Assignment Paper 5 Romantic Literature

Name : Ruchita Kankrecha A

Roll no. : 29

Paper no. : Victorian age

Topic name : Victorian poets

Enrolment no : 20691084190024

Email Id : ruchikankrecha06@gmail.com

College : Department of English

Submitted to : Department of English M. K Bhavnagar University

                    “Water, Water, everywhere,

                      And all the boards did shrink

                      Water, water, everywhere,

                      Nor any drop to drink “

-       The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Introduction :

 The dates of Romantic period of literature are not precise. The term ‘Romantic’ was itself not widely used after the period. The period begins in 1798. In this period we can see the two famous poets publication – Wordsworth and Coleridge of their Lyrical Ballads. These years show literary and political events. The Romantic period was an era in which a literary revolution took place alongside social and economic revolutions. In some histories of literature the Romantic period is called the “The age of Revolutions’. In this period the nation was transformed from an agricultural country to an industrial one. In this period we can see many changes like power and wealth were transferred from the landholding aristocracy to the large – scale employers of modern industrial communities and an old population of rural farm laborers became a new class of urban industrial laborers. So this new class called the working class. We can also see the effects of French Revolution. The Romantic age in literature is often constructed with the classical or Augustan age which preceded it.

About Coleridge :

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the great poet, philosopher, and literary critic. He loved to point out to his mother inefficiencies in the person’s knowledge. He started reading at the age of five and he has completed reading Bible and Arabian Nights. He was also influenced by other writers who were living in his period. He met Charles Lamb when he visited London. After meeting with Charles Lamb, Lamb wrote one Essay ‘The Essay of Elia’. Then he met Robert Southey who is another fellow Romantic poet. With Southey he started to build a Utopian Society for which he Named ‘Panties of Crecy’. But it was Failure. After that he met William Wordsworth and became best friends. With Wordsworth he started to write his first poetry collection and the collection of poetry was published as ‘Lyrical Ballads ‘. Coleridge has also started paper which is called ‘Friend ‘ and this paper devoted to truth and liberty. He suffered from various diseases and he took Opium as a painkiller. Opium help him to feel the painless and he became an Opium addict. He wrote amazing poems.He was the founder of romantic movement in England with his one of the friend William Wordsworth.

About his poetry :

His best poems are

1.                        The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

2.                        Kubla Khan

3.                        Christabel

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem which is celebrated as a literary classic and there’s wonderful lines in the poem. Kubla Khan was inspired from an Opium dream that he had. Coleridge also written a play ‘Osorio’ But he changed the title ‘Remorse’. Original play was ‘Osorio’. In Lyrical Ballad, Coleridge specifically considered four poems namely

1.                        The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

2.                        Foster mother Tale

3.                        Nightingale

4.                        Dungeon

He also wrote one essay called ‘Biographia Literaria ‘ and some other critical essay talking about his own theory. His theory like

1.                        Imagination and fancy

2.                        Primary and secondary imagination

3.                        Willingly suspension of disbelief

He also wrote ‘Hexes’ on Shakespeare. In this, he critically analze Shakespeare play and poems.

Characteristics of Coleridge’s poetry :

1.Mystery and supernaturalism :

His poetry is intensely imaginative. It exploits the weird, the supernatural and the obscure. The very center of Coleridge’s imagination lies in his faculty of evoking the mystery of things. Coleridge wrote in ‘Biographia Literaria’:

“It was agreed that my endeavour should he directed to person and character, supernatural or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human nature and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the movement which constitute poetic faith. “

It was with this idea in mind that he compo ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ‘ a poem found entirely on supernaturalism, ‘Christabel ‘and ‘Kubla Khan’, the two poetic fragments deal with supernatural element. The supernatural element in his poetry is remarkable for physiological interest, dramatic truth and realism. Coleridge himself said that,

“The incidents and agents were to be in part at least supernatural ;and the excellent aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affection by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would naturally accompany such emotions, supposing them real.”

 Supernaturalism in his poetry is neither a presentation of horror by external devices, nor a mere exhibition of the effects of the supernatural on human conduct and behavior, but it is an exploration of what pater calls ‘Soul lore’, the deepest emotion of the soul are explored by the experience of the supernatural.

Secondly, the incite and emotions arising from them are so full of human interest that they acquire a dramatic truth and produce ‘a suspension of disbelief which constitutes poetic faith’.

Thirdly, the supernatural appear psychologically real. Coleridge’s three best poems – Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla khan are the finest examples of his superb use of supernatural. Pater remarks :

    “It is this finer fruit of his more delicate psychology, that Coleridge infuses into romantic adventure, which itself was then a new or revived thing in English language. “

2.Love of nature :

Love of nature is very important characteristic in all poetry. Like all romantic poets Coleridge loved Nature and he loved nature for own sake. His love took almost the form of reverent worship, for he saw behind all the phenomena of nature the veiled presence of God. Nature alive in God, and each of her forms, - the flower or the river or the mountain, informed by a distinct spirit, had a distinct life of its own. This idea forms the basis of ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ‘ where the guilty Mariner is punished by the avenging spirits and of nature changed. It is our own thought that make nature to us. It is in our thought that we give form to external objects. In ‘Ode to Dejection’ he says :

     “O Lady! We receive what we give

        And in our life does nature live. “

Coleridge’s nature poetry is conspicuous for subtle and minute observation of the scenic beauty of nature. He painted the outward forms of nature with “a degree of delicacy to which neither Wordsworth himself nor perhaps any other worshipper of nature, Keats expected, ever quite attained “. He had a sense of color, comparable to that pf keats in poetry and turned in painting. For example,

1.The thin grey cloud is spread on high.

2.The one red leaf, the last of its clan

3.The leval sunshine glimmers with green light.

Symons writes that,

     “With him colour us melted in atmosphere which shines like fire through a crystal. It is liquid colour, the dew on flowers or a mist of rain in bright sunshine. “

4.Dreaminess :

Coleridge’s imagination faculty was at its height when he escaped from reality into a mystic world of dreams. It was out of such dreams that he conceived Ancient Mariner, Christabel and Kubla Khan. The quality that gives them their poetic distinction is their twilight vagueness, in which everything is seen thorough a haze as a sort of projection from a dream – land. Kubla Khan is all a melody and wonder, and it was out of the stuff of dreams that this wonderful poem was concerned and wrought.

5.Coleridge’s material art :

As a gifted poetical artist Coleridge is most musical. No. Poet has ever excelled him in the witchery of music. According to Symons,

“He is always a singer and shows a grater sensitiveness to music than any English poet, expect Milton.”

Music comes spontaneously and naturally to Coleridge. He used various devices to create music.

 First, he create music by the skillful use of vowel sounds.

 Secondly, word and phrases instinctively selected for their sound value are so placed that that they not only create music in the lines where they occur, but contribute to the entire symphony of the preceding and succeeding lines.

Thirdly, he skillful handles the meter.

Coleridge deftly employed the old ballad metre. He imparted a lyric intensity and dramatic force to it in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel and Kubla Khan. He reproduced the homely diction of medieval balladry with a skill greater than that of Scott. For Example,

    “Day after day, day after day

We stuck…….

Alone, alone, all, all, alone

Alone on a wide, wide sea. “

Conclusion :

So, Coleridge considered as a best romantic poet. We can see that through his works and his poetry include all the characteristics of Romantic period.