Coleridge or Wordsworth

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Literature > Poetry

An opinion paper which examines who better understands and describes the nature of this word, "imagination" -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge or William Wordsworth.

1,271 words () | 0 sources | MLA | 2002 United States

Paper Summary:

The paper shows that through William Wordsworth's works, we can see how he celebrates the innocence of the child that comes from - a child satisfied with this life, innocent of suffering. In comparison, the paper shows that the child that comes from the imagination of Coleridge comes from a deeper, darker abyss and is a child crying to go home.

From the Paper:

"Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Wordsworth differ in their examination of what they call the "imagination," and this difference is reflected in their writings. Wordsworth displays a sense of eternal optimism when describing the infinite, while Coleridge effectively illustrates the inevitable darkness that reaches the mind when contemplating unanswerable questions. It is ironic that Coleridge would describe Wordsworth's genius in Chapter IV of Biographia Literaria, and give him credit for having defined the idea of "imagination," when it is Coleridge himself that dares to truly capture the connection of mind, imagination, and the infinite in his poetry. Coleridge states that "Milton had a highly imaginative, Cowley a very fanciful mind." It would be feasible to state that Coleridge had a highly imaginative, Wordsworth a very fanciful mind." Wordsworth sees "imagination as coming up from "the mind's abyss, (p.243 l. 596) while Coleridge's Ode: Dejection describes, symbolically, the poet's imaginative mind going down into the mind's abyss."