Age of Romanticism

(1798 – 1850)
Characteristics of the Age of Romanticism

 Romanticism is the name of a dominant movement in literature and other arts particularly music

and painting in the period from 1798 – 1850.

  The main feature of this age is importance of self expression and individual feeling. It

emphasises the truth of imagination rather than scientific truth.

  Thomas Chatterton is considered as first romantic poet in English.

  The German critic Friedrich Schlegel is said to have been the first to use the term “Romantics”

for describing school of poets and writers opposed to the classics.

 “Wordsworth” is known as – Poet of Nature

  “Coleridge” as – Super-natural poet

  “Byron” as – Poet of Humanism

  “Shelley” as – Poet of Love

  “Keats” as – Poet of Beauty

  “Scott” as – Poet of Medieval Love

  F. L. Lucas gave 11,396 definition of Romanticism in “The Decline and Fall of Romantic Ideal”.

  Victor Hugo’s called Romanticism as “liberalism in literature”.

  Goethe said “Romanticism is disease, classicism is Health”

 The romantic age in England is primarily inspired by German Romantic Movement.

 German influence of Romanticism and philosophies Strum and Drang- (a literary and artistic movement in

Germany in the late 18th century, influenced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and characterized by the expression

of emotional unrest and a rejection of neoclassical literary norms.)

 The famous painting by german painter Caspar David, “ The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog”- the painting

that actually defined romanticism

 Friedrich Schelling, Friedrich Hegel etc inspired romanticism.

 Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey- FIRST GENERATIONAL WRITERS
 Wordsworth - 1770
 Coleridge - 1772
 Southey- 1774
SECOND GENERATIONAL POETS: John Keats, Shelley and Byron
Keats-1795
Shelley: 1792
Byron- 1778
William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850)
 He was a major English romantic poet, who along with S. T. Coleridge helped to launch Romantic age
in English literature with their joint publication of lyrical ballads in 1798.
  Wordsworth’s ‘Magnum Opus’ in considered to be “The Prelude”, a semi-autobiographical poem of
his early years. It was posthumously titled and published but before it was called “The Poem to
Coleridge”.
  He was 2nd among the 5 children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson on 7 Apr 1770, in Lake
district.
  His sister Dorothy Wordsworth was also a poet and diarist.
  Wordsworth’s father was a legal representative of James Lowther, 1st earl of Lonsdale.
  Wordsworth made his debut as a writer in 1787 when he published a sonnet in the European
Magazine when he began attending St. John’s college, Cambridge for his graduation.
  In 1791 he visited Revolutionary France and there he fell in love with ‘Annette Vallon’ who gave
birth to his daughter ‘Caroline’.
 He could not marry her as he returned to England in lack of money. Later he married Mary Hutchinson.
  He wrote a sonnet “It’s a Beautius Evening, Calm and Free” recalling a seaside walk with 9 year old Caroline.
  The year 1793 saw the publication of poems by him in the collections “An Evening Walk” and “Descriptive
Sketches”.
  In 1795 he met Coleridge.
  In 1798 Wordsworth and Coleridge together published Lyrical Ballads.
  None of the writers had the name on the first publication of Lyrical Ballads.
  In the first edition (1798) were Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey and Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It starts
with Mariner and ends with Tintern Abbey.
  The second edition was published in 1800, and it listed Wordsworth as an author and included a preface to the
poem.
  In the preface he has used “Real language of man rather than 18th century verse”.
  Between 1795-97 his only play “The Boarders, A Verse Tragedy” set during the reign of Henry III of
England.
 He wrote number of famous poems including “The Lucy Poems”. It is a collection of 5 poems which are :

 Strange Fits of Passion have I Known

 She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

 I Travelled among Unknown Men

 Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower

 A Slumber did My Spirit Seal

 He wrote “The Prelude” when he was in Germany with Coleridge and Dorothy.

  Finally Wordsworth along with Southy and Coleridge settled in Lake district and thus called Lake Poets.

  He planned to write a larger philosophical poem called “The Recluse” so he wrote “Poem to Coleridge” to make an

appendix of “The Recluse”.

  ‘Poem to Coleridge’ is referred as the first version of ‘The Prelude’ completed in 1805.

  In 1807, Wordsworth published “Poems in Two Volumes” including “Ode: Intimation of Immortality

from Recollections of Early Childhood”.

  In 1814 Wordsworth published “The Excursion” as the 2nd of three part work of “The Recluse” and even though he

had not completed first and third part ever in his life.

  He wrote a poetic prospectus to “The Recluse”.

  London, 1802 is addressed to Milton.

  In 1838, Wordsworth received an honorary doctorate in Civil Law

 In 1842 he was awarded a civil list pension of £300, a year.

  After the death of Southy in 1843, he became Poet Laureate

  He became the only poet laureate to write no official verses.

  After death he was buried at St. Oswald Church, Grasmere.

  His wife Mary Hutchinson published his lengthy autobiographical poem “The Prelude” after his death in 1850.

  The Prelude is also called “Growth of Poet’s Mind”.

  “Grasmere Journal” is written by Dorothy Wordsworth.

  Wordsworth is called giant of English poetry by J. C. Ransom.

  Wordsworth wrote 523 sonnets.

  In an 1817 review of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, Francis Jeffrey coined the term “Lake school of poets”

indicating Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southy as Lake Poets

 DIG YOUR HEAD

Q. Who has been referred as “Lost Leader” by

Robert Browning in his poem Lost Leader?
Major Works of Wordsworth( chronology is important)
 1. Lyrical Ballads (1798)
 2. Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey
 3. Lyrical Ballads along with Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800)
 4. Lucy Grey (Lucy Poems) or Solitude
a. It is a collection of 5 poems.
 5. Poems in Two Volumes (1802).
 6. "The World Is Too Much with Us“: is a sonnet by Wordsworth. In it, he criticises the world of the First
Industrial Revolution for being absorbed in materialism and distancing itself from nature. Composed in 1802, the
poem was first published in Poems, in Two Volumes(1807). Like most Italian sonnets, its 14 lines are written in
iambic pentameter.
 7. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, also called Daffodils (1807, Poem in 2 vols).
 8. Ode: Intimation of Immortality
 9. The Solitary Reaper (1804, Poems in 2 Vols)
 a. “The world is too much with us”
 10. London, 1802 (1807, Poems in 2 Vols)
 11.To The Cuckoo

 12. The Excursion (1814) (written in 9 books)

 13. The Prelude (1850): in 14 books, autobiographical

 14. The Boarderers (only play): verse tragedy – 1842

 15. Michael: (a pastoral poem) a part of Lyrical Ballads 1800 edition

 16. Descriptive Sketches

 17. My Heart Leaps up When I Behold (1807, Poems in 2 Vols)

 18. Repentance: A Pastoral Ballad

 19. Ode to Duty (1807, Poems in 2 Vols)

 20. To a Skylark
 21.The Recluse
 22. Laodamia (1815, 1845)
 23. Peter Bell (1819)
 24. Guide to the Lakes (1810)
 25. Elegiac Stanzas (1807, Poems in 2 Vols)
 26. Resolution and Independence (1807, Poems in 2 Vols)
 27. The Leechgatherer: Resolution and Independence
 28. ‘Nuts Fret Not at their Convert’s Narrow Room’. (Prefatory sonnet, 1802) Petrarchan sonnet
a. Rhyme scheme – ABBA ABBA CDD CCD
b. Also called ‘Sonnet upon sonnet’
 29. The Tables Turned (1798, Published in Lyrical Ballads)
CRITICISM ON WORDSWORTH

 Mathew Arnold referred Wordsworth as – “He is not fully recognised at home: he is not recognised at all
abroad. Yet I firmly believe that, the poetical poem of Wordsworth is, after that of Shakespeare and
Milton, undoubtedly most considerable in our language.”
 John Keats called him – “Egoistic Sublime”.
 Tennyson called Wordsworth – “He has uttered nothing base”.
 Browning on Wordsworth: “Moral Eunuch”.
 Shelley criticised Wordsworth – “Simple and dull”.
 Hardy on Wordsworth –
“William Wordsworth has a deep influence on Thomas Hardy. According to Hardy, “The
Leechgatherer” by Wordsworth was his “best cure for despair”.
 DIG YOUR HEAD

Q. “Wordsworth was not a truly great poet and

the spoil child of disappointment” Whose
words are these?
LYRICAL BALLADS( 1798)

 It contains total 23 poems, 19 by Wordsworth & 4 by Coleridge

 Lyrical Ballad, with a few other poems is a collection of poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge published

 in 1798.

 Most of the poems of Lyrical Ballads were written by Wordsworth while Coleridge contributed only 5

 including “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Qty – 4 in the first edition and one in the second.)

 The second edition appeared in 1800 along with Preface to Lyrical Ballads in two volumes.

 Another edition was published in 1802.

 Wordsworth added an Appendix titled “Poetic Diction” in which he expanded the ideas set forth in ‘the Preface’ in

edition of 1802.

 French revolution had a greater influence on Lyrical Ballad

 The poem “The Convict” (by Wordsworth) was there in 1798 edition but was omitted in 1800 edition and added

Love (by Coleridge).

  In the Preface, Wordsworth claims that “the rigid aesthetics of Neo-classical poetry are arbitrary and distort the

freedom and naturalness of poetic expression”.

  The 1798 edition has a short “Advertisement” as an introduction to ascertain how far the language of

conversation in the middle and lower class of society is adapted for the purpose of poetic pleasure.

  In Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth said –

 “Poetry is the breath and a finer spirit of all knowledge”.

  The Preface is also called Manifesto of Romantism.

Works Contributed by Coleridge in Lyrical Ballads
 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
 The Foster Mother Tale
 The Nightingle
 The Dungeon
 Love

  ‘Michael’, ‘Ruth’ and ‘The Brothers’ are the poems that appeared in the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads.

  In this work Wordsworth gave his famous definition of poetry –

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerfull feelings; it takes it’s origin from emotion recollected in tranquility”.
QUOTES FROM LYRICAL BALLADS

 “Nature Never did betray

The heart that loved her”.

 “Rest and be thankful”.

 “Come grow old with me. The best is yet to be”.

 “Bliss it was in that Dawn to be alive

but to be young was very heaven”.
 DIG YOUR HEAD

Q. “The child is the father of man; and I could wish my days to be bound each
to each by natural piety” This quote is taken from which work of wordsworth?
 Other Quotations by Wordsworth
 “My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.”
– My heart leaps up when I behold
 “The poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire on human society”.
 “The flower that smells the sweetest is shy and lowly”.
 “All things that love the sun are out of doors.”
 “Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge, it is the impassioned expression
which is the countenance of all science”.
 Preface to Lyrical Ballads
 It is an essay composed by Wordsworth published in second edition in Jan 1801 (often called 1800 edition)
of Lyrical Ballads.
 The preface was written to explain the theory of poetry guiding Wordsworth’s composition of the poems.
 Wordsworth defends the unusual style and subjects of the poems as experiments to see how far popular
poetry could be used to convey profound feeling.
 In preface he discusses his ideas of what the poet is?, what the poetry is?, and most importantly what the
language of poetry is?
 Wordsworth first implies that ‘a poet is one who arranges language expressing ideas in metrical form. This
language he arranges is in a state of vivid sensation’.
 Wordsworth also tells about What a poet is not. He says that anti-poets think that “they become honoured
poets this way but really only ‘furnish food’ for poor taste that has no solid bearings and is ‘fickle’”.
 Regarding poetry, Wordsworth implies that poetry is in part a matter of what is customary. Poetry is the
spontaneous overflow of powerfull feelings, it takes its origin from emotion recollected into tranquility.
 According to Wordsworth – Poetic language is the language of common people speaking everyday
expressions and expressing everyday sensations of rural people in an idealised rural life
Ode: Intimations of Immortality (1807)

 “Ode: Intimation of Immortality from Recollection of Early Childhood” is a poem by Wordsworth

 Completed in 1804 but published in 1807 in Poems in Two Volumes.
 The poem was completed in 2 parts.
 The first part of the poem was completed in 1802 and a copy was provided to Coleridge who responded it
with his own poem Dejection: An Ode as well as “Resolution and Independence”.
 The poem is in irregular Pindaric Ode in 11 stanzas that combines aspects of Coleridge’s conversation
poems, the religious sentiments of the Bible and the works of St. Augustine and aspects of the elegiac and
apocalyptic traditions.
LAST LINES
“Thanks to human heart by which we live
thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give,
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
 DIG YOUR HEAD

Q. What is the other name for the work , The Prelude by William Wordsworth.
The Prelude (1850)

 The Prelude or Growth of a Poets Minds: An Autobiographical Poem is a conversation

poem in blank verse.
  It is an extremely personal and revealing work on the details of Wordsworth’s life.
  He began to work on ‘The Prelude’ in 1798 and continued to work on it throughout his
life.
  On a letter to Dorothy he referred to it as “The poem on the growth of my own mind.”
  Initially Wordsworth titled it – Poem to Coleridge
  It contains 14 books. The first version appeared in 1805
 Book 1 is about “Introduction: Childhood and School Time”
 Book 2 – “School Time” (contd);
 Book 3 – ‘Residence at Cambridge
 Book 4 – Summer Vacation
 Book 5 – ‘Books’
 Book 6 – Cambridge and the Alps
 Book 7 – Residence in London
 Book 8 – Retrospect: Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man,
 Book 9 – Residence in France
 Book 10 – The Residence in France (contd),
 Book 11 – France (concluded)
 Book 12 – Imagination and Tastee: How impaired and restored
 Book 13- Imagination … (concluded)
 Book 14 – Conclusion.

First version of Prelude in 2 books – 1799

Second version in 13 books – 1805
Third version in 14 books – 1850
 Famous Quotes –
 “Bliss was in it that down to be alive, but to be young was very heaven”.
 Wordsworth coined the famous phrase “Spots of time” in The Prelude (in Book 12) as
– “There are in our existence spots of time that with distinct pre-eminence retain a
renovating virtue, whence, depressed…”
 In Prelude there is an appearance of Boy of Winander who is affected by Muteness in
Book 5, ‘Books’ –
 “There was a boy; ye know him well, ye Cliffs
And Island of Winander”! – many a time
At evening, when the earliest star began…
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls.
Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tindern Abbey
 “For nature then
The Curser pleasures of my boyish days
And their glad animal movements all gone by
to me was all in all.”
  In the above lines Wordsworth is talking about both first and second stage in his
relationship with nature.
  Full title – “Lines composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the
Banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13, 1798”
 DIG YOUR HEAD

Q. Who coined the term “Willing Suspension of Disbelief”?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)
 He was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who with his friend Wordsworth was a
founder of the Romantic movement.
  He was one among ‘Lake poets’. This term was coined by Francis Jeffrey in 1817.
  He wrote the poems “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan” as well as a prose
work “Biographia Literaria”.
  He helped in introducing German Idealists philosophy to English speaking culture.
  Coleridge coined the term “Willing Suspension of Disbelief”.
  Throughout his ‘adult stage’, he had crippling bouts of anxiety and depression. He had bipolar
disorder.
  He wrote about his loneliness at school in the poem “Frost at Midnight”.
  In March 1796, Coleridge published a journal “The Watchmen”, to be printed every 8 days to
avoid a weekly newspaper ‘Tax’. But in May in the same year it was ceased.
  Coleridge wrote 48 sonnets.
 His conversation poems (It’s a group of 8 poems) are: –
The Lime Tree Bower
Frost at Midnight
The Nightangle, etc.
  He translated the dramatic triology “Wallenstein” of German poet Friedrich Schiller.
  Coleridge wrote his ballad poem ‘Love’ addressed to Sara Hutchinson who is the sister of Mary
Hutchinson (wife of Wordsworth).
  In 1809, Coleridge again published a journal entitled “The Friend”.
  Coleridge gave a series of lectures in London and Bristol, those on Shakespeare.
  In 1817 he wrote Biographia Literaria.
  Lord Byron, William Hazlitt and Wordsworth are Coleridge companion in a fanciful scheme to establish a Utopian
community of free love in the bank of Susquehanna river.
  The term psycho-somatic was coined by Coleridge.
  Coleridge introduced Christabel meters, the octosyllabic couplet, and full of skillful and rhythmic

 variation.

  Coleridge is also referred as “High Priest of Romanticism”.

  He used the phrase “the high road of life”.

  ‘Motiveless Malignity’ is a phrase used by Coleridge for ‘Iago’ in Othello.

  Coleridge wrote a review of Anne Radcliffe’s “The Mad Monk”.

Willing Suspension of Disbelief:
 This term was coined by Coleridge in 1817.

  It means suspending one’s own critical faculties and believe the unbelievable or sacrifice
of realism and logic for the sake of enjoyment (eg. watching circus).

  Through in this term he suggested that if a writer could infuse a “human interest and a
similar truth” into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgement concerning the
validity of the narrative.

  Cognitive estrangement in fiction involves using a person’s ignorance or lack of

knowledge to promote suspension of the disbelief.

  For example, In a circus an audience is not expected to actually believe that a woman is
cut in half.
Definition of Primary and Secondary Imagination by Coleridge

 According to Coleridge, Imagination has three forms (mentioned in Chapter 13):

Primary

Secondary

Fancy
Primary Imagination:
 Itis the power of receiving impressions of the external
world through senses. It is perceiving the object of
sense both in their part and as whole. The primary
imagination is universal and it is possessed by all.
The Secondary Imagination:
 This imagination may be possessed by others but it is peculiar and distinctive of the artist. It requires
an effort of the will volition and conscious effort. It works upon what is perceived by the primary
imagination. It’s raw material is the sensation and impressions supplied by the primary imagination.
 This definition of imagination is given by Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria.
 In ‘Biographia Literaria’ Coleridge wrote that –
 “The PRIMARY imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception,
and as a repeatition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM.”
  When the human minds receives impressions involuntarily and unconsciously then it is primary
imagination, while secondary imagination requires consciousness so it is the root of all poetical
activity.
  Coleridge called secondary imagination a magical cynthatic power.
Imagination & Fancy (from Chapter 13 of Biographia Literaria

 Coleridge has described the difference between imagination and fancy in his Biographia Literaria (1817).
 Imagination and fancy are the activities of two different kind.
  Fancy is not a creative power at all. It only combines what is perceived into beautiful shapes, but like
imagination it does not fuse and unify.
  The difference between the two is same as the difference between a mechanical mixture and a chemical
compound. In a mechanical mixture, a number of ingredients are brought together, they are mixed up but
they doesn’t lose their individual property, they still exist as separate identities.
  While imagination is a chemical compound, the different ingredients are combined to form a new
compound. The different ingredients no longer exist as separate identities. They loose their respective
properties and fuse together to create something new and entirely different.
  Fancy is not creative. It brings together the images that continue to retain their separate and individual
 properties.
  Fancy is the absence of imagination, it is just reconfiguring already existing things or ideas.
Esemplastic
 Coleridge coined the term ‘ESEMPLASTIC’ to describe “power of poetic imagination” in
Biographia Literaria. This is a power synthetic in nature higher than fancy, effecting a
fusion of the rational with the magical or supernatural.
  Esemplastic derived from Greek that means “to shape”. Coleridge explained that it
referred to the imagination ability. “To shape into one, having to convey a new sense”
  Coleridge describes a organic form as “innate” he says that –
“The organic form is ‘innate’; it shapes as it develops itself from within and the fullness of its
development is one and the same with perfection of its outward form.”
Major Works of Coleridge
 Lyrical Ballads (1798)
 ii) The Statesman’s Manual or The Bible the best guide to political skill and foresight: A
Lay Sesman (1816)
 iii) Christabel (1816)
 iv) Kubla Khan: A Vision (1816)
 v) The Pains of Sleep (1816)
 vi) Biographia Literaria (1817)
 vii) Aids to Reflection in the Formation of A Manley Character.
 viii) Confession of an Inquiring Spirit.
 ix) Hints Towards the Formation of more Comprehensive Theory of Life (1848)
 x) Seven Lectures upon Shakespeare and Milton (1850)
 Frost at Midnight

 xii) Asra Poems

 xiii) ‘Osorio’ is a tragedy in blank verse by S. T. Coleridge in 1797 but could not be performed due to rejection

 by Drury Lane Theatre. Coleridge revised it and recast the play 16 years later with the new title –

 “Remorse”.

 xiv) France: an Ode

 xv) Conversation Poems (Total 8 Poems)

 xvi) Dejection: an Ode

 DIG YOUR HEAD

Q. Who called Coleridge “A Damaged Archangel”.

Criticism on Coleridge

 According to T. S. Eliot

“Perhaps the greatest of English critics, and in a sense that last.”

  Charles Lamb called Coleridge “A Damaged Archangel”.

COLERIDGE’S IMPORTANT WORKS IN TERMS OF PLOT

I. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798)

 The Rime of The Ancient Mariner is the longest major poem by Coleridge written in

1797-98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads.

  It is written in VII parts. It has total 625 lines

Quotations from Rime of the ancient Mariner
“Water, water everywhere,
and all the boards did shrink.
Water, water everywhere,
nor a drop to drink”.

“Day after day, day after day

we stuck, nor breadth, nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
upon a painted ocean”

“He prayth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small
For the dear god who loveth us
He made and loveth all”
“Alone, alone, all, all, alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And a never a Saint took pity on
My soul in agony”.

“The fair breeze blew

the white foam flew
and the furrow followed free,
We were the first that ever burst into the Silent sea”.
II.Kubla Khan: A Vision in Dream (1816)
 Kubla Khan or A Vision in Dream is a poem by Coleridge written in 1797 but published in
1816.
  According to ‘Preface’ of Kubla Khan the poem was composed one night after he
experienced an Opium influenced dream after reading a work describing Xanadu, the
summer palace of Mongol ruler and Emperor of China, Kublai Khan, i.e. Purcha’s
Pilgrimage.
  Upon waking he set for writing but he was interrupted by a person from Porlock (for
business discussion), thus he forgot the lines.
  At the prompting of Lord Byron it was published in 1816.
  He wrote this poem under the influence of Purcha’s Pilgrimage.
  It is subtitled ‘Fragment’.
  The poem is originally in two stanzas.
  The first stanza of the poem describes Khan’s pleasure dome built alongside a sacred
river fed by a powerful fountain.
 In the second stanza there is narrator’s response to the power and effects of an Abyssinian maid’s song.
  It is written in 54 lines.
  The poem begins with a fanciful description of Kublai Khan’s capital Xanadu placed near the river Alph.
  In the poem Kubla Khan hears voices of the dead and refers to a vague war that appears to be
unreferenced elsewhere in the poem.
  The narrator turns prophetic, referring to a vision of an unidentified “Abyssinian maid” who sings of
“Mount Abora”.

  It starts with: –
“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.”
III.Christabel
 It is a long narrative poem by Coleridge in 2 parts, the first written in 1797 and the second
in 1800.
  He had planned 3 additional parts but not completed.
  Coleridge prepared first two parts to be included in “Lyrical Ballads” but on the
suggestion of Wordsworth it was left.
  It was published in a pamphlet in 1816
IV.Frost at Midnight (1798)
 It is a poem by Coleridge written in 1798 as part of the conversation poems.
  The poem discusses Coleridge’s childhood experience in a negative manner and
emphasizes the need to be raised in the countryside.
  Poem expresses hope that Coleridge’s son Hartley would be able to experience a
childhood that his father could not and become a true child of nature
 DIG YOUR HEAD

Q. How many chapters are there in Biographia Literaria?

V. Biographia Literaria (1817)
 Biographia Literaria is also called Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions.
  It is an autobiography in discourse by S. T. Colerigde, published in 2 volumes written in
1817.
  It has 23 chapters.
  Chapter XIV is the origin of the famous critical concept “Willing Suspension of Disbelief”.
  Coleridge discarded the mechanical system for the belief that mind is not an active agency
in the apprehension of reality.
  He believed in the self-sufficing power of absolute genius and talent as between “an egg
and an eggshell”.
  The book has numerous essays on Philosophy. In particular, it discusses and engages the
Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von
Schelling.
  Later Chapters deals with the nature of poetry and with the question of diction raised by
Wordsworth
William Wordsworth Samuel Coleridge
 He sought to give the charm of novelty to He sought to give    the charm of novelty
things of everyday objects of nature by to things of everyday objects – by making
colouring it with the power of supernatural natural.
imagination.
Presented the common and simple life of Introduced dream like quality- element of
peasants and shepherds – realistic mystery- wonder and supernatural.
description of his experience.

He remained of the earth and his own Went to Middle Ages- created the
time. atmosphere of magic/mystery.
Teacher- moralist Artist
 Lack musical quality- ‘has no ear for fine ‘epicure in sounds’- master of melody.
sound’.
Simplicity in diction- no difference Element of mysticism in diction- he
between prose and poetry. differentiates prose and poetry in diction.
High priest of nature. Lived in the world of fancy and thoughts.