M.K.B.Uni.
Smt.S.B.Gardi. Department Of English
Assignment sub: Comparative analysis
of Wordsworth and Coleridge
Name: Drashti v. Dave
Paper no: 5 – The Romantic Literature
Sem: 2 Year: 2014
Unit: 4 Roll no: 7
· Comparative analysis of Wordsworth and
Coleridge
Introduction about Romantic age: The age of romanticism (1800-1850) It
is the second creative period of English literature. It is known as an age of
poetry and romantic enthusiasm.
There were many creative writers suddenly developed a new creative
spirit which shows itself in the poetry.
· Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and in the prose of Scott, Jane Austen, Lamb and De Quincey, a wonderful group of writers whose patriotic enthusiasm suggests the
Elizabethan days.
· Coleridge
and Southey ( who with Wordsworth from the trio of so-called lake poets) wrote
far more prose than poetry. In their partnership Coleridge was to take up the “
supernatural or romantic “ while Wordsworth was “ to give the charm
of the novelty to things of everyday “
· The
whole spirit of their work is reflected in two
poems of this remarkable little volume ‘
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ‘; which is Coleridge’s masterpiece and ‘ Lines written a few miles above Titntern Abbey
‘; which expresses Wordsworth’s poetical creed.
William Wordsworth: (1770-1850)
· In his
book The prelude we find a dispassionate account of student life. His
autobiographical poem ‘ The prelude ‘ William was allowed to run wild in
nature, which became for him a kind of mother.
· Another his most famous poem ‘ Daffodils ‘
opens with the line “ I wandered lonely as a cloud “, loneliness and creativity
are at the heart of Wordsworth’s poetry.
· In 1795,
he had met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose both more philosophical and wilder
than Wordsworth’s opium and Immanuel Kant,
first published in1798 Lyrical Ballads may be the most influential book of poetry in English literature.
· Wordsworth’s
poetry is of stunning purity and power. One example that comes from the ‘ Lucy
‘ poem included in later reprints of lyrical ballads.
· Wordsworth
was England’s poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.
Poetry
of Wordsworth:
· There is
often a sense of disappointment when one read Wordsworth for the first time;
like Wordsworth’s Lucy,
· A violet
by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye;
Fair as stair, when only one
Is shining in the sky….
· Wordsworth
set himself to the task of freeing poetry from all its “ conceits “ of speaking
the language of simple truth and portraying man and nature as they are.
· No other
poets ever found such abundant beauty in the common world. The natural
pleasures which a man so easily neglected in his work, and the chief means by which people expect permanent and
increasing joy.
· In Titntern
Abbey, The Rainbow, Ode to Duty, and Intimations of Immorality, anyone can hardly read one
of Wordsworth’s pages without finding it slipped in unobtrusively, like the
fragrance of a wild flowers. The truth of humanity, that is the common life
which shares the general similes and only the subject of permanent literary
interest.
· Wordsworth
continued it in Michel, The solitary reaper, The
Highland girl, Stepping westward, The excursion, and score
of lesser poems.
· Joy and
sorrow not of princes or heroes, but in widest commonalty spread are his
themes. The excursion, (1814) is the
second book of The recluse; and the third was never completed, through
Wordsworth intended to include most of his shorter poems in this third part.
· Lyrical
Ballads and in the sonnets, odes and lyrics of the next ten years though The
Duddon Sonnets (1820) To a skylark (1825) and Yarrow Revisited (1831) shoe that
he retained till past sixty much of his youthful enthusiasm. Wordsworth’s poems fall into two categories:
1) Poems about nature &
2) poems
about human life.
In his life his sister’s contribution is important, he gave so much
important to his sister
“ She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and dedicated
fears;
A heart the fountain of sweet tears;
And love and thought and joy…”
Through this line we are shown that how he
gave important to his sister Dorothy.
Wordsworth is the most representative poet
and he is a “worshipper of nature”. In his all poems we are shown nature as a
common thing and his simple language is understand all types of people.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
· He was
an extraordinary, before he was five; he read Bible and Arabian
Nights. One of his association with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, in
the Quantico hills, out of which came the famous Lyrical Ballads of 1798.
Another was his loyal devotion to poetry fir its own sake.
· With the
exception of his tragedy remorse, whish through Byron’s influence was accepted
at Drury lan theater in his poetry we find a note of human sympathy, more
tender and profound than can be found in Wordsworth or indeed any other great
english poets.
· Works of
Coleridge: The works of Coleridge devided into three classes- i) the poetic ii)
the philosophical and iii) the critical..
· Coleridge
begins his “ Day dream “ with the line; My eyes make pictures when they’re
shut…. The quality of this early poetry with its strong suggestion of Blake,
may be seen in such poems, like; A day dream, The devil’s thoughts, The
suicide’s argument, and The wanderings of Cain.
· His
later poems wherein see his imagination bridled by thought may best appreciated
in Kubla Khan, Christable, and The Rime of The Ancient Mariner.
· Kubla
khan is a fragment painting a gorgeous oriental dream picture the whole poem
came to Coleridge one morning when he had fallen asleep;
In xanadu did Kubla khan, A stately
pleasure- dome decree;
Where alps, the sacered river, ran
Through caverns measurlel to man down to a
sunless sea…..
He was interpreted after fifty –four lines
were written and he never finished the poem. “ Christabel “ is also a fragment
which seems to have been planned. The story of a pure young girl it is full of
a strange melody and contains many passage of exquisite poetry.
· The Rime
of The Ancient Mariner is Coleridge’s chief contribution to the Lyrical Ballads
of 1798 and is one of the world’s master-piece.
· An
orphans curse would drag,
To hell a spirit from on high;
But oh! How more horrible that that
Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!
--- The rime of the ancient mariner
Among Coleridge’s shorter poems there is a
wide variety and each reader must be left largely to follow his own taste.
Ode to France, Youth and age, Dejection, Love
poems, Fears in solitude, Religious Musings, Work without hope, and The
glorious hymn before sunrise in the vale of chamouni.
The latter is one of the best poetical
translations in english literature. His collected Lectures on Shakespeare 1849
and Aids to reflection 1825 are the most inserting from a literary view point.
The first is an explanation and criticism of Wordsworth’s theory of poetry.
· Coleridge’s
prose work the Biographia Literaria in this prose work he criticize many points
of Wordsworth’s work he differentiate like; two cardinal points of poetry,
poetical creed, he also differentiate prose, poem and poetry. In his philosophical work he introduce the
idealistic philosophy of Germany into England. The aids reflection is
Coleridge’s most profound work but it is more interesting to the student of
religion and philosophy than to readers of literature. Hs collaborative work
with Wordsworth is still famous in literature study of their work and
comparison between them is a good practice.
Comparative Analysis:
· Coleridge
was also living in the Lake district at this time close by Wordsworth.
Wordsworth’s famous one line creation of poetry is “ the spontaneous overflow
of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility “
· Coleridge
supplied the spontaneous power while Wordsworth offered the tranquility the
reflection.
· A
perfect example of Coleridge’s spontaneity is found in “Kubla Khan” the
short poem he began under the influence of a narcotic dream.
· Coleridge
in contrast, left in his chaotic wake a collection of fragments, short works,
and prolegomena.
· Like
Wordsworth, he compiled an autobiography-prose, in his case-Biographia
Literaria, the biography of a literary sensibility.
· The work
fuses Coleridge’s towering intellect, extraordinary powers of criticism, and
feeling for poetry.
· His
greatest complete poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, was composed
during his collaborative years with Wordsworth.
· Coleridge’s
agenda was different, in the Rime of The Ancient Mariner, the first work in
Lyrical Ballads, he compacts into short-lined, four line stanzas an amazingly
pregnant and mystical natural universe.
· Un
writing this poem Coleridge drew on gothic fiction and an extraordinary range
of reading in theology, philosophy, and travel. His description of the arctic
regions are almost photographic. The narrative of the Rime of the ancient
mariner indicates the new directions that poetry would take over the next two
centuries. A revaluation had taken place and arguably is still taking place in
english literature as a result of Lyrical Ballads.
· In
Wordsworth’s poem we find an imaginative record of the pastoral life as well as
the pastoral beauties of place he lived in, this is not so in the case of well
Coleridge. He lived in a world of his own thoughts and fancies, and did not
take care of the external suggestions.
· One
special thing about Wordsworth and Coleridge was that both of them always loved
and appreciated nature Wordsworth saw the spirit of joy in nature and at least
in the early poems of Coleridge the spirit of joy in nature represented.
· Wordsworth
felt in the divine spirit pervading the object of nature, Coleridge also
noticed the spirit of god permanting the object of nature. Coleridge’s whole
life- a sad, broken, tragic life in
marked contrast with the peaceful existence of his friend Wordsworth. Wordsworth says of him that though other men
of the age had done some wonderful things, Coleridge was the only wonderful men
he had ever known of his lectures on literature a contemporary says: “ His words
seem to flow as from a person repeating with grace and energy some delightful
poem.”
Natural
philosophy of Wordsworth adds a mystic element the result of his own belief
that in every natural object there is a reflection of the living God. Nature is
everywhere transfused and illumined by spirit. So both are the great poet of
the romantic age.
