A comparative study of the poetic theories of Coleridge and Wordsworth

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Content A COMPARATIVE STUDY G-F THE POETIC THEORIES OF -COLERIDGE-AHD WORDSWORTH A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Department of English University of Southern California In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts *>y Lawrence H, Maddock June 194-9 UMI Number: EP44251 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI* Dissertation Publishing UMI EP44251 Published by ProQuest LLC (2014). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 \ J g- 'y<f M l 7 f This thesis, written by ........ under the guidance of h..Ls~ Faculty Committee, and approved by a ll its members, has been ^ ^ presented to and accepted by the Council on Graduate Study and Research in partial fu lfill ment of the requirements fo r the degree of ........ MASTER OF ARTS........... ...........Emory S, Bogardus....... DEAN D ate _______ Faculty Committee n w,i a ■ i * ‘ i - n <i > > i Chairman I ' TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION...................... . . .......... i CHAPTER I . THE IMAGINATION............ 1 CHAPTER II . THE POET AND POETRY ...............22 CHAPTER III. DICTION.................. 40 CHAPTER IV . METRE ' ............. 56 CHAPTER V . CONCLUSIONS . .....................65 BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................................72 INTRODUCTION The purpose of this thesis is to determine wherein Coleridge and Wordsworth agree and differ on poetic theory. It seems particularly fitting to com pare the theories of-poetry evolved by the two poets who, by their publication of Lyrical Ballads, stand together at the beginning of the Romantic Movement. Moreover, their ideas are so closely connected that it is impossible to consider the theory of one without that of the other. As restated here, the theories of Coleridge and Wordsworth have been abstracted from their complete works. An approximately equal amount of space has been given each poet, even though Coleridge's critical writings are considerably more extensive than Words worth' s. His thought is concentrated largely in the Prefaces to Lyrical Ballads. Coleridge's reflections, however, are scattered throughout his bulkier and more numerous works. Among these the chief sources of poetic theory are Biograohia Literaria. Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare and Some Other Old Poets and Dramatists. Anima Poetae. Table Talk, and Miscellaneous Criticism, edited by Raysor. Also of primary importance, li in the study of both poets, are the several editions of the letters listed in the bibliography, No use has been made of the -poetry with the w^.ueption of - The Prelude in presenting Wordsworth* s theory of imagination. The thesis naturally divides itself -into four parts. Coleridge and Wordsworth concern themselves with the imagination as the source of all poetry and all the values of poetry, with the nature of the poet and the nature of poetry, with diction, and with, metre. It may be noted that the manner of poetry is a subordi nate concern to both Coleridge and Wordsworth, even though it is through their theories of diction and metre that the two poets have had their greatest influence. CHAPTER I 'That a theory of poetry is primarily a theory 1 - of the imagination* is a thesis to which both Coler idge and Wordsworth would'agree. According to their definition, imagination implements all creation, whether of man .or Cod. It.-is the highest of powers and, as such, is to be distinguished not only from reason, its old rival, but from fancy, its old partner. Ih Biographia Literaria. Coleridge recalls how listening to Wordsworth recite 'The Female Vagrant' first led him to suspect that there were two faculties, imagination and fancy, which were distinct and widely different,not, 'according to the general belief, either two names with one meaning, or...the lower and higher 2 degree of one and the same power.' Coleridge says in 'Table Talk' (June 23, 1834): You may conceive the difference in kind between the Fancy and the Imagination in this way,— that if the check .of the senses and the reason were withdrawn, the first would become delirium, and the last mania. The Fancy brings together images, that have no con nection natural or moral, but are yoked together by the poet by means of some accidental coincidence... The Imagination modifies images and gives unity to 1 D. G. James, Scepticism and Poetry, p. 7. 2 S. T. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria. p. 42. 3 variety; it sees all things in one. Coleridge writes that ‘Milton had a highly imagin- 4 ative. Cowley a very fanciful mind.1 Otway's Lutes, laurels, seas of milk, and ships of amber, is a fanciful line’; Shakespeare's Whatl have his daughters brought him to- this pass? 5 • is an imaginative line. Coleridge writes that, 'in imaginative power, Wordsworth stands nearest among modem writers to Shakespeare and Milton. ‘To employ his own words, which are at once an instance and an il lustration, he does indeed to all thoughts and to all objects add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land^ The consecration, and the Poet's dream. In Biograohia Literaria. Coleridge describes fancy as having no other counters- to play with but fixities and definltes. The fancy is.Indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space; and blended with and modified by that empirical phenomenon of the will \irhich we express by the word choice. But equally with the ordinary mem ory the Fancy must receive all its materials ready 3 W. G-. T. Shedd (editor), The Comulete Works of S. T. Coleridge. Vol. VI, p. 518. ^ Biograuhia Literaria. p. 43. 5 Loc. eit., 6 Ibid., p. 236. made from the law of association. H. C. Robinson's Diary (Dec. 21, 1816) records Coler- 8 idge's comments that 'fancy is memory without judgment.' 'An empirical phenomenon of the will' is not, as I. A. Richards points out, 'the will as a principle of the mind's being, striving to realize itself in knowing it self, but an exercise of selection from among objects already supplied by association, a selection made for purposes which are not then and there being shaped but 9 have been already fixed,' In the theories of both Coleridge and Wordsworth,the materials of fancy are of the physical rather than the spiritual world. According to Plato's Image of the cave, it distinguishes only the dancing shadows of the real world. Both imagination and fancy delight, but only the imagination looks upon 'Beauty bare.' Not fancy, but 'imagination is the lab oratory in which the thought elaborates essence into 10 existence.' Wordsworth first refers to the distinction be-, tween imagination and fancy in the note to 'The Thorn' 7 Ibid.. p. 146. . 8 T. M, Raysor (editor), Coleridge's Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 396. 9 I. A. Richards, Coleridge on Imagination, p. 77. 10 S. T. Coleridge, Anima Poetae, p. 186. (Lyrical Ballads. 1798). Her© he writes of imagination as ’the faculty which produces impressive effects out of simple elements,1 and of the fancy as ’the power by which pleasure and surprise are excited by sudden var- 11 ieties of- situation and by accumulated imagery.’ In the Preface of 1815, which is his complete analysis of imagination and fancy, Wordsworth writes that imagination 'recoils from everything but the plastic, the pliant, and the Indefinite. She leaves it to Fancy to describe Queen Mab as coming, In shape no bigger than an agate-stone, On the fore-finger of an alderman. Having to speak of stature she does not tell you that her gigantic Angel was as tall as Pompey’s Pillar, much less that he was twelve cubits or twelve hundred cubits high....The expression is "His stature reached the • 12 . sky’ .” I. A. Richards writes that ’in imagination the parts of the meaning— both as regards the ways in which they are apprehended and the modes.of combination of their effects in the mind— mutually modify one another,’ whereas, 'in Fancy, the parts of the meaning are appre hended as though.independent of their fellow members (as. 11 Arthur Beatty (editor), Wordsworth: Represent ative Poems. p. 349. 12 Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1815), A. B. G-rosart (editor). Prose Works of William Wordsworth. Vol. II, p. 14.1. Hereafter, G-rosart's edition will not be specifically cited in references to Wordsworth's Prefaces. they would be If they belonged to quite other wholes) and although, of course, the parts together have a joint effect whieh is not what it would be if the as semblage were different, the effects of the parts remain for an interval separate and collide or combine later, ,13 in so far as they do so at all. ' T. S. Eliot, who says he has a practical mind, holds that if the difference between imagination and fancy amounts in practice to no more than the difference between good and bad poetry, we have done no more than take a turn round Robin Hood's barn. * It is only if fancy can be an ingredient in good poetry, and if you can show some good poetry which is the better for it, it is only if the distinctions illuminate our immediate preference of one poet over another, that it can be of 14 use.’ Mr. Eliot's condition is explicitly recognized by Coleridge and is at least tacitly accepted by Words worth. I. A. Richards points out that, in his 'Table Talk' (April 20, 1833), Coleridge says that fancy is necessary to imagination, and that 'the higher intel lectual powers can only act'through a corresponding .13 Richards, op. cit.,pp. 86-87. 14 T. S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, p. 69. 6 15 energy of the lower.1 In Blographia Literaria. Coleridge comments again: !A man may work with two very different tools at the same time; each has its , 16 share in the work. . . . Even though fancy partakes of a temporal; Imagination of an eternal quality, the two have a com mon function in Wordsworth1s theory: Ho modify, to create and to associate.1 To a greater degree than Coleridge, Wordsworth conceives the mind as a unit. In the Preface of 1815 he objects that Coleridge1s defin ition of the fancy as Hhe aggregative and associative Power1 is too general: To aggregate and to associate, to evoke and to com bine, belong as well to the Imagination as to the Fancy; but either the materials evoked and combined are different; or they are brought together under a different law, and for a different purpose. Fancy does not require that the materials which she makes use of should be susceptible of change in their con stitution, from her touch; and, where they admit of modification, it is enough for her purpose if it be slight, limited, and evanescent. Directly the re verse of these, are the desires and demands of the Imagination.17 Coleridge replies in 1817 that Tif, by the power of evok ing and combining, Mr.Wordsworth means the same as, and no more than, I meant by the aggregative and associative, 15 Richards, op. clt.. p. 75. 16 Biographia Literaria. p. 140, 17 Preface (1815), p. 140. I continue to deny that it'belongs at all to the Imagination; and I am disposed to conjecture that he has mistaken the co-presence of Fancy with Imagination , 18 for the-operation of the latter singly.\ The debate between Coleridge and Wordsworth may arise partly from the semantic difficulties involved in any attempt to identify general words. It is clear, however, that in Wordsworth’s thought to a greater degree, and in Coler idge' s to a somewhat lesser degree, imagination and fancy are two parts of a whole, which, though separated, naturally fit together. Speaking more specifically of the workings of imagination, Wordsworth states that it achieves its ef fect and makes experience significant through its con ferring, abstracting, modifying, shaping, and creating powers. In acting on an individual image the ’processes of imagination are carried on either by conferring ad ditional properties upon an object,or abstracting from it some of those which it actually possesses, and thus enabling it to re-act upon the mind which hath performed • - ' ’ 19 ■ * the process, like a new existence.’ Wordsworth illus trates this conferring and abstracting for both sight 18 Bloscra-phia Literaria. pp. 139-4-0i . 3-9 Preface (1815), p.137. 8 and sound by examining passages from Vergil, Shakes peare, Milton, and his ovm poetry. For example, Shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice? ^ ^ is a question which 'characterise the. seeming ubiquity of the voice of the Cuckoo, and dispossesses the creature almost of a corporeal existence; the Imagination being tempted to this exertion of her power by a consciousness in the memory that the cuckoo is almost perpetually heard throughout the season of spring, but seldom be comes an object of sight.' This example represents 'images independent of each other, and immediately en dowed by the mind with properties that do not inhere in them, upon an incitement from properties and qualities 20 the existence of which is inherent and obvious. Wordsworth demonstrates next how images modify each other in conjunction by quoting from 'Resolutions and Independence:' ~ As a huge stone is sometimes seen' to lie Couched on the bald top of an eminence . Wonder to all who do the same espy By what means it could thither come, and whence, So that it seems a thing endued^with sense, Like a sea-beast crawled forth,'which on a shelf Of rock or sand reposeth,there to sun himself, Here Wordsworth points out that objects 'unite and 20 Loc. eit. coalesce.1 The stone is endowed with something of the power of life to approximate it to the sea-beast; and the sea-beast stripped of some of its vital qualities 21 to assimilate it -to the stone. Here, then, are the conferring, abstracting, and modifying powers of the ; imagination working in combination. A third form of imaginative activity is to shape and to create. Sperry comments that 'imagination is Wordsworth's name for the mind's initiative, its ability either to create independent worlds or to recreate the 22 world of fact after its heart's desire.' In Words worth's opinion, imagination 'has no reference to images that- are merely a faithful copy, existing in the mind of 23 absent external objects.' Writing to Samuel Rogers (Sept. 29, 1808), Wordsworth remarks-that in being pictures true to nature, Grabbe's verses 'are mere mat ters of fact, with which the Muses have just about as much to do as they have with a collection of medical 24 reports or of lav; cases.' Goleridge,too, makes clear that to copy is not to create art: 21 Ibid.. p. 138. 22 W. L. Sperry, Wordsworth* s Anti-Climax, p. 159. 23 Preface (1815), p. 135. 24 Ernest De Selincourt (editor), Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: The Middle Years. Vol. I, p. 244. 10 If there be likeness to nature without any check of difference, the result is disgusting, and the more complete the delusion, the more loathsome the effect. Why are such simulations of nature as wax-work figures of men and women so disagree able? Because not finding the motion and life which we expected, we are shocked by a falsehood, every circumstance of detail, which before induced - .us. to be interested, making the distance from truth more palpable.25 According to Coleridge, 'the power of poetry is by a single word,perhaps, to instill that energy into the mind which compels the imagination to produce the pic- 26 ture.1 In defining imaginative activity, Coleridge sets up a dichotomy of primary imagination and secondary imagination. He explains the distinction as follows: The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM; The second ary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates in order to re create; or where this process is rendered impos sible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital. even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead. < 25 Quoted by R. A. Scott-James,.The Making of' Literature. p. 225. 26 Quoted by Arthur Symons, The Romantic Movement in English Poetry. p.136. 27 Blographia Literaria. p.116. 11 Interpreting' Coleridge, I. A. Richards writes: The Primary Imagination is normal perception that produces the usual world of the senses That inanimate cold world allowed To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd, the world of motor-buses, beefsteaks, and acquaint ances, the framework of things and events in which we maintain our everyday existence, the world of the routine satisfaction of our minimum exigencies. The Secondary Imagination, re-forming this world, gives us not only poetry— In the limited sense in which literary critics concern themselves with it— but every aspect of the routine world in which it is invested with other values than those necessary for our bare continuance as living beings: all objects for which we can feel love, awe, admiration, every quality beyond the account of physics, chem istry, and the physiology of sense-perception, nu trition, reproduction and locomotion; every aware ness for which a civilized life is preferred to an uncivilized. All the supernumerary perceptions which support civilized life are the product of the Secondary Imagination; and, though the processes by which they are created are best studied in words— in the highest examples, in poetry— the rest of the fabric of the world of values is of the same origin.* Although admirable in his explanation of Coler idge, Richards, philosophical descendant of the English empiricists, fails to recognize the metaphysical basis of Coleridge's thought, his belief that imaginative activity is a repetition -and a continuation of the creation of G-od. In Coleridge*s theory, as the order and beauty of nature arises from the imagination of God, so by the energy of 28 Richards, op, cit.. pp. 53-59. . 12 imagination the artist discovers the unity of things and himself creates a whole. In his Shakespearean es says, Coleridge defines imagination as 'the power by which one image or feeling is made to modify many others and by a sort of fusion to force many into one;--that which...showed itself in such, might and energy in Lear, where the deep anguish of a father spreads the feeling of ingratitude and cruelty over the very elements of heaven;— and which, combining many circumstances into one moment of consciousness, tends to produce that ulti mate end of all human thought and human feeling, unity, and thereby the reduction of the spirit to Its principle 29 and fountain, who is alone truly one.' Margaret Sherwood comments that Coleridge's 'apprehension of an organic unity in complexity is the ,30 keynote of his Shakespeare criticism.' It is, indeed, the keynote of his aesthetics. 'Unity in multeity,' he 31 affirms, is 'the principle of beauty.1 He writes again: 29 S.’ T. Coleridge, Essays and Lectures on Shakes peare and Some Other Old Poets and Dramatists. p. 39. 30 M. P. Sherwood, Coleridge's Imaginative Concep tion of the Imagination, p. 30. 31 Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare and Some Other Old Poets and Dramatists, p. 53. 13 The Beautiful contemplated in Its essentials, that Is, in kind and not in decree. Is that in which the many, still seen as many, becomes one. Take a familiar instance, one of a thousand. The frost on a window-pane has by accident crys tallized Into a striking resemblance of a tree o„r a sea-weed. With what pleasure we.trace the parts, .and their relation to each-other, and to'the whole. In his ‘Table Talk1 ’ (July 3, 1833), Coleridge" applies the principle of unity to poetry: But the .great thing in poetry is, * , quocunque modo,‘ to effect a unity of impression upon the whole; and a too great fulness and profusion of point in the parts will prevent this. Who can read with pleasure more than a hundred lines or so of Hudibras at one time? Each couplet or quatrain is so whole in It self, that you can’t connect them. There is no fusion— just as it is In S e n e c a .33 I* 1 Biogranhla Literaria. Coleridge defines a ‘legitimate poem* as ‘one, the parts of which mutually support and 34 explain each other.’ For example: What can be finer in any poet than that beautiful passage in Milton— Onward he moved, And thousands of his saints around. This is grandeur, but it is grandeur without complete ness: but he adds— Far off their coming shone; which is the highest sublime. There is total com pleteness. ...When the whole and the parts are seen 32 Quoted by Scott-James, pp. cit., p. 228. 33 Shedd, Complete Works. Vol. VI, p. 468. 34 Biographia Literaria. p. 150. 14 at once, as mutually producing and explaining each other, as unity in multeity, there results shape liness— 'forma formosa,' Where the perfection of form is combined with pleasureableness in the sen sations, excited by the matters or substances so formed, there results the beautiful.-^5 Ooleridge writes that the * synthetic and magical power' of imagination ’reveals in the balance or recon cilement of opposite or discordant qualities: of same ness with difference; of the general with the concrete; the idea with the image; the individual with the repre sentative; 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 feelings 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 , 36 of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry. In this sense, then, imagination is the 'esemplastic' power. Coleridge writes in the Biograuhia Literaria that he constructed 'esemplastic' from the Greek words 37 ‘ 'to shape into one.' In Anima Poetae. . he substitutes 'eisenoplasy, or 'esenoplastic power1 for 'esemplastic.' 35 Thomas Allsop (editor), Letters. Conversations and Recollections of S. T..Coleridge, p. 197. 36 Biograohia Literaria. p. 152. 37 Ibid.. p. 76. 15 He remarks 'how excellently the German "Einbildungskraft" expresses this prime and loftiest faculty, the power of co-adunation, the faculty that forms the many into 38 the one— "in-eins-bildung.*" Wordsworth, obviously, is in complete accord with Coleridge when he writes, that in no way does the imagination shape and create with more delight 'than in that of consolidating numbers into unity, and dissolving and separating unity into number— alternations proceed ing from, and governed by, a sublime consciousness of 39 the soul in her- own mighty and almost divine powers.' Wordsworth approvingly refers to Charles Lamb's concep tion of imagination as that power which 'draws all things to onej which makes things animate or inanimate, beings with their attributes, subjects with their accessories 40 take one colour and serve to one effect.' As he re marked to the Bishop of Lincoln,imagination is 'that chemical faculty by which elements of the most different nature and distant origin are blended together into one 41 harmonious and homogeneous whole.' 38 Anlma Poetae. p. 199. 39 Preface (I815)'i p. 138. 40 Ibid.. p. 139. 41 Grosart, Prose Work. Vol. Ill, p. 465. 16 In the vision seen from Mt. Snowdon we learn how the imagination creates a unity. At the beginning of his concluding book of The Prelude, the poet tells of climbing in the dead of a close summer night, with low-hung fog, to see the sunrise, from the top of. Snowdon. He writes that at the '.end of. his silent ascent with two, companions instantly a light upon the turf Fell like a flash, and lo! as I looked up' The Moon hung naked in a firmament Of azure without cloud, and at my feet Rested a silent sea of hoary mist. A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved All over this still-ocean; and beyond, Far, far beyond, the solid vapours stretched In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes, Into the main Atlantic, that appeared To dwindle, and.give up his majesty, Usurped upon far as the. sight could reach. Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment none Was there,nor loss; only the inferior stars Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light In the clear presence of the full-orbed Moon, Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazed Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay All meek and silent, save that through a rift— Not distant from the shore whereon we stood, A fixed abysmal, gloomy, breathing-place— Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams Innumerable, roaring with one voice! Heard over earth and sea, and, in that hour, ^p For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens. Of the sight from Snowdon Wordsworth writes: There I beheld the emblem of a mind That feeds upon infinity.^3 42 William Wordsworth, The Prelude. Book XIV, 11. 38-62. 43 Ibid.. Book XIV, 11. 70-71 17 Here there is an immediate intuitive grasping of a sit uation in its deepest philosophical significance. As Havens states, the imagination ‘so pictures scenes, events, and persons that the reason beholds them not in their petty' particularity but finds-in them, intimations 44 of the universal, the permanent, the significant,’ Crabb Robinson’s Diary (for Sept.11, 1816) explicitly states Wordsworth’s dictum, 'that imagination is the faculty by which the poet conceives and produces— that is, images,— individual forms in which are embodied 45 universal ideas or abstractions.' Wordsworth remarks parenthetically in one of his letters (Jan. or Feb. 1808). that he writes a poem not on. a Daisy, but on the 46 Daisy, 'a mighty difference^’ The value of generalities is not, Wordsworth says (June, 1802), to delineate merely such feelings as all men do sympathize with but to include * such as all men may sympathize with and such as there is reason to believe they would be better and more moral beings 47 if they did sympathize with. Wordsworth writes again 44 Havens, pp. cit., p. 244. 45 Quoted by Ibid., p. 227. 46 De Selincourt, Letters? The Middle Years. Vol. I, p. 170. 47 De Selincourt, Early•Letters. p. 298. 18 (in 1824): Even in poetry it is the imaginative only, viz., that which is conversant with or turns upon in finity, that powerfully affects me. Perhaps I ought to explain: I mean to say that, unless' in those passages where things are lost in each other, and limits, vanish, and .aspirations are raised, I , read with something too much like indifference. ® I*1 The Prelude, following the passage on crossing the Alps,. Wordsworth reflects: Our destiny, our being's heart and home, Is with infinitude, and only there; With hope it is, hope, that can never die, Effort, and expectation, and desire. And something evermore about to be. Thus, although the revelation of beauty in the actual Is an essential object in Wordsworth’s poetry, it is not altogether as Beatty says that imagination is simple truth to experience, to the real experience which we all know; not to some transcendental, far away or Utopian or supposedly ideal truth, but to the truth of .50 the world in which we live.’ Wordsworth clearly be lieves with Coleridge that imagination .enables the per- ceiver of nature to participate in the infinite. Coleridge writes: ’The Greeks idolized the finite, and therefore were the masters of all grace, 48 William Knight (editor), Letters of the Words worth Family. Vol. II, pp. 214-215. 49 The Prelude. Book VI, 11. 604-608. 50 Arthur Beatty, William Wordsworth His Doctrine and Art in Their Historical Relations, p. 169. 19 elegance,proportion, fancy, dignity, majesty— of what ever, in short, is capable of being definitely conveyed by defined forms or thoughts;the moderns revere the Infinite and affect the indefinite as a vehicle of the infinite; hence their passions, their obscure hopes and fears, their wandering through the unknown, their grander moral feelings, their more august conception of man as man, their future rather than their past— in 51 ■a*-word',, their sublimity.’ Whereas Aristotle makes imagination a storehouse of images, Coleridge 'substi tutes a sublime feeling of the unimaginable for the ,52 mere image.' He conceives a faculty or agency which in organizing impressions of sense 'gives birth to a system of symbols, harmonious in themselves, and con- ✓ substantial with the truths of which they are the con- 53 ductors.* Conjunction between the world of sense and that of spirit is similar to mystical illumination. 'By sensuous images,' Coleridge says, ’we elicit truth •54 as at a flash.’ As Wordsworth writes, there is an 51 Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare and Some " Other Old Poets and Dramatists, p.194. 52 Ibid.. p. 91. .53 * The Statesman's Manual,’ Shedd, Complete Works. Vol. I, p. 436. 54 Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare and Some Other Old Poets and Dramatists, p.459. 20 ecstasy when the light of sense Goes out but with a flash that has revealed The invisible world.55 In that its revelation of the invisible world /brings freedom and understanding, imagination is an infallible guide to conduct. It is not, however, a conventional restriction or a negative command. It guides only by enlightening. Reliance on imagination as the highest of human powers is finally justified by the lines in The Prelude which identify imagination as but another name for absolute powers, And clearest insight, amplitude of n&n&j And Season in her most exalted mood.5° In this sense 'poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is the countenance of all science.' The Insights of this power, called imagination 'Through sad incompetence 57 of human speech,' are akin to the' abstractions of geometry, which is In verity an independent world, ,_o Created out of pure intelligence.- •> 55 The Prelude. Book VI, 11. 600-602. 56 The Prelude. Book XIV,' 11. 190-192. 57 The Prelude. Book VI, 1. 593. 58 Ibid., Book VI, ll. 166-167. 21 Gourthope comments that both Coleridge and Wordsworth agree in regarding poetry as a kind of philosophy, or even religion, the truths ofwhieh are revealed by 59 imagination. In The Prelude. Wordsworth speaks of Poets, even as Prophets, each with "each Connected in a mighty scheme of truth.60 Thus, in following the progress of the poet's imagin ation, we draw Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought Of human Being, Eternity, and God.61 59 W.J. Courthooe, The History of English Poetry. Vol. VI, p. 196. • 60 The Prelude. Book XIII, 11. .301-302. 61.Ibid.. Book XIV, 11. 204-205. CHAPTER II The nature of the poet and the nature of poetry,, two-basic issues in the poetic theories of * Coleridge and Wordsworth, are the concerns of this chapter. Considered first is the poet, defined by Coleridge and Wordsworth as one who is gifted with imagination, and who is a conscious artist. Wordsworth asks What is a Poet? and replies ,1 that Vhe is a man speaking to men,' a man differing in degree from other men, but not in.kind. Such a definition suggests that the poet is utterly ungod like. Wordsworth's view, however, is that the poet is set apart by certain qualities of imagination. He has a sensitivity which enables him to know the high est truth. He has more enthusiasm, more tenderness, a more comprehensive soul, and he 'rejoices more than 2 other men in the spirit of life that is in him.' Wordsworth's democratic tendencies never lead him to the conclusion that all men are poets. He emphasizes by repetition his belief■ that the poet is 'distinguished 1 Preface (1800, 1802, 1805), p. 87. 2 Ibid.. p. 88. 23 from other men by a greater promptness to think and feel without immediate external excitement, and a greater power in expressing such thoughts and feelings 3 as are produced in him in that manner.’ The poet is specially gifted in'having the ability.; to conjure-up passions far from the same as those produced by real 4 events. • _■ . ■ • Coleridge, answering the question Who is the poet? speaks more specifically in terms of the imagin ation than does Wordsworth. Coleridge writes: The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the sub ordination of its faculties to each other accord ing 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 I would ex clusively appropriate the name of Imagination.5 It is through imagination that the poet has what is, in Coleridge’s view, his chief requisite, ’deep feeling and exquisite sense of beauty,both as exhibited to the eye in combinations of form, and to the ear in sweet and 6 appropriate melody.' That Coleridge regards the poet as an imagln- 3 Ibid., P. 92. 4 Ibid.. p. 88. 5 Biogranhla Llterarla. p.151. 6 Essays and Lectures on Shake soeare and Some Other Old Poets and Dramatists, p. 38. 24 ative person who is moreover a conscious artist is evident in his practical recognition of poetic labour. He.remarks (in a letter to Joseph Cottle, 1797) on Milton’s 'severe application; his laborious polish; his deep’metaphysical researches' in. preparation for ■ > 7 writing Paradise Lost. He continues: I would not think of devoting less than twenty years to an Epic Poem. Ten to collect materials and warm my mind with universal science. I would be a tolerable Mathematician, I would thoroughly know Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Optics, and Astron omy, Botany, Metallurgy, Fossilism, Chemistry, Geology, Anatomy, Medicine— then the mind of man— then the minds of men— in all Travels, Voyages, and Histories. So I would spend ten years— the next five to the composition of the poem— and the five last to the correction of it.° Wordsworth writes in a letter to Sir William M. Gomm (April 16, 183^) 'that poetry is infinitely more 9 of an art than the world is disposed to believe. Again, in a letter to William Hamilton (Nov. 22, 1831), he writes that ’again and again he must repeat, that the composition of verse is infinitely more of an art than men are prepared to believe; and absolute success in it 7 Joseph Cottle. Reminiscences- of Coleridge and Southey.n. 103. • 8 E. L, Griggs’(editor), Unpublished Letters of S. T. Coleridge. Vol. I, pp. 71-72. 9 De Selincourt, Later Letters. Vol. II, p. 700. 25 depends upon innumerable minutiae.' Going on to dis count Milton's tall?: of 'pouring easy his unpremeditated verse,' Wordsworth states that he 'could point out... five hundred passages in Milton upon which labour has "been bestowed, and twice five hundred more to which 10 additional labour would have been serviceable.' It is noteworthy that in considering the artist ry of the poet both Coleridge and Wordsworth recognize the importance of 'judgment' or 'good sense.' Words worth includes judgment among the powers necessary to 11 the making of poetry. And Coleridge writes that 12 'Good Sense is the Body of poetic genius.' Poetry is certainly something more than good sense,' he explains in Table Talk, 'but It must be good sense, at all events, just as a palace is more than a house, but it must be a 13 house, at least.' Coleridge writes that verses are not logic but that 'they are, or ought to be, the envoys and repre sentatives of that vital passion which is the practical cement of logic; and without which logic must remain * 10 Ibid.. Vol. II, p. 586. 11 Preface (1815), p.131. * ' 12 Biogranhia Llterarla. p. 153. 13 Shedd, Complete Works. Vol. VI, p. 310. 26 14- inert.' Wordsworth, in a letter to William Hamilton (Dec. 23, 1829), Insists that 'the common sense of the 15 words' be respected in poetic composition. He writes, again, to the same correspondent (Sept. 24, 1827): You will be brought to acknowledge that the logical faculty has infinitely more to do with poetry-than the young and the inexperienced, whether writer or critic, ever dreams of. Indeed, as the materials upon which that faculty is exercised in poetry are so subtle, so plastic, so complex, the application of it requires an adoitness which can proceed from nothing but practice.1° Obviously, Coleridge and Wordsworth are in large measure agreed on the nature of the poet. Although Coleridge, to a greater degree than Wordsworth, re gards the poet as a godlike creator, Wordsworth agrees that the poet is specially gifted in rendering beauty articulate. Both agree that the poet is an artist. In the fifteenth chapter of Blographia Literaria. Coleridge describes the poet as sensuous, aloof, thoughtful, and passionate. Such a characterization is implicitly acceptable to Wordsworth. The powers requisite to the poet as listed by him are those of 14 Essays and Lectures - on Shakespeare and Some Other Old Poets and Dramatists, p. 363. 15 De Selincourt, Later Letters. Vol. I, pp. 435-436. 16 Ibid., Vol. I, p. 275. 2? observation and description, sensibility, reflection, 17 imagination and fancy, invention and judgment. The preceding chapter has indicated that both Coleridge and Wordsworth consider that the poet must possess fancy as well..as imagination. ' The following chapter- will demonstrate that Wordsworth places an emphasis which Coleridge does not on the poet's power of ob servation and description. The second subject of this chapter, the na.ture of poetry, divides itself into three parts: a con sideration of pleasure as the immediate end of poetry; i a consideration of poetry as simple, sensuous, and 7 -j- passionate; and, finally, a consideration of truth and i j moral purpose as the chief values in poetry. Before ■ j turning to poetry, however, it may be well to examine i j Coleridge s description of a poem. There is no poem, Coleridge writes, without a relationship between part and whole, whereby each part gives a pleasure consonant with the pleasure of the whole. Coleridge cites 'the philosophic critics of all ages' as authorities in ‘ 1 equally denying the praises of a just poem, on the one hand, to a series of striking lines or distichs...and 17 Preface (1815), P. 151. 28 on the other hand, to an unsustained composition, from which the reader collects rapidly the general result unattracted by the component parts.* A 'final definition,' then, may be thus stated: 'A poem is* that species,of composition, which is opposed to works of science, by proposing for its immediate object pleas ure, not truth; and from all other species (having this object in common with it) it is discriminated by pro posing to itself such delight from the whole, as is compatible with a distinct gratification from each com- ,18 ponent -part. Here, Coleridge has given us a strict Aristotelian definition in which a poem is a genus with in a species. Coleridge's literal meaning is rendered with insight by Allen Tate, who■interprets him as say ing: There is a generic division: composition.- A poem is a species within the genus; but so is a work of science. How are the two species distinguished? By their Immediate objects. It is curious that Coleridge phrases the passage as if a poem were a person 'proposing* to himself a certain end, pleasure; so for object we* have got to read effect. A poem, then, differs from a work of science in its immediate effect upon us; and that immediate effect is pleasure. But other species of compo sition may aim at the effect of pleasure. A poem differs’ from these in the relation of part to' whole: the parts must give us a distinct pleasure, 18 Blographla Literaria. p. 150. 29 moment by moment, and they are not, to be con ceived as subordinate to the whole; they make up the whole. In the!fourteenth-chapter of Bio^raohia Literaria. Coleridge distinguishes between a poem, ■rwh±cifrh^^delFi'nes ,Jji.'the^ above -manner, and poetry. Proposing to define poetry, .he proceeds to'define the poet, and he defines the poet by defining the imagination. In his 'Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton,1 however, Coleridge defines poetry as 'an art (or whatever better term our language . may afford) of representing in words, external nature and human thoughts and affections, both relatively to human affections, by the production of as much immedi- • ate pleasure in parts, as is compatible with the largest sum of pleasure in the whole.' Varying the words again, 'in order to make the abstract idea more intelligible:— It Is the art of communicating whatever we wish to communicate, so as both to express and produce excite ment, but for the purpose of immediate pleasure, and each part Is fitted to afford as much pleasure, as is 201 j compatible with the largest sum in the whole<Js s s *Jb It will be noted that in his first phrasing of the defin ition Coleridge mentions the human affections. He 19 Allen Tater Reason in Madness, p. 47.^ 20 Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare and Some Other Old Poets and Dramatists, p. 598. 30 explains that ;the poet differs from the anatomist and the topographer in representing human thought and af-; . feetion as well as representing nature;that he differs from the metaphysician and the best novelist in de scribing not only human thoughts and affections, but human thoughts and affections relative to human affec tions; that he differs from the historian and all those who describe not only nature and affections, but affec tions relatively to the affections, in having immediate 21 pleasure for his purpose. Wordsworth is in accord with Coleridge-' s notion that pleasurable excitement is 'the magic circle out of 22 which the poet must not dare to tread.' The poet ought to take care, Wordsworth writes, that 'whatever passions he communicates to his Reader, those passions, if his Reader's mind be sound and vigorous, should 23 always be accompanied by an overbalance of pleasure.' Wordsworth writes again: - . . Nor let this necessity of producing immediate pleasure be considered as a degradation of the Poet’s art. It is far otherwise. It is an ac knowledgement of the beauty of the universe, an acknowledgement the more sincere, because not 21 Ibid., p. 400. 22 Loc. cit. 23 Preface (1800, 1802, 1805),p. 97. formal, but indirect; it is a task light and easy to him who looks at the world in the spirit of ... love: further, it.is a homage paid to the native, and naked dignity of man,- to the grand elementary principle of pleasure, by which he knows, and feels, and lives, and moves. We have no sympathy but what is propagated by pleasure.2^ Thus, although Wordsworth never defines poetry or a j poem in terms of pleasure, he is in complete agreement i | with Coleridge concerning pleasure as the immediate end I of poetry. There still remains, however, a question as to the true "whatness" of poetry. Coleridge provides the answer to the problem in remarking again and again, as in an early letter to ■ Robert Southey (July 27, 1802), on ’what an admirable definition Milton gives in quite an "obiter” way, when he says of poetry that it is "simple, sensuous, pas sionate'. ^J^Coleridge comments again-dn—1 Table -Talk' (May-8y 1824)’: * I think nothing can be added to Milton' definition or rule of poetry,— •that-dt' ought to be simple, sensuous, and impassioned; that is to say, single in conception, abounding in sensible images, and 26 informing them all with the spirit of the mind. Further expanding the definition, Coleridge writes that 24 Ibid,, p. 90. 25 S. H. Coleridge (editor), Letters of S. T. Coleridge. Vol. I, p. 387. 26 Shedd, Complete Works. Vol. VI, p. 276. simplicity 'distinguishes poetry from the arduous processes’ of science, labouring towards an end not yet arrived at,' and precludes affectation and morbid peculiarity; that sensuousness insures an objectivity, a definiteness and articulation of imagery, which saves poetry from mere day-dreaming; and that passion 'pro vides that neither thought nor imagery shall be simply objective, but that the "passio vera” of humanity shall 27^“ warm and animate both. j Writing as though one condition were dependent on the other, Coleridge states that ’it is essential to poetry that it be simple, and appeal to the elements and primary laws of our nature; that it be sensuous, and by its imagery elicit truth at a flash; that it be impassioned, and be able to move our ,28 feelings and awaken our affections,1 According to Coleridge, had'the three words, ’simple, sensuous, passionate,1 been properly understood, false poetry would have been precluded, and works capable of enlarg ing the understanding, purifying the heart, and en- 29 gendering noble actions, would have followed. 27 Essays and Lectures on Shakespeare and Some Other Old Poets and Dramatists, pp. 11-12. 28 Ibid., p. 48'. 29 Ibid.. p. 11. Wordsworth never praises Milton's definition in - the manner of Coleridge, yet his whole art is predicated upon such a concept. A passage in his essay on epitaphs graphically gives his notion, for instance, that essential poetry is ultimate simplicity. 'In an ob scure corner of a country churchyard,' he says, I once espied, half-overgrown with hemlock and nettles, a very small stone laid upon-the ground, bearing nothing more than the name of the deceased, with the date of birth and death, importing that it was an infant which had been born one day and died the following. I know not how far the reader may be in sympathy with me, but more awful thoughts of rights conferred, of hopes awakened, of .remem brances stealing away or vanishing were imparted to my mind by that inscription there before my eyes than by any other that it has ever been my lot to meet with upon a tombstone.30 Such, for Wordsworth, is the power of a bare fact,if that fact be imaginatively significant. This is not to say, of course, that, in Wordsworth's thought, fact is in Itself poetry. /’ Wordsworth explicitly writes that 'the appropriate business of poetry...is not to treat of things -as they are...but as they seem to exist to the senses and the 31 •passions.* As Coleridge -says, the heat of passion 30 Quoted by Walter Raleigh, Wordsworth, pp. 94—95. 31 Essay Supplementary. p. 106. 34 produces ’new connections of thoughts or Images,1 new ,32 'generalizations of truth or experience, . 3 The essence of all poetry, Ooleridge finds, lies 33 | in the 'union of passion with thought and pleasure.' ! ' f j He comments (in his recorded conversation) that 'the wonderful faculty which Shakespeare above all other men possessed...of anticipating everything, evidently is the result— at least partakes— of meditation, or that mental process which consists in the submitting to the operation of thought every object of feeling, 3 4 ... or impulse,or passion, observed out of it.' The early admiration that Coleridge gave Bowles and Cowper. was prompted by the fact that they were 'the first who . , 35 reconciled the .head with the heart' ; and one of the excellencies he notes in Wordsworth is a 'meditative pathos, a union of-deep and subtle thought i^ith sensi- 36 bility.' Allen Tate bemoans 'Coleridge's dilemma of 32 Biograuhia Llteraria. p. 174. 33 Essays and Lectures on Shakesueare and Some ‘ Other Old Poets and Dramatists, p. 362. 34 Thomas Allsop (editor), Letters. Conversations. and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge. Vol. I, p. 196. 35 Biograohia Literaria, p.12. 36 Ibid., p. 234. 37 Intellect-or-Feeling.' Yet there Is no dilemma. Coleridge’s po.sition is clear: truth is the ultimate end. of poetry, in which neither intellect nor feeling ' is sacrificed, and pleasure is its vehicle. " ■ * . Coleridge remarks' in a letter (to Reverend F. Wrangham, Oct. 9, 1794-) that English poetry requires 38 - • ' a ’body of mind.1 Thus, .when he writes that Shakes peare created characters through meditation, he adds that ’meditation looks at every character with interest, only as it contains something generally true, and such 39 as might be expressed in a philosophical problem.’ As Dodds remarks, ’there are places in which Coleridge treats dramatic characters as though the poet had begun 40 his creative work by reflecting on abstract idea.* Wordsworth’s conception of truth as the aim of poetry is the basis of his theory of diction and, as such, is discussed in the following chapter. It may be noted, however, that Wordsworth regards truth as the soul and essence of poetry. flit is further Wordsworth’s position, as it is 37 Allen Tate, on. cit.. p. 51. 38 Griggs, op. cit.^ Vol. I, p. 26. 39 Quoted by A. E. Dodds, Romantic Theory of Poetrv. p. 111. 40 Ibid., pp. 10-11. 36 Coleridge’s, that truth in poetry exists, not for truth’s sake, but for moral purpose. Wordsworth writes to Sir George Beaumont (Jan. or Feb. 1808): ’Every great Poet is a Teacher: I wish either to be con- 41 • sidered as a Teacher, or as nothing.’ He writes again to John Wilson -(1802) that a great poet 'ought to a certain degree-to: rectify men’s -feelings, to give them - newr compositions of feeling, to render their feelings more sane, pure and permanent, in short more consonant to nature, that is, to eternal nature, and the great moving spirit of things. He ought to travel before men 42 occasionally as well as at their sides.’ Wordsworth makes clear in the Preface that each of his poems ’has a worthy -purpose.1 He writes: Wot that I always began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived; but habits of medi tation have, I trust, so prompted and regulated my feelings, that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those feelings, will be found to carry along with them a purpose. If this opinion be erroneous* I can have little right to the name of a Poet. ^ When Wordsworth writes to Lady Beaumont (May 21, 1807) that his poems ’aim to direct the attention to some moral 41 De Selincourt, Letters: The Middle Years. Vol. I, p. 170. - 42 D.e Selincourt, Early Letters, pp. 295-296. 43 Preface (1800, 1802, 1805), p. 82. 37 V sentiment, or to some general principle, or law of thought, or of our intellectual constitution,' he makes clear that the values of poetry are not narrowly, or exclusively ethical. A psychological purpose may legitimately occupy the poet. Nevertheless, he recog nizes (as in his conversation recorded by the Bishop of Lincoln) that 'man is essentially a moral agent, and there is that immortal'and unextlnguishable yearning for something pure and spiritual which will plead against.. poetical sensualists as long as man remains what he is. Writing to Henry Reed (July 1, 1845), Wordsworth states: 'I should myself value most in my attempts the spirit uality with’ which I have endeavoured to invest the material universe, and the moral relations under'which I have wished to exhibit its most ordinary appearances.' The notion that a poem should not 'mean* but 'be1 belongs to neither Wordsworth nor Coleridge, nor to their age. 44 46 Coleridge indicates the high mission he conceives f for poetry when he extravagantly describes poets as 'the p. 144. 44 Be Selincourt, Early Letters, pp. 296-297. 45 G-rosart, Prose Works. Vol. Ill,, p. 465. 46 L. N. Broughton (editor), Wordsworth and Reed purifiers...the true protoplasts— G-ods of Love who tame 47 the chaos.* ' Although Coleridge makes pleasure the '^'immediate* business of the poet, the communication of that pleasure is merely ’the introductory means by 48 \ which the ;poet must expect to moralize his reader.s. . J , marginalia on George Dyer* s Poems Coleridge I again, makes clear that, although the poet must always I aim at pleasure as his specific means, he ought, as ! \ surely Milton did, to aim at something nobler— ’to i ,49 ■ » cultivate and predispose the heart of the reader, etc.' * Coleridge, formulating what is, perhaps, Words worth's tacit feeling, envisages a final unity of moral and aesthetic values: he writes to Sir Ii. Davy (Feb. 3, 1801) about contemplating an essay on poetry which would 50 supersede all books of metaphysics and morals. Robert Penn Warren demonstrates that ‘The Ancient Mariner’ actually does present ’a fable in which the moral values ,51 and the aesthetic values are shown to merge. Thus 4? Anlma Poetae. p. 197. 48 Biograohla Llterarla. p. 221. 49 T. M. Raysor (editor), Coleridge* s Miscellaneous Criticism, pp. 320-321. • ' 50 E. H. Coleridge, op. cit., Vol. I, p.339.. 51 TheT Rimer of-the ‘ Ancient "Mariner- . R.. Py‘ Warren, 1 A_ Poemi-of Pure..Imagination: J.An Experimtntl.iht.Readihgy!- P. 103. Coleridge considers concern with human conduct in separable from an acknowledgement of beauty. This Greek-like unity, which is his controlling ideal, is fittingly imaged in 'a work of pure imagination..* CHAPTER III The basic premi^spin all Wordsworth* s theo rizing on language is that the end of poetry is t rizing on language is that the end of poetry is truth. According to Aubrey de Vere’s 'Recollections,' Words worth used to say that truth— 'that is truth in its largest sense, as a thing at once real and ideal, a truth including exact and accurate detail, and yet everywhere subordinating mere detail to the spirit of the whole;— this, he affirmed, was the soul and essence ,1 not only of descriptive poetry, but of all poetry.' Disparaging•'those who talk of poetry as a matter of amusement and idle pleasure,' Wordsworth writes: Aristotle I have been told hath said that poetry is the most philosophic of all writing: it is so: its object is truth*..Poetry is the image of man and nature. The obstacles which stand in the way of the fidelity of the biographer and. historian, and of their consequent utility, are incalculably greater than those which are to be encountered by the poet who has an adequate notion of the dignity of his art. The scientist, according to Wordsworth, seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor,' v/hereas 'the poet, singing a song-in which all human beings join him, re joices in the presence of truth as our visible friend 1 G-rosart, Prose Works. Vol. Ill, p. 488. 2 Preface (1800, 1802, 1805), p. 89. 41 3 and hourly companion.' Wordsworth continues: Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowl edge; it is the impassioned expression which is the countenance of all Science....The remotest discover ies of the chemist, the botanist, or mineralogist, will be as proper objects of the.poet's art as,any upon which it can be employed, if the time should • ever come when these things shall be familiar to us.^ Wordsworth concludes by saying that it is not to be sup posed anyone holding his sublime notion of.poetry would 'break in upon the sanctity and truth of his pictures by 5 transitory and accidental ornaments.' The real language of passion, according t'o Words worth, cannot be equalled, much less surpassed by a language of the poet's own. He writes that 'however ex alted a notion we would wish to cherish of the character of a poet, it is obvious, that while he describes or imi tates passions, his situation is altogether slavish and mechanical, compared with the freedom and power of real - 6 and substantial action and suffering.' Hence his language must 'in liveliness and truth fall short of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual 3 Ibid.,* p. 91. 4- Loc. cit. 5 Ibid., p. 92. 6 Ibid,., p. 88. 7 presence of passions.1 The earliest poets, according to Wordsworth, actually did write 1 from passion' excited by real events; they wrote naturally and as men: feel ing powerfully as they- did, their language was daring 8 . and figurative.’ Their successors' mechanical adop-" tion of a ’poetic language,’ however, resulted in an - 9 ’extravagant and absurd diction.' : s' Wordsworth revolts against what he calls the ’gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers. He regrets 'the frantic novels,. sickly and stupid German Tragedies, and deluges of idle and extravagant stories , 11 in verse.' Affirming that the human mind is capable of being excited without the application of gross and violent stimulants,' he rejects personification and 'poetic diction.* The poet writes not for poets but for men, 'and, in order to excite rational sympathy, he 12 must express himself as other men express themselves. In revolting against those poets who had produced a language 'differing materially from the real language 7 Loc. cit. 8 Appendix to Lyrical Ballads (1802), p. 101. 9 Ibid.. p. 103. 10 Preface (1800, 1802, 1805), p. 80. 13 of men in any situation/ Wordsworth* s,curative pre-. scriptipn is the poet's actual observation of nature. Aubrey de Vere recollects Wordsworth's saying that his advice to young poets could be expressed in two coun sels: 'first, let Nature be your habitual and pleasur-/ able study, human nature and material nature!; secondly, learn from first class poets 'how to observe and how 14" to interpret Nature.' Wordsworth himself writes:. XI do not know how to give my Reader a more exact -notion ^ of the style in which it was my wish and intention to j write, than by informing him that I have at all times 15 / ' ■ ‘ “V" endeavoured to look steadily at my subject/^_^^He writes again: 'The powers requisite for the production of poetry are: first, those of Observation and Descrip tion, i.e., the ability to observe with accuracy things as they are in themselves, and with fidelity to describe them, unmodified by any passion or feeling existing in ,16 the mind of the describer. Thus Wordsworth holds exact and literal observation to be the source of a pure diction. Goleridge also says (in 'Table Talk,' Sept. 22, 13 Annendix (1802), p. 101. 14 G-rosart, Prose Works. Vol. Ill, p. 489. 15 Preface (1800/ 1802, 1805), p. 84. 16 Preface (1815), P. 131. 1830) that a poet ought to 'examine nature accurately1 ; he adds, however,*1 but write from recollection; and 17 trust more to your imagination than to your memory.' In Biograohia Llterarla. Coleridge calls Wordsworth's * mat ter-of-fact ness' a defect^f By * matter-of-factness' Coleridge means such: a literal and .prolix adherence to reality as reveals itself in the titles 'Lines Left upon a Seat in a Xew-tree, which stands near the lake of Esthwalte, on a desolate part of the shore, command ing a beautiful prospect,' and 'Inscription, Written at the Request of Sir George Beaumont, Bart., and in his name, for an Urn, Placed by himself at the Termination ,19 of a Newly-Planted Avenue in the same grounds. Wordsworth states his rejection of fantasy and espousal of realism in the prologue to 'Peter Bell:' The common growth of mother-earth Suffices me— her tears, her mirth, Her humblest mirth and tears. 0 It must be added, however, that his preoccupation with 'the common growth of mother-earth' is interfused with both a humanism and a consciousness of divinity. Words worth states well his theoretical position in a letter to ■ 17 Shedd, Complete Works. Vol. VI, pp. 345-346. 18 Blogranhla Llteraria. p. 218. 19 R. D. Havens, The Hind of a Poet, p. 12. 20 William Wordsworth, Peter Bell. 11. 133-135. 45 George Beaumont (1805) when he writes that 'all Just and solid pleasure in natural objects rests upon two pillars, God and Man,1 and adds that ’if he were dis posed to write a sermon...upon the subject of taste in natural beauty, he would take.for his text the little pathway in Lowther Woods, and.all■that’he had-to say would begin and end in the human heart, as under the direction of the divine Nature conferring value on the objects of the sense, and pointing out what is valuable 21 in them.’ Aubrey de Vere, in his 'Recollections,' states that 'Wordsworth used to warn young poets against writing poetry remote from human interests. Dante he admitted to be an exception; but he considered that Shelley, and almost all others who had endeavoured to out-soar the humanities, had suffered deplorably from 22 the attempt. Although recognizing 'no necessity to trick: out or to elevate nature,' Wordsworth is led by his artistic sense to require ’a selection of the real language of 23 men in a state of vivid sensation.' He depends upon, the principle of selection to remove the painful and dis gusting. 'Selection,' he writes, 'wherever it is made 21 De Sellncourt, Early Letters, pp. 527-528. 22 Grosart, Prose Works. Vol. Ill, pp. 488-489. 23 Preface (1800, 1802, 1805), p. 79. with true taste and feeling, will of itself form a distinction far greater than would at first he imagined, and will entirely separate the composition from the vul garity and meanness of ordinary life; and, if metre be supe’ r-added thereto...a dissimilitude will be produced altogether sufficient for the gratification of a rational 24 mind.' Wordsworth specifically notes ’the tendency of a metre to divest language in a certain degree, of its ,25 reality. There are, thus, important qualifications to his insistence that poetry use the real language of men. In the Advertisement to Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth writes that the majority of the poems are to be considered as experiments ’to ascertain how far the ■language of conversation in the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the purposes of poetic pleas- 26 ure.’ Marjorie Greenbie is among/those who declare that this statement does not express Wordsworth's ideal at any time, that it merely defines an experiment he chose to follow in thirteen out of the nineteen poems by him in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads, and that he . 24 Ibid., pp. 86-87. 25 Ibid., p. 95. 26 Advertisement to Lyrical Ballads. W. A. Knight (editor), Prose Works of William Wordsworth. Vol. I, p.. 31. ■ 47 changes his position by referring it* 1800 to *a selec tion of the' real language of men in a state of vivid ,27 sensation. It must be pointed out, in partial refu tation of this stand, however, that, in the same Preface ' of 1800, Wordsworth clearly states that the language of men in ’low and rustic life’ is adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and narrow circle of their Intercourse, being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, such a language, arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by poets.^8 In theory, at least, Wordsworth never relinquishes his faith in the language of simple persons, for him the an tithesis of artificial diction. Having made the adoption of the real language of men his first chief tenet concerning poetic diction, Words worth comes to his second when he writes that 'it would .be a most easy task to prove that not only the-language of .a large portion of every good poem, even of the most' 27 I. L. G-reenbie, Wordsworth Theory of Poetic Diction, p. xii. 28 Preface (1800, 1802, 1805), pp. 81-82. elevated character, must necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect differ from that of good prose, but likewise that some of the most in teresting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly in the language of prose when prose■is well ,29 written. Passages from Milton himself, he states, illustrate the truth of this assertion. Wordsworth'goes further. He makes the paradoxical assertion 'that there neither is nor can be, any essential difference between 30 the language of prose and metrical composition.' They are, says Wordsworth, not necessarily different even in degree: 'Poetry sheds no tears "such as Angels weep," but natural and human tears; she can boast of no celestial ichor that distinguishes her vital juices from those of prose; the same human blood circulates through 31 the veins of them both.' The end of poetry being truth, it is a logical consequence, in Wordsworth's view that poetic language should follow the.same pattern as philosophical language: 'as ideas and feelings are valuable, whether the composition be in prose or in verse, they require and exact one and the same language. 29 Ibid.. p. 85. 30 Loc. cit. 31 Loc. cit. 32 Appendix (1802), p. 105. 49 Such is the final extreme position to which Wordsworth is led in his reaction against eighteenth-century poetry. It must be noted, however, that despite his revolt against eighteenth-century practice, Wordsworth, ■.who came to maturity in that century, follows its ideal of precise statement. 'My main endeavour as to style,' he once said to the Bishop of Lincoln, 'has been that my poems-should be written in pure intelligible English. Obviously, Wordsworth recognizes and approves within himself the quality for which Coleridge praises him: ‘an austere purity of language both grammatically and logically; in short a perfect .appropriateness of the ,34 words to the meaning. Speaking as Wordsworth might have spoken, Coleridge comments in 'Table Talk' (May 31, I830) that 'works of imagination should be written in very plain language,' and that 'the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be 35 plain.' Both Coleridge and Wordsworth seek for a language that is 'simple, sensuous, and passionate.1' ■Yet the simplicity which Coleridge requires of the poet 33 G-rosart, Prose Works. Vol. Ill, p. 462. 34 Biogranhia Literarla. p. 229. 35 Shedd, Complete Works. Vol. VI, p. 322. partakes of no Wordsworthian severity* Coleridge stands with Wordsworth for reformation in poetic diction; and, in the beginning, the two poets are essentially in agreement concerning the nature of that reformation. Coleridge, for instance, writes about. his tragedy to William Lisle Bowles (Oct. 16, 1897): I have endeavoured to have few sentences which might not be spoken in conversation, a.voiding those that are com- , 36 monly used in conversation. The ideas of Coleridge and Wordsworth,on diction, however, came to vary widely. In Biogcranhia Llteraria. Coleridge states that Wordsworth’s theory designating language of real life as proper poetic diction is applicable only to a certain class of poems, and that the theory is ’as a rule use less, if not injurious, and therefore either need not, or ,37 ought not to be practiced. For what he calls Words worth’ s equivocal use of the word 'real,' Coleridge would substitute ’ordinary' or 'lingua communis,’ which is no more the phraseology of lowT and rustic life than ^ 38 of any other class. Coleridge denies that the best 38 Garland Greever (editor), A Wilt shire Parson and his Friends, p. 32. 37 Biop;raohia Literaria. p. 165. 38 Ibid.. p. 173. part of language is formed from the objects with which the rustic hourly communicates. He holds that the limits of the uncultivated rustic’s knowledge and experience cause him to express meanings in a small number of con fused general terms. Secondly, Coleridge denies 'that the words and combinations of words derived from the ob jects, with which the rustic is familiar, whether with distinct or confused knowledge, can be justly said to 39 form the best part of language.’ He writes, on the contrary, that 'the best part of human language, proper ly so-called, is derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself,' and that ’it is formed by a voluntary appropriation of fixed symbols to internal acts, to pro cesses and results of imagination, the greater part of which have no place in the consciousness of uneducated 40 man.' Coleridge further maintains that Wordsworth's case for the real language of men is rendered no more tenable by the addition of the words 'in a state of excitement.' He writes that 'the nature of a man's words, where he is strongly affected by joy, grief,or anger, must necessarily depend bn the number and quality of the general truths, 39 Ibid.. p. 171.' 40 Ibid.. p. 172. 52 conceptions and images, and of the words expressing them ,41 with which his mind has been previously stored. The purified and reconstructed language of the rustic, will not, according to Coleridge> differ from the language . < ' of common sense, except that notions conveyed 6y the ' ■ - ■ ‘ ' 4 2 rustic will be fewer and more indiscriminate. To sup port his contentions, Coleridge argues; that Wordsworth*s. . own poetry fails to embody the oonditions of his theory. The second chief tenet of Wordsworth* s theory, that there is no essential difference between the language ■of prose and metrical composition, also calls forth a vigorous refutation by Coleridge. In his view, prose itself should differ from the language of conversation as reading ought to differ from talking, and an even 4 greater difference should exist between poetry and prose. 'To how many passages,* Coleridge asks, ‘both in hymn book and in blank verse poems could I...direct the read er* s attention, the style of which is most unpoetic, be- 44 cause, and only because,it is the style of prose?* The sense may be 'good and weighty, the language correct and dignified,' the; subject interesting and treated with 41 Ibid.. p. 174. 42 Ibid., p. 177. 43 Ibid.. pp. 167-168. 44 Ibid.. p. 187. feeling; and yet the style shall, notwithstanding all these merits, he justly blamable as prosaic, and solely because the words and the order of the words would find, their appropriate place in prose, but are not suitable 4.5 to metrical composition. * The question is not, Coler idge makes clear, whether there may not be sentences of prose which would be equally suitable in a poem, or lines of poetry which would be equally beautiful in prose, but ‘whether there are not modes of expression, a construction, and an order of sentences, which are in their fit and natural place in a serious prose composit ion, but would be disproportionate and heterogeneous in metrical poetry; and "vice versa," whether in the language of a serious poem there may not be an arrange ment both of words and sentences, and a use and selection of (what are called) figures of speech, both as to their kind, their frequency, and their occasions, which on a subject of equal weight would be vicious and alien in ,46 correct and manly prose.’ Coleridge proceeds to argue from the origin and effects of metre that it should be so. He writes that ’as the elements of metre owe their existence to a state 4-5 hoc. cit. 46 Ibid.. pp. 178-179. 54 of increased excitement, so the metre itself should he accompanied by the natural language of excitement;' and 'that as these elements are formed into metre artificial ly* fey a voluntary act,.,so the traces of present vo lition .should throughout the metrical language be pro- 47 portionately discernible.' *1 write in metre,' says Coleridge, 'because I am about to use a language differ ent from that of prose.* Finally, the practice of the best poets in all countries and ages authorizes 'the opinion...that in every import of the word essential... there may be, is, and ought to be an essential differ ence between the language of prose and of metrical 48 composition.* Coleridge remarks that poetry 'admits nothing 49 that prose may not admit; but it oftener rejects. In 'Table Talk' (July 3, 1833), he speaks as follows: The definition of good Prose is— proper words in their proper places— of good Verse— the most proper words in their proper places...The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves,it is, in general a fault....But in verse you must do more; there the words, the 'media,' must be beautiful, and ought to attract^your notice.50 47 Ibid.. p. 184. 4-8 Loc. cit. ^9 Anima Poetae. p. 193. 50 Shedd, Complete Works. Vol. VI, p. 408. 55 'A poem of any length,' In Coleridge's view, /neither can he, nor ought to be, all poetry. Yet ' if an harmonious whole is to be produced, the re- > maining parts must be preserved in keeping with the \ poetry; and this can be no otherwise effected than by such a studied selection and -arti-fii, cfal. arrange-' ment, as will partake of one,, though not a peculiar J property of poetry. And this again can be no other- \ wise effected than by a studied selection and arti-’ I ficial arrangement...And this again can be no other | than the property of exciting a more continuous and equal attention than the language of prose aims at, ’ Whether colloquial-or written.5i Coleridge points out that even Wordsworth follows an order of words and a style peculiarly poetic. Thus he describes a bird singing loudly by ’The thrush is busy in the wood,1 and represents the reflection of sky in the water, as 'that uncertain heaven received into the bosom ,52 of the steady lake.' 51 Biograohia Literaria. p. 151. 52 Ibid.. p. 205. CHAPTER IV In a letter to Sir George Beaumont, after attrib uting to the poet observation, sensibility, reflection, 'information, invention, and judgment, Wordsworth adds ; the casual statement: ’As sensibility to the harmony of numbers and the power of producing it are invariably attendants' on the faculties above specified, nothing has 1 been said, upon those requisites.’ ’Perhaps,’ writes Saintsbury, ’there is no more colossal "petitio principii," and at the same time no more sublime ignor ing of the facts to be found in all literature than that 2 MInvariably."’ However this may be, Wordsworth is not, as Saintsbury insists, the ’enemy’ of metre. He does ■ 3 call it ’adventitious* and the brief attention he gives it is largely Incidental. Nevertheless, he regards it as artistically desirable and defends its employment. In saying ’that the language of a large portion of every good poem, even of the most, elevated in character, must necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no 1 Quoted by George Saintsbury, History of Criticism. Vol. Ill, p. 204. 2 Loc. cit. 3 Appendix (1802), p. 105. 57 4 respect differ from that of good prose,’ . Wordsworth indirectly admits for metre all that a defender of ’art 5 for art’s sake' would claim in its behalf. The earliest ► . ^ • < poets, Wordsworth suggests, used no metre in the begin- 6 . ‘ ning, but soon added it. The implication is that it was added for good reason, the reason that rhythm is one of the magic elements which distinguish poetry from prose. If it be asked why. verse- should"be'distinguished from prose by rhythm, though not by language, Wordsworth re plies that the distinction of metre is regular and uniform, and not like that which is produced by what.is usually called poetic diction, arbitrary, and subject to in finite caprices upon which no calculation whatever can be made. In the one case, the Reader is utterly at -the mercy of the Poet, respecting what imagery or diction he may choose to connect with the passion; whereas, in the other, the metre obeys certain laws to which the Poet and Reader both willingly submit because they are certain, and because noninterfer ence is made by them with the passion but such as the concurring testimony of ages has shown to heighten and Improve the pleasure which co-exists with it.7 To the possible objection that * it is injudicious to write in metre, unless it be accompanied with the other arti- ' ficial distinctions of style with which metre is usually 4 Preface (1800, 1802, 1805), p. 85. 5 Arthur Symons, The Romantic Movement in English Poetrv. pp. 86-87. 6 Appendix (1802), p. 102. 7 Preface (1800, 1802, 1805), p. 93. accompanied,1 Wordsworth answers that there are poems which, compared with his, are 'written upon more humble subjects, and in a still more naked and simple style, which have continued to give, pleasure, from generation ' ' 1 • ' Q . . ' • ' ' ' to generation.' • Warning against those who, he says, greatly under rate the power of metre within itself, Wordsworth com ments on ‘the charm, which by the consent of all nations, ,9 is acknowledged to exist in metrical language.' He re marks that a certain stanza by Gowper 'would, be equally good whether in prose or verse, except that the reader has an exquisite pleasure in seeing such natural language 10 so naturally connected with metre.' He argues, more over, that poetry written in the real language of men would be too affecting without metre. 'The end of poetry, he writes, 'is to produce excitement in co-existence with an overbalance of pleasure;' however,if the words, and images, ahd feelings of poetry 'have an undue proportion of pain connected with them, there is some danger.that the excitement may be carried beyond its proper bounds.' Metre, being regular and familiar to the reader,’acts' to 8 Ibid.. p. 94. 9 Loc. cit. 10 Appendix (1802), p. 104. temper and restrain passion ’by an intertexture of or dinary feeling, and of feeling not strictly and neces sarily connected with, the passion. That painful sentiments and situations may be better treated ,in : metre than in prose is illustrated by the reluctance with which one ’comes to the re-perusal of the distress ful parts of Clarissa Harlow'e. or the Gamester, while Shakespeare’s writings, in the most pathetic scenes, never act upon us, as pathetic beyond the bounds of pleasure— an effect which, in a much greater degree than might at first be imagined, is to be ascribed to small, but continual and regular impulses of pleasurable surprise ,11 from the metrical arrangement. In his most reflective passage on the significance of metre, Wordsworth states that its peculiar pleasure chiefly depends on a principle which must be well known to those who have made any of the Arts the object of accurate reflection namely, the pleasure which the mind derives from the perception of similitude in dissimilitude. This prin ciple Is the great spring of the activity of our minds arid their chief feeder. From this principle the direc tion of the sexual appetite, and all the passions con nected with it, take their origin; it is the life of our ordinary conversation! and upon the accuracy with which similitude in dissimilitude, and dissimilitude in similitude are perceived, depend our taste and our 11 Preface {1800, 1802, 1805), p. 95. 12 moral feelings. Obviously, what Wordsworth calls ’similitude in dis similitude* corresponds to Coleridge's notion of unity in variety. • : . . ■ ■ ' - : • • - In explaining this idea, Coleridge Indicates the high seriousness with which he regards poetic movement. He writes in Anima Poetae that 'poetry produces two hinds of pleasure, one for each of the two master movements and Impulses of man,— the gratification of the love of variety, and the gratification of the love of uniformity; and that by a recurrence delightful as a painless and yet exciting act .of memory— tiny breezlets of surprise, each one destroying the ripplets which the former had made, yet all together keeping the surface of the mind in a bright dimple smile.* According to Colerige, metre acts to increase the vivacity and susceptibility both of the general feelings and of the attention. This effect It produces by the continued excite ment of surprise and by the quick reciprocation of curiosity still gratified and still reexcited, which are too slight indeed to be at any moment objects of distinct -consciousness, yet become con siderable In their aggregate influence. As.a", medicated atmosphere, or as wine during animated - conversation, they act powerfully, though themselves unnoticed.1^ 12 Ibid.. p. 96. 13 Anima Poetae. p.129. Blog.ra'phia Llteraria. p. 180. Describing the ideal action of metre Coleridge writes: The reader should be carried forward, not merely or chiefly by the mechanical impulse of curiosity, or.' by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution; but by the pleasurable activity of mind excited by the attraction of the journey itself. Like the mo tion of a serpent, which the Egyptians made the emblem of" intellectual power; or like the path of sound through the air; at every step he pauses and half recedes, and from the retrogressive movement collects the force which again carries him onward. 'Swan-like movement* praised by Coleridge (in 16 'Table Talk,’ June 24, 1827), . becomes, in his theory the very motion of meaning. Excellent poetry, illustrated fey Venus and Adonis, is marked by the adaptation of versification to subject, * and the power displayed in varying the march of words without passing into a.loftier and more majestic rhythm than...demanded by the thoughts.’ It must be remembered here that In none of their reflections on metre do Wordsworth and Coleridge refer to the monotonous beat which distinguishes eighteenth- cantury poetry. Reality of imagery calls for elasticity- of sound. And the poetic revolt of Coleridge and Words-- worth includes an affirmation of metrical freedom. Coleridge stands as the first English romantic poet to 15 Ibid.. p. 150. 16 Shedd, Complete Works. Vol. VI, pp. 284-285. 17 Biogranhia Llteraria. p. 153. 62 say that syllables in verse may vary freely, so long as there remains a given number of accents to each line. He writes in the preface to 'Christabel' that the metre is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new prin ciple: 18 namely,.* that of counting in each-line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four, never theless, this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly...but in cor-' respondence with some transitions in the nature of the imagery or passion. Wordsworth writes that ’the letter of metre must not be so impassive to the spirit of versification, as to de prive the Reader of all voluntary power to modulate, in 20 subordination to the sense, the music of the poem.’ Although more numerous than Wordsworth1s, Coler idge’ s passages on metre occupy only a small part of his theory of poetry. Nevertheless, Coleridge highly prizes what he calls 'good versification.' He regrets in 'Table Talk' (June 7, 1824} 'how lamentably the art of versification is neglected by most of the poets of the present dayI— by Lord Byron...in particular, among those 18 The ’hew principle’ is, of course, as old as Teutonic poetry, and new only to the nineteenth century. 19 E. L. Griggs (Editor), The Best of Coleridge, p. 162. 20 Preface (1815), p.13*. 63 21 of eminence for other qualities.1 On Sept. 22, 1830, he remarks again: ’Really, the metre 'of some of the modern poems I have read, bears about the same relation to metre properly understood, that dumb bells do to music; both are for exercise, and pretty severe .too, I 22 think.1 Coleridge comments in the eighteenth chapter of Biograuhla hiteraria that Wordsworth* s discussion of metre is highly ingenious and touches at all points on 23 truth.’ But he complains that Wordsworth fails to deal fully with the subject and proposes, what he does not altogether successfully accomplish, to consider what he calls the origin, elements, and consequences of metre in connection with his examination of'Wordsworth1s theories of diction. He- - ‘writes of the origin of metre: This I would trace to the balance in the mind ef fected by that spontaneous effort which strives to hold in check the workings of passion. It might be easily explained likewise in what manner this salutary antagonism is assisted by the very state, which it counteracts; and how this balance of antagonists became organized into metre (in the usual acceptation of .that-term), by a supervening act of the, will and judgment, consciously and for 21' Shedd, -Complete Works. Vol. VI, p. 278. 22 Ibid.. Vol.. VI, p.- 346. 23 Biographia Literarla. p. 180. 64' 24 the foreseen purpose of pleasure. At this point Coleridge demonstrates that metre fulfills its most valuable function in itself stimulating figures and diction: 'for any poetic purposes, metre resembles... yeast,, .worthless or .disagreeable by .itself, but giving ’ vivacity and snirit to the liquor with which it is com- 25 bined.' Coleridge writes to W. Sotheby (July 13, 1802)- that 'metre itself implies a passion, that is, a state of excitement, both in the poet's mind, and is expected, , 26 in part, of the reader. Metre is thus no 'adventitious quality in poetry, but rather the proper form of poetry, which is imper fect and defective without it.' Coleridge specifically affirms that there is a 'charm and effect of metre and the art of poetry, independent of the thoughts and images— the superiority in short of ooematic over prose composition, the poetry or no-poetry being the same in both.' 24 Ibid.. p. 179. 25 Blograohia Literaria. p. 181. 26 E. H. Coleridge (editor), Letters of S. T. Coleridge. Vol. I, p. 374. chapter V The earliest conversations between Coleridge .and Wordsworth turned upon what to them appeared ’the ■two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the inter est of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination.. The sudden charm, which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight and sunset diffused over a known and familiar landscape,.appeared to represent the prac- 1 ticability of combining both. Coleridge writes that it was agreed his endeavours ’should be directed to persons and characters supernatural or at least ro mantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human Interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that will ing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith,* whereas Wordsworth ’was to propose to himself as his object, to give the charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a. feeling analogous to the supernatural, by awakening 1 Biogranhia Literarla'. p. 146. the mind* s attentions from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonder of ,2 the world before us. Both Coleridge and Wordsworth have a sense of the interrelation between the natural and the super natural, between the actual and the imaginative, but temperament inclines Wordsworth to an external, Coler idge to an internal reality,. Again, both poets are convinced of the decadence of eighteenth century verse, but whereas Coleridge is primarily sensitive to its deficiency of content, its failure to give "the inter est of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination, Wordsworth emphasizes the artificiality of its diction. ,The two poets undeniably diverge in temperament and^.P Vin poetic interest. There are, ne vertMrel-ess, Impressive areas of agreement^in their poetic theories. Coleridge writes to W. Sotheby (July 13, 1802): I must set you right with regard to my perfect coincidence with his (Wordsworth's) poetic creed. It is most certain that the heads of our mutual conversations, etc., and the passages, were indeed partly taken from notes of mine; for it was at 2 Ibid.. p. 147. 3 H. I. Pausset, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. p. 158 ..first Intended that the preface should be written by me. And.'it is likewise true that I warmly ac cord with Wordsworth in his abhorrence of these poetic licenses, as they are called, which are . Indeed mere tricks of convenience and laziness. Coleridge writes again to Robert Southey (July 29, 1802): 'Wordsworth's Preface is half a child- of■my own brain, and arose out of conversations so frequent that, with few exceptions, we could scarcely either of us, perhaps, positively say which first started any particular thought (I am speaking of the Preface as it stood in the second volume).' Going on to say,however, that Wordsworth has lately written poems of 'daring humbleness of language and Versification, and a strict adherence to matter of fact, even to prolixity, that startled him,' Coleridge states a suspicion that some where or other there is a radical difference In their 5 theoretical- opinions respecting poetry. The difference is In the main limited to those areas -indicated by Coleridge: diction and metre. Concerning the defin ition of a poet, the nature of poetry, and the poetic imagination, the two poets are largely In accord. They agree In regarding a theory of poetry as 4 E. H. Coleridge (editor), Letters of S. T. Coleridge. Vol. I, p. 373. "5 Ibid.. Vol. I, p. 386. primarily a theory of imagination. Both are led by an elevated conception of imagination to distinguish it from fancy. The poets agree that imagination and fancy may be employed together. Wordsworth, however, objects-to Coleridge’s definition of fancy as the ag gregative and associative power as too general. Con- < I trary to Coleridge, he maintains that to aggregate, to j . - ■ ■ ■ ■ w j associate, to evoke, and to combine belong to the I imagination as well as to the fancy. In defining imagination, Coleridge further dis tinguishes between the primary imagination, which is the ordinary perception that produces an everyday world, and secondary imagination, which produces all values that support civilized life. According to Coleridge, the higher, or secondary, imagination works chiefly by unifying, balancing, and reconciling, -it~-irs, ~in short, the-.J-esemplastic.h power. Wordsworth views the faculty as conferring, abstracting, modifying, shaping, and creating. He fully agrees with Coleridge in recognizing the unifying effect of imagination. Both poets hold that mere reproduction of nature is unimaginative. The greatest value of poetic imagination, accord ing to both Coleridge and Wordsworth, is the partici pation in infinity which it permits. In their view, poetry has the deepest philosophical significance, and its universal truth reveals itself through imagin ation. The poet is defined by both Coleridge and i f Wordsworth as one who is gifted with imagination. } i j Both Coleridge and Wordsworth write, however, that the j t poet achieves poetry through the logical faculty and through conscious art, as well as by inherent poetic genius. Coleridge praises JlH-ton’s characterization of poetry as simple, sensuous, and passionate. Wordsworth never ^tols)Mil-tonJ s defintion in the manner of Coler- . .w idge, yet his whole art obviously is predicated upon such a concept. Both poets emphasize pleasure as the accompani ment of poetry. But, although interpreting pleasure as a term of high seriousness, they agree that poetry must aii at something even nobler. As Coleridge writes, pleasure is merely the introductory means whereby the poet must moralize his readers. Both poets hold that truth exists in poetry and exists for moral purpose. Turning to the matter of poetic practice, the /two poets are fundamentally in disagreement. Both Coler idge and Wordsworth seek for a language that is simple, TO sensuous, and passionate, but Wordsworth ©spouses a severity of expression altogether foreign to his friend. Whereas Wordsworth depends upon realistic observation to purify diction, Coleridge finds 'matter-of-factness‘ a defect. The basic premises) in all Wordsworth1 s theoriz ing on diction is that the end of poetry is truth; and, in his belief, only the real language of real men can express truth. Such is his first major tenet concern ing diction. The second is that there neither is nor can be any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition. Coleridge, denying that the best part of language is formed 'from the objects with which the rustic communicates, holds, on the contrary, that the best part of language is derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself. He holds that the puri fied language of the rustic will not differ from the language of common sense. Diametrically opposing Words worth1 s theory, Coleridge says that he writes in metre because he is about to use a language essentially dif ferent from that of prose. No less than Wordsworth, however, Coleridge stands for the reform of eighteenth- century poetic diction. 71 . Both Coleridge and Wordsworth stand similarly for reform in versification and for metrical freedom. The basic difference between Coleridge and Wordsworth on metre lies in the fact that Wordsworth considers it adventitiousj' whereas Coleridge regards poetry as in complete without it. Wordsworth in no way, however, identifies metre with artificial 'poetic diction.* He recognises the peculiar charm of metre in Itself and holds, further, that poetry in the real language of men would be too affecting without it. For Coler idge one of the chief values of metre is the stimulation of diction which arises.from rhythmical movement. In the conception of the motion of poetry as unity in variety, as similitude In dissimilitude, both poets give metre a profound significance. BIBLIOGRAPHY Source Material: Allsop, Thomas (editor), Letters. Conversation, and Recollections of Sj. T*. Coleridge. London: Moxon, 1836. . ■ • Beatty, Arthur (editor), Wordsworth: Representative Poems. New York: Odyssey Press, c. 1937. Broughton, L. N. (editor), Some Letters of the Words worth Family. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1942. _______., Wordsworth and Reed.. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1933. Coleridge, E. H. (editor), Letters of S. T. Coleridge. London: Heinemann, 1895. Coleridge, S. 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Asset Metadata

Creator Maddock, Lawrence Hill (author)

Core Title A comparative study of the poetic theories of Coleridge and Wordsworth

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program English

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag literature, English,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Advisor Christensen, Francis (committee chair), McElderry, Bruce R. (committee member), Von Hofe, Harold (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c20-404269

Unique identifier UC11265433

Identifier EP44251.pdf (filename),usctheses-c20-404269 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier EP44251.pdf

Dmrecord 404269

Document Type Thesis

Rights Maddock, Lawrence Hill

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA