Coleridge and Wordsworth: Romanticism, Language, and Imagination

Coleridge centered on the ideal of Romanticism, representing the self.

• Description of the supernatural
• Individuality represented by dreams

These poets embody the movement in literary terms. For Coleridge, poetry is the exponent of Romanticism and is represented as the priority of English literature (a cultural interpretation). The poets consider themselves a kind of leader who helps to understand society. The poet is the one who teaches and guides, leading others to the truth.

Poetry explains to people how the world works. It is a vital way of teaching. Every poet interprets Romanticism in a very different way. The Romantic elements are seen from different points of view as they structure their Romanticism. Wordsworth and Coleridge use very different language to express themselves.

The fight moves along the correct use of language.

Expressive Theory in Poetry: What Kind of Language Are They Supposed to Use?

Wordsworth uses poetry to teach how to use the language so that everybody can understand it. Coleridge, eleven years later, answers him.

Poetic language is something that has been in the middle of literary discussions. In Romanticism, two types of Romantic philosophies are provided by Wordsworth and Coleridge: Wordsworth with his Preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, and Coleridge with his thirteenth chapter of Biographia Literaria.

The main debate is about general questions of Romanticism and also several arguments about how language must be used in poetic terms (the leveling of language). Coleridge says that language must be used in a more complex way.

1. Wordsworth argued against the received idea of poetic language as a refined, perfected mode of eloquence available only to those with an education in previous literary models.
2. Coleridge argued that the best language for poetry is the most logical (represented by grammar), the universal rather than the socially and politically specific.

There were also arguments concerning language and imagination in which they tried to relate both terms in an expressive theory.

1. The true poet is someone Coleridge would describe as possessing creative imagination, but imagination itself is defined in terms of the “person” of the poet (creator of the work’s meaning).
2. Wordsworth and Coleridge seem to agree that the poet is in many ways distinguished from and, linguistically speaking, superior to the “low and rustic” people who are among the subjects of Lyrical Ballads.

Coleridge

The primary imagination: Connection with God. Metaphysical way. A process in which the unconscious passes because we have the capacity for connection. Inspiration.

Secondary imagination is the inspiration through the unconscious.

Fancy: The mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space.

Wordsworth

• Language: “...A selection of language really used by men.”
• Poetry: “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
• Poet: “...He is a man speaking to men...”
• Nature