12 Questions
What was characteristic of the Romantic movement's attitude towards nature?
It was believed to be a reflection of the divine spirit.
What was the Romantics' reaction to the new bourgeois social and economic order?
They reacted against it with a sense of moral outrage.
What literary forms did the Romantics revive?
Folktales and ballads.
What did Wordsworth hold about the language of poetry?
It should be simple and natural.
What did the Romantics associate with nature?
A profound moral and emotional connection with human subjectivity.
What did Coleridge refer to nature as?
The language of God.
What is the primary focus of Coleridge's critique of Wordsworth's poetry?
The balance between feeling and thought in romantic poetry
According to Coleridge, what is the key aspect of poetic genius?
The ability to depict familiar objects in a new light
What does Coleridge mean by 'the riddle of the world'?
The mystery of human existence
What is the significance of Coleridge's distinction between 'fancy' and 'imagination'?
It clarifies the difference between creative and reproductive faculties
What is the result of poetic genius, according to Coleridge?
A renewed sense of wonder and novelty in the reader
What is the ultimate goal of the poet, according to Coleridge's romantic ideals?
To combine the child's sense of wonder with the appearances of everyday life
Study Notes
Romanticism and the Bourgeois Order
- Romantics such as Blake, Wordsworth, and Shelley reacted against the new bourgeois social and economic order.
- They rejected the squalor and mechanized routine of cities, as well as the moral mediocrity of a bourgeois world.
- They turned to mysticism, nature, and Rousseauistic dreams of a simple life for spiritual relief.
Romantic Movement
- Wordsworth believed the poet should emulate the language of real life.
- He exalted the state of childhood and innocence of perception, untainted by conventional education.
- Romantic writers revived primitive forms such as the folktale and the ballad, influenced by growing nationalistic sentiments.
Nature in Romanticism
- Nature was not seen as an eternal, unchanging hierarchical order (as in neoclassical writers like Pope).
- Instead, nature was a living force, unified by the divine spirit, and infused with moral and emotional connection to human subjectivity.
- Coleridge referred to nature as the "language of God."
Imagination and Poetry
- Coleridge's Biographia Literaria critiques Wordsworth's theory of diction and discusses the theory of imagination.
- Romantic poetry combined deep feeling with profound thought, and a balance of truth in observation with imaginative faculty in modification.
- It aimed to spread a tone, atmosphere, and depth of the ideal world around observed forms and incidents.
Idealizing Childhood
- The Romantics sought to carry the feelings of childhood into adulthood, combining wonder and novelty with familiarity.
- Novelty and freshness were key aspects of poetic genius, where familiar objects were represented in a way that awakened fresh sensations in others.
Explore the Romantic movement's reaction against the bourgeois social and economic order, and their search for spiritual relief in mysticism, nature, and idealized visions of the past.
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