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Wordsworth & Coleridge. By, in order of presenter: Sean Yuri Puja Susan Wesley Robin. Historical Background during the period of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge. William Wordsworth (April 7 th , 1770 – April 23 rd , 1850) Aged 80
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Wordsworth&Coleridge By, in order of presenter: Sean Yuri Puja Susan Wesley Robin
Historical Background during the period of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge
William Wordsworth (April 7th, 1770 – April 23rd, 1850) Aged 80 • Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21st, 1772 – July 25th, 1834) Aged 61 • Both lived in the Romantic Era, and helped launch the movement through their writings and works. • The Romantic Era took place in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, focusing on artistic, literary and intellectual movement. • Romanticism expressed visual arts, music and literature strongly. • Romanticism focused on Nature, and emphasized intuition, imagination and feeling.
Ludwig van Beethoven ( December 17th, 1770 – March 26th, 1827), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ( January 27th, 1756 – December 5th, 1691), & Joseph Haydn ( March 31st, 1732 – May 31st, 1809) were all present during the Romantic Era and were considered “The Three Romantic Composers.” • This era was considered the true age of Romanticism in music. • The 18th century was also considered as the Age of Enlightenment, where the power of reason was emphasized to rebuild society and advance knowledge. • George Washington crossed the Delaware on December 25th, 1776, which is an iconic event in the American Revolution. • Storming of the Bastille took place as well, July 14th, 1789, an iconic event in the French Revolution.
Even before meeting each other, both were familar with each other’s work. Coleridge detected signs of genius in Wordsworth’s work. • Coleridge and Wordsworth first met in Racedown, Dorsetshire in 1797. • Immediately became friends and collaborated in writings together and shared the same vision in creating a new type of poetry. • In 1798 joint published “Lyrical Ballads”. • However, due to different views, style of writing, and personal issues, their friendship came to an end.
Preferred natural, common language. Emphasised on feeling and simplicity. Emotioned over abstract thought. Experience of natural beauty over urban life. Simply stated themes instead of elaborate symbols. Nature, common people, children, and imagination.
Wordsworth was the poet of nature, the purity of childhood, and memory. • Coleridge became the poet of imagination, exploring the relationships between nature and the mind. • Their new style of writing changed the course of English poetry, replacing the elaborate classical forms with a new Romantic sensibility. • Influenced later writers such as John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron in England, and Emerson and Thoreau in America.
Born 1770 • Age 8 Mother passes away • William had 3 brothers • William was a moody boy • He read an immense amount of books • His father died when he was 13 • He went to St. Johns and Cambridge • Travels with his good friend Robert Johns • Mastered French • Supporter of the French Revolution • He fell in Love with Anette Vallon • His guilt and Abandonment of his family • His meeting with Samuel Coleridge. • Married Mary Hutchinson • 1843 Poet Laureate • Died In 1850
History on Lyrical Ballads • four versions published • first was published in1798 anonymously • second published under Wordsworth's name in 1800 • third in 1802 with enlarged preface • final in 1805 • negatively received by critics because of uninteresting subjects but later praised for same thing
Preface to Lyrical Ballads • Wordsworth's intentions -revolutionary view on what to represent -interest in capturing how human mind responds through senses in nature -use of common language • What makes a poet -someone who is more sensitive and thoughtful than the average person
Simon Lee • Emphasis on the Individual • Comparison: -Past and present -Speaker and Simon Lee -Young and old
We Are Seven • Theme contrasts with "Simon Lee" • preoccupation with death • contrast between speaker's perception of death and the cottage girl's
Lines Written in Early Spring "To her fair works did Nature linkThe human soul that through me ran;And much it grieved my heart to thinkWhat man has made of man" "The birds around me hopped and played,Their thoughts I cannot measure:-But the least motion which they made,It seemed a thrill of pleasure." • Fascination with nature • contrasting diction emphasizes the emotions associated with nature and with civilization
Expostulation and Reply • Friend asks why William sits there alone wasting his time and where are his books • he claims it is not a waste of time because all the senses of the body are being utilized in a "wise passiveness" and things can be learned from nature as well. • support of social reform • emphasis on nature
The Tables Turned • "Let Nature be your teacher....Close up those barren leaves;Come forth, and bring with you a heartThat watches and receives.“ • shows that Wordsworth is potentially in between this aspect of the Romantic movement and being educated solely by books
The Thorn • Symbols: The Thorn - the woman's suffering The beautiful moss hill - the happiness that left with the death of the baby
Tintern Abbey • "Through a long absence, have not been to meAs is a landscape to a blind man's eye:But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the dinOf towns and cities, I have owed to themIn hours of weariness, sensations sweet,Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;And passing even into my purer mind,With tranquil restoration" • Fascination with Nature-how nature affected the speaker as time passed
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) • Born in the country town of Ottery St. Mary in rural Devonshire, England • Was a "hippy“ • English poet, Romantic, literary critic, philosopher, founder of the Romantic Movement in England, and a member of the Lake Poets • Best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, and his major prose work Biographia Literaria • Major influence via Emerson on American transcendentalism
Early Life • His father, Reverend John Coleridge, was a well respected vicar of the parish and headmaster of Henry VIII's Free Grammar School at Ottery • John had three children with his first wife. • Samuel was the youngest of the ten children by John's second wife Anne Bowden • After his father died, Samuel was sent to Christ's Hospital at the age of 8 and would remain there throughout his childhood studying and writing poetry
Mid-life • From 1791-1794, Coleridge attended Jesus College, Cambridge • Enlisted in the Light Dragoons under the alias of Silas Tonkun Comberback perhaps because of debt or because of a girl he loved that had rejected him • Brothers arranged for his discharge a few months later under the reason of "insanity" and was readmitted into Jesus College although he would leave again and never receive a degree • Met Robert Southey in 1794 • His radicalism eventually waned and took an 180 degree shift from radical to conservative in politics • Met Wordsworth at 23 years old in 1795 and judged him at once to be "the best poet of the age“
Mid-life (cont) • After the joint publication of Lyrical Ballds, he spent a winter in Germany with Wordsworth and attended the University of Gottingen • Went back to England in 1800 with Wordsworth to the Lake District and setled at Greta Hall, Keswick to be near Wordsworth • Took laundanum (opium dissolved in alcohol) to ease the physical pains he suffered from an early age • Beset by various problems such as marital problems, tensions with Wordsworth, and opium dependency, this led to the composition of Dejection: An Ode
Later Life • Took a break and went to the Mediterranean island of Malta in hopes of recovering but this instead completed his decline • Returned to 1806 a broken man • A bitter quarrel in 1810 with Wordsworth marked the nadir of his life and expectations • From 1808-1819, gave public lectures in London along with literary and philosophical topics • Wrote for newspapers while single handedly wrote, published, and distributed The Friend, a journal that lasted for ten years • Wrote a tragedy, Remorse, that had a twenty successful performances at the Drury Lane theater • 1816, took up residence in Highgate, northern suburb of London, under the supervision of physician James Gillman who managed to control his opium consumption but not elminate
Later Life (cont) • The next three years would be a sustained literary period for Coleridge published Biographia Literaria Zapolya (drama), a book consisting of three essays in The Friend (revised and greatly enlarged), two collections of poems, and several treatises on philosophical and religious subjects • Established a philosophical basis for the Trinitarian theology • Spent the remaining years of his life with Dr. and Mrs. Gillman • His rooms at Highgate became a center for friends, the London literati, and for a steady stream of pilgrims from England and America • Even in his decline, he never lost the incantatory power that Hazlitt immortalized in My First Acquaintence with Poets • Died on the 25th of July, 1834 (age 61) in Highgate, England • Friends express an incomparable intellect vanished from the world when he died • Coleridge's influence is strongly evident in the nineteenth-century English and America
Info and Analysis of the text, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
Overview • The story begins very suddenly when the Mariner stops a man who is heading to a wedding • The man asks why he has been stopped, to which the Mariner only begins his story • The man tries to brush him off but the mariner prevents him and tells his tale • The Mariner recites a story of how he and his shipmates were blown off course and sent south to the Antartic • They find a south wind to blow them north by following an albatross; a bird that is a symbol for good fortune
Overview (cont) • The Mariner shoots and kills the bird, angering the spirits • The spirits drive them far north into uncharted waters, angered further by the crews acceptance of the crime • Death takes the souls of the crew while “Life-in-Death” takes the soul of the Mariner • The mariner suffers the stares of his dead crewmates for seven days until angelic spirits raise them to sail the ship home • Once home the Mariner is compared to rising from the dead, being the devil, and is condemned to walk the earth and recite his tale
Quote analysis • “He holds him with his skinny hand, -‘there was a ship,’ quoth he. –‘Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!’ –Eftsoons[at once] his hand dropt he. –he holds him with his glittering eye- -the wedding-guest stood still, -and listens like a three years’ child: -the Mariner hath his will.”
Quote analysis • “At length did cross an albatross, -Thorough the fog it came; -as if it had a christian soul, -We hailed it in God’s name.”
Quote analysis • “Her lips were red, her looks were free, -Her locks were yellow as gold: -Her skin was as white as leprosy, -The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she, -Who thicks man’s blood with cold. –the naked hulk alongside came, -And the twain were casting dice; -‘the game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!’ –Quoth she, and whistled thrice.”
Quote analysis • “ ‘I fear thee Mariner! –I fear thy skinny hand! –And thou art long, and lank, and brown, -As is the ribbed sea- sand. –I fear thee and thy Glittering eye, -And thy skinny hand, so brown’- -Fear not, fear not thou wedding-guest! –This body dropt not down.”
Quote analysis • “ ‘I fear thee mariner!’ –Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest! -’Twas not the souls that fled in pain, -Which to their [corpses] came again, -But a troop of spirits blest:”
Quote analysis • “ ‘Is it he?’ quoth one, ‘Is this the man? –By him who died on cross, -With his cruel bow he laid full low – The harmless Albatross.”
Quote analysis • “ I moved my lips-the Pilot shrieked –And fell down in a fit; -The holy Hermit raised his eyes, -And prayed where did he sit. –I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy, -Who now doth crazy go, -Laughed loud and long, and all the while, -his eyes went to and fro. –‘Ha! ha!’ quoth he, ‘full plain I see, - The Devil Knows how to row.’ ”
