THE ROMANTIC CRITICISM WORDSWORTH & COLERIDGE

The Romantic Criticism After the French Revolution, Romanticism has Shattered the old way of life. Discredited the old hierarchies Proclaimed the Rights of Man. Liberated the man from class divisions. No longer regarded kings and princes the noblest subject of poetry. No longer kept decorum as the special purpose of the poet.

The Subject of Poetry According to Wordsworth, the principal object of poetry is To choose incidents and situations from common life. To select language really used by men To throw a certain colouring of imagination whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect. to make these incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them the primary laws of our nature.

The Language of poetry The romantic view of what language the poet should use is completely different from that of the neo-classicists. The neoclassical writers Avoid rustic language. They attempt to refine and polish ordinary language Thus, "poetic diction" has replaced ordinary speech. The Romantics use the language of ordinary men, especially rustics

The Language of poetry The romantic view of what language the poet should use is completely different from that of the neo-classicists. The neo-classicists avoided rustic language. They attempted to refine and polish ordinary language Thus, "poetic diction" has replaced ordinary speech. The Romantics use the language of ordinary men, especially rustics. Wordsworth is not interested in the manners of those who live in the city and the court. He wants poetry to deal with the "essential passions of the heart."

The Language of poetry Man in nature is better than man in the city. The passions of men in nature are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. Wordsworth considers the language of the farmers as the best because they communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived. Wordsworth rejects the neoclassical rules of poetic diction and the personification of abstract. For him, these rules are artificial. Wordsworth defines good poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” Good poetry, according to Wordsworth, is not the utterance of commonplaces in metrical language.

The Definition of the Poet According to Wordsworth, the poet is no longer the singer of the great or the teacher of polite etiquette. The poet is: A man speaking to men A man endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness. A man 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 (desires); A man who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; A man who enjoys to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the universe and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them."

The Definition of the Poet The poet must have certain gifts that are not common among mankind. He is a genius Wordsworth emphasizes the individualism of the poet. Individualism is the pleasure in the poet’s own passions and volitions which makes him greatly different from the social poet of other periods.

The Purpose of Poetry According to Wordsworth, the purpose of poetry is not to teach. The purpose of poetry is the to give immediate pleasure. For Wordsworth, the poet is not a teacher of facts. Poetry is not merely another social or intellectual activity. It is "the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge”. It is the impassioned or passionate expression Poetry is no longer a matter of reason and of rules. For Wordsworth, poetry exists on a separate and special plane. It deals with the products of the imagination, the feelings.

The Definition of Poetry Wordsworth defines "Poetry," as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind." According to Wordsworth, the process of poetic creation goes as follows: The poet looks at nature. His emotions are aroused. In tranquillity he recalls his emotions. These emotions are made into a poem with the help of images of those things in nature which aroused the poet's emotions in the first place. The reader looks at the poem. The images of nature in the poem—alight with the poet's emotions— arouse in the reader emotions similar to those the poet had in the first place.

Wordsworth’s View of Meter Wordsworth’s revolt is against the neoclassical artificial poetic diction. He states that there is no essential difference between the language of prose and the metrical composition. He has attacked meter as an artificial method. There is, however, the problem of the use of meter in poetry which in itself causes a distinction between the language of prose and poetry. The fact is that Wordsworth’s views on Poetic Diction and on the use of meter in poetry are not in harmony with one another, and appear contradictory.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Coleridge takes the trouble to examine and correct Wordsworth's views on language and meter. He wrote his major work, Biographia Literaria (1817), which includes some brilliantly perceptive literary criticism. Coleridge acutely remarks that Wordsworth's own theory of language is based on a selection of the language of rustics. For Coleridge, if the provincial terms of speech from a peasant's language are removed, the rustic language will be no longer there. Thus, he denies Wordsworth's main assertion that a special virtue is in the speech of those in close communication with nature.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge He agrees with Wordsworth that much of the verse of the preceding generation is false and artificial. On the question of meter, he affirms that there is diction that is appropriate in metrical language and not in prose Moreover, there are phrases that are acceptable in prose that would not be in poetry. He finalizes his argument by proving that Wordsworth did not follow his own theory. Coleridge's contributions to criticism go far beyond his corrections of Wordsworth's slips. In the realm of practical criticism, his discussion of Shakespeare is one of the Alps of English criticism.

Coleridge’s View of the Poem Coleridge’s view of poetry is organic, not mechanical. Real poetry is the union of the heart and head and can never be measured by yardsticks. Coleridge gives the definition of a poem that a poem is that species of composition. It is opposed to works of science by proposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth.

Coleridge’s View of the Poet The poet is born, not made. The shaping power of the poet's imagination is what gives poetry its distinction. According to Coleridge, imagination creates new shapes and forms of beauty by fusing and unifying the different impressions it receives from the external world. For Coleridge, Imagination is the very soul of poetry, which forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole. He calls Imagination “a synthetic and magical power”. This power of Imagination reveals itself in the fusion and reconciliation of opposites into one.