Coleridge's Romantic Imagination
The concept of the romantic imagination is subject to varied interpretation due to the varied and changing perceptions of romantic artists. There are several ways through which the concept of the romantic imagination in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poetry can be perceived. This difference in perception is a result of the reader's personal interpretation of the subject matter, which varies from person to person. Therefore, the focus of this analytical discussion will be based upon my own personal rendition of Coleridge's romantic imagination. This personal interpretation of the romantic imagination will be revealed through an analysis of Coleridge's state of mind as he interacts with nature. Throughout Coleridge's poetry, the theme of Nature acts as a vehicle through which, the romantic imagination of the poet can be interpreted. Coleridge's states of mind through these interactions are based upon his own perception of the world around him and can therefore be seen as his romantic imagination. Thus, the romantic imagination explored through interaction with nature, can be seen as a part of the poet which is individualistic and is not influenced by others, but is reflective of the poet's own state of mind. Coleridge's romantic imagination can be understood in a unique way if one is to look at how nature influences the poet's state of mind. There are three aspects of nature, which allow Coleridge's state of mind, and therefore the concept of the romantic imagination, to be understood. Firstly, through an understanding that the diversity of nature stimulates Coleridge's individuality, one is able to readily perceive that the individualistic state of mind results from interaction with nature....
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I have gathered some research from a book called A VERY ENGLISH HANGMAN. Firstly I am going to provide some background information. The whole of Ruth's case moved very swiftly as she was executed thirteen weeks after she shot her lover four times. Ellis’ case centres on some interesting words which were said by Ruth after committing her crime “When I put the gun in my bag I intended to find David and shoot him”. She was put to death for this because at the time the law dictated the premeditated murder as a capital offense and no leniency was allowed. Ellis was a victim of domestic abuse which led to the tragic miscarriage of her unborn child; this is what leads Ellis to retaliate and to shoot her lover.
Before we can understand why Holden leaves on his journey at all, we must understand his struggle. Holden cannot find a way to succeed. Even Mr. Antolini says, “This fall I think you’re riding for – it’s a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn’t permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling” (187). This fall that Holden is heading toward has started with flunking out of school. Holden’s largest failure appears to be his inability to apply himself at school, which makes his life even harder. Also, Mr. Spencer is concerned about his ability to apply himself as he is failing 4 classes and “getting the ax is something he is familiar with” (4). Holden just wants someone to talk to and wants to break his depression by succeeding.
Liverpool's Slave Trade as a Centre of a Global Commerce and an Important Factor in British Economic Growth
In his preface to "Kubla Khan," Samuel Taylor Coleridge makes the claim that his poem is a virtual recording of something given to him in a drug-induced reverie, "if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things . . . without any sensation or consciousness of effort." As spontaneous and as much a product of the unconscious or dreaming world as the poem might seem on first reading, however, it is also a finely structured, well wrought device that suggests the careful manipulation by the conscious mind.
There are major problems with our criminal justice system. In the last one hundred years, there have been more than 75 documented cases of wrongful conviction of criminal homicide. According to a 1987 Stanford University survey, at least 23 Americans have been wrongly executed in the 20th century. For this very reason, the State of Illinois imposed a moratorium on the state?s death penalty in 2000 when it was discovered that 13 inmates on its Death Row were wrongly convicted. Anthony Porter, one of the 13, spent 15 years on Death Row and was within two days of being executed, before a group of Northwestern journalism students uncovered evidence that was used to prove his innocence.
The origins of Holden’s disillusionment and the reason that it all started is the death of his younger brother which he was very fond of and admired, Allie, three years ago. The death of Allie is very significant in Holden’s mind since it is an event which he remembers quite clearly at multiple occasions during the book. For example, when Holden is writing a descriptive composition for his roommate Stradlater, he decides to write about Allie’s baseball mitt since it is the only thing on his mind. “My brother Allie had this left-handed fielder’s mitt. He was
Blake, Wordsworth, and Keats all represent the Romantic style of literature with their unorthodox themes of nature, art, and life; and how those three points can be tied together and used for creative purposes among humankind. Art and life are counterparts; one is lacking without the other. The Romantic period was about passion; finding inspiration and beauty in things people see every day. Wordsworth found childhood memories in a familiar landscape, Blake found himself captivated by the mysteries of how the majestic tiger was created, and Keats’ urn triggered him to put his inquiries of it into poetry. Each man expressed his individual view within their works; and like many of their Romantic contemporaries, their ideas ran against the flow of their time’s societal beliefs.
The one thing that stands in the way of what Holden needs is himself. He continues to cut himself off from everything he had once loved. His negative self will not let him get close to anyone else, while trying to get distant from those he once was close with. Holden never looks to the positive side of anything. He is just stuck in a deep hole and he can’t find a way out. Whenever Holden believes that he has found something that could help him, he himself some how shuts the door to his own happiness.
Wordsworth is raised in a simple country side and he views his childhood as a time when his relationship with nature was at its greatest; he revisits his childhood memories to relieve his feelings and encourage his imagination. Even if he grew up within nature, he didn’t really appreciate it until he became an adult. He is pantheistic; belief that nature is divine, a God. Since he has religious aspect of nature, he believes that nature is everything and that it makes a person better. His tone in the poem is reproachful and more intense. His poem purpose is to tell the readers and his loved ones that if he feels some kind of way about nature, then we should have the same feeling toward it as well. On the other side, Coleridge is raised in rural city such as London and expresses his idea that, as a child, he felt connected to nature when looking above the sky and seeing the stars. Unlike Wordsworth who felt freedom of mind, Coleridge felt locked up in the city. Since he did not have any experience with nature, he did not get the opportunity to appreciate nature until he became an adult. In Coleridge’s poem “Frost at Midnight,” readers see how the pain of alienation from nature has toughened Coleridge’s hope that his child enjoy a peaceful nature. Instead of looking at the connection between childhood and nature as
Bernbaum, Earnest Anthology of Romanticism and Guide Through the Romantic Movement Vol 1. New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1938.
Coleridge, like many other romantic writers of his time such as Wordsworth, demonstrated through his works a great interest in nature. Instead of following the philosophy of the eighteenth century which drew the line between man and nature, Coleridge developed a passionate view of the idea that there is just ''one''. He believed that nature was ""the eternal language which God utters"", therefore conecting men, nature and the spiritual together. In his poetry, Coleridge used his philosophy to to explore wider issues through the close observation of images and themes relating to the natural world.
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Kamien, Roger. "Part VI: The Romantic Period." Music: An Appreciation. 10th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2008. 257-350. Print.
By the end of the eighteenth century, thought gradually moved towards a new trend called Romanticism. If the Age of Enlightenment was a period of reasoning, rational thinking and a study of the material world where natural laws were realized then Romanticism is its opposite. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental (Forsyth, Romanticism). It began in Germany and England in the eighteenth century and by the late 1820s swept through Europe and then swiftly made its way to the Western world. The romantics overthrew the philosophical ways of thinking during the Enlightenment, they felt that reason and rationality were too harsh and instead focused on the imagination. Romantics believed in freedom and spontaneous creativity rather than order and imitation, they believed people should think for themselves instead of being bound to the fixed set of beliefs of the Enlightenment.
While Coleridge describes the process of creating Romantic poetry and encourages poets to use the combination of nature and imagination in this process, Keats is more focused on reality and is well aware of the limitations of the Grecian urn. With the poets’ admiration of nature present in both poems …… to be completed.