical quality- ‘has no ear   for fine sound’. 6.)Simplicity in diction- no difference between prose and poetry. 7.)          High priest of nature.

1.)   He sought to give    the charm of novelty to things of everyday objects – by making supernatural natural.  2.) Introduced dream like quality- element of mystery- wonder and supernatural. 3.) Went to Middle Ages- created the atmosphere of magic/mystery. 4.)Artist 5.) ‘epicure in sounds’- master of melody. 6.) Element of mysticism in diction- he differentiates prose and poetry in diction. 7.) Lived in the world of fancy and thoughts.

Both the writers Wordsworth and Coleridge have his own views about poetry. Coleridge and Wordsworth’s differences and similarities is what made their bond, each had their own mind-set on what they wrote about, and I think that is what countered each other to make for such great partners. They both used their imaginations to write their pieces.