The Early Romantic Age (1760-1789)
The loss of the
American colonies
George III reigned the longest in English history (1738-1820) for more
than sixty years. He dismissed the prime Minister and tried to restore old
authority before the Glorious Revolution (1689). Meanwhile the demand for liberty was growing
on the other side of the world. Especially paying taxes to England when they
couldn’t vote their members to Parliament: “No taxation without
representation.” In 1770 all duties were repealed except for the one on tea so
some colonists threw a shipload of tea in the harbour (the Boston Tea Party).
The American War of Independence had begun (1775-1783). And in July 1776 the
Declaration of Independence was signed (written by Thomas Jefferson): all men
had the natural right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. The
British army was finally defeated in 1783 and with the Treaty of Versailles
recognised the colonies independence.
-Industrial and
Agricultural Revolutions
During the last
decades of the 18th century, Britain underwent enormous changes, for
example it turned from a mainly farming country into an industrial one. Trade,
technology and new machinery brought on the development of the first
industries. There was a transformation of a cottage industry, work done at
home, to a factory industry, where long hours and rules were set by factory
owners. There were advantages and disadvantages to these revolutions.
The
woollen industry was the most important: entire families contributed to the
spinning and weaving of wool. In this period there was also a great increase in
the population, possibly due to the disappearance of the plague and a more
productive use of the land, which created a greater demand for goods at low
prices. But thanks to the technological inventions, like the “spinning jenny”,
the “water frame” and the “cotton gin”, machinery for spinning and weaving of
textiles, enabled more of this work to be done and even more efficiently. With
the development of steam-engines, new factories were built on coal and iron
fields and they manufactured cloth more cheaply (which made a lot of people
lose their jobs). The new factories in the Midlands found clay and produced
fine quality china. The transportation at that time also improved: new
waterways were built and roads were improved. (Rapid road travel and cheap
transport by canal made the economic success of the Industrial Revolution.)
The Agricultural
Revolution was connected to the Industrial one. It took two principal forms:
massive enclosure of “open fields” and common land, and improvements in the
breeding of cattle and in farming techniques.
The social
consequences of the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions were disastrous for
the poor. For the smaller farmer it was quite difficult because he could not
afford the cost of fencing fields and he lost the use of common land for his
cattle and he had to sell his share of the village lands and work for other
farmers or in factories. For women and children who worked in factories and
mines, they were brutally exploited and their living conditions were appalling.
-Emotion vs.
Reason
The last thirty
years of the 18th century are called the Pre-Romantic Age because
the new sensibility (of Richardson’s novels) and the blend of humour (from
Sterne’s works) influenced writers who continued to write in classical style.
“Reason” during the Enlightenment period proved insufficient to correct the
evils of society, such as the misery and cruelty brought on by
industrialization. It repressed emotions and feelings turning the mind in some
kind of prison. Therefore, there was a demand for a relationship between sense
and sensibility. There was a great interest in the country and melancholy,
often associated with meditation on the suffering of the poor and on death: the
desolate, the love of graveyards, ancient castles. The rediscovery of art,
architecture, legends and popular traditions were manifested in the “Gothic”
but not related to barbarity but exoticism. The classic view of nature was
replaced by nature as a real and living being, described as it really was.
Beauty was no longer an objective quality but perceived in each mind
differently.
At the end of
the 18th century, the theories of Enlightenment had to come to terms
with urgent social and political issues linked to the new ideas of independence,
equality and reform. Burke wrote with anti-revolutionary ideas while Thomas
Paine supported the French Revolution and American independence.
“On the Sublime”
In
Edmund Burke’s “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Idea of the
Sublime and Beautiful”, he discusses the cause and effects of the “Sublime
beauty” on man, analysing the psychological response to “horrible beauty”.
(Sublime is a term which refers to a linguistic, literary or artistic form
expressing noble or elevated feelings and behaviour, echoing from the soul,
something of inner inspiration. It is the a sense of pleasure that transmits
fear and terror together with extraordinary irrational stupor.) Burke gives a
definition of the Sublime, a passion caused by nature is astonishment, which is
the state of the soul, where all emotions are suspended with some degree of
horror. So the mind concentrates only on that object and no other thing can
influence it. The minor effects are admiration, reverence and respect. He
provides some example from Nature, because of its size and its danger, in order
to explain the concept of Sublime. There are many animals, like serpents and
poisonous animals that raise ideas of the sublime because they are considered
objects of terror. A land of vast size and the prospect of the ocean also give
an adventitious idea of terror. Other concepts which are considered sublime:
obscurity, the night, the notions of ghosts and goblins, tyrannical
governments, in barbarous temples of worship like the druids.
Early Romantic Poetry
In the second
half of the 18th century, a new sensibility became manifest in the poetry,
trying to break from the Augustan tradition of reason.
The main
characteristics/features of the Early Romantic poetry are:
-
autobiographical
experiences
-
emotion to describe
universal themes
-
melancholy and sadness
-
simple and primitive
aspects of rural life
-
Gothic elements (connected
with night and darkness)
-
reflection in
cemeteries and ruins
-
classical and poetic
form
The most
important poetry of this period is the “Graveyard School” poetry, and the most
important work was Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, where
the tomb becomes a symbol of contemplation of death and immortality. (Foscolo /
Totò)
Thomas Gray
His life
Thomas
Gray was born in 1716 in
Cornhill, London. He went to Eton where he met Horace Walpole. Together they
toured France and Italy. Then he settled in Cambridge in search of “the
Sublime” and “the Beautiful”. He was considered a great scholar and studied the
Classics. His interest in simple, primitive culture, as well as country life
and humble people, and his use of the first person singular to express emotions
which indicated some of the trends of the Romantic movement. He is regarded as
a transitional poet because, even though he rejected neoclassic tradition, he
used the style of poetic diction.
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”
The poem is
written in heroic quatrains of ten-syllable lines; almost each stanza is
complete in itself but at the same time it is part of the general development
of the poem. This poem is very famous because of his affiliation to the
classical and to the Romantic period. In fact, in this title we can ascertain
that the “elegy” is a typically classic genre, but the theme of the countryside
is a feature of Romanticism. The main theme of this work is the celebration of
the country people’s life, buried in a churchyard. While the poet is walking in
a country churchyard, the sight of humble tombs reminds him of the images of
honest people. The simplicity of these lives and some elements of Nature lead
Gray to meditate on death and its levelling power, which deletes all human
differences. Then he says that they could have been great poets, artists,
politicians, but they couldn’t attain their potential because they were poor
and uneducated. But, however, their poverty prevented them from committing
crimes and being luxuriously proud or corrupt. Moreover, Gray criticizes the
great memorial monuments built for the great people which will not be able to
come back to life. In the last part of the elegy, the poet shows us an epitaph
in which he exalts this bounty and this loyalty because he lived this honest
life away from fame and fortune. The poem opens with the contemplation of a
country churchyard at dusk, the setting of the sun when it gives way to
darkness. The scene described through the poet’s eyes is vividly conveyed
thanks to the interplay of assonance alliteration, onomatopoeia and carefully
chosen images; the feeling of melancholy created by the atmosphere leads the
poet to a meditation of the “rude forefathers”, and the village dead. All men,
rich or poor, are equal in death and even a pompous tomb cannot restore life.
Then he meditates on the potential qualities unexploited because of poverty and
lack of opportunity.
“Elegy written in a country churchyard” by Thomas GrayThe
poem begins with the poet’s meditation of a country churchyard at twilight. He
describes the feeling of melancholy created by the atmosphere of the cemetery.
Then he describes the life of rural people and how they did not become famous
keeping away from evil and ambition. The poet also meditates on the value of
the tomb as a link between the living and the dead. In the final stanza, the
poet gives his epitaph and says he had a melancholy of nature and a sincere
soul and that he is now resting with God.
The poem is
written in heroic quatrains of ten-syllable lines in alternating rhyme. The
poet vividly conveys the atmosphere and images by using assonance, alliteration
and onomatopoeia.
The “Elegy”
marks the beginning of a new sensibility and introduces a new figure of the
poet who was inspired by country life and solitude.
It was written
between 1742 and 1750. This poem is the most interesting example of Early
Romantic verse for its blend of neoclassical elements, for example, the return
to nature, and Romantic features, for example, the feelings of the poet.
William Blake (1757-1827)
Life and works
Blake was born
in 1757 in London in a lower-class family. He study drawing at the Royal
Academy of Arts and opened a printseller’s shop in 1782. He published his first
collection of poetry called the “Songs of Innocence” in 1789. The poems were
engraved and illustrated by pictures. The most famous are “The Lamb” and “The
Tyger”. Then he published in a combined volume in 1794 the “Songs of Innocence”
and the “Songs of Experience”. But these works did not bring him fame or
fortune. Many of works were “prophetic”, and contained complex symbology, and
the reworking of myths and the Bible, for example, “The French Revolution”,
“America: A Prophecy”, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, etc. He accepted his
poverty and spent the rest of his life in obscurity with close friends. He died
in 1827.
A revolutionary
artist
Blake’s poetry
marks the beginning of the Romantic Age. Most of his works described
the suffering of the poor and the oppressed. He implicitly attacked the Church
of England and the monarchy. He believed he lived in a society where men were
born without power and oppressed by political and social tyranny.
Songs of
Innocence and Songs of Experience
The “Songs of
Innocence” and the “Songs of Experience” were poems written together to show
the two contrary states of the human soul: innocence and experience. The
figures of innocence – the lamb and the child (both symbols of Christ) – give
the feeling of happiness, joy and fearlessness in a place like the Garden of
Eden without morality. While in the “Songs of Experience” there is a world of selfishness,
cruelty and social injustices symbolized like the tiger.
Blake’s
philosophy of contrasts
Blake’s
philosophy was that innocence and experience had to co-exist. He believed that
in man and in the universe there was the presence of both good and evil, purity
and corruption, innocence and experience in eternal balance. These contrasts
were essential for the life of man.
The child as the
object of poetry
Blake is a
Romantic poet because in his poems he is the first to describe the exploitation
of children by cruel and oppressive families and society. “The Chimney Sweeper”
is a visionary poem thanks to the dream which seems realistic. But he did not
directly criticize society.
Imagination for
Blake
Blake did not
believe in man’s rationality, since he has faith and intuition, and for him
this was the true knowledge and experience. He believed the imagination could
go beyond physical reality. For example, in the poem “The Tyger”, in the end
there is a question about the true understanding of the universe thru sense and
reason. “The Chimney Sweeper” is simple but also enigmatic in the last line.
Blake’s style
Even if Blake
used a simple language and syntax, he used a lot of complex symbols. He
believed the physical world was a book about God. For example, the lamb, the
tiger, the chimney sweeper were symbols of supra-natural reality. He adopted a
simple style using Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. He used refrains and repetitions,
like ballads, children’s songs and hymns.
Focus on the texts: Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience
“Songs of
Innocence” is written in a child-like way but also visionary. Childhood
represents the state of the soul, an innocent view of life.
“Songs of
Experience” is about the stage of experience in life.
Both poems are
in contrast because they are Blake’s dual vision of life, the interdependence
of good and evil.
Blake’s symbolism
Blake uses a lot
of symbols, like children, flowers and seasons to symbolise innocence, while
urban, industrial landscapes and machines represent oppression of the city from
the Industrial Revolution.
Blake also uses
many dual symbols, like the lamb/tiger, which reflect the French Revolution.
His lamb is a
symbol of the innocence of childhood. The Tiger is a geometrically perfect form
which symbolises the energy of human life, freedom and revolution which are
glorious.
The beginning of
an American identity
American
literature contains the different ethnic backgrounds of the American people:
exiles, emigrants, African slaves and American Indians. Among the social and
cultural factors, Puritanism was the strongest. After the first Pilgrim Fathers
settled in America, they encouraged the spirit of adventure in the name of
liberty and hard work. More immigrants moved to America, becoming a melting pot, and the first thirteen
colonies were formed on the east coast of the Atlantic. The American Dream
began to take form, and the spirit of democracy, justice and equality led to
the War of Independence to become an independent new nation. The country was
divided into two forces: the East, with Harvard and Yale and the financial
centre; and the West, with the spirit of the pioneer and the myth of the
frontier.
The Romantic Age
- From the
Napoleonic wars to the regency
The historical
event that affected the most the European political scene and intellectual
thought, especially that in Britain, at the end of the 18th century
was the French Revolution: the intellectuals supported the revolution as an
event that would bring justice and equality to people. But there was another
side, like the intellectuals Burke and Paine “Natural and Civil Rights” (man
did not enter society to have less rights or to become worse but tohave there
rights better secured), that thought it was a threat. The spirit of
intellectual rebellion, the enthusiasm and hopes aroused by the revolution,
pervaded the works of the poets, but were later disillusioned when it turned
into tyranny. Britain’s Admiral Horatio Nelson was able to win a crucial
victory off Cape Trafalgar and Napoleon was never again able to contemplate an
invasion of the British Isles. Even though Britain had won other battles
against Napoleon, its internal situation was far from happy: the country was on
the verge of starvation, bankruptcy and revolution; the inhuman working conditions
in factories and severe unemployment (from the increasing use of machinery and
fall in demand of goods).There were the Luddites Riots which were then
succumbed by the reactionary government of Pitt and Liverpool. During this
period, George IV, called the “first Gentlemen”, was able to legalise the
associations of workers and in this way Britain began to maintain some public
order.
- Unrest and repression
During the
Romantic period, Britain was undergoing a period of change from a mainly
agricultural society to a modern one. After the Napoleonic wars, it was a
period extremely difficult for the population of Britain, increased
unemployment, skilled craftsmen underpaid, army and navy were unemployed. The
first three decades of the 19th century were a period of social
conflict and political stagnation and repression. Parliament refused to
legislate economic pressure, so, the doctrine of Laissez-faire was very
convenient for ruling classes, freeing them from all responsibilities of the
conditions of labour and wages along with their sufferings. Parishes tried to
help the poor and the workhouses were beginning to become overcrowded and their
conditions worse than before. The high price of corn made landed classes, the
manufacturers and the merchants richer. There was a period called the “Regency
period” where gentry in great country houses were untouched by the national and
international events surrounding them. Women who worked before were replaced by
the growth of intensive farming and big businesses, so they had to devote
themselves only to the care of the house.
- The
egotistical sublime
Romanticism
is a creative period where the historical, social and cultural outlooks
completely changed. The spirit of this period shows new interests and openness
to discover new degrees of emotions. The Pre-Romantic poets began to
demonstrate in their works the importance of childhood and refuse the classical
styles. There was a change also in their imagination to show their emotional
experience without using reason. This was a period to explore the
“subconscious” level, for example, dreams, drugs, insanity, hypnosis. The
historical and social changes brought about the need to reconstruct or readjust
the cultural view of the world. The reaction against the spirit of the early 18th
century implied a willingness to explore the new possibilities of outlook,
interest and behaviour. Emotional experience was explored by the Pre-Romantic
poets. There was a revaluation of childhood; where a child was purer than an
adult; unspoilt by civilization; closer to God; admired and cultivated. The
Romantics exalted the forms of individualism, for example, the atypical,
outcast, rebel. They view society as an evil force. This thought was overall
encouraged by Rousseau. In poets like Shelley and Byron, the hero was an
outcast or a rebel of society, with an individual state of mind and spirit.
Society was seen as an evil force.
But
the most evident aspect of the Romantic period is the concept of the “noble
savage”, which meant even though “savage”
was another way of saying primitive, man had an “instinctive” knowledge that
existed above that of a civilized man. The Romantics were a “cult of the
exotic” because in this period, people were used to travelling in Europe, the
Near East and other parts of the world. They explored new picturesque and
formidable scenery, connected with strange and mysterious adventures. For
example, there were dangers and disasters, adventures between the other customs
and ways of human beings.
Imagination
was the most important element in the Romantic poets (different from that of 18th
century poets). The truth of the poet’s emotions and his personal experience
were also fundamental. The poet has now become an interpreter (of his own
feelings and moods) more than being a creator. These feelings were accompanied
by religious and metaphysical aspects. They created words of their own, using
their imagination to relate to the truth and reality.
- Reality and
vision
The early
Romantics emphasized Natural aspects, spontaneity and primitiveness. While the
Romantics began to use their imagination, to look beyond reality and reason.
They were able to re-create their experience but it didn’t mean they didn’t
appreciate Nature because their works were also full of natural elements and
landscapes. The poet’s moods and feelings were used to describe these natural
elements. It was also a living force and an expression of God in the universe.
The poetic technique was a new and individual style. They broke free from the
models and rules of the classical period. The words used were more vivid; there
was less rhyming and metric schemes; symbols and images were more inner
visionary and not the real visible aspects man was used to seeing. This
generation of poets supported the French Revolution and the ideals of freedom
and equality.
The poets of the
first generation attempted to theorise their poetry: the beauty of Nature and
simple things (Wordsworth); the supernatural and mysterious (Coleridge).
The second
generation poets showed their desire to challenge the cosmos, nature, political
and social order. Individualism and escapism from society were of high order
for these poets, such that they all died very young and away from home
experiencing in life the political disappointment which can be seen between the
ideal and the real (Byron and Shelley).
The three main events of Romanticism
The three most
important events which have characterized the Romantic period are: the
Industrial Revolution (at the end of 18th century), the Declaration
of American Independence(1776) and the French Revolution (1789). It was a period of revolt against authority
conflicting with human dignity and free choice; and the revolt against
neo-classical rules, in favour of personal feelings.
William Wordsworth
His life
William
Wordsworth in the Lake District in 1770. He was educated at St. John’s College
in Cambridge and his contact with the Revolutionary France filled him with
enthusiasm for democratic ideals which he hoped could lead to a new and just
social order. But the destructive developments of the revolution and the war
between England and France brought him to the edge of a nervous breakdown.
These events brought him in closer contact with Nature. He moved to Somerset to
be close to his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Their friendship proved to
crucial for the development of English Romantic poetry: they produced a
collection of poems called “Lyrical Ballads”; it opened with Coleridge’s
“Ancient Mariner” and it ended with Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”. He married a
childhood friend, Mary Hutchinson, and they had five children. In these years
he wrote his best poems.
Wordsworth did
not follow 18th century poetry, the so-called “poetic diction”. He
believed poetry should deal with everyday situations or incidents, and with
simple, humble people and called with ordinary names. The rustic life was close
to his own life. Wordsworth’s poetry is full of detailed accounts of the
relationship between man (and his consciousness) and nature, of the influences,
insights and feelings that come from this contact. For Wordsworth, Man existed
in the natural world and not outside of it; it was a source of pleasure and joy
and taught man to love and act in a moral way. Nature also meant the world of
sense perceptions: the sensibility of the eye and ear are very important.
Wordsworth was very interested in the growth of his relationship with nature,
and how it influenced him at different points of his life (from childhood,
youth to adulthood). For him, childhood was the most important stage in man’s
life. A child’s perception is more imaginative and more vivid than that of an
adult. Also memory is a major forced in the growth of the poet’s mind and moral
character. Past recollections reproduced in poetry are more purified and
tranquil.
Wordsworth
abandons the 18th century heroic couplet and almost always uses
blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter. He also wrote sonnets, odes, ballads
and lyrics with simple rhymes.
“A certain colouring of imagination”
The extract “A certain colouring of imagination” comes from the preface of the “Lyrical Ballads” regarded to as a literary Manifesto of English Romanticism. The revolutionary message of the “Preface” is expressed in the new concept of poetry, emphasizing the authenticity of rustic life, the use of simple language, and the importance of emotions and imagination. The main object of this poem is to write about certain situation from common life in a language used by man and at the same time to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination representing ordinary things to the mind in an unusual way but at the same more easily comprehensible. He gives the definition of a poet: “a man speaking to men: a man…with more lively sensibility, …a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul” than a common man. Wordsworth clearly rejects neo-classical poetry.
“Daffodils”
The “Daffodils”
is one of Wordsworth’s most famous poems, in which he vividly conveys his love
for nature. In the first stanza , the poet remembers a slow flow of fluttering
daffodils. He was in a state of loneliness, walking with his sister along the
Lake District. So the poet’s mind is at work ordering his experiences that flow
into it giving it coherences and vividness. In the second stanza, Wordsworth
shows the daffodils as a part of a universal order. There is the
personification of the flowers and the stars which respectively dance and
twinkle. In the third stanza, the daffodils are compared with the waves on the
lake, which also dance. But the flowers are happier than the waves. Moreover,
there is the presence of the breeze as a symbol of the creative activity of the
poet. In the last stanza there is a change from the past to the present and the
poet recalls the past in his mind. There is a sort of positive solitude, which
produces in the poet’s imagination and creation. The poet is delighted because
his mind is ordering the disorder of the world and his experience isn’t limited
to the immediate pleasure of intellectual delight. It is imagination that
enables man to enter into and give life and significance to the world.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
His life
Samuel Taylor
Coleridge was born in Devonshire in 1772 and went to school in Cambridge. He
was heavily influenced by revolutionary ideals and he became an enthusiastic
republican. After the disillusionment of the French Revolution, he wanted to
establish a utopian community in Pennsylvania, where all was common and no
private ownership. But this project came to nothing in the end. He suffered
from chronic rheumatism and had a growing addiction to opium which reduced his
pain. He met Wordsworth in 1797, where an important collaboration became a
crucial creative output for Coleridge’s works. In contrast to Wordsworth’s
concern with subjects from ordinary life, his own task was to write about extraordinary
events (originated from natural elements and situations) in an incredible way.
Like Wordsworth,
Coleridge stressed the role of imagination, distinguishing between “primary”
and “secondary” imagination. He described “primary” imagination as a fusion of
perception and the human individual power to produce images, joining the world
of thought with the world of things. “Secondary imagination” was the poetic
faculty, which not only gave shape and order to a given world, but built new
worlds. On the contrary of Wordsworth, Coleridge did not view nature as a moral
guide or a source of happiness because his strong Christian faith did not allow
him to identify nature with the divine.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
This poem is
divided into seven parts and is set in a boundless sea with days of pitiless
sun and nights lit by the moon. It is introduced by an “Argument” containing a
short summary of the whole poem, and consists of two narratives: one is made up
of the captions to the right of the stanzas, which constitute the framework and
introduce the protagonist and his listener; the other is the poem itself, which
talks about the extraordinary adventures of the Mariner. The atmosphere of the
whole poem is of mystery with a combination of the supernatural. The mariner
and he fellows are merely human beings and their agonies are simply universally
human.
This poem
contains many features of the traditional ballad: the combination of dialogue
and narration; the four-line stanza; frequent repetition; alliteration,
internal rhyme and onomatopoeia; the theme of travel and wandering and
supernatural elements. But the moral at the end is completely different from
the traditional ballad. Some have interpreted this poem as a dream; some say it
is an allegory of the life of the soul; some consider it a description of the
poetic journey of Romanticism. The Mariner is the poet, possessed by a song
that derives from guilt, the actual origin of the poetry (caused by the
industrial Revolution), which coincided with this sense of loss and, at the
same time, tries to fill it.
In this poem, he
uses several details that had impressed him during his readings, and that he
shaped into something else, for example, the description of the water snakes,
he adapted from Capitain James Cook’s descriptions. To the element of fancy he
added the power of associating them into a new striking unity.
“Part I”
The first part
begins with the narrator telling the tale of the ancient mariner and the
listener is a wedding guest. The setting is the ancient mariner and his fellows
that are on s ea voyage on the Great pacific Ocean and arrive at the equator
and the Polar regions after a violent storm. After some days the mariner sees
through a fog an albatross and kills it. This action is against the law of
Nature, the sacred law of life, in fact, the bird represents a divine creature
“Part III”
In the third
part, we see the Mariner’s guilty soul becomes conscious of what he has done
and of his isolation from the world. A skeleton ship approaches the mariner’s
ship and all the mariner’s fellows die, but in the end wins the Mariner’s life
because he is able to return home. In the stanzas of the nearing of the phantom
ship, Coleridge builds up tension and expectation in the reader when he says “I
bit my arm, I sucked the blood, and cried, a sail! A sail!” On the ship, there
are two mysterious characters, Death and Life-in-Death, which is represented by
a woman whose description would make any man’s skin crawl from horror. There
are Supernatural and Gothic elements that characterize this part of the poem:
the ghost-ship; the thick of the dark night.
“Poetry and Imagination”
The passages of
“Poetry and Imagination” contain a short account of the origins of the “Lyrical
Ballads” and the poet’s statement about the existence of a “primary” and
“secondary” imagination. He demonstrates his thesis about poetry and the poet’s
aim.
Coleridge states
that the “primary Imagination” is the living “Power and prime Agent of all
human Perception” while the “secondary Imagination” is “an echo of the former,
coexisting with the conscious will…identical with the primary in the kind …
differing only in degree and in the mode of its operation.” While he talks
about “fancy” as having no elements to play with, it comes from the Memory
modified by one’s will. He mentions his discussions with Wordsworth where there
were two cardinal points of poetry discussed that on finding a way to excite
the reader and to give colours of imagination to the poem. To use the familiar
landscape with a certain shade of colour and to use also the supernatural to
incite emotions. With this idea originated the plan of the “Lyrical Ballads”.
The poet must bring the whole soul of the man into activity, with fuses in it a
magical power called imagination.
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