Wordsworth and Coleridge's views on poem

       

          Welcome readers🙂 here is my blog on the views of Wordsworth and coleridge on poem and the analysis of two poems with the reference of these two Critic and poet Wordsworth and Coleridge. The task which is given by Dr. Pro. Dilip Barad the Head of the English department, Bhavnagar.

William Wordsworth 

             

            As we know William wordsworth was an English Romantic poet,  and Critic also. Who gave a new way of writing poetry.

With the publication of a sonnet

                                   'The European Magazine'

In 1787 he made his first debut. In 1798 William wordsworth and S. T. Coleridge with their joint publication of

                                        'Lyrical Ballads'

Launched the Romantic age in Alizabethan literature. He is also known as the poet of nature.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic and Theologian and as we above discussed Coleridge and wordsworth are the founders of the Romantic Age.

    He is best known for his.....

                    'The Rime Of The Ancient                         Mariner'
                     'Christabel'
                     'Kibla Khan'

his Biographia Literaria (1817) is the most significant work of general literary criticism produced in the English Romantic period.

1. Write a brief note on the views of wordsworth and Coleridge on poem.

Comparing wordsworth and coleridge is not an easy thing. Both have theirs own arguments and believes and intelligence. But somehow their thinking and views on poem are different from eachother. Let's have a look....

  Wordsworth's views on poem :

As we above discussed Wordsworth was an English Romantic Poet. According to him poetry is equal for everyone. He is famous for changing the diction thought acceptable in poetry or at least strengthening the movement toward a 'Comman' or simplified poetic diction. We can find some major things in his poems like....

         - In simple language 

         - Poetry for pleasure 

         - Equally for everyone 

         - looking at nature

         - For middle and lower classes 

           Society
         - Self centered
         - looks at village life

Wordsworth used ordinary language of people not the highly crafted poetical language.  He didn't use the ornamental language. He choose incidents and situations from comman life. He selected the language really used by men. He used certain colouring of imagination.


     I wandered lonely as a cloud

    That floats on high o'er vales and       hills,

    When all at once I saw a crowd,

    A host, of golden daffodils;

    Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

    Fluttering and dancing in the        

    Breeze....

 In this lines of his lyrical poem 'I Wandered lonely as a cloud' we can find the simplicity of language. Every comman reader or man can easily understand and read the poem. He also described here the nature 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's views on poems:

The views of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is very different from wordsworth views on poem. His poems are not easy to understand. He doesn't use the simple language. He argues against Wordsworth views on poem. According to him 

         'Poetry comes from genius mind'

According to him poetry is an imagination of one's mind also comes from thoughts. We can find some major things in his poems like...

          - Elements of Supernatural power

                  - Not self centered 

                  - Objective poems

                  - Poetry for truth not 

                    pleasure 

Coleridge also argued that every genius man who invent anything that is poem. Like.. 

          Newton's low of gravity 

          

          In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

   Down to a sunless sea.

In his 'Kubla khan' poem we can find his ornamental and a very tough language. We can't easily find the hidden meaning of the poem.

2. Analyze two poems with reference to wordsworth and Coleridge's vie

        She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

       In this poem we can find that this is a subjective poem. Here the speaker is a poet himself. He praises an anonymous woman comparing her beauty to night on the sky filled with stars. He expresses his feelings by comparing her to light and dark that she is a combination of both. This is purely a subjective approach of expression.

 In this poem we can find the simplicity of poem and also this is very easy to understand. The idea of poet is self centered here. The poet also looks at nature. And the very far most thing is that the poem is for pleasure. We can also find the selection of words.

Kubla Khan

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river

( Click here to read full poem )

In this poem we can find that the unnamed speaker tells how a man named 'Kubla Khan'  traveled to the land of Xanadu. The motif of the poet is the

               'Power of dreams and the imagination'

The legendary story behind the poem is that Coleridge wrote the poem following an opium influenced dream. The poem is not easy at first time to understand the hidden theme or concept.