Will's Class Summary

As Professor Foss told us on the first day of class, the definition of what constitutes “Romanticism” is a topic that is still widely debated. As with all literature, although the Romantic authors shared a set of common values and ideas, what those values and ideas meant to each author individually, and as a result to their readers, varies from author to author. Indeed, Professor Foss' statement that the Romantics could be divided into two generations that did not even always see eye to eye (using Keats' dislike of Wordsworth as an example) serves to emphasize this. The comparison we made in class between Wordsworth's and Coleridge's poetry also helped to clearly demonstrate this, with the varying depictions of nature, and the different tone and feel of their respective poems. As a result, I believe that instead of being a unified movement with a group of people working towards a single goal, the Romantic authors were rather just a collection of individuals who shared similar (if sometimes conflicting) beliefs about life and the nature of enlightenment.

The first thing that popped out to me in my comparing the works of Wordsworth and Coleridge was how they both handled and portrayed nature differently in their poetry, and this topic featured prominently in my small group's discussion. Wordsworth's nature is a place of learning, but not in the traditional sense. It is less like a university and more akin to a temple, where one can go to commune with God through natural, primal medium untainted by the touch of excessive human reasoning. In short, Wordsworth's nature is a place of growth and optimism, where self-improvement is possible and an understanding of the deeper meaning of life attainable.

Coleridge, on the other hand, portrays a nature much less inviting. His is less of a spiritual catalyst and more of a primal force that shapes man as opposed to being shaped by him. As we saw when we went over The Nightingale in our large group discussion, man's often flawed understanding of nature, an almost mystical force greater than ourselves, leads us to misinterpret the messages nature sends us. This inherent subjectivity dominates Coleridge's outlook, and suggests a link between the human psyche and the natural world in so far as perception creates reality.

The different ways in which Wordsworth and Coleridge viewed nature and man's connection with it also influenced the feel of their poems, and gave their poems (whether the poem dealt with nature or not) different tones. Wordsworth's poems abound with a certain optimism and enthusiasm for life that is based on an idea of embracing nature as a primary form of education and enlightenment, like in his poems Expostulation and Reply and The Tables Turned. The former features Wordsworth himself sitting on a rock in a natural setting and holding a conversation with a friend regarding the merits of doing this over more conventional methods of instruction. His idea of a “wise passiveness” (24) posits that the “things for ever speaking” (26) (which I interpret to mean more traditional methods of education and discourse) leave man constantly restless, because through these methods nothing comes on it's own but must be unceasingly sought and labored after. Wordsworth's naturalistic epistemology requires only quiet contemplation and introspection, leaving those who pursue it feeling much more fulfilled and at peace. The later poem presents mostly the same ideas in different words.

Coleridge imbues his works differently. He focuses on more on the melancholy aspects of life an nature, although that is not to say that he focuses solely on these things. In This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, the first half of the poem is composed entirely of melancholy sentiments and visions as the speaker is separated from a group of friends out for an evening stroll by an injury, describing his situation as having “Lost/ Beauties and feelings, such as would have been/ Most sweet to my remembrance even when age/ Had dimmed my eyes to blindness.” (1-4) While it is still obvious that he reveres nature, and respects it, in this particular instance it seems unable to abate the feelings of disappointment he feels at his confinement. This particular poem does change as it goes on, and by the end the speaker has reached a state of union with the world around him, ending very aptly with “No sound is dissonant which tells of life.” (76)

So while These two authors were undoubtedly both Romantics, and collaborated to the extent that they did, the ways they went about bringing their visions to life varied considerably. This is not a bad thing though, as me it reminds me that the Romantic movement was one driven by individualism and a need to experiment and build anew.

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