Wordsworth and Coleridge's views on Poetry as a critique

Wordsworth and Coleridge's views on Poetry as a critique

Name: Ranjan Velari

Class: M.A. Sem.: 1

Roll No.: 25

Paper No.:3

Email Id: ranjanvelari@gmail.com

Year: 2014-16

Topic: Wordsworth and Coleridge’s views on poetry as a critique

Submitted to: Smt.S.B. Gardi 
                      Department of English

                      M.K. Bhavnagar University

Question:

Wordsworth’s and Coleridge’s views on poetry as a critique.

·      Introduction:

  The first critic of Wordsworth’s poetry was Wordsworth himself, and in his criticism, as in his poetry, hr speaks with two distinct voices. The first voice is that of the “Preface” to “Lyrical Ballads”, in which Wordsworth powerfully applies to his poetry some humanistic values of the European Enlightenment.

 So, let’s have a look on Wordsworth’s views on poetry as a critique.

  Wordsworth’s Views on Poetry as a Critique:

v In his “Preface” the controlling and interrelated norms are the essential, the elementary, the simple, the universal, and the permanent. The great subjects of his poetry, Wordsworth says, are “the essential passions of the heart”, “elementary feelings”, “the great and simple affections”, “the great and universal and universal passions of men”, and “characters of which the elements are simple… such as exist now, an will probably always exist”, as these human qualities interact with “the beautiful and permanent forms of nature”

v Wordsworth second critical voice has been far less heeded and speaks out in the “Essay, Supplementary to the Preface” of his poems of 1815.

v In his “Essay” of 1815, Wordsworth addresses himself to explain and justify those aspects of novelty and strangeness in his poetry that have evoked from critics “unremitting hostility… slight …, aversion…, contempt”. Wordsworth claims in this essay that they are “affinities between religion and poetry”, “a community of nature”, so that poetry shares the distinctive quality of Christianity.

v Wordsworth’s own poems manifest “emotions of the pathetic” that is “complex and revolutionary”. For as one of the poets who combine the “heroic passions” of pagan antiquity of sublimated humanity.

v Wordsworth’s enormous poetic legacy rests on a large number of poems written by him. But the themes that run through Wordsworth’s poetry remained consistent throughout. Even the language and imagery he uses to embody those themes remained remarkably consistent. They remained consistent to the cannons Wordsworth had set out the “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” (1802), he wrote “Preface to Defense” himself from the negative reviews.

v Wordsworth argued that poetry should be written in the real language of common man, rather than in the lofty and elaborate dictions that were then considered “poetic”. He believed that the first principle of poetry should be pleasure and so the chief duty of poetry is to provide pleasure principle that is “the necked and native dignity of man”.

v Wordsworth’s poetic creed initiated the Romantic era by emphasizing feeling, instinct, and pleasure above before him; Wordsworth gave expression to inchoate human emotion.

v Definition of Poetry:

“For all good is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling; and though this is true, poems to which any value can be attached were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a man who, being possessed of more than usual thought long and deeply.”

·       Object:

The principle objects, and then proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate and describe them, throughout, as far as possible in a selection of language really used by men, and at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect; and further, and above all, to make these situations and incidents interesting by tracking in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature we associate ideas in a state of excitement.

·       Humble and rustic life:

Humble and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language.

     Thus, Wordsworth’s views on poetical style are the most revolutionary of all the idea in his preface. He discarded the gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers. He insists that his poems are written in ‘Selection of language of men in a state of vivid sensation’.

·       The function of poetry:

“Poetry, according to Wordsworth, ‘is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, the impassioned expression that is in the countenance of all science”.

Poetry seeks to ennoble and edify. It is like morning star which throws its radiance through the gloom and darkness of life. The poet is a teacher and through the medium of poetry he imparts moral lessons for the betterment of human life. Poetry is the instrument for the propagation of moral thoughts. Wordsworth’s poetry does not simply delight us, but it also teaches us deep moral lessons and brings home to us deep philosophical truths about life and religion.

“Wordsworth believes that poetry of revolt against moral ideas is poetry of revolt against life; poetry of indifference towards moral ideas is poetry of indifference towards life”.

  Coleridge’s views on poetry as a critique:

·       Introduction:

The works of Coleridge naturally divide themselves into three classes- the poetic, the critical, and the philosophical, corresponding to the early, the middle, an the later period of his career. On his poetry Stopford Brooke well says;

“All that he did excellently might be bound up in twenty pages, but it should be bound in pure gold”.

Ø Two cardinal points of poetry:

Coleridge’s two cardinal points of poetry are:

1.    The power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and

2.    The power of giving the interest of novelty by modifying with the colours of imagination.

For the first type of poetry, the treatment and subject matter should be, to quote Coleridge,

“The sudden charm, which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight or sunset diffuse over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of combining both. These poetry of nature”.

In such poems, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters are incidents were to be such, as will be found in every village and its vicinity, where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them, when they present themselves.

       In the second type of poetry, the incidents and agents were to be supernatural. In this sort of poetry, to quote Coleridge,

“The excellence aimed at was to consist in the dramatic truth of such emotions as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. And real in this sense they have been to every source of delusion, has at any time believed him under supernatural agency”.

Thus, with the help of imagination the natural will be dealt supernaturally by the poet and the reader will comprehend it with “willing suspension of disbelief”.

      Here, is a comparison between Wordsworth and Coleridge’s works.

 Comparison between Wordsworth and Coleridge’s works:

Wordsworth and Coleridge came together early in life and mutually arose various theories which Wordsworth embodied in his “Preface to Lyrical Ballads” and tried to put into practice in his poems. Coleridge claimed credit for his theories and said they were “Half child of his Brains”. But later on his views underwent the change, he no longer agree with Wordsworth theories and so criticized them. In his preface Wordsworth made three important statements all of which have been objects of Coleridge’s censure.

Ø First of all Wordsworth writes that he chose law and rustic life, where the essential passions of the arts find a better soul to attend their maturity. They are less under restrained and speak a planner and more emphatic language. In rustic life are basic feelings coexist in greater simplicity and more accurately contemplated and more forcibly communicated. The manners of rural life, sprang from those elementary feeling and form the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily realized and are more durable. Lastly the passions of man are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.

Ø Secondly that the language of these men is adopted because they are hourly communicative with best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived. Being less under social vanity, they convey their feelings and ideas, in simple and outright expressions because of their rank in society and the equality and narrow circle made of their intercourse.

Ø Thirdly, he made a number of statements regarding the language and the diction of poetry. Of this Coleridge refuses the following parts; “A selection or the real language of man”, “The language of the men in law and the rustic life” and “Between the language of prose and that of metrical composition there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference”. As regards, the first statement that is the choice of rustic characters and life, Coleridge points out, First that not all Wordsworth’s characters are rustic. Characters in poems like Ruth, Michael, are not low and rustic. Secondly their language and sentiments do not necessarily arise from their abode or occupation. They are attributable to causes of their similar sentiments and language, even if they have different abode or occupation. These causes are mainly two- independence which raises men above bondage, and a frugal and industrious domestic life and a solid, religious education which makes a man well-versed in the Bible and other holy book excluding other book. The admirable quality in the language and sentiment of Wordsworth’s characters result from these two causes. Even if they lived in a city away from nature, they would have similar sentiments and language.

      In the opinion of Coleridge, men will not be benefited from a wife in rural solitudes unless he has natural sensibility and suitable education. In the absence of these advantages, the mind hardens and a man grows “selfish, sensual, gross and hardhearted”.

Ø Coleridge objects to Wordsworth’s use of the words, “very or real” and suggest that “ordinary or generally” should have been used. Wordsworth addition of the words, in “a state of excitement”, is meaningless for emotional excitement may result in a more intense expression, but it can not create a noble and richer vocabulary.

Ø To Wordsworth’s argument about have in no essential difference between the language of poetry and prose, Coleridge replies that there is and there ought to be, an essential difference between both the language and gives numerous reasons to support his view.

“Language is both a matter and the arrangement of words. Words both in prose and poetry may be the same but there arrangement is different. The difference arises from the fact that poetry uses meter, and meter requires a different arrangement of words. Meter is not a mere superficial decoration, but an essential organic part of a poem. Even the metaphors and similes used by poets are different in quality and frequently to prose”.

Ø Hence there is bound to be an essential “difference between arrangement of words of poetry or prose”. These is this difference even in those poems of Wordsworth which are considered most Wordsworthial further it cannot be conform that the language of prose and poetry are identical and so convertible. There may be certain lines or even passages which can be used both in prose and poetry but not all. There is also one argument given below.

ØWordsworth and Coleridge were also interested in presenting the psychology of the various characters in the “Lyrical Ballads”. The poems, in building sympathy for the disenfranchised characters they describe, also implicitly criticize England’s poor laws, which made it necessary for people to lose all material possessions before they could receive any kind of financial assistance from the community.

·      Conclusion:

   In short, we may conclude that Wordsworth is a man speaking to man: a man, it is true, endowed with more enthusiasm and tenderness. He has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than one supposed to be common among mankind.

      Thus, Coleridge is the first English critic who based his literary criticism on philosophical principles. While critics before him had been content to turn a poem inside out and to discourse on its merits and demerits, Coleridge busied himself with the question of ‘how it came to be there at all”. He was more interested in the creative process that made it, what it was, then in the finished product.