Explaining Wordsworth and Thomas de Quincey

English Romantic Poet, 1770 – 1850 Did visit Revolutionary France – aware of the French Revolution! – met Annette Vallon in France, who bore him a daughter. Suffered financial difficulties in life, had to be bailed out by friends. With this money he lived with his sister Dorothy Wordsworth in the English countryside. (It was assumed that Dorothy was Wordsworths’ mistress and not his sister) Started a strong friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Together they produced the “Lyrical Ballads” with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Married Mary Hutchinson, and had three children with her. His “magnum opus” or masterpiece is considered to be the Prelude. – An epic poem challenging Milton’s Paradise Lost. Wordsworth lived till he was 80, though his most famous poetry was written when he was young. When he was older, he achieved a great reputation as a poet and was able to live off the income generated by his work.

Education of a child Instead of the Enlightenment ideas of a “scientific” education of children, teaches set ideas and curriculum. It was more just carefully nurturing child-like behaviours and almost ‘programming’ models of behaviour into the child. Jean Jacques Rousseau explored ideas of nature teaching a child, which would allow for a child to be educated in nature. Thus creating a highly aware and conscious adult, with inner strength and high morals. Rousseau believed in this so much that he even stated that schooling was “insignificant trash that has obtained the name of education.” [Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1792)]. He argued that true human nature and morals had been left in the past, and the savage of the ancient times, educated by life experiences and nature, was a noble human being, because of their pure humanity. This upbringing in nature would help foster resourceful, independent and ethical characteristics. This idea is prevalent in ‘The Prelude’ as Wordsworth, talks about his early life and education in nature. It also shows how he is in fact a true human because of upbringing in nature, and ability to transport back to his childhood to achieve divine imagination, He shows how in all sense of wonder in childhood was essential to imaginative creation at any age, and remembering back to the experiences of childhood allow and individual to “tap” into this creative power.

Wordsworth explores his early childhood memories, discussing his upbringing in sublime surroundings. He was able to describe his childhood experiences, but from his adult perspective, allowing us to see what the child experienced, but what the adult feels he gained or learnt from the experience. “Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up/Fostered alike by beauty and by fear”. [lines ]Wordsworths “seed time” was his unconscious formation of self by the experiences he described which influenced his entire life. Nature, in this instance, is a parent/teacher, and since in the poem, one of the scenes is the death of the child's parents, Nature teaches the child and influenced the development of this young Wordsworth. “that beloved Vale to which erelong/We were transplanted”. This describes his early childhood birthplace where he was innocent – in the “Vale”. And his transportation where he develops a consciousness, and the moral differences between right and wrong. Nature fosters and teaches him, but Nature also can punish him when he does wrong. "severer interventions, ministry/more palpable’. Natures disapproval is evident when Wordsworth lists examples where he was reprimanded for doing wrong by nature. In the trapping scene Wordsworth heard Nature’s disapproval after he stole someone else's trap. Strong sensory imagery. “I heard among the solitary hills/Low breathings coming after me, and sounds/Of undistinguishable motion.” In this scene, the child projects his guilt into the setting around him; the sounds are in fact made by himself – but the poem makes us accept the child’s view that Nature disapproves.

Why was ‘The Prelude’ valued in its historical context? Valued by the Romantics of the historical era who believed in education through experiences in nature. Is ‘The Prelude’ valued in today’s context? Yes. Shows how experiences in nature can, and will effect a person, and possibly educate them in ways that nothing else can.

English Romantic Author – 1859 Acquainted with Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Charles Lamb. Lived his life in debt – only wrote for magazines as a source of income. Addicted to opium – didn’t help his large debt. Confessions of an Opium eater considered one of his major works, written for a magazine, and published in It involved a mixture of stories from his life, including, social problems, and the “pleasures” and “pains” of the drug.

Controversial book at the time – Opium and drug taking seen as criminal in the Victorian Era. Though, de Quincey did not relate his use of opium to criminal doings; he took opium to increase his rationality and sense of harmony to help his imagination whilst writing. He directly addresses opium in the final paragraph of “the pleasures”.  "Oh! just, subtle, and might opium! that to the hearts of poor and rich alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for 'the pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel,' bringest an assuaging balm; eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the purposes of wrath; and to the guilty man, for one night givest back the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure of blood...." He borrows the style from Sir Walter Raleigh’s “History of the World”. In this address to opium we can see how opium affects de Quincey, tempting his spirit, creating things out of “fantastic imagery of the brain”. He states that opium is a “gift” to open up the creative spirit, and through the creative spirit, a person can obtain the “keys to Paradise”.

Enrich Heller, a critic of Romanticism stated that opposites in Romanticism are “not enemies but brokered by marriage”. Therefore Wordsworths view of Imagination enhanced by Nature, and de Quincy's view of Imagination enhanced by opium are both valid, and show the differing sides of Romanticism, but eventually obtain, as Wordsworth stated, “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling” in the individual which is central to Romanticism. What is Romanticism? Romanticism is a complex literary and arts movement in the 18 th /19 th Centuries. It involved itself in strong emotion, and the desire to achieve a creative / imaginative status that surpassed reality. We can see this in The prelude, and Confessions, though it is achieved in varied ways. Romanticism is valued today due as the ideas that are central in Romantic work, such as education in The Prelude, and drug use in Confessions, are prevalent today.