Thinking activity: wordsworth and Coleridge

  Thinking activity:wordsworth and  Coleridge 

   

Hello readers,  

  I  have   give  my opinion  on     poetry  of wordsworth and  Coleridge  .This task  given by  Dr.Dilip Barad sir.   I am student  of  English  Department.    Let's see the  difference between  William wordsworth and Coleridge  poetry. 

 ☆  Few Introduction  of  William wordsworth:

         

 William   wordsworth was an English Romantic  poet  who, with Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication " Lyrical Ballads "(1798).

 Wordsworth  definition  of poet.and poetry  as expressed in the preface " Lyrical Ballads."   In preface  to " Lyrical Ballads"  wordsworth   expresses his  opinion  about  the function  of  a poet and the  subject  matter  of  poetry.  He  rejects  the  classical   concept  in his attitude towards  poet and poetry. If  the  preface to the Lyrical Ballads, wordsworth  defines  poetry  thus: "  poetry  is the spontaneous  overflow  of powerful  feeling; it  takes its  origin  from  emotion  recollected  in tranquility. " In this definition of   poetry there are two apparent  contradictions. The" spontaneous overflow  o powerful  feelings. " on   one  side and " emotion    recollected in  tranquility "   on the  other  side are apparently  two contradictory  statements. "   spontaneous  overflow "must be immediate  and  unrestricted  without  any interval   of time  between  feeling  and  its expression. The  expression " recollected in tranquility " would  suggest  intervention     of  time   between  feeling and  its expression. "Recollection "  means  remembering  some  impression  after  some lapse of time. Wordsworth  himself  has tried  to  reconcile  this  apparent  contradiction in  his further  elucidation of his  definition.  Immediate   impre5 has  blending  of   both   important  and  unimportant  impressions.  When they are allowed to rest for sometime, only the  important  impressions  remain in the  memory, and  the  unimportant ones wash away   The  poet would  then express  those powerful  impressions  spontaneously  with   ease and  felicity without  any  impression of  restriction  in point of  language or poetic diction.  The poets    expression of  those powerful  feeling   must be easy, smoth and natural.

☆  About  Coleride  view on  poetry:

Coleridge   is  poet  and  philosopher. The  work of  Coleridge  naturally  divided  in to three classes. 

His poem synthesis poet’s emotion feeling. Coleridge is more musical than Wordsworth. In his poem include Imagination is very important for Coleridge , poem is synthetic and magical power. The difference is between the combination of those elements and objects. A poem has well known rhyme like; of the days in the several months,

“Thirty days hath September,

April, June and November”

Coleridge was deals with “persons and character supernatural’ According to Coleridge he also says that “Distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself which sustains and modifies, thoughts, and emotions of the poet’s own mind”

Poetry for Coleridge is an activity of the poet’s mind. The poem is merely one of the forms of its expression; According to Coleridge poetry should be ‘best world in best order’ and it delight from the ‘harmonious whole’

For example: human body

Coleridge’s critical analysis about the poem and poetry:  his work Biographia Literaria is a great literary work, it has occupied a permanent position in the whole range of English literary criticism, and the critic discusses many important points form that. He has drawn some striking difference between poem and poetry. However, at the end of it we are not absolutely sure about the exact remarking between poem and poetry in its essence they are supposed to be the same.

In chapter XIV he puts a large number of questions regarding the nature and function of poetry and later on he answered them. He believes that metre is considered to be essential part of poetry but not come up with exact definition of the poetry. His comments on poem and poetry are artistic, philosophical and psychological.

At first it is necessary to know how Coleridge distinguishes a poem from prose composition. Coleridge says that a poem contains the elements as a prose composition. Both of them use words so there is no difference between a poem and a prose composition, in this respect Coleridge says-“ a poem contains the same elements as a prose composition” but one difference is to be noticed here that metre or rhyme both is used in the poem and they are not used in prose composition.

According to Coleridge the immediate purpose of a poem is to give pleasure to the reader and another thing is that everything else in the poem is supposed to be secondary it means Coleridge’s prime aim is reader. On the other side the immediate purpose is to communicate truth, a poem must possess an organic unity wherein metre, rhyme everything is used in a poem an artistic way while they are not used in the prose. Is metre is used superficially it can be a poem, but a poem cannot please us if there is no organic unity Coleridge thinks the main aim of poetry is only one and that is to give pleasure.

On the other hand Coleridge does not regard metre as essential for poetry he clearly says that poetry of highest kind may exist without metre.

     He also believes that metre to be useful and necessary for writing poetry, he refers to Plato, Burnet, Jeremy who wrote without metre. Coleridge believes that rhyme and metre are essential in order to memorize what is written and to develop a certain kind of attachment to it by getting the feeling of the words through a particular rhyme or rhythm.

Coleridge distinguishes a poem from in his ‘Biographia Literaria’ by saying that poetry is a wider than a poem poetry is an activity of poet’s min but a poem is merely one of the form of expression. Poetic creativity is basically an activity of imagination he identifies imagination with the soul of poetry.

        This distinction between poetry an poem is not clear to the core we are left with more questions than answers at the end of it we find, to sum up we can say that Coleridge’s distinction between poem and poetry is not clear enough by the word poetry he means all kind of imaginative activity. Only in his sense he has drawn a distinction between a ‘poem’ and ‘poetry’

      A poem according to Coleridge contains the same elements as a prose composition because both using the words. The difference between a poem and a prose composition cannot then lay in the medium for each employs the same medium,

i.e. words

It must therefore “consist in a different combination of them in consequent of a different object being proposed”

Further he says that “a poem is that species of composition which is opposed to works of science by proposing for its immediate object pleasure not truth”

        Coleridge gives no real justification of the old statement of a poem of any length neither can be or ought to be all poetry, poetry for Coleridge is a wider category than that of a poem.

  Poetry is a kind of activity which can be engaged in painters or philosophers or scientists and is not confined to those who employ metrical language or even to those who employ language of any kind; poetry in this larger sense brings ‘the whole soul of the man’ into activity with each faculty playing its proper part according to its relative worth and dignity. This take place whenever the ‘secondary imagination’ comes into operation.

                         Coleridge points out that poetry of the highest kind may exist without metre and even without the contradistinguishing objects of a poem. The quality of the prose in this writings is equal to that of high poetry; he also asserts that the poem of any length neither can be nor ought to be all poetry, then the question is what the poetry is? How is it different from poem?

To quote Coleridge what is poetry? Is so nearly the same question with that what is poem? The answer to the one is involved in the solution of the other. For it is a distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself which sustains and modifies the images, thoughts, emotions of the poet’s own mind, thus the difference between poem and poetry is not given in clear terms.

John Shawcross writes:

“This distinction between ‘poetry’ and ‘poem’ is not clear, and instead of defining poetry he proceeds to describe a poet, and from the poet he proceeds to enumerate the characteristics of the imagination”

This is so because poetry for Coleridge is an activity of the poet’s mind and poem is merely one of the form of expression, a verbal expression of that activity and poetic activity is basically an activity of imagination, imagination is the prime source for the poet without that poet cannot write.

                             Poem is nature function as Coleridge explaining his idea and view towards it by saying that poem is a heart of reality work that poetry convey the feeling by rhyme and that took place as golden shield. A poem therefore may be defined as species of composition which is opposed to works of science by proposing for its immediate object pleasure not truth and from all other species it is discriminated by proposing to itself such delight from the whole as it compatible with a distinct gratification from each component part.

Thank   you....