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Director : Prof. Harsh Gandhar

Department Co-ordinator : Dr. Rajesh Kumar Jaiswal

Course Leader : Dr. Ravinder Kaur

M.A. SEMESTER- I

PAPER: IV (opt.iii), BRITISH LITERATURE-II

CONTENTS

(i) Introductory Letter i

(ii) Syllabus ii

L.No. Title Author Page No.

1. Frankenstein-I Sunaina Jain 1

2. Frankenstein-II Sunaina Jain 12

3. Preface to Lyrical Ballads-I Harish Chander 32

4. Preface to Lyrical Ballads-II Harish Chander 45

5. William Blake’s Selected Poems Manisha Gangahar 69

6. William Wordsworth’s Selected Poems Manisha Gangahar 77

7. John Keats’s Selected Poems-I K.D. Verma 87

8. John Keats’s Selected Poems-II K.D. Verma 113

9. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner-I Bindu Sharma 140

10. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner-II Bindu Sharma 154

11. Charles Lamb: An Introduction Kriti Kuthiala 165

12. Lamb’s The Praise of Chimney Sweepers Kriti Kuthiala 173

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13. Lamb’s Dream Children: A Reverie Kriti Kuthiala 182

14. William Hazlitt: An Introduction Kriti Kuthiala 189

15. Hazlitt’s On Reading Old Books Kriti Kuthiala 197

16. Hazlitt’s On Gusto Kriti Kuthiala 211

Editor & Vetter: Dr. Ravinder Kaur

E-mail of Department - [email protected]

Phone Number of Department - 0172-2534325

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Dear Student,

We are sending you the lesson for British Literature -II. The material is
presented in Self-Learning Mode to make it convenient for you to read, comprehend
and understand the lessons. The lesson will introduce you to the major English poets
and prose writers of the Romantic Age. It will also familiarize you with English
Romantic Imagination, its stress on Nature, poetic inspiration, freedom, individualism,
and spontaneity; and the role language plays in it. Apart from this, the lesson also
provides you with necessary material on Gothic fiction explored in this paper. To make
you well-versed with the major themes, ideas and concepts of Romanticism and
English Literature, the supplement material is provided in each lesson. Besides, the
lessons also provide a general introduction to the life and works of the prescribed
writers. This is followed by critical summaries and analysis of the poems and prose
prescribed in your course. Apart from this, major thematic concerns of the texts and
other important questions are discussed in detail. Please read the prescribed texts first
and then go on to read these lessons. To help you understand the original texts the
glossary is provided at the end of each lesson. We hope that the lesson will help you in
understanding the political, social, and cultural impact of the above mentioned periods
in the history of English Literature and will familiarize you to the major trends, ideas,
and poetic forms of this period.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to write email to us. You can
also visit us in the department during working days.

Course Leader
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ii

BRITISH LITERATURE – II

The end of the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century saw a momentous shift in
philosophical, artistic and literary movement in Europe - Romanticism. It flourished until the
mid-nineteenth century. Romanticism celebrated imagination and intuition in the enduring
search for individual rights and liberty. It marks a shift from objectivism to subjectivism, from
reason to power of imagination and emotive response. The objective of the paper is to
introduce students to these tenets of Romanticism in general and to English Romanticism in
particular. During the course, they will be introduced to major English poets and prose writers
of the period. Through the reading, the students will be familiarized with the English Romantic
imagination, its stress on Nature, poetic inspiration, freedom, individualism and spontaneity;
and the role language plays in it. Gothic fiction is also explored in the paper. At the end of the
course the students will be familiar with major themes, ideas and concepts of Romanticism
and English Literature. They will be cognizant of the historical, cultural, political and aesthetic
milieu of the time. Students will study Romanticism as a reaction against the philosophical
rationalism and neoclassicism of the Enlightenment. At the end of the course, they would have
in-depth knowledge of a movement that not only captured the imagination of people with their
ideas of liberty and freedom but also fuelled the avant-garde movements well into the twentieth
century.
Unit I
1. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein. Foreword by Ruskin Bond (Collins Classics, 2018).
Unit II
1. William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads (Create Space Pub, 2016).
Unit III
1. William Blake, “The Chimney Sweeper” & “The Tyger”, Songs of Innocence and of
Experience (Oxford UP, 1967).
2. William Wordsworth, “Lines Written in Early Spring”, “Ode: Intimations of
Immortality” &“London 1802”, Selected Poems (Penguin Classics, 2004).
Unit IV
1. John Keats, “Ode on Grecian Urn”, “Ode to a Nightingale” & “Ode to Autumn”,
Selected Poems (Penguin Classics, 2007).
2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”,‘Rime of the Ancient
Mariner and the Other Poems (Collin Classics, 2016).
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Unit V
1. Charles Lamb, “Dream Children: A Reverie” & “The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers”,
The Essays of Elia and Eliana (G. Bell & Sons, Ltd).
2. William Hazlitt: • ‘On Reading Old Books’, from The Spirit of the Age (Vintage,
2009). • ‘On Gusto’, The Fight and Other Writings (Penguin Classics, 2000).

Suggested Readings
• Anita Brookner, Romanticism and Its Discontents (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux,
2000).
• Stuart Curran (ed), The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism (Cambridge
University Press, 1996).
• Giovanni Carsaniga, “The Age of Romanticism, 1800-1870”, The Cambridge History of
Italian Literature,eds. Peter Brand and Lino Pertile (CUP, 1999) 399-437.
• C.M. Bowra, The Romantic Imagination (OUP,1949).
• Walter Jackson Bate, From Classic to Romantic: Premises of Taste in Eighteenth-
century England (Harvard Univ. Press,1946).
• M.H. Abrams (ed.), English Romantic Poets: Modern Essays in Criticism (OUP USA,
1975).
• Harold Bloom and Lionel Trilling, The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, Vol. II
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1973) pp. 594–611,766–68, 777–8. Jean-Jacques
Rousseau, ‘Preface’ to Emile: or On Education, trans. Allan Bloom (Penguin,1991).
• Jacob Bronowski, William Blake, 1757-1827: A Man without a Mask (Penguin
Books,1954).
• D.W. Harding, “William Blake”, From Blake to Byron: The Pelican Guide to English
Literature ed. Boris Ford, Vol.5 (Penguin, 1957).
• Mark Schorer, William Blake: The Politics of Vision (H. Holt and Company, 1946).
• Morton D. Paley (ed.), Twentieth Century Interpretations of Songs of Innocence and of
Experience (Prentice-Hall,1969).
• Northrop Frye, “Northrop Frye on Milton and Blake”, Collected Works of Northrop Frye
Vol.16, ed. by Angela Esterhammer (Uni. of Toronto Press, 2005).
• Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake, ed. Nicholas
Halmi(University of Toronto Press; 2nd Revised ed. edition, 2004).
• Morris Eaves (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to William Blake (CUP, 2003).
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• Stephen Gill (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Wordsworth (CUP, 2003).

• Lucy Newlyn (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge (CUP, 2002).
• Angela Leighton, Shelley and the Sublime. An Interpretation of the Major Poems
(Cambridge: CUP, 1984).
• Stuart Sperry, Shelley's Major Verse: The Narrative and Dramatic Poetry (Harvard Uni.
Press, 1988).
• G.S. Fraser (ed.), John Keats: Odes (Macmillan,1971).
• Stuart Sperry, Keats: The Poet (Princeton Univ. Press, 1973).
• J. Cox (ed.), Keats's Poetry and Prose (Norton Critical Edition, 2008).
• Susan Wolfson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Keats (CUP, 2001).
• Drummond Bone (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Byron (CUP, 2004).
• Bernard Blackstone, Byron: A Survey (Longman, 1975).
• Jerome McGann, Byron and Romanticism (Cambridge: CUP, 2002).
• William Hazlitt, The Fight and Other Writings, edsTom Paulin and David Chandler
(Penguin Classics, 2000).
• John Kinnaird, William Hazlitt: Critic of Power (Columbia University Press, 1978).
• Tom Paulin, The Day-Star of Liberty: William Hazlitt's Radical Style (Faber & Faber,
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Lesson 1

FRANKENSTEIN BY MARY SHELLEY-I

Structure
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 An Introduction to the Romantic Age
1.3 About the Author
1.4 Genesis of the Book
1.5 Introduction to the Novel
1.6 The Significance of Title
1.7 Summary of the Play
1.8 Summary
1.9 References
1.10 Further Readings
1.11 Model Questions

1.0 Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
● understand and comprehend the literary ideals of the Romantic Age
● discuss the role and place of Mary Shelley in the history of English Novel
● discuss the circumstances behind the making of the novel
● comment on the significance of the title
● identify, understand and think critically on the major topics pertaining to the novel
1.1 Introduction
As students of British literature, it is imperative that you should be well-versed with the
background of the literary age during which a literary work was produced. The objective of the
lessons is to equip you with a comprehensive knowledge of the Romantic Age and how the
milieu shaped the sensibility of the author. The biographical details of Mary Shelley are
discussed, particularly to contextualize the novel within the framework of her life experiences.
The subsequent contents of the segment will give the students an insight into the genesis of
the book, an introduction to the same and the relevance or significance of its title, followed by
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the summary of the novel. This lesson will set the tone and create the foundation essential for
the understanding of the structure, themes and allied topics pertaining to the novel.
1.2 An Introduction to the Romantic Age
Any literary age is a reaction against the literary ideals of the age preceding it. Where the
nucleus of 18th-century writings and poetry, in particular, was to see the poet as a spokesman
of society addressing a cultured readership and with an emphasis on the conveyance of ‘truth’,
the Romantics found the source of poetry in the particular, unique and individual experience.
The Romantics renounced the rationalism and order associated with the preceding
Enlightenment era, stressing the importance of expressing authentic personal feelings.
The word "romantic" comes from the French word "roman", the name for medieval tales written
in Romanic (Vernacular French) dialect. The term was initially used in the middle of the 17th
century to mean fanciful, exaggerated, or unconvincing. Later, it assumed a different meaning
and became an expression of personal feelings and emotions.
The term ‘Romanticism’, in itself, may be misleading as it is open to multiple meanings, and
cannot be pinned down to a single-line definition. The ‘Romantic Movement’ has a much wider
scope and meaning. It covers a range of developments in art, literature, music and philosophy,
spanning the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The label ‘Romantics’ was applied to the
writers of the age in retrospection, from around the middle of the 19th century. Although many
of these poets were conscious of a new ‘spirit of the age’, they didn’t refer themselves to a
movement as a unity of purpose and aim. Only towards the middle of the 19th century they
were conveniently grouped together under the term "Romantic" on the basis of some common
features: imagination, individualism, irrationalism, childhood, escapism, nature, etc. Many of
the age’s foremost writers thought that something new was happening in the world’s affairs,
nevertheless. William Blake’s affirmation in 1793 that “a new heaven is begun” was matched a
generation later by Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “The world’s great age begins anew.” the ideal of
freedom, long cherished in England, was being extended to every range of human endeavour.
Romantic writers were concerned with nature, human feelings, compassion for mankind,
freedom of the individual and rebellion against society. In 1762, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a
Genevan philosopher and one of the main architects of the Romantic Movement in Europe,
declared in The Social Contract: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Rousseau
called into question the influence of civilization upon man and placed man’s emotional
capacities over "reason". He argued that society/civilization ruins man and that happiness is
to be found by living in a simple way without the trappings of civilization. German
philosophers gave a new importance to the imaginative power of the individual human mind.
The Sturm und Drang ("Storm and Stress") was a proto-Romantic movement in German
literature and music in which individual subjectivity and, in particular, extremes of emotion
were given free expression. In England, writers also experimented with the discontent that they
felt against all that seemed commercial, inhuman, and standardized. Romantics often
concerned themselves with the rural and rustic life versus the modern life; far-away places and
travel to those places; medieval folklore and legends; and the common people. Mary Shelley
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lived among the practitioners of these concepts and used some of these principles in her novel
Frankenstein.
The Romantic period is characterized by major transitions in the society, as the discontented
intellectuals and artists challenged the status quo. William Blake, who was a printer by trade
and whose works transcended art and literature, may be termed as an early Romantic writer.
In England however, it was William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's book of poetry,
Lyrical Ballads, (1798) that established the mark of European Romanticism on the British
Isles. The major Romantic poets including Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey were inspired
by a desire for liberty, and they hailed democratic ideals of living. The Romantic era was not
only about a utopian longing for the simple and natural; it was also a time of revolution,
retaliation and protest. The obsolete ideals of society were challenged by a generation of angry
young men and women. In pamphlets and articles they attacked the established values and
institutions. The Church, Christianity, the educational system, the legal system, and not least
the aristocracy and Royalty were all the targets of a harsh and defiant criticism from these
radical writers.
Any discussion about the Romantic age and the concomitant pervasive revolutionary fervour
would be incomplete without the mention of Lord Byron and P.B. Shelley, the two famous but
controversial literary figures. P.B. Shelley was rebellious by his disposition. His pamphlet ‘The
Necessity of Atheism’ got him expelled from the university. He was a highly intelligent boy and
was interested in science and literature; he was particularly fascinated by the Gothic tradition
which was popular at the time. P.B. Shelley’s second wife, Mary Shelley, apart from the
revolutionary zeal, also imbibed and assimilated the prevalent current of the Gothic genre into
her writing style.
Shelley lived amongst the authors of these revolutionary concepts and used many of these
principles in her own novel Frankenstein. References to these romantic thinkers are seen
throughout the novel, as the influences of people like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William
Wordsworth, and P.B. Shelley are apparent in the writing style and plot of the book. With so
many great romantic influences, Mary Shelley’s novel became a reflective literary work of the
Romantic Era.
1.3 About the Author
Mary Shelley, born on 30 August, 1797, was a prominent literary figure during the Romantic
Era of English Literature though her achievements rested in oblivion for a long period of time.
She was the only child of Mary Wollstonecraft, the famous feminist, and William Godwin, a
philosopher and novelist. She was also the wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary's
upbringing and her family environment informed and shaped her Romantic sensibility and the
revolutionary ideas of the left wing. Mary, Shelley, Byron, and Keats were principal figures in
Romanticism's second generation. Whereas some Romantic poets died young in the 1820s,
Mary outlived the Romantic era and witnessed the transition from the Romantic to the
Victorian times.
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From a young age, high hopes were pinned on Mary’s potential as a budding writer and
intellectual born to remarkable parents. From an early age, she was surrounded by famous
philosophers, writers, and poets. Under her father’s tutelage, Mary cultivated a life-long love of
learning. As an adult, she continued a strict habit of daily study in Greek, Latin, and Italian
languages, literature, art and music. Her unconventional and non-traditional approach to life
was the result of tête-à-tête with the eminent litterateurs and virtuosos.
At the age of sixteen Mary ran away to live with the twenty-one year old Percy Shelley, the
unhappily married rebel and misfit for the society. To Mary, Shelley personified the genius and
dedication to human betterment that she had admired her entire life. Although she was
shunned by the society, even by her father, this liaison was instrumental in the production of
the masterpiece, Frankenstein.
She conceived of Frankenstein during one of the most famous house parties in literary history
during her stay at Lake Geneva in Switzerland with Byron and Shelley. Interestingly enough,
she was only nineteen at the time. She wrote the novel while being overwhelmed by a series of
mishaps in her life. Her life With Percy Shelley was fraught with financial and emotional
insecurities. The worst of these were the suicides of her half-sister, Fanny Imlay, and Shelly's
wife, Harriet. After the suicides, Mary and P.B. Shelley reluctantly married. Negative public
opinion and open resentment made them seek refuge in Italy. Initially, they were happy in
Italy, but their two young children died there. Between 1817 and 1823, Mary gave birth to five
children, but only one survived to adulthood. Her first two babies died soon after birth. The
death of her third child, William, affectionately called Wilmouse, at the age of three threw Mary
into a serious depression. Though Mary and Percy’s fourth child – Percy Florence Shelley —
did live to adulthood, Mary suffered a near fatal miscarriage only a short time before Percy
Shelley died in a sail boat accident. In her journals, Mary blames her youthful transgressions
for the tragedies of her adulthood. “Poor Harriet,” she writes in an 1839 journal entry about
Percy Shelley’s first wife, “to whose sad fate I attribute so many of my own heavy sorrows as
the atonement claimed by fate for her death.”
Mary never fully recovered from this trauma. However, Shelley prodded Mary to live life on her
own terms and to enjoy intellectual and artistic growth, love, and freedom. Misfortunes,
nevertheless, clung to her and Mary became a widow at the age of twenty-four when Percy
drowned, leaving her penniless with a two year old son.
For her remaining twenty-nine years, she battled the struggle with the societal censure of her
relationship with Shelley. Poverty forced her to live in England which she despised because of
the prevailing strict moral and social codes. She was shunned by conventional circles and
worked as a professional writer to support her father and her son. She eventually came to
more traditional views of women's dependence and differences. This is not a denial of her
courage and integrity but derived from socialization and the conventions placed on her by
society.
Mary became an invalid at the age of forty-eight. She died in 1851 of a brain tumour with
poetic timing. The Great Exhibition, which was a showcase of technological progress, was
opened. This was the same scientific technology that she had warned against in her most
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famous book, Frankenstein. Although Mary Godwin Shelley lived in the restrictive Victorian era
where a woman’s place was confined to home, taking care of her husband and children, she
paved an unconventional, decidedly non-Victorian path through life. She succeeded in
cementing a substantive literary reputation while navigating her way through single
parenthood and depression.
Mary Godwin Shelley endured tremendous tragedy and tumult that further connects her to her
lonely, monstrous creation, who questions beauty and the inherent goodness of human
nature. Mary battled depression with her pen. She is the author of seven novels —
Frankenstein, Mathilda, Valperga, The Last Man, The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck, Lodore, and
Falkner – though none of them won her acclaim from the critics or the financial security that
she desperately sought. After Percy Shelley’s death, twenty-six year old Mary dedicated herself
to publishing her late husband’s posthumous works, which elevated his public persona. In life,
he ran from debtors and other responsibilities often traveling with a gang of poets who were
labelled the “league of incest,” but in death, Mary Shelley made him into a romantic and
Christian hero.
In her thirties, Mary extensively researched and wrote more than fifty detailed biographies of
Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French men for Dionysius Lardner’s Lives of the Most
Eminent Literary and Scientific Men. Her contribution to these biographies is significant,
though Lardner did not always credit Mary as an author. Modern scholars now recognize her
writing as “uncluttered, clear, and forceful” and “compelling.” The final book that Mary Shelley
published in 1844, a travelogue titled Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842 and 1843,
chronicled her trip with her son Percy Florence and his university friends. Mary Shelley died at
the age of fifty-three with her son and his wife at her side. Just as she altered the persona of
her deceased husband, her daughter-in-law destroyed many journal entries and letters she
deemed too bohemian for proper society, and refashioned Mary Shelley into the Victorian ideal
of a selfless daughter, wife, and mother. It wasn’t until the middle 20th century that Mary
Shelley’s unconventional life became more widely known, and scholars began re-examining her
work, hailing it as sophisticated, philosophical, artful, and important. Today, Frankenstein
stays firmly rested in the canonical works and prescribed in the colleges’ and universities’
curricula.
The popularity of Frankenstein both as a literary classic and as a set of ambiguous ideas
embody the exemplary clarity of Mary Shelley's vision, but it also reflects the protean quality of
its central motifs, which can be interpreted and understood in multiple ways, and open to
disseminating varied messages. The most common modern view of the story -- aided and
perhaps sustained by Boris Karloff's remarkable performance in the 1931 film version and its
sequel -- is that it is an account of the way in which 'monstrousness' arises, involving diseased
brains, inadequate control over one's actions and resentment against the unthinking horror
with which most people react to ugliness. The most common view based on the book alone sees
it as an allegory in which a scientist is rightly punished for daring to usurp the divine
prerogative of creation.
1.4 Genesis of the Book
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Frankenstein is certainly Mary Shelley’s magnum opus. The origins of Mary Godwin Shelley’s
most famous work, Frankenstein, are well known. In her introduction to Frankenstein, Mary
Shelley recalls that the summer of 1816 was capricious with its beautiful days “and pleasant
hours on the lake” as well as torrential rains and lightning storms, which “often confined
[them] for days to the house.” On one stormy night, the group—including the Shelleys, Jane,
and John Polidori, Byron’s physician and close friend—decided to read German ghost stories to
entertain themselves. Out of a “playful desire of imitation,” Byron suggested a literary contest:
each person would write a story involving supernatural elements, awe-inspiring instances, or
terrifying events. Most of the other participants abandoned the idea of taking the project
ahead, but it continued to intrigue Mary, who found the intense literary and philosophical
discussions that followed to be fascinating. After Mary shared the start of her story with the
group, they encouraged her to develop it further, and less than two years later, Mary published
Frankenstein anonymously. These discussions, as well as the debates among Byron, Polidori,
and Shelley, on current scientific theories and on “the nature of the principle of life”
contributed substantially to the birth of what was to become the famous story of Frankenstein.
In the preface to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein, she writes about the genesis,
“I saw—with shut eyes, but acute mental vision—I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts
kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantom of a man stretched
out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an
uneasy, half-vital motion.”
At the time, many female writers published anonymously, as the right domain of women was
often supposed to be the domestic front and in a patriarchal society, women and their writings
were not taken seriously by the critics or reading public. A rumour caught fire and spread that
Percy, not Mary, wrote the book; this falsehood persists today, though contemporary scholars
refute the claims of P.B. Shelley being the original author. Percy Shelley may have helped with
the editorial process, but this romantic gothic tale, often cited as an early work of science
fiction, is the work of Mary’s imagination and is a by-product of her life experiences.
1.5 Introduction to the Novel
Mary Shelley began the story of Frankenstein in the summer of 1816, probably between June
10 and June 16. Originally intended as a short narrative of only “a few pages,” Mary developed
the story into a full-length novel at Percy Shelley’s suggestion. Her expedition to Chamonix and
the Mer de Glace at the end of July inspired her creation of the majestic scenery of the end of
Chapter 9 and the beginning of Chapter 10. She worked regularly on her story until December
1816, when a number of personal tragedies interrupted her writing. She resumed writing early
in 1817, and in April, she completed the first draft of the book. The book is a mad experiment
of piecing together autobiography, ghost stories, travelogue, folklore and orts of science,
philosophy and poetry that she had read with her circle of eccentric friends. At the end of
April, she gave a revised version to her husband, Percy, whose editing drastically altered the
book’s original style. On March 11, 1818, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was
published anonymously in three volumes and accompanied by a preface written by Percy
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Shelley. Republished in 1831, the novel was heavily revised and incorporated Mary Shelley’s
own preface, the “Author’s Introduction.”
By 1831, it had already gone into a third edition, an indication of its success and popularity.
Of course, the story of Frankenstein has taken on a life of its own, until in the 20th century, it
found expression in a new medium, film, and those representations of the story—Mel Brooks’
“Young Doctor Frankenstein,” for example— typically took great liberties with the original.
Throughout centuries, the novel has been interpreted in several ways as it has different
dimensions to be considered. The story of Victor Frankenstein and his creature can be
interpreted as comprising mythological and biblical overtones. By contrasting the ways a being
is created, the author focuses on the difference between moral and immoral aspects of science.
Victor Frankenstein is a new type of scientist, a modern alchemist, whose thinking
corresponds to the uprising and revolutionary trends of Shelly’s epoch. Victor is a total sum of
features which reflects the faults and misdirected ideals of a new ideology, brought about by
technological breakthrough of the early nineteenth century. Victor is originally inspired by a
noble idea of enlightenment and knowledge, which are the core values of the epoch. However,
this keen interest borders on overweening ambition and obsession with knowledge and power.
1.6 The Significance of Title
The full title which Mary Shelley gave to Frankenstein is Frankenstein: or, The Modern
Prometheus. In attempting to assess the significance of this choice, it is necessary to bear in
mind her beloved husband's fascination with the character of Prometheus. The rebellious Titan
who stole fire from Olympus to save mankind was the champion of the great Romantic poets,
notably Byron and Percy Shelley. To a devout atheist like Percy Shelley, Prometheus was a
great hero whose condemnation to be chained to a rock throughout eternity while eagles came
daily to devour his perpetually-regenerated liver was firm proof of the bullish attitude and
downright wickedness of godly tyrants. Shelley knew quite well that the atheism he proclaimed
brazenly and the free love which he and Mary preached and practised were -- in the eyes of
conservatives – tantamount to Satanism but like Blake before him, Shelley was fully prepared
to champion Satan himself, not only Prometheus as a revolutionary light-bearer unjustly
slandered and condemned by a monstrous God. To Percy Shelley – and to Mary too, at least till
Percy was alive – no modern Prometheus could possibly be passed off in black and white terms
as a downright villain, and any catastrophic fate a modern Prometheus might meet must be
reckoned as a tragedy, not an exercise of any kind of justice or retribution, divine or otherwise.
Given all this, it is unlikely in the extreme that a book which Mary Shelley chose to name The
Modern Prometheus was planned as an assault on the hubris of scientists, or a defence of
divine prerogative. It is true that Mary Shelley added a new introduction to the revised edition
of the book issued in 1831, in which she seemed a little sympathetic to the demonization of
Frankenstein (and also to the notion that she had been a mere instrument of creative forces for
whose product she was not to be held responsible), but this was nine years after Percy
Shelley's death – which circumstance had coerced her to compromise and make peace with all
the shackles of societal conventions that he despised and defied quite openly. The fact
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remains, however, that whether Frankenstein's fate was intended to be an awful warning to
scientists or not, it certainly looks that way.
1.7 Summary of the Play
The novel begins in an epistolary tradition of unfolding the events in a series of letters, with
explorer Robert Walton giving details of his voyage to his sister Margaret Saville. He starts off
the first letter explaining his search for a new passage from Russia to the Pacific Ocean via the
Arctic Ocean. Despite being wealthy, he preferred life of adventure, excitement, glory and the
ensuing perils. Six years have already passed since Walton undertook this expedition. After
weeks of being in the sea, the crew of Walton's ship finds a man, Victor Frankenstein with his
“limbs nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and suffering”, floating on
an ice flow near death. Walton takes an instant liking for the man which deepens as the bond
and trust between them is cemented. Walton writes, “For my own part, I begin to love him as a
brother, and his constant and deep grief fills me with sympathy and compassion . . . being now
even in wreck so attractive and amiable”. In Walton's series of letters to his sister in England,
he retells Victor's tragic story.
Victor Frankenstein is now the narrator of his life story from Chapter 1 to Chapter 24. Growing
up in Geneva, Switzerland, Victor belongs to a distinguished family with his father holding
prestigious public offices. Victor's father and Mr. Beaufort, his mother Caroline's father, had
an amiable relationship. After Mr. Beaufort’s fortunes and reputation declined, he became ill
and within a few months had died. Victor’s father Alphonse eventually marries Beaufort’s
daughter, Caroline and seeking a better climate, the couple moves to Italy, then to Germany
and France. Victor is born in Naples during their rambles and lavished with attention. After a
span of five years, the family adopts a girl, Elizabeth Lavenza, who becomes Victor's adopted
cousin and playmate. Around the age of seven, Victor's younger brother is born. Their parents
decide to settle down in Geneva to concentrate on raising their family.
Victor introduces his life-long friend Henry Clerval, a creative child who studies literature and
folklore. Victor is more inquisitive and his eagerness to learn turns into an insatiable thirst for
science and knowledge. According to Victor, “The world was to me a secret which I desired to
divine. . . . to learn the hidden laws of nature”. At the age of 13, Victor discovers the works of
Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Albertus Magnus, all alchemists from an earlier age. At the
age of 15, Victor witnesses an electrical storm that arouses his interest in electricity and
possible applications for its use.
Victor prepares to leave for his studies at the University of Ingolstadt, Germany when his
mother and Elizabeth become ill with scarlet fever. Caroline dies from the disease, and
Elizabeth is nursed back to health. At the university, Victor meets his professors Mr. Krempe
and Mr. Waldman. For two years, Victor is thoroughly engrossed in his studies, even
impressing his teachers and fellow students. His interest in natural philosophy, particularly
chemistry quickly becomes an obsession. He is particularly fascinated with the human frame
and the principle of life. He devises a plan to re-create and reanimate a dead body using
chemistry, alchemy, and electricity to make his ambition a reality. In his idealism, he thinks
that a “new species would bless me as its creator and source”.
 15

After four years of frantic studying, not keeping in contact with his family, he is able to "bestow
animation upon lifeless matter" and creates a monster of gigantic proportion from assembled
body parts taken from graveyards, slaughterhouses and dissecting rooms. As soon as the
creature opens his eyes, however, the beauty of Frankenstein's dream vanishes as he laments
that “breathless horror and disgust filled my heart”. Victor calls him – “the miserable
monster”, “the daemoniacal corpse”, “wretch”, “dreaded spectre” – to explain his ugly
appearance and countenance. He realises he has made a terrible mistake in creating this
monster and flees from his laboratory in fear and disgust from his creation and his conscience.
The monster wanders the countryside while Victor seeks solace in a tavern near the university.
As a co-incidence, Henry Clerval appears to save Victor. Victor is consequently bedridden with
a nervous fever for the next months, being nursed back to health by Clerval.
Alphonse writes to Victor telling him to come home immediately since an unknown assailant
murdered his youngest brother, William, by strangulation. Justine Moritz, their housekeeper,
is falsely accused of the murder of William, and after a tumultuous time, she confesses to the
crime and goes to the gallows willingly. Victor harbours deep anguish and guilt inside his heart
but cannot reveal the identity of the monster as the true killer. He journeys out of Geneva to
refresh his tortured soul and during his wanderings in the Alpine valleys, Victor Frankenstein
is confronted with his creation. The pair retreats to a small hut on the mountain where the
monster narrates his part of the story.
After leaving Frankenstein's laboratory, the monster went to the village where he was insulted
and attacked by the frightened villagers. He eventually went to the country and found refuge in
a hovel next to small house inhabited by an old, blind man and his two children, Felix and
Safie. By observing the family and by reading their books, the monster learns how to speak
and read so that he can follow the lives of his "adopted" family, the De Laceys. He reads books
like Paradise Lost, A volume of Plutarch’s Lives and Sorrows of Werter secretly which opened
floodgates of new emotions including ecstasy and dejection. He also learns the system of
human society, division of property, and wealth and poverty. He feels compassion for the
family, who had to struggle to get by, and anonymously does chores for them. Desiring
acceptance by the old man and his family, he comes to disclose his identity but is shunned
and beaten by Felix. He quit the cottage full of rage and violence. While the monster wandered
about the woods, he came upon a jacket with a notebook and letters that were lost by Victor.
From the notes, the monster learns of his creation. He had endured rejection by mankind, but
did not retaliate upon mankind in general for his misfortune. Instead, he decided to take
revenge on his creator's family to avenge the injury and humiliation he endured from others.
The monster narrated how by chance, he met Frankenstein's younger brother in the forest. As
soon as he discovered that the boy "belongs to the enemy", he choked him. He also placed a
portrait in the lap of a sleeping young girl, Justine, thereby incriminating her with his crime.
After narrating his story, the dæmon's request from Frankenstein was that he should create
another being: a female to accompany him. If Frankenstein complied, he and his bride would
stay away from other people and keep to themselves in the wild. Frankenstein seems moved by
monster's arguments and also felt that he had a duty towards his fellow-man, so he agreed to
 16

the dæmon's request. Victor left for England to finish his work accompanied by his friend
Clerval, promising to marry Elizabeth on his return. When the work on his second creation is
advanced, he becomes despondent and starts questioning the ethics of his promise. He
shudders at the prospect of that the monster and the new creature might hate each other, or
that they might produce a whole race of these creatures. When the monster visits to check on
the progress, Frankenstein destroys his work. The monster swears revenge and promises to be
with him on his wedding night. The following day a body is found and Frankenstein is accused
of murder. He is taken to the body, which he identifies as Henry Clerval. He is eventually
cleared of all charges and returns to Geneva in a very bad condition. After much reluctance
and deliberation, Frankenstein marries Elizabeth and promises her to tell her his horrifying
secret the following day. Remembering the monster's threat, Frankenstein resolves to either
kill the monster or be killed in a deadly encounter. However, Frankenstein is caught unawares
when the monster kills Elizabeth instead. Frankenstein loses another family member as his
father dies heartbroken after hearing the news of Elizabeth's death.
Victor’s only motive of life becomes the destruction of the monster. A chase ensues as Victor
tries to capture and kill the creature which has tormented him for several years. Victor chases
the monster from Geneva south to the Mediterranean Sea. Both board a ship bound for the
Black Sea, journey through Russia, and make their way north to the Arctic Circle. The weather
gets worse as the duo travels north. There is little or no food and fierce winter storms. The
monster steals a dog sled team and is seen by local villagers to be armed and dangerous.
Victor closes to within one mile of the monster when the ice on which both travel begins to
crack and separate the two from each other. It is at this time when Robert Walton finds Victor,
with his dying dog team floating on an ice flow in the Arctic Ocean. Victor encourages Robert to
continue the fight to destroy the monster.
After telling Walton his story, Victor asks him to kill the monster if he dies before he can do it
himself. The ship has in the meantime been freed from the ice and, under the pressure of his
crew, Walton decides to abandon his trip and return home. Victor's health eventually
deteriorates and he dies. Just after his death, Walton finds the monster hanging over Victor's
body. The dæmon speaks of his miserable life. Because of all the murders he has committed,
he now hates himself. Since his creator is dead, he decides it is time that he too will rest in
death. After stating that he will build a funeral pile for himself, he leaves the ship and is “borne
away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance”.

Self-Assessment Questions:
Q.1. What is significance of the title Frankenstein?
Q. 2. What are the basic features of the Romantic Age?
Q.3 Do you think that Mary Shelley’s life affected the creation of the novel
Frankenstein?
Q.4 Who is the protagonist of the novel?

1.8 Summary
 17

After reading this lesson, you have learnt about the Romantic Age and how the milieu shaped
the sensibility of Mary Shelley. The biographical details of the author have helped you to
contextualize the novel within the framework of her life experiences. The subsequent contents
of the lesson have given you an insight into the genesis of the book, an introduction to the
same and relevance/significance of its title, followed by the summary of the novel. The reading
of this lesson will help you to understand the structure, themes and allied topics pertaining to
the novel discussed in the next lesson on Frankenstein.
1.9 References
 Baumann, Rebecca. Frankenstein 200: The Birth, Life, and Resurrection of Mary
Shelley's Monster. Bloomington, USA: Indiana University Press, 2018.
 Bennett, Betty and Stuart Curran, eds. Mary Shelley in Her Time. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins UP, 2000.
 Fairclough, Peter, ed. Three Gothic Novels. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics,
1968
 Mary Shelley: Author of "Frankenstein" Elizabeth Nitchie, Greenwood Press, 1970
 The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley, Esther Schor, Cambridge University
Press, 2003
1.10 Further Readings
 Hideous Progenies: Dramatizations of Frankenstein from Mary Shelley to the
Present
 Steven Earl Forry, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990
 The Other Mary Shelley: Beyond Frankenstein, Audrey A. FischAnne K.
MellorEsther H. Schor,
 Oxford University Press, 1993
 Frankenstein 200: The Birth, Life, and Resurrection of Mary Shelley's Monster,
Rebecca Baumann,
 Indiana University Press, 2018
 Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor, Elizabeth Young, New
York University Press, 2008
 Marshall Brown, ed. The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Vol 5
Romanticism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
1.11 Model Questions
1. Was Mary Shelley as a product of her age? Discuss.
2. How did the revolutionary fervour of the Romantic Age feed the imagination of Mary
Shelley in her literary pursuits?
3. Did Mary Shelley’s life experiences inform and shape the creation of monster in
Frankenstein?
4. What is the significance of the sub-title The Modern Prometheus in the play? Discuss
with reference to P.B. Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound.
 18

5. Discuss the circumstances in which the story of Victor Frankenstein was conceived
of and later completed by Mary Shelley.

******
 19

Lesson 2

FRANKENSTEIN BY MARY SHELLEY –II

Structure
2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Romanticism in Frankenstein
2.3 Rise and Popularity of the Gothic Novel, with Special Reference to Frankenstein
2.4 About the Plot and Narrative Style
2.5 Frankenstein as Science Fiction
2.6 Portrayal of Women in Frankenstein
2.7 Themes and Characters
2.8 Summary
2.9 References
2.10 Further Readings
2.11 Model Questions

2.0 Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
1. discuss the influence and presence of Romanticism in the novel
2. Situate and contextualize the novel under various genres such as Gothic novel and
Science fiction
3. discuss the plot structure, narrative style and point of view of the novel
4. analyse the major as well as minor themes
5. describe and critically analyse the role of various characters of the novel
2.1 Introduction
Dear student, this lesson will help you to identify and understand the various genres under
which the text can be studied. The lesson will also give you a peep into the structure, style and
narratorial voice used in the novel. After reading the lesson you will be well-equipped in
comprehending the themes motifs, and major characters of the novel. The model questions and
suggested readings are also given so that you can navigate your way through the probable
questions and also broaden your horizons through further selected readings.
2.2 Romanticism in Frankenstein
 20

During the eighteenth century the Romantic Movement originated, it shifted the focus of the
arts to a more intense emotion while placing particular emphasis on the power of nature, and
the primacy of the individual. The power nature possessed over the romantic writers is shown
by the effect nature has on the characters of their literary works. Frankenstein has elements of
Romanticism but at the same time, the text acts as a counter poise to the Romantic ideals.
A key idea in Romantic poetry is the concept of the ‘sublime’. This term conveys the feelings
people experience when they see awe-inspiring landscapes, or find themselves in extreme
situations which elicit both fear and admiration. For example, Shelley described his reaction to
stunning, overwhelming scenery in the poem ‘Mont Blanc’ (1816). The ‘sublime’ finds its place
in Frankenstein at various moments. In the novel, the effect nature has on the protagonist
Victor Frankenstein can be noted when Victor explains how, “It had then filled me with a
sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the soul and allowed it to soar… the sight of the awful and
majestic in nature had indeed always the effect of solemnizing my mind and causing me to
forget the past cares of life”. The sheer beauty of the natural world was enough to move and
cheer up a disgruntled Victor Frankenstein, demonstrating how Romantics found great joy and
almost worshipped their natural world. The Romantic Era thinkers also viewed the power of
the individual to a higher degree than before. As Victor Frankenstein fills this role he says how,
“Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through. . . . A new
species would bless me. . . .” The role and power of Imagination was much emphasized during
the Romantic Era. Victor Frankenstein himself represents the idea of the use of imagination
that could lead to a broader understanding and vision of everyday life. Shelley chooses to
portray Victor as a man who aspires for elevation and uplift through scientific experimentation
yet falls short due to unattainable standards and ideals.
The creature, on the other hand, is shown trying to overcome struggle with morals, humanity,
and even the environment. In the single quote, “The human senses are insurmountable
barriers to our union . . . and if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear…”, the novel can be seen
taking an unusual turn, unlike the conventional romantic novel. In a literary sense, the fiction
story can be seen as an “allegory” pertaining to the emotions/struggles afflicting the romantic
writers at this time. His first pleasure after the dawn of consciousness comes through his
wonder at seeing the moon rise. Caliban-like, he responds wonderfully to music, both natural
and human, and his sensitivity to the natural world has the responsiveness of an emerging
poet. His realization of love for other beings, the inmates of the cottage he haunts and seeks
refuge around, awakens him also to the great desolation as well as disillusionment of
unrequited love when he attempts to reveal his identity to the inmates. His own duality of
situation and character, caught between the states of Adam and Satan, Natural Man and his
thwarted desire, is related by him directly to his reading of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
The novel takes on the Romantic idea of humanity interacting with nature with a conspicuous
gothic twist. Victor Frankenstein commits a crime against nature by building his monster and
is punished not only with the deaths of his wife and father, but also with the guilt that,
because he built the monster that killed them, their blood is on his hands. In both stories the
person who committed the crime against nature is punished by nature itself. The inclusion of a
 21

gothic genre within this romantic novel only serves to further define Mary Shelley as an
influential and ground-breaking writer of her time. We are led to believe that Shelley does not
believe that there will ever be a state of perfection reached in society. She is able to create a
novel that is filled with questionable acts, unfinished business, and even include scientific
research without making it jargon to everyday readers.
“The beauty of the dream vanished” is the reaction of Frankenstein as he encounters his own
monstrous creation. It works as the epitaph—and it is easy to believe that Shelley might have
meant it as such—of Romanticism itself, whose dream of delight and rapture in the inward
depths of human imagination turned to visible nightmare twenty-five years before
Frankenstein, that is, in the Terror of the French Revolution, whose inner rationale and moving
force was Romantic to the core. At any rate, Shelley saw through the pretensions to the inner
contradictions and corruptions of Romanticism, as it was espoused and practiced by those she
knew so well. And though not a systematic treatment, she gives a sense and expression of the
tragic consequences of the stubborn human failure to accept our frailties and fallen nature
that still resonate today.
Inspired and influenced by Percy Shelley’s lyrical drama, Prometheus Unbound, which
celebrates Prometheus as a romantic-revolutionary hero fighting against the oppression of
authority and tradition, exemplified in the god Jupiter, Frankenstein does imbibe certain
tropes and motifs running parallel as well as contrary to the Promethean myth. In Percy
Shelley’s retelling, Jupiter is overthrown and Prometheus is finally free. In Frankenstein, it is
Prometheus—Victor Frankenstein—who is overthrown, the final victim of his own hubris.
What is remarkable about Frankenstein is how Mary Shelley, a teenager when she first put the
story to paper, uses Romantic themes and tropes to subvert Romanticist presumptions. Victor
Frankenstein—fictional and Faustian (insatiable thirst for knowledge of the forbidden in Dr.
Faustus), yet no doubt partially based on Percy Shelley and Lord Byron—comes across as
utterly self-absorbed, obsessed with his own scientific achievement and fame, whatever the
cost, as his own interior dialogue echoes Faustian primal desires : “So much has been done,
exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein—more, far more will I achieve . . . and unfold to the world
the deepest mysteries of creation.” If Mary Shelley was aware of what she was doing—and it
seems that she was—her portrait of Victor’s presumptuous ambition, his self-obsession, and
his ultimate denial to own the repercussions of his actions, is a high parody of the bold
Romantic “genius” who, battles all odds at great personal cost, and seeks to free himself from
the strictures of traditional society and conventional morality.
Though paradoxical in nature, ‘sublimity’ which is an integral part of the Romantic era
writings, more than being romanticized, is challenged in the text. The Romantic faith in
nature, as well as man’s blissful relationship with nature, represents another Romantic myth
that Mary Shelley demystifies in her novel. In the final edition of Frankenstein, nature ceases
to be the benevolent, nurturing, gentle force that the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and so
many other Romantic artists invoked and celebrated. Instead, nature appears as a mighty
machine acting blindly and capriciously in a universe emptied of love, beauty, and
compassion. Mary Shelly’s novel is a critique of the Romantic myth of the artist who puts his
 22

entire trust in the power of imagination. Imagination, she seems to warn, can isolate the
individual from community and from normal human concerns. Also, the obsessive pursuit of a
dream does not allow other dimensions of one’s personality to develop adequately.
Frankenstein, thus, comes across as a novel that not only repudiates or problematizes most of
the doctrines established by Romantic ideology, but anticipates the grave existential questions
about human nature and human existence that characterize Modernism. Thus, the Monster’s
ambiguous nature is especially effective and conveys the disturbing message that each
creature and each creative act possesses the potential for both good and evil. Imagination,
mind, and creativity—categories that formed the foundation of Romanticism’s firm conviction
in man’s superiority and perfection and in human beings’ ability to change themselves and the
world—can all be associated with the Monster and, as a result, can all be distrusted.
2.3 The Rise and Popularity of the Gothic Novel
It is worth noting that poetry was a more preferred form of expression during the Romantic Age
as compared to prose. Some practical reasons may be accounted for the same. The war with
France made paper expensive, causing publishers in the 1790s and early 1800s to prefer
short, dense forms, such as poetry. It might also be argued, in more broadly cultural terms,
that ‘realism’ inherent in the novel form did not ally with the new sensibility of Romanticism.
Flourishing as a form of entertainment, the novel nevertheless underwent several conspicuous
growth spurts in this period. One was the appearance of a politically engaged fiction in the
years immediately before the French Revolution. Another was the rise of women writers to the
prominence that they have held ever since in prose fiction. Yet another was the rise and
popularity of the Gothic novel which reflected reaction against the Enlightenment.
The Gothic Novel emerged in the literary context of the middle 18th century. The word "Gothic"
was used to describe novels dealing with macabre or mysterious events in a medieval setting.
This type of fiction is characterized by horror, violence, supernatural effects, and medieval
elements, sinister ancient edifices, evil conspiracies, hideous apparitions (invariably
interpreted as supernatural, though sometimes ultimately rationalized), the threat of sexual
violation, and intimations of incest, and representing the atmosphere of terror found in
graveyards. This type of novel satisfied the Romantic appetite for wild natural settings, the
Middle Ages, and unrestrained imagination. Usually the story is set against the background of
gothic architecture, especially gloomy, isolated and haunted castles, with mysterious
underground passages and trapdoors. In 1764, Horace Walpole (1717–1797) published The
Castle of Otranto. The book created a sensation and paved the way for many other writers –
Clara Reeve (1729–1807) with The Old English Baron, (1777), Mathew Gregory Lewis (1775–
1818) with The Monk (1796), Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823) with The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) –
who explored the mysterious and terrible, and discussed the topics of death, creation and
destruction, darkness, horror, madness, terror, evil and sometimes weird sexuality. Gothic
novelists delved into a premodern, prerational past as a means of exploring the nature of
power.
A second wave of Gothic novels in the second and third decades of the 19th century
established new conventions. The development of the Gothic Novel had a profound impact on
 23

the emergent Romantic literature. Modern critics have indeed come to consider Gothic fiction
as one phase of the Romantic Movement in the English literature. The Gothic genre
contributed to Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’ (1816) and Keats’s ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ (1819).
Mary Shelley (1797-1851) blended realist, Gothic and Romantic elements to produce her
masterpiece Frankenstein (1818), in which a number of Romantic aspects can be identified.
She quotes from Coleridge’s Romantic poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ in the novel. In
the third chapter Frankenstein refers to his scientific endeavours being driven by his
imagination. Even in its more-vulgar examples, however, Gothic fiction can symbolically
address serious political and psychological issues.
In Gothic novels, the theme of pain is also carried out through the story. In Frankenstein, the
creature also feels pain throughout the book especially when he ran out of the village after
confronting the Delacy’s: “I am alone and miserable; man will not associate with me; but one
as deformed and horrible as me would not deny herself to me”. The scenes where the monster
appears in a gothic setting provide a greater sense of terror for the reader, and increases the
reader’s sense of his looming presence and vengeful spirit.
In Volume I, Chapter 6, Victor has returned to the scene of the crime where his brother
William was killed. “It was completely dark…. I saw lightnings playing… The storm appeared….
The heavens were clouded…. I soon felt rain… its violence quickly increased.” The scene clearly
holds a dark, gothic tone to it. “A flash of lightning illuminated the object.” This is the first time
Victor has seen the monster since he created it, and considering this is where the murder
happened, Victor instantly understands that his creation is an evil murderer.
Most importantly, Frankenstein deals with the most intense element of goth – death. Deaths
and murders are pervasive throughout the book starting with the death of Victor’s Mother
which sets a sad and gloomy tone. When the creature wants revenge on Victor, he uses the act
of murder by killing Victor’s brother, William; friend, Henry Clerval; and wife Elizabeth.
Frankenstein is often called a Gothic novel, on the grounds that the popular horror stories of
its day mostly shared a set of characteristics which justified that label, but it ought not to be
thus classified. Despite certain similarities of method and tone, its subject matter is very
different from that of the classic Gothic novels. The pretence that Frankenstein -- which
employs none of these motifs -- belongs to the Gothic sub-genre serves mainly to obscure the
remarkable originality of its own subject-matter, which is broader and more forward-looking.
Victor Frankenstein might be regarded as a distant literary cousin of the diabolically-inspired
(or seemingly diabolical) villains of the Classic Gothic novels, but his personality and his
ambitions are very different. Although he takes some early inspiration from occult writings of a
kind which the inquisitorially-minded might regard as the devil's work, he undertakes a
decisive change of direction when he decides that it is modern science, not ancient magic, that
will open the portals of wisdom for scholars of his and future generations. By virtue of this
move, Frankenstein began the exploration of imaginative territory into which no previous
author had penetrated (although that was not its initial purpose). For this reason, the novel is
more aptly discussed as a pioneering work of science fiction, albeit one that was written at
 24

least half a century before its time and one which does considerable disservice to the image of
science as an instrument of human progress.
2.4 About the Plot and Narrative Style
The structure of a text refers to the way in which events are organised inside the novel as a
whole. The simplest and commonest structure in novels may be chronological, where events
are told sequentially to the reader. However, the structure of Frankenstein is much more
complex as Mary Shelley uses the technique of embedded narrative. In an embedded narrative,
the main story is told within a framing narrative (think of a painting in a frame which makes
up the whole picture). The novel also incorporates epistolary narration (when a story is told
through letters).
There are three "frames" in Frankenstein —
• The story of Walton and his expedition to the Arctic,
• The story of Frankenstein himself,
• The story the monster tells Frankenstein of his life after his creation.
The novel’s original narrative structure and use of different narrators and different points of
view are all strikingly modern as well. The shifts in narrator and the alternating points of view
are central to the novel’s theme of retrospection paving way for reflection on what may lie
beneath. Critics almost unanimously notice that the novel’s structure is similar to a set of
Chinese boxes, each of which fits into the next larger box. The frame of Frankenstein—the
biggest box of all—is constituted by the letters that Captain Robert Walton, the explorer of the
North Pole, sends to his sister, Mrs. Margaret Saville, in England. These letters (the epistolary
box) open and close the novel. Within these letters, the reader, together with Walton’s sister,
reads the bizarre narrative of Victor Frankenstein and, within Victor’s narrative, the narrative
of the Monster. Interestingly, the narrative of the Monster consists of two different
perspectives: Victor’s account of the Monster and the Monster’s direct confession to Walton.
Consequently, what Mrs. Saville would read is Victor’s doubly mediated story (first Victor’s
version and then Walton’s account of Victor’s story) and the Monster’s triply mediated story
(first Victor’s version, next the Monster’s direct account, and then Walton’s narration of the
Monster’s story).
The narrative style of the novel can also be considered as Russian doll structure (stories within
stories). The largest doll is the narrative of Captain Robert Walton, a friendless and ardent
arctic explorer; inside of it rests the narrative of Victor Frankenstein, a Faustian striver who
secludes himself to pursue the scientific research that will prove his undoing; inside of
Frankenstein's doll rests the smallest doll in the set, the narrative of Frankenstein's lonely and
tenacious creature.
By using such a complex narrative structure, Mary Shelley is able to lead the reader gradually
to the central ideas of the novel which, if introduced suddenly, might be dismissed as
incredulous. In this manner the reader gets different versions of the same story from different
perspectives. By the time Monster's story is narrated in first person, the readers find
themselves ready for ‘suspension of disbelief’ and also prepared to believe that not only can the
 25

monster speak but that it can argue in a rhetorical fashion. Also, if Frankenstein were to
address the reader directly, his narrative would have to reflect his neurotic, obsessive and
ultimately self-destructive personality. Such prose would have had to be repetitive,
fragmentary, inchoate and ultimately incoherent. Through Walton, Shelley is still able to
maintain Frankenstein's first person narrative, but filter it through the voice of a narrator
whose distance from events gives him a calmness that lends coherence and certain stability to
the story.
Mary Shelley's rather atypical approach not to stick to only one narrator and one defined
narrative situation throughout the book creates various impressions on the reader of the novel.
Through the narrative, the parallels between the characters are sketched that link the stories
together, such as the shared ambition and desire for knowledge of Victor & Walton, and the
shared thirst for revenge from Victor and the monster. Walton tells his sister about his meeting
a benevolent but curious man named Victor Frankenstein. Walton chronicles the incredible
confessions of Frankenstein about a monster he created and abandoned in the letters to his
sister, which later become “mock epistolarity” or rather diary entries dedicated to her, as
Walton has no possibility to send the letters to England any more. This story-within-a-story
contains yet another story. In the actual heart of the book is located the tale of the Creature
itself in between the accounts of Victor. The most obvious reason for Walton's presence as
narrator is that it lends a sense of verisimilitude to the work. His letters prepare the reader for
the shocking tale about to be related, while their form attests to their veracity.
Walton's frame also foreshadows general key themes of the novel which will be developed
further throughout the novel and so draws the reader's attention to the leitmotifs of the book.
In a way, he sets the mood and tone for the drama to be unfolded in subsequent pages, e.g. by
telling the reader that he “never saw a man in so wretched a condition” when he first meets
Victor in the Arctic. In their conversation, Victor foreshadows the catastrophic future events by
warning Walton of the inherent dangers in pursuing his course of action. He warns Walton of
the possible consequences of unbridled passion and the route that he chose: “the same course,
exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me what I am, I imagine that you
may deduce an apt moral from my tale”.
2.5 Frankenstein as Science Fiction
Mary Shelley’s vision of frightening scientific and technological possibility now pales when
compared with all that contemporary biomedical science and technology is able to accomplish.
The unimaginable as she imagined it, has in many ways come true.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein must arguably rank as one of the earliest examples of science
fiction. Indeed, a British writer Brian W. Aldiss, who in his history of science fiction, Trillion
Year Spree, calls it “the first real novel of science fiction.” Likewise, Roger Shattuck asserts
that “all written and filmed works in the immense category of science fiction have their roots in
the ground prepared by Faust [on the one hand] and Frankenstein [on the other] with their
opposing attitudes toward forbidden knowledge.” On the contrary, other critics have
determined that the novel’s use of this scientific material is superficial and unconvincing. They
observe that the creature is animated with life by resorting to both contemporary science and
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an older tradition of necromancy and alchemy. This latter material is inimical to science (it will
not conform to the rule of reason in that it has recourse to a supernatural world of spirits and
essences). James Reiger argued that although “Mary Shelley shared her husband’s fascination
with the natural sciences … it would be a mistake to call Frankenstein a pioneer work of
science fiction”, because her science is indistinctly represented and technologically improbable.
In other words, she skips the science.”
Before analysing the novel under the genre of science fiction, it becomes pertinent to look at
the contemporary scenario and the masses’ response to and expectations from the scientific
experiments. At the time of Frankenstein’s publication, the very idea of assembling a being
from scavenged body parts and of such a creature’s real existence could hardly be conceived of
by the average contemporary reader as anything but a fiction. Even so, the author’s husband
Percy Bysshe Shelley alluded already to the possibility of the reality in the preface attributed to
his wife Mary, but which he wrote for the 1818 edition of the novel: “The event on which this
fiction is founded,” he and she explained, “has been supposed by Dr Darwin and some of the
physiological writers of Germany as not of impossible occurrence. I shall not be supposed as
according to the remotest degree of serious faith to such an imagination”. The preface refers
here to Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), grandfather of the more famous Charles, a renowned
physician.
In a quest for the principle of life, Luigi Galvani (1737–1798), a professor of anatomy at the
University of Bologna, performed an extensive series of experiments in “animal electricity” or
“galvanism” in the 1780s and 1790s. Mary had read about the Galvani experiments on dead
frogs, and she wondered, not unreasonably, if electricity might be used to actually reanimate
dead tissue. Mary Shelley was certainly also familiar with the work of Humphrey Davy (1778-
1829), whose paper “The Chemical Effects of Electricity” proved to be one of the seminal works
of 19th century science. Based on Mary Shelley’s journal entries from the same period, critics
conjecture that she probably read Davy’s famous treatise in October 1816 while working on
Frankenstein and that she was strongly influenced by his personality and ideas in the creation
of M. Waldman’s character. Several critics document that M. Waldman’s speech is based on
the work of Humphry Davy. Listening to his passionate lectures, Victor is entirely convinced by
M. Waldman’s ideas, and he becomes his disciple. According to Brian Aldiss, she knew enough
of the contemporary scientific world to send her protagonist to study, conduct, and complete
his experiments at the University of Ingolstadt, which was “renowned at the time as a centre
for science”. Likewise, she gives him an express and special interest in “electricity and
galvanism”. As a teenager, Victor became enamoured of what was then called natural
philosophy, and in particular, with the work of the 16th-century German alchemist Cornelius
Agrippa. Natural philosophy was something of a catchall term referring to those branches of
philosophy that considered the natural world, but not always in terms of experimental results
in the manner of modern scientific methods. But when Victor’s father sees this he says,
“Ah! Cornelius Agrippa, my dear Victor, do not waste your time on this, it is sad trash.”
Frankenstein, a follower of Agrippa von Nettesheim and Paracelsus, two 16th-century Faustian
prototypes, emerges as a Faustian character himself. Like Faust, he is “deeply smitten with the
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thirst for knowledge” and desires to learn “the secrets of heaven and earth”. Like Faust, he
studies everything—in this case, “electricity and galvanism”, “mathematics”, “chemistry” in
particular, “physiology”, and “anatomy”—yet always remains “discontented and unsatisfied”.
Victor becomes a lost soul when he tries his ghastly experiments on the dead and loses his
moral compass when he becomes obsessed with animating the dead. And like Faust, his
search culminates in an astounding, but troubling, technological achievement. What is more,
the Faustian bargain, the deal with the devil, lurks behind his entire enterprise.
The novel begins with a series of letters from an adventurer named Robert Walton to his sister.
Besides, Frankenstein, Walton, who has undertaken an arctic journey in hopes of discovering
the North Pole, sees himself as something of a scientist: “I may there discover the wondrous
power which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand celestial observations that
require only this voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever.”
Walton hopes to discover the source of the Earth’s magnetism and to clarify some astronomical
observations, but instead, after his ship is trapped in the ice, he sees a dogsled off in the
distance driven by some huge creature, and the next morning another sled, with only one dog
remaining alive, carrying the emaciated Victor Frankenstein. It is then the two stories of
Walton and Victor’s scientific pursuits converge and parallels can be drawn. The story that
Victor tells to Walton makes up the more familiar part of the novel. But even then it’s not until
we get to chapter 5 that Victor brings his famous creation to life. These early chapters in which
Victor describes his family history and his early life, his childhood meetings with his lifelong
love Elizabeth, and his close friend Henry Clerval, and his student days, are crucial to the
claim that Frankenstein might be regarded as the first work of modern science fiction.
Elizabeth and Henry will play crucial roles in the melodrama that follows, but it is Victor’s
education that plays a pertinent role in shaping his scientific temperament.
By harnessing electricity to reanimate an eight-foot monster made from the stitched-together
parts of stolen corpses, which then goes on a terrible rampage, Victor achieves a scientific
breakthrough but becomes repulsive at the first sight of him. He simply abandons it and all
responsibility for it, but when the creature demands that Victor create a companion, not an
unreasonable request for a creature which has already learned that he’s fated to be an outcast
from society, like Milton’s Satan, Victor at first agrees, but then later reneges on his promise. A
critic has commented on the theme of moral dilemmas versus scientific advancements
presented in the novel: “At the heart of Frankenstein is the tension between the powers of
science confers on individuals and the just restraints of community”. He further opines,
“Frankenstein, both creator and creature, stands not for science in general but for the
acquisition of scientific power foolishly pursued without the wisdom of the world”.
In the novel, it’s not hard to understand why the creature becomes vengeful. More importantly,
it’s not hard to understand how Shelley at the astonishingly young age of 18 was not only
inventing one of the archetypal monsters of science fiction, but one of its central concerns as
well — that a scientific education divorced from moral education, and that the abandonment or
responsibility for one’s creations or achievements could lead to disaster.
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The monster is ugly all right, but the next surprise for the first-time readers of this novel was
that he’s far from inarticulate. For several chapters in the middle of the novel, the creature
meets with Victor and tells him of his own experiences, learning that fire can be a source of
warmth and also a source of injury, for example, and learning language by eavesdropping on a
poor family, the De Laceys. Eventually, the creature even learns to read and write, and one of
the first books he reads is John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which he takes as a true history, since
he hasn’t mastered the distinction between imagination and reality. The creature’s hunger for
learning makes for an interesting contrast with Victor’s own education, not to mention Victor’s
various failures as a father or a teacher of his creation.
In conclusion, it is worth saying that the novel Frankenstein is one of the pioneers in science
fiction genre. The epoch of industrial revolution contributed to this genre’s emergence as a
reflection of society’s concerns and expectations. However, one cannot claim that the novel is a
pure example of science fiction because it has elements of the supernatural and gothic, and is
also influenced by the aesthetics and ethics of Romanticism. Science plays an ambiguous as
well as ambivalent role in the novel; it is a forbidden fruit of knowledge that can bring both
blessing and curse. Knowledge is power, indeed, but humans may appear to be not strong
enough to deal with that power properly. In fact, the issue of responsibility is a crucial
message in the novel and remains up to date for further generations. While Shelley mirrors the
rapacious effect of insatiable desire to probe the secrets of the earth in the novel, she employs
a subtext filled with contradictory language, which implies that such inquisitiveness is innate
to mankind and virtually inseparable from the human condition.
Our society currently wrestles with such the moral and ethical implications of artificial
intelligence, cloning, DNA, genetics, bioengineering, biotechnology and stem cells, which
ultimately leads to controversy regarding the roles, uses, loopholes and limitations of science.
The book does not represent the issues of then prevalent Romantic era, but provides a
continued fodder for timeless questions on the role of science in human progress, technology,
and evolution.
2.6 Portrayal of Women in Frankenstein
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has long been labelled a "woman's book." Sandra Gilbert and
Susan Gubar write that the book describes a "woman's helpless alienation in a male society,"
and Mary Poovey calls it a "myth of female powerlessness" which justifies the female writer's
uncontrollable desire for self-expression. All these interpretations rightly insist that Shelley is
concerned about the position of women in a patriarchal culture. Mary Shelley, doubtless
inspired by her mother's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, specifically portrays the
consequences of a social construction of gender which values men over women. Victor
Frankenstein's nineteenth-century Genevan society is founded on a rigid division of sex-roles:
the man inhabits the public sphere, the woman is relegated to the private or domestic sphere.
The men in Frankenstein's world all work outside the home, as public servants (Alphonse
Frankenstein), as scientists (Victor), as merchants (Clerval and his father), or as explorers
(Walton). The women are confined to the home. The qualities of female innocence, purity and
passivity that were routinely celebrated in written and visual culture and continuously
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reinforced through religious teaching, medical and psychological theories and the law, also
‘justified’ the exclusion of women from the institutions of power that shaped their futures.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, issues of gender identity are explored through the creation of
an unnatural monster. With its central characters that exemplify the idealized gender roles of
the time, the creation of Frankenstein’s monster poses critical questions dealing with the social
make-up of nineteenth-century British society. Particularly, the unusual nature of the
monster’s birth as well as his subsequent experiences serve as counterpoint to foreground the
significance of female gender roles in British society, and ultimately suggest that far from being
merely companions to men, women instead play a central role in contributing to the stability of
the prevailing social order.
From the outset, the presentation of the male gender in Frankenstein is marked by strong
similarities with traditional male archetypes. Male characters display a detachment from
domestic matters and in its place, possess an obsessive single-mindedness in the pursuit of
their goals. Victor Frankenstein epitomizes masculine attributes with his logical and composed
nature, as well as a strong scientific bent well-suited for the male-centric field of natural
philosophy. Frankenstein’s monster similarly parallels his master’s obsessive nature through
his own insular fixation on acquiring a mate and subsequently, on revenge. By contrast, the
female gender in Frankenstein corresponds closely to Victorian ideals of women as familial
care-givers. Elizabeth Lavenza is described as “docile and good tempered”, yet “gay and
playful”; these seemingly paradoxical qualities underscore Elizabeth’s role as that of the model
Victorian woman whose sole duty concerns tending to her husband and family. This sense of
altruistic benevolence is shared by Safie De Lacey; save for “some jewels and a small sum of
money” which provide for her escape, she renounces great luxury to reunite with her lover,
Felix De Lacey. With its hyper-idealized portrayals of the female gender, Shelley goes further to
explicate the significant influence of such maternal figures.
Crucially, the perceived significance of a female nurturing presence is alluded to in the
monster’s cry of how no Eve soothed his sorrows, or shared his thoughts; when he was alone,
which emphasizes not just the prolonged isolation of the monster from birth, but also
specifically how “Eve”, or a necessarily female companion, will provide the affection which he
desires. The monster’s specific requests of female companionship for “the interchange of those
sympathies” when thus contextualized therefore stresses the patent importance of the female
gender in its domestic roles of mother and nurturer. There is a plethora of female characters
that pervade Frankenstein’s supportive environment – though Frankenstein himself suffers
great tragedy throughout the novel.
Carolyn Merchant in The Death of Nature explains that during the transition to early modern
capitalism, women lost ground in the sphere of production (through curtailment of their roles
in the trades), while in the sphere of reproduction William Harvey and other male physicians
were instrumental in undermining women’s traditional roles in midwifery and hence women’s
control over their own bodies. During the same period, Francis Bacon advocated extracting
nature’s secrets from “her” bosom through science and technology. The subjugation of nature
as female was thus integral to the scientific method as power over nature. In constituting
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nature as female – "I pursued nature to her hiding places", Victor Frankenstein participates in
a gendered construction of the universe whose negative ramifications are everywhere apparent
in the novel. The uninhibited scientific penetration and technological exploitation of female
nature is only one dimension of a patriarchal encoding of the female as passive and willing
receptacle of male desire. The destruction of the female implicit in Frankenstein's usurpation
of the natural mode of human reproduction symbolically erupts in his nightmare following the
animation of his creature, in which his bride-to-be is transformed in his arms into the corpse
of his dead mother – “a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the
folds of the flannel". By stealing the female's control over reproduction, Frankenstein has
eliminated the female's primary biological function and source of cultural power.
While Frankenstein elucidates the marked importance of women as guiding, maternal figures
in the family, the novel also explores the centrality of female gender roles as bulwarks of the
social order. On an organic level, the artificial nature of the monster’s creation renders moot
the biological imperative of the female gender; this theme is actualized through the monster’s
systematic elimination of feminized characters in the novel, including biological males such as
Henry Clerval whose spending of an entire winter “consumed in [Frankenstein’s] sick room”
nonetheless recalls the maternal selflessness. Alongside the dearth of female nurturing and
affection in the monster’s psyche, this thematic paucity of female influences culminates in a
barren wasteland, with two masculine figures consumed in an endless game of cat-and-mouse,
devoid of feminine influence and consequently simply the “prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet
unquenched”. The novel suggests that even without the biological imperative of the female sex,
their social gender-roles as maternal nurturers are enshrined into the natural societal
equilibrium, or nature itself, and in this way, on equal footing with the gendered roles of men.
At its core, Frankenstein is a parable which explores the manifest possibilities and
consequences when humanity confronts and breaches the limits of nature. However, through
imbuing its characters with conventionally gender-specific traits, Frankenstein illustrates that
the female gender roles of nineteenth-century British society are not simply accessory to that
of men; insofar as women are instrumental to the nurturing of children and loved ones, Shelley
does not simply foreground their maternal significance but elevates its importance to parity
with men’s social roles. Shelley turns contemporary gender doctrine on its head – far from the
caregiving and child-rearing roles of women thus limiting them to the periphery of the
mainstream society, it is precisely their indispensability that situates them centre-stage.
Through this recuperation of the female gender and its social significance, Shelley strongly
echoes the thought of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, who famously advocated for
widespread women’s education in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, on largely similar
grounds. The creation of Frankenstein’s monster and its inability to nullify female gender roles
attests to the latter’s kaleidoscopic significance in both the domestic and social spheres – and
ultimately pave the way for the ‘New Woman’ to break out of these very limiting confines.
2.7 Themes and Characters
2.7.1 Themes
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The novel addresses multiple issues—including the nature of knowledge, the power of
imagination, the function of the artist and of the artistic act, and the relationship with nature
—that obsessed all the major Romantic writers. The novel also explores themes such as
education, alienation and loss of friendship or love, rejection and abandonment, responsibility
and ethical conduct. Some discuss the novel as a version of the Promethean myth, and others
consider the novel a variant of the Faustian myth. Some equate Victor’s laboratory with an
artificial womb, reading Mary Shelley’s narrative as a critique of the attempt to deprive women
of their power, as a “maker of children”; others read the novel as a warning against the
usurpation of God. Some believe that the novel is a critique of a society based exclusively on
reason (a model supported by Mary Shelley’s parents and by her husband), whereas others
argue that the story is a critique of the masculine model of knowledge. Some read it as an
allegory of the colonial master-slave relationship; others, as an allegory of revolution. But more
importantly, the novel articulates a vision that significantly contradicts the idealistic Romantic
perspective on these issues.
Some of the themes are discussed below:
Revenge – The motif of revenge is pervasive throughout Frankenstein and is reflected by the
chain of events that occur as the scientist and the monster become vindictive against each
other. Frankenstein’s monster tries to fit into society with the desire of acceptance but receives
only loathsome reception and fear from the humans, and in retaliation, he swears revenge on
humans and his creator, Victor Frankenstein. Victor wants to avenge the murders of his near
and dear ones – William, Clerval and Elizabeth. However, the feeling of mutual hatred and
vengeful feelings result not in a kind of actual triumph after inflicting harm on the other,
rather each becomes more miffed, alienated and isolated. This can be expressed by the way
both increasingly lose their mental peace and sanity as the story progresses resulting in
tragedy with the death of Victor and the suicide attempt by the monster, though the end
remains ambiguous.
Power of language – Frankenstein is a text that probes deeply the power vested in acquiring
language and language as a marker of one’s identity. Observing the cottagers talking with each
other, the Monster assumes that relationships are formed based on language and declares that
this method of communicating may be the key to all his predicaments. He seems to reason
that, if language creates community, his hideous appearance will no longer prevent him from
entering the community of people. Unfortunately, language acquisition does not help the
Monster in gaining acceptance rather it opens, like Pandora’s Box, a long series of terrible and
painful events in the novel. In Greek mythology, Pandora was the first human female. Her
name means “all gifts” but she is, ironically, the cause of all man’s afflictions. Fashioned out of
clay by Hephaestus at Zeus’s order, Pandora was created in order to punish Prometheus and
humanity. She was given “gifts” by Olympian gods and sent to Prometheus’ brother,
Epimetheus. When she opened her box, all kinds of evils were released into the world.
Similarly, Victor is a Promethean creator, and the “gift” of language that his creature obtains
may be considered Victor’s nemesis. The pain provoked by the failure of his dream to gain
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access to the community of men through language is directly responsible for the Monster’s
subsequent violence.
This first real dialogue between Victor and his creature reveals the ironical difference between
the language of the creator and the creation. Victor, who almost lost the ability to
communicate and, as he claims, the ability to judge, appears as a deranged and irrational
man. The Monster, on the other hand, is articulate and logical, eloquently giving strong
arguments laced with emotions in a speech of rhetorical power.
Birth and creation –Frankenstein hinges on the theme of birth and creation to a large extent.
The story shows how Victor creates a monster and instils life in it after gaining scientific
knowledge of life at Ingolstadt. The monster was born motherless (like Eve in the book of
Genesis or in Milton’s Paradise Lost) in Victor’s womb-like laboratory. Unlike Adam, however,
whose celestial father offered him paradise, love, and divine presence, the Monster is rejected
and abandoned by his creator. Victor plays God or pretends to become one to create life.
However, his over-weening ambition of creating life becomes the cause of his ruin. The
creature, he has created, forces him to create a companion. When Victor denies he turns into a
real monster. In other words, Victor’s secret toil, as Mary Shelley had stated, was an unnatural
and irreligious act which costs him dearly.
Isolation and Alienation
Although depicted at the secondary level, the novel also explores the theme of alienation and
isolation. In his urge to discover the short routes to various countries (an ambitious project for
the benefit of mankind), Walton disobeys his dying father’s injunction to his uncle not to allow
him to take to sea-faring. But after getting a handsome fortune from his cousin, he launches
himself on the expedition. His only link with the world is writing letters to his sister Mrs.
Saville, England.
Victor’s isolation and alienation is self- imposed; he does not share his thoughts and ideas
even with Clerval who nurses him back for over a month. He worked on his project in an
apartment completely cut off from human habitation, and he completes his project in his
workshop of ‘filthy creation’ which he then abandons for good. His horror and anguish
continue to pierce his heart and mind and yet he cannot divulge his act or share his emotions
with anyone. He witnesses the tragic and unjust execution of Justine and knows the real
culprit; yet chooses to be aloof and cut off – creates the she- monster, but dismembers it before
bringing it to life. At this junction, his isolation gets more intense as it is accompanied by
looming threat, which turns into a sinister reality with Clerval’s murder, and later that of his
newly – wedded wife Elizabeth. For yet another time, he chooses to isolate himself in the
eternal pursuit of the monster, and ends up as a dead man on the vessel. Thus, his alienation
or isolation is physical as well as moral or spiritual.
The monster’s isolation and alienation is caused first by his creator; then by the unjust
treatment he gets from mankind. He is treated as a repulsive creature and a full-blown
anomaly because of hideous shape and appearance. He is humiliated, beaten up and thrashed
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mercilessly by the humans. He seeks domestic bliss, but is rejected by the people. In fact, he is
isolated from the moment he is created.
Crossing Boundaries
Mary Shelley has very beautifully woven the idea of the crossing limits in this novel. Through
Victor Frankenstein, she explains that humans have certain limits despite grand ambitions.
When these limits are crossed, the natural order is destroyed. This interruption rebounds
when the limits are crossed. Victor’s attention to Waldman’s lectures and his obsession with
the idea of creating a new life is equated to the crossing of boundaries set by nature. Victor
eventually pays the price as he loses his family members and friends until he dies while
chasing the Creature.
Responsibility
The novel, Frankenstein, highlights the theme of individual responsibility as well as social
responsibility. Victor’s ambitious project of the creation of a new life reflects the lack of
realization of the individual and social responsibility. Victor plays with the natural laws of
birth and creation until it takes the lives of several of his family members. Justine’s death
signifies that entire the judicial process lacks responsibility when they punish an innocent. In
other words, individuals and society often fail to respond to their duties and responsibilities
toward the family and community.
One of the major issues raised in the novel is responsibility of science. As an evidence of newly
brought technological progress, Frankenstein has passion for what he does, but he is not able
to bear responsibility.
Secrecy
Victor conceives of science as a mystery to be probed; its secrets, once discovered and
explored, must be zealously guarded. Considering this stance of Victor, he seems to be echoing
Francis Bacon’s views (a 17th century lawyer, statesman, philosopher, and master of the
English tongue with a strong scientific temperament) on probing the mysteries of nature. He
considers M. Krempe, the natural philosopher he meets at Ingolstadt, a model scientist: “an
uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science.” Victor’s ultimate fixation with
creating life is shrouded in secrecy, and his single-minded fanatic pursuit of the monster to kill
him remains a secret to others until Walton hears his tale.
Whereas Victor continues in his secrecy out of shame and guilt, the monster is forced into
seclusion by his grotesque appearance and uncouth disposition. Walton serves as the final
confessor for both, and their tragic relationship becomes immortalized in Walton’s letters. In
confessing his transgression and unfortunately poignant life story before he dies, Victor
escapes the stifling secrecy that has ruined his life; likewise, the monster takes advantage of
Walton’s presence to forge a human connection, in a desperate hope of seeking sympathy in
commensuration with his miserable existence.
Education – The description of the creature’s first experiences in the world allow Mary Shelley
to reflect on educational issues, a major theme in the novel as well as a topic that intensely
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preoccupied her, Percy, and her parents. The Monster’s experiences initially appear to allude to
Jean Jacques Rousseau’s famous concept of the ‘Noble Savage’, or the natural man.
The monster gets to read Milton’s Paradise Lost, Plutarch’s Lives, and Goethe’s Sorrows of
Werter—all written in French. Out of the three, he becomes enamoured of Paradise Lost,
construing it as ‘true history’. The three books that Mary Shelley chooses are books that she
herself was reading in the years she worked on Frankenstein. That the Monster considers
books a “prize” and a “treasure” is no surprise, considering how important the experience of
reading and studying books was in Mary Shelley’s own life. Often, she took books to her
mother’s grave in St. Pancras Churchyard, and reading became a way of connecting with her
dead mother. The Monster’s intuition that the acquisition of language could give him access to
the community of men and help him establish a position and an identity proved, after all,
correct.
Biblical Themes
The Biblical myths and allusions are manifest throughout the narrative structure of the novel.
In Chapter 4, Mary Shelley offers an interesting analogy of the biblical story in which Eve is
tempted by the serpent to eat from the forbidden tree of knowledge— the knowledge of good
and evil. In the biblical story, Eve falls into the temptation. Interestingly enough, in
Frankenstein, Victor, who listens to Waldman’s seductive words, is entrapped by an ardent
desire to transgress the limits of human knowledge and explore “the deepest mysteries of
creation.”
The monster sees similarities between himself and Milton’s Adam, but also the terrible
differences: “He came forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous . .
. but I was wretched, helpless, and alone.” At times he considers Milton’s Satan a “fitter
emblem of my condition,” for the bitterness and envy that well up within him. The fall of
Frankenstein’s creature occurs because of the revulsion and rejection he experiences in his
every attempt at human contact and fellowship, beginning with his own creator. “I had feelings
of affection,” he laments, “and they were requited by detestation and scorn.” When he openly
seeks the friendship and compassion of the peasant family he has secretly watched for weeks,
their horrified and violent rebuff finally breaks him: “For the first time the feelings of revenge
and hatred filled my bosom … The mildness of my nature had fled, and all within me was
turned to gall and bitterness.” The creature becomes the “fiend,” and he murders in turn
Frankenstein’s young brother, his best friend, and his new bride.
But despite the thread of Milton’s theology running through Frankenstein, Shelley turns away
from Milton’s appropriation of the felix culpa, the “Fortunate Fall” that leads to an even greater
redemption. But there is no redemption in Frankenstein; not for Frankenstein, whose hubris
not only leaves a path of destruction, but which also leaves him narcissistically unrepentant.
Shelley’s “stern and unyielding” condemnation, Roger Shattuck (a scholar and critic)
comments, “of the presumptuous and selfish actions of Frankenstein in creating and then
abandoning a new form of life is nowhere softened. She minces no words to tell us that for all
his striving, her Modern Prometheus deserves not the glory he seeks but the humiliating death
he finds in the barren wastes of the Arctic.” And not for Frankenstein’s misbegotten progeny,
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Aldiss offers his tragic epitaph, “Instead of hope and forgiveness, there remain only the
misunderstanding of men and the noxious half-life of the monster.” Frankenstein ends with
the creature, determined in his self-loathing to end his existence, “lost in darkness and
distance.”
2.7.2 Characters
Victor Frankenstein – Victor is a modern scientist unleashed upon a society which is caught
unaware of the repercussions of Victor‘s deadly creation. His ambition leads him to become
arrogant and extremely single-minded in his scientific pursuit. He neglects his family,
abandons his creation and fails to take responsibility for his actions which leads to a chain of
deaths of his kith and kin. Not fully aware of the consequences of his creating a new race of
humans, he spends his entire life trying to destroy the same creation. Gradually, he comes to
realise his culpability and sets out to destroy the Monster even at the cost of his own life.
Despite hunting the Monster across the length and breadth of Europe, Victor fails in this
mission and dies in the Arctic aboard Walton's ship.
Victor embodies the unbridled ego and the one who must satisfy his urge to know all and use
that learning to create a new race of man. Victor represents the id, the part of the psyche that
is governed by the instinctive impulses of aggression, and becomes aggrieved by moral and
ethical dilemmas later in his life as well as in his death. After William’s death, Victor’s guilty
conscience pricks him hard and he perceives himself as a diabolical creator, whose demonic
desires and actions resulted in disastrous consequences. Associated with Faust and Satan for
aspiring to absolute knowledge, Victor is now identifiable with Cain, the original murderer from
the Bible. Like Cain, the oldest son of Adam and Eve, Victor is the oldest son of the
Frankensteins. Although Cain actually murders his innocent brother, Abel, Victor feels morally
responsible for his innocent brother’s death, and like Cain, who becomes a fugitive and
vagabond, Victor, in the end becomes a wanderer.
Robert Walton – Robert is a young and passionate scientist whose entire life focuses on one
dream—to navigate through the seas surrounding the North Pole to the North Pacific Ocean.
He wants to satisfy his obsessive “curiosity” by discovering “a part of the world never before
visited” and by stepping on a land “never before imprinted by the foot of man.” Despite the
people who try to convince Walton that the pole is nothing more than a cold, barren place, he
continues to believe that the region is beautiful and delightful. But more importantly, the pole
represents for Walton the promise for great discoveries in the field of magnetism and astrology
and the possibility of finding a terrestrial paradise in the very heart of the North Pole. Walton
seems to have traits similar to that of Victor. In the frigid territories of the North Pole, Walton
meets a man, Victor, whose feelings and ideas about friendship are clearly similar to his own
ideas. Walton’s dreams have recurrent themes: prominence and fame; conquering and
dominating nature; an almost unbalanced, insane dedication to an idea; and an unhealthy,
selfish separation from the world. These obsessive dreams parallel the most reprehensible
dream of all—Victor Frankenstein’s fixation to create life.
Elizabeth Lavenza – Elizabeth is the model woman of the society – pleasant, delicate, sensitive
to the beauties of nature and poetry, and, above all, capable of tending to the domestic needs,
 36

and improving the disposition and alleviating the troubled souls of people around her. In a
treatise written in 1797, The Duties of the Female Sex, Thomas Gisborne remarks that the
cultivation of faculties able to “unbend the brow of the learned, to refresh the over-laboured
faculties of the wise” represents one of women’s fundamental duties, one from which the entire
“mankind” benefits. And yet, Victor’s description of Elizabeth’s virtues and of the differences in
terms of education and comportment among Elizabeth, Clerval, and himself reveals a number
of disturbing tendencies in Victor’s attitude and character. Elizabeth has a “saintly soul” and
“celestial eyes,” and she is the “spirit of love.” She modestly calls the difficult task of taking
care of a family constituted exclusively by men “my trifling occupations,” and remarks how well
rewarded she is when the “happy, kind faces around [her]” reconfirm her good work and
validate her efforts to please and enchant everybody. Elizabeth seems to have internalized her
role as a passive agent and caretaker of the family whose life and longing are limited to her
family needs. She becomes a victim of Monster’s vengeful nature and is ultimately killed.
Henry Clerval – Henry Clerval, the son of a Genevan merchant, is Victor’s best and only
friend. Like Elizabeth, Clerval is passionate about literature. Clerval serves as a foil to Victor’s
scientific temperament. His powerful imagination and his love for books of “chivalry and
romance” translate into a strong interest in composing songs and stories abounding in heroic
deeds and glorious adventures. He is an artist at heart, a person whose heart is imbued with
the power of fantasy and one who believes in his dreams of childhood.
Monster - The monster is, of course, Mary Shelley’s famous invention, and his narrative
(chaps. 11–16) forms the highest achievement of the novel, more engrossing than the
magnificent and almost surrealistic pursuit of the climax. Frankenstein’s dejected creature
stands out as a quintessential figure of almost heroic pathos.
At the centre of Frankenstein is the Monster’s own story. The “horrid thing” of Mary Shelley’s
dream, the “filthy mass that moved and talked,” has all the frightening appeal of the putrefying
creatures of horror tales. But at the same time, it is the first of a new species—a robot, or more
specifically, an android, programmed to destroy all whom its creator outwardly loves. Half
human, half machine, it falls somewhere between life and death, a thing so unnatural that any
human it meets responds with an instinctive and overwhelming loathing. Even Walton, at the
end of Frankenstein’s long story, knowing what he will see, confronts the Monster and
confesses that “I dared not again raise my eyes to his face, there was something so scaring and
unearthly in his ugliness.”
During his journey from the formative to the latter states of consciousness, the monster
undergoes a metamorphosis. His stay outside De Lacey's household exposes him to the
wonders of language, expression and education. From an inarticulate simpleton, he develops,
through the acquisition of language and the reading of sophisticated texts into an educated
being whose rhetorical abilities are indeed impressive. However, after he is shunned by the
same family, he becomes disillusioned. From a sensitive, reasoning, and articulate being whose
crimes resulted from his mistreatment at the hands of humanity, the monster mutates into a
grunting brute, whose violent and cruel nature could only be understood as the product of
science daring to usurp the god-like power of creation.
 37

Despite his ugliness, the monster evokes pity as he lives and acts in a purely rational world
and does not have any touch of magical powers. This absence of magical features makes the
tragedy of the monster even deeper because he is not perceived as a wizard but just as an alien
or outcast. The author demonstrates how loneliness and despair lead to the gradual loss of
humanity, thus blaming society for creating monsters. It can be observed that at the end of the
novel the Monster undergoes the most spectacular evolution.
The greatest paradox and most astonishing achievement of Mary Shelley’s novel is that the
monster is more human than his creator. This nameless being, as much a Modern Adam as
his creator is a Modern Prometheus, is more lovable than his creator and more hateful, more
to be pitied and more to be feared, and above all more able to give the attentive reader that
shock of added consciousness in which aesthetic recognition compels a heightened realization
of the self.

Self-Assessment Questions
1. Discuss the various shifts in the narrative voice of the novel. What is the effect of
presenting different characters’ viewpoints, especially those of Victor and the
monster?
2. Discuss the role and use of biblical elements in Frankenstein.
3. Frankenstein begins and ends with letters written by Robert Walton. Why do you
think that Mary Shelley chose to have him frame the novel? How would your
opinions of Victor Frankenstein and his creation differ if their story was told
directly by Victor Frankenstein himself?
4. Frankenstein is often used as an example of ethical vs. non-ethical
scientific/medical procedure. Do you think that the way that Victor created his
creature was ethical? Should Victor have made his creature at all? Explain.

2.8 Summary
Dear student, in this lesson you have learnt about the various genres under which the text can
be studied. It has also given you a peep into the structure, style and narratorial voice used in
the novel. After reading the lesson, now you are well-equipped in comprehending the themes
motifs, and major characters of the novel. The lesson has also provided you with the important
questions based on the prescribed novel. Lastly, the model questions and suggested readings
will help you prepare for your final examination.
2.9 References
 Benford, Criscillia. "Listen to my tale": Multilevel Structure, Narrative Sense Making,
and the Inassimilable in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein”, in Narrative, Vol. 18, No. 3
(OCTOBER 2010), pp. 324-346.
https://www.britannica.com/art/English-literature/The-Romantic-period
 38

 Ellis, Markman. “Fictions of science in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.”

https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/SSE/article/view/537
 Nicholson, Michael. “The Beauty of the Dream Vanished”: Frankenstein, the Fall, and
the Failures of Romanticism” https://www.mbird.com/2018/10/the-beauty-of-the-
dream-vanished-frankenstein-the-fall-and-the-failures-of-romanticism/
 Stableford, Brian. “Frankenstein and the Origins of Science Fiction.”
http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/stable.html
 Van der Laan, J. M. “Frankenstein as Science Fiction and Fact” in Bulletin of Science,
Technology & Society, 30(4), 298–304, 2010, SAGE Publications.
 Wolschak, Dorothea. “The narrative structure of "Frankenstein"
https://www.grin.com/document/275971
2.10 Further Readings
 Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Updated Edition. Langhorne, Pennysylvania: Chelsea House Publishers, 2007.
 Fairclough, Peter, ed. Three Gothic Novels. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1968.
 Hamberg, Cynthia. “My Hideous Progeny: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” Webmaster My
Hideous Progeny, 1999 - 2011.
 Lederer, Susan E. Frankenstein: Penetrating the Secrets of Nature. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 2002.
 Schor, Esther. The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004
 Seed, David. Anticipations: Essays on Early Science Fiction and its Precursors. Syracuse:
Syracuse University Press, 1995.
2.11 Model Questions
1. Who is the real protagonist in Frankenstein? Is it Victor Frankenstein, who is also
the namesake of the novel? Or is it Frankenstein’s creature?
2. What is the role of the letters and written communication throughout the novel?
3. Discuss the portrayal of women in Frankenstein. Does such portrayal reflect the
spirit of the age?
4. Discuss the use of Promethean myth in the novel. What do the characters of Victor
Frankenstein and Robert Walton owe to Prometheus in his double role of fire-
bringer and creator of humanity? Does Mary Shelly share other Romantic poets’
enthusiasm for Prometheus and Satan, the divine rebels?
5. The Monster claims that the book that impressed him the most was Milton’s
Paradise Lost, and in his first conversation with Victor he identifies with both
Adam and Satan. Whom does the Monster identify with most – Adam or Satan?

^^^^^
39
 40

Lesson 3

PREFACE TO LYRICAL BALLADS-I

Structure
3.0 Objective
3.1 Introduction
3.2 About the Author
3.3 A Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: Introduction
3.4 A Review of the Text
3.5 Critical Evaluation of the Text
3.6 Summary
3.7 References
3.8 Further Readings
3.9 Model Questions
3.0. Objective
After reading this lesson you will be able to:
● introduce William Wordsworth as a critic
● highlight the key concerns of ‘The Preface’ as a Romantic Manifesto
● discuss the creative process of poetic composition
● bring to light the departure of ‘The Preface’ as a critical practice
3.1. Introduction
Dear student, Wordsworth's 'Preface' to the Lyrical Ballads (1800), which is a part of your
prescribed study is an important literary document. It bristles with all sorts of literary and
aesthetic problems which have baffled critics all along. It is a landmark in the history of
literary criticism.
The lesson will make a general introduction to the Preface and then set out to elucidate
its contents point by point. It will, therefore, present to you an abridged and simplified version
of the text under different headings such as 'Poetic Diction', 'Subject Matter of Poetry',
Language, 'What is a Poet?' etc. It will take up a discussion of Wordsworth's theory of the
Creative Process as well as his theory of Poetic Diction.
3.2. About the Author
William Wordsworth was born in 1770 at Cockermouth in the Lake District of England.
His father was John Wordsworth, attorney and agent to the Earl of Landsdale. His father died
when he was thirteen and his mother died when eight. He had four brothers and a sister
 41

named Dorothy. The children were brought up mostly by relatives. William Wordsworth had
his early education in the Grammar School at Hawkshead in Lancashire. Later he entered
Cambridge University where he graduated in 1791.
The real development and education of Wordsworth lay in his contact with Nature. In
1790 he went on a walking tour of the Continent. He visited France on the eve of the
Revolution and wanted to take an active part in it, but his uncle called him back. He had to
listen to them as he was financially dependent on them. A legacy of £ 900 from a friend made
him financially independent and he settled in AIfoxden where he developed his friendship with
Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This was a memorable friendship in literary history. They made a
joint effort and together produced the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. In 1800 appeared a second
edition of the Lyrical Ballads, with a preface attached to it. It is this preface which concerns us,
as it became a historical document, and marks the beginning of Romantic Criticism. It marks
the end of the Neo-classical creed of Authority, and endeavors to free literature and literary
criticism from the bondage of the Neo-classical rules. It does not believe in applying a set of
readymade rules to literature to judge its excellence or drawbacks. It does not set any fixed or
permanent models before the writers.
The most revolutionary point of Romantic 'criticism is that it discards the theory of
imitation which has been the faith of the critics since the days of Aristotle. According to
Wordsworth, poetry is not a mode of imitation but "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings".
Shelley calls poetry the "expression of the imagination". According to Romantic criticism all
poetry is born of imagination, and the critic's function is to reveal its working. Literary
judgment has not to take into consideration set rules but has to take into account the working
of imagination and genuine emotion.
Romantic criticism deals with fundamental questions, such as "what is poetry?” "What
is its true appeal?" and "who is a poet?" Criticism becomes almost creative. The critic
endeavors to enter the heart and mind of the poet with sympathy and understanding. The
critic too has to use his imagination to understand the poet's mood and emotions. For,
according to the Romantics, poetry is the product of the artist's mood and emotions, and not
his intellect.
Romantic criticism refutes the neo-classical conception of the impact of social
environment on literature. Eighteenth century critics believe that the literary process is
conditioned by social factors. It is for this reason that we find in Neo-Classical criticism an
acute interest in the social factors as manifested in the literature of that period. As against
this, Romantic writers like Wordsworth and Hugo developed an interest in the creative process
of the individual writer. This interest became more pronounced by the stress given to
individualism. The works of Sterne and Richardson became popular. The individual psychology
of the creative artist became important. The notion of 'genius' gave rise to the idea of
inspiration, to the conception of imagination, spontaneity and originality. Freedom from rules
was advocated. The doctrine of the organic form was propounded. The Romantics were
preoccupied with the biography and the psychology of the poet. The Romantic critic recognized
no laws of composition and Coleridge defines poetry as that which the poet composes. To
 42

understand Romantic criticism we must understand how criticism evolved. Literary criticism
originated with the Humanists. These humanists were preoccupied with language, style and
rhetoric. This was an essential pre-occupation in the development and growth of English
language, but to have continued the preoccupation up to the eighteenth century was injurious
to creative writing. It was this pre-occupation with the linguistic and rhetorical aspects of the
language which formed itself into the doctrine of poetic diction. In the 18th century, literary
thought was not free from rules and principles of composition. Certain fundamental questions
were ignored such as the nature of poetic creation, the nature of poetry and nature of pleasure
derived from poetry.
A change took place in the last quarter of the 18th century. The growth of democracy
and individualism had an effect on literature. The ancient rules were looked upon skeptically.
This universe was no longer considered an imitation but an original creation. Critics laid stress
on literary characters and their psychology.
Romantic Criticism widely diverged both from Renaissance and Neo-classical school of
criticism both in theory and practical application. The two pioneers of this new critical
movement were Wordsworth and Coleridge. The most celebrated piece of literary criticism is
the 1800 'Preface.' It deals with three important problems: (1) The nature of poetry (2) The
nature of poetic diction; and (3) The function and nature of a poet. M. H. Abrams in The Mirror
and the Lamp sums up the contents of 1800 'Preface' as follows:
(1) "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings or emerges from a
process of imagination in which feelings play the crucial part."
(2) "As the vehicle of an emotional state of mind, poetry is opposed not to prose, but
to unemotional assertions of fact or science".
(3) "Poetry originated in primitive utterances of passion which, through organic
causes, were naturally rhythmic and figurative". This refutes Aristotle's belief that
poetry originated due to our instinct of imitation. The Romantics believe that it
originated in passionate utterance.
(4) "Poetry is competent to express emotions chiefly by its resources of figures of
speech and rhythm, by means of which words naturally embody and convey
feelings of the poet." This means that the practice of embellishing poetry with
figurative language is not approved. Rather poetry acquires dignity and beauty by
the selection of a proper subject treated with passion, genuine feeling and
imagination. It follows that.
(5) "It is essential to poetry that its language be spontaneous and genuine, not the
contrived and stimulated expression of the emotional state of the poet." This is
repudiation and criticism of poetic diction.
(6) "The born poet is distinguished from other men particularly by his inheritance of
an intense sensibility, and a susceptibility to passion".
(7) "The most important function of poetry is, by its pleasurable resources, to foster
and subtilize the sensibility, emotions, and sympathies of the reader."
 43

Thus Romantic poetry also has an aim but it is not to instruct merely, but to train the
affective elements of human nature. Wordsworth writes that the end of Poetry is to "produce
excitement in coexistence with an overbalance of pleasure" and its effect is "to rectify men's
feelings", to widen their sympathies, and to produce or enlarge the capability of being excited
without the application of gross and violent stimulants". Thus we find Wordsworth putting
pleasure as an important requirement of art.
3.3. Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: Introduction
Wordsworth was born to redeem English poetry, body and soul: its body from artificial
diction and outworn figures of speech: its soul from worldliness and commonplace
sentiments.
- E.A.G. Lamborn
Wordsworth, who once said that he wished "to be considered as a teacher or as nothing,
"looking around him found his country in urgent need of education which would affect their
sensibility. He thought he could educate the sensibility and provide pleasure as well. The
venture would be jointly undertaken by Coleridge and himself. This was the main justification
and defense of Lyrical ballads as he expressed it in the 'Preface'. There was, of course, another
factor, too. The poems in this volume had met with so much disfavor and had confused so
many readers, who were used to a different type of poetry, that a statement of the history or
principles, which had influenced the experiment, was called for in order to stem hostility and
win over readers.
According to Wordsworth, industrialization, urbanization, extravagant stories and
stupid German tragedies had thoroughly debased the taste of the people and dulled their
sensibilities. Only violent sensations could evoke any feelings in them. Poetry had become
artificial and devitalized through poetic diction and clichés. More often than not it served the
purpose of translation, imitation, parody, caricature, didacticism and satire. The claim that
their poetry was rational or humanistic was hardly successful in concealing its lack of human
feeling, its deficiency of poetic inspiration, its indifference to the deeper human passions or its
imperviousness to the mysterious call of Nature.
This is the context in which we must place and examine Wordsworth's Preface to the
Lyrical' Ballads (1800), which has been approximately described as the manifesto of the
English Romantic movement, a signal for the break with the age of neo-classicism and a
rejection of its poetic theory as well as diction.
On September 30,1800, in a letter D. Stuart, Coleridge wrote: "The 'Preface' contains
our joint opinions on poetry:" Later, writing to Southey (13 June. 1802), Coleridge disclosed
that "the passages were indeed partly taken from notes of mine; for it was at first intended that
the 'Preface' should be written by me." But as usual, Coleridge's performance was unequal to
his plans. No wonder, as Wordsworth tells us, "he was put upon to write the Preface by
Coleridge's urgent entreaties."
Wordsworth included in the 'Preface' the entire contents of the brief advertisement that
had been published with the first edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1798. He accepted or adopted
 44

some of the ideas of Coleridge. For instance Coleridge's phrase, 'the recalling of passion in
tranquility' is retained as 'emotion recollected in tranquility'. But he also made changes or
introduced ideas that Coleridge could not support, as we shall see later. George Watson has
made an interesting observation. The Preface' he points out, "concerns itself solely with
Wordsworth's own contribution to the Lyrical Ballads. To read the 1800 Preface you would
never guess that the collection to which it is prefixed contains "The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner."
We are, therefore, hardly surprised when we read Coleridge's letter to Southey, towards
the end of June 1802, expressing his dissatisfaction with Wordsworth's views: "although
Wordsworth's 'Preface' is half a child of my own brain yet I am far from going all lengths with
Wordsworth." In an earlier letter (July 13, 1802) to Southey, he had gone so far as to say: we
begin to suspect, that there is, somewhere or other, a radical difference in our opinions".
According to R.L. Brett and A.R. Jones, at the center of their disagreement lies Coleridge's
belief that Wordsworth's conception of poetry relied too much on Hartley. But of this more will
be said later.
The 'Preface' has drawn both compliments and severe criticism. On the one hand, it has
been regarded as marking the birth of the Romantic movement, a manifesto of the new age,
and a forerunner of Whitman's Preface (1850) to Leaves of Grass. On the other hand some of
Wordsworth's most important statements have been disputed, rejected, or shown to be marked
by lack of logic, consistency or sense by such critics as Coleridge, Irving Babbitt and T.S. Eliot.
We must note here that the ideas expressed in the 'Preface' relate primarily to
Wordsworth's poems in the Lyrical Ballads and not necessarily to all of his poetry; they should
therefore not be treated as Procrustean principles by which all of his poetry must be judged to
see if he stands or falls.
3.4 A Review of the Text
The views expressed in the 'Preface' may be reduced to 13 major points:
(1) Aim: Wordsworth claims that the poems included in Lyrical Ballads were published "as
an experiment" to find out if by using "a selection of the real language of man in a state of vivid
sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure may be imparted, which a poet
may rationally endeavor to impact. This did not mean that the interest excited by some other
kinds of poetry is less vivid and less worthy of the nobler powers of the mind" …..but that if my
purpose were fulfilled, a species of poetry would be produced which is genuine poetry; in its
nature well adapted to interest mankind permanently, and likewise important in the
multiplicity and quality of its moral relations."
Justification for change, in the subject matter and style of poetry:
(2) Social and National Events: The growing industrialization and urbanization had
provided a dull uniformity of occupations to the large masses of men settled in cities, including
in them 'a craving for extraordinary incident.'
(3) Literary and Cultural Causes: There was a 'degrading thirst after outrageous
stimulation,' fostered by "frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies and deluges of idle
 45

and extravagant stories in verse." Consequently, works of genuine literary value had been
thrown into neglect. Wordsworth claims that his faith in the indestructible qualities of the
human mind, likewise of certain powers in the great and permanent objects that act upon it,
"has persuaded him to combat, however inadequately, the magnitude of the general evil:" He
hopes to restore to his readers a proper sensitivity to and appreciation of genuine poetry by
rejecting artificial diction and returning to Nature.
(4) Poetic Diction: Wordsworth realizes that those "who have been accustomed to the
gaudiness and inane phraseology of many modern writers", will find his poems strange,
awkward, and hardly poems. He has taken as much pains to avoid poetic diction as others do
to use it. Thus his poems will be found to be free from personifications of abstract ideas,
periphrases, inversion and other undesirable and "false refinements or arbitrary innovations".
In this way he has tried" to bring language near to the language of men", in keeping with his
democratic choice of subject matter.
(5) Subject Matter of his Poems: He proposed to choose incidents and situations. from
common life, and "to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as possible in a selection of
language really used by men, and at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of
imagination; whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an usual aspect,....."
He tried to make them interesting by "tracing in them the primary laws of our nature; chiefly
regarding the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement". He also says later
in the 'Preface' that there are no fixed or limited subjects for poetry; the poet has the whole
world -- both inner and outer -- the earth as well as the sky, which could afford him themes for
his poems. The stress falls on imagination which both perceives and creates when it finds
something wanting in reality. It also feeds on memory whose treasures it transforms into
mystic visions or states of bliss.
(6) Language: Humble and rustic life was chosen because it affords a better soil for "the
essential passions of the heart" and its simplicity encourages 'a plainer and more emphatic
language'. In that condition of life, the passions of men are regularly under the influence of
"the beautiful permanent forms of nature ..... from which the best part of language if originally
derived ……..(It) is more permanent, and far more philosophical language" than the one
commonly used by poets who only "furnish food for fickle tastes, and fickle appetites, of their
own creation,"
(7) Wordsworth Claims that his Poems have Two Distinguishing Characteristics:
(a) Each of his poems 'has a worthy purpose'. It does not mean that he had a conscious
didactic 'purpose'. His purpose was the natural result of his 'habits of meditation'. It is his
belief that poems of real value can be produced only by one who possesses 'more than usual
organic sensibility' and has 'also thought long and deeply.'
(b) Unlike the popular poetry of the day, says Wordsworth, a special mark of his poems
is 'that the feeling therein developed gives importance to the action and situation and not the
action and 'situation to the feeling'.
The Romantic view dispenses with the Aristotelian stress on action but still there is no
complete break with the 18th century, as is clear from his following words. He affirms that he
 46

has "at all times endeavored to look steadily at my subject", thus avoiding "falsehood of
description". He, therefore, hopes that his work has gained "one property of all good poetry,
namely good sense." Now, as we know, "good sense was one of the cardinal virtues of the neo-
classical age."
(8) Language of Metrical Composition and Prose: Wordsworth declares that "not only
the language of a large portion of every poem, even of the most elevated character, must
necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect differs from that of good prose,
but likewise some of the most interesting parts of the best poem will be found to be strictly in
the language of prose when prose is well written." He demonstrates the truth of his assertion
by references to Gray's sonnet on the death of Richard West. Then he goes further to affirm
that "there neither is, nor can be any essential difference between the language of prose and
that of metrical composition". There is an affinity between them because both "speak by and to
the same organ", deal with common reality and feelings, and issues, and derive strength from,
and appeal to the same side of us.
(9) Metre: Wordsworth now takes up the objection that, in spite of what he has said about
the likeness between the language of prose and of metrical composition, one cannot deny that
'rhyme and metrical arrangement' not only produce a distinction between the two but also
pave the way for introducing other artificial distinctions. He replies that after he has made a
careful selection-with taste 'and feeling - of the language really spoken by men, and added the
charm of metre to it, a 'dissimilitude' would be produced sufficient to afford pleasure. Then in
that case, devices other than metre would not be necessary.
There seems to be confusion in Wordsworth's argument; for while' he says at one place
that metre 'is but adventitious to compositions', and will be 'little valued by the judicious, he is
not adverse to sing it himself. As he rhetorically asks:
"Why should I be condemned for attempting to super-add to such description the charm
which by the consent of all nations, is acknowledged to exist in metrical language?"
It would seem that what Wordsworth is really rejecting is not metre so much as those
'artificial distinctions of style' which usually accompany it. For, clearly under the influence of
Coleridge, he defends the use of metre which needs no other aids at all to lend it power. Its
power depends upon "the pleasure which the mind derives from the perception of similitude in
dissimilitude", Rhythm arouses emotion but it also controls it. This is its paradox. Metre
provides "regular impulses of pleasurable surprise", and produces its paradoxical effect of
controlling or restraining the irregular or chaotic violence of passion being evoked through its
regularity. In this way it can make even what is supremely painful, bearable, if not also
pleasurable.
And finally, the use of metre -- which is the result of poetic discipline -- affords pleasure
through "the sense' of difficulty overcame, and the blind association of pleasure which has
been previously received from work of rhyme or metre of the same or similar construction......
In short, metre affords a complex feeling of delight and is allowed."
 47

(10) What is a Poet: Wordsworth answers this question as follows: "He is a Man speaking to
men"; he has a mare lively sensibility, mare enthusiasm and tenderness ... a greater knowledge
of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among
mankind...... "He is pleased with his awn passions and volitions", rejoices "in the spirit of life
that is in him" as well as in "the beauty of the universe." He has a disposition to be affected
more than other men by absent things as if they were present ....."The poet", he adds, "writes
under one restriction only, namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure. Such pleasure,
far from being degrading is indeed an acknowledgement of the beauty of the universe." He
looks at the world "in the spirit of love," and pleasure is "the grand elementary principle by
which he knows, and feels, and lives, and moves."
These are Whitmanesque sentiments which paint a fairly accurate portrait of
Wordsworth himself as a poet. We have so far been reading about 'readers' and 'poetry' and
now 'the poet' completes the picture. Wordsworth's argument may by summarized in the
following words:
The poet, being mere gifted and better equipped than others, writes poems in language
which is simple, direct and natural to share his pleasure in, and love of human life and the
universe, with his fellow men for the sake of their health and happiness.
Pleasure, says Wordsworth, is the source of the knowledge both of the poet and of the
scientist. (By knowledge "he means general principles drawn from the contemplations of
particular facts). But whereas the scientist's knowledge is an individual attainment made
possible in the solitude of his laboratory, that of the poet is gained in the midst of society and
is shared by all. This does not mean, however, that 'the scientist and the poet are working at
cross-purposes. Wordsworth is hopeful that science will only enrich and lend variety to poetry.
There is one condition attached to it, however, that is that only when the knowledge of science
becomes a part of the general awareness and experience of all, will the poet "lend his divine
spirit to aid the transfiguration ……."
The superiority of the poet to the scientist is firmly maintained. The poet binds together
by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society. "And poetry is the breath and
finer spirit of knowledge, it is the impassioned speech which is in the countenance of all
Science." In other words" the insight of poetry forms the essence of human knowledge and the
scientist reveals in his facts the poet's passionate concern for knowledge and the profound
pleasure which his quest brings.
(11) The Nature and Purpose of Poetry: Wordsworth agrees with Aristotle's view that
poetry is the most philosophic of all writings: its subject is truth not individual and local, but
general, and operative; carried alive into the heart by passion; truth which is its awn
testimony. Poetry is the image of Man and Nature. These views obviously supplement his views
on the poet's unusual perceptive and reflective powers as well as his views on the social
importance of poetry not only as aesthetic discipline but also as a moral discipline.
(12) Psychology of the Creative Process: In one of his most famous formulations,
Wordsworth explains the creative process - chiefly a reflection of his own experience and
reveals a double creative process at work.
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He writes:
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: It takes its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquility: the emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the
tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion kindred to that which was before the
subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.
In this mood successful composition generally begins, and is carried on.
As we are going to discuss this view later we shall now pass on to the next point.
(13) Defects: Wordsworth grants "my associations must have sometimes (given) a false
importance to things and I may have sometimes written upon unworthy subjects, and in some
instances, feelings, even of the ludicrous, may be given to my Readers by expression which
appear to me tender and pathetic." But he promises to correct his fault provided his readers
judge his poems by their own response, and are not guided by any external authority of rules
in judging them.
The main argument of the Preface may now be summed up as follows:
The poems in the Lyrical Ballads were an experiment. The aim was to see, if by choosing
humble subjects and common incidents, and by describing them imaginatively in a carefully
chosen language of common men, without their disgusting elements, it was possible to create a
type of genuine poetry of permanent value, which would give pleasure to its readers and
exercise a good moral influence. Wordsworth does not rule out other types of excellent poetry;
he is only seeking to win readers for the type he has written, and to turn them away from the
poetry of the Neo-classical tradition. He wishes to restore the native idiom, and the tone of the
spoken voice to English poetry, after the excesses and the enervating tendencies of the
previous age. The Preface thus gives a call- a literary arid linguistic one - which joins his
general call for return to Nature.
3.5 Critical Evaluation of the Text
Wordsworth's theories and ideas do not appeal to us. His disapproval of poetic diction,
his ideas of imitating rustic speech, his concept of poetry as the overflow of feelings - all these
can't be reconciled with a rational conception of literary theory. In the course of his emotional
and intellectual evolution he realized that the Neo-Classical poetic diction was "vicious",
"distorted", "glossy" and "unfeeling". He felt, his own style was "natural". This belief is shared
by every innovator in the history of English poetry. Donne, Dryden, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound
all have felt that they have revived poetic language and made it more natural and colloquial.
They are the advocates of spoken language in poetry.
Wordsworth rejects the "poetic-diction" of eighteenth century, in a narrow sense. What
he objects to is its vocabulary which was considered sacred. Not all words could be used by a
poet. The common vocabulary was considered low and trivial. Apart from the usage of certain
set words there was another lacuna in Neo-classical poetry. There were in use certain stylistic
devices such as personification, periphrasis, Latinisms, etc. Neo-classical poetry also used
certain syntactical features like inversions and frequent antitheses. Wordsworth objected to
these and also to the use of "pathetic fallacy".
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At times Wordsworth's criticism is directed against 17th century characteristics:

quaintness, conceits, extravagant hyperboles, verbal wit and elaborate obscurity. At times
Wordsworth tolerates these devices, if he feels that the poet was moved by genuine emotion
and that he merely succumbed to the vices and fashions of the age. For example, he praises
Donne's sonnet "Death, be not proud". Wordsworth writes about it as "weighty in thought and
vigorous in the expression," though to the modern taste it may be repulsive, quaint and
labored.
There is a discrepancy in what Wordsworth preaches and what he w rites. He uses
many devices to which he objects and hence opens himself to an attack from Coleridge who
shows up his discrepancies. For example, his syntax can be very involved, he sometimes uses
bookish polysyllabic words, his poems are full of pathetic fallacy, and the 18th century types of
periphrasis are found in his poems. In his critical writings Wordsworth could not make
cognizable differences between a legitimate and central animating metaphor and a false and
artificial one. Nor could he theoretically describe why certain inversions are right and others
wrong.
His demand for 'natural language' or rustics needs clarification. If he meant the actual
language of the rustics this does not apply even to his own poems. Only a few of his poems in
the Lyrical Ballads can be said to have rustic idiom. Therefore, his demand for the natural
language could not mean the actual language of rustics.
Wordsworth demands that the subject of poetry should be such as to appeal
universally, Regarding poetic language he writes it should be in a "state of vivid sensation",
and hence, "if selected truly and judiciously, must necessarily be dignified and variegated, and
alive with metaphors and figures: The words "dignified and variegated" are not words which
would mean simple language of the rustics. In fact, this would be more in consonance with the
"high" style demand of ancient rhetoricians.
The sanction for metaphor is due to the fact that metaphor is associated with passion,
for in passion one is supposed to use figures spontaneously. Passionate and figurative
language is thought to have been the language of primitive man. The figurative language of
primitive man is not the same as the rhetorical figures of 18th century poetry. The latter is a
distortion of w at was in earlier times poetic expression. He writes: "The language of the poets
falls short of that which is uttered by men in real life under the actual pressure of those
passions". The poet's words are inferior to "these emanations of reality and truth". It is true
that even the language of early poets differed from ordinary language. But the early poets'
language was extraordinary because it was the result of heroic occasions. With the passage of
time heroic occasions become rare.
At first Wordsworth appears to be a naturalist defending the imitation of folk ballads
and rustic speech, and appreciating the simple passionate "nature" poetry arid condemning
"art" and the, artificial. In real life Wordsworth's great hero in poetry was Milton and Spenser
came next. Both were far from using colloquial idiom in their poems. Actually, Wordsworth
moulds the great poets of the past to his own peculiar concept of "Nature." The language of
Milton and Shakespeare is considered by him the impassioned language of the great poet.
 50

He goes on to say that poetry is the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings". It

means that poetry is self-expression, a release of personal emotions. His 'Prelude' is an
autobiography in verse. His criterion for judging poetry is sincerity. The poet should be sincere
in the emotions he writes about. He should sincerely feel what he conveys. The criterion of
Wordsworth does not appear a very valid barometre for judging poetry. This means that the
worst love poetry of adolescents is the most sincere. The goodness and badness of poetry has
nothing to do with sincerity. Wordsworth did not comprehend the possibility of the poet
assuming a mask. But at the same time he did mow that too much could not be given to
sincerity, otherwise a lot of unnecessary stress would have to be given to the examination of
the poet's psychology and biography. It is the goodness or badness of the work that has to be
assessed and not the ethical merits of the poet.
Wordsworth did give importance to emotion but that does not mean that he advocated
raw emotionalism. When he talks about the "overflow of feelings" he also mentions that "it
takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility, the emotion is contemplated till, by a
species of reaction, the tranquility gradually disappears, and an emotion kindred to that which
was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in
the mind". The process of creation is not an immediate emotion but a deliberate evocation of a
past emotion which is not identical to the past emotion but is only "kindred" to the previously
felt emotion. Elsewhere in other writings Wordsworth admits that consciousness plays a
significant role in poetic creation.
'Although Wordsworth recognizes the importance of revision and technique yet the
fundamental factor is the initial inspiration, the "inward impulse". He says the poetic numbers
came to him "spontaneously" and "in such a torrent" that he was unable to remember it, and
that he "poured out a poem truly from the heart". As to the origins of these inspirations and
intuitions there are no definite answers that Wordsworth can give. He vacillates and says
sometimes his inspirations seem to come from above, "visiting of imaginative power", at other
times from an inner life, form the buried past. In the 'Prelude' (The Waggoner) he writes:
A shy spirit in my heart,
That comes and goes - will sometimes leap
From Hiding places ten years old.
But this does not mean that poetry is merely self-expression - a sort of Catharsis.
Wordsworth does give importance to the effect that poetry has on the reader. He also feels that
poetry is a means to knowledge. He believes that primarily poetry is a manipulation of human
feelings for a purpose. It is for man's mental and moral health and happiness. "A great poet
ought to rectify man's feelings, to render their feelings more sane, pure and permanent." Poetry
'must arouse sympathy not only for other men but' also for animals and inanimate objects.
Another important function of poetry is to jolt men out of their emotional indifference
and make them aware of the nature and mystery of the world. The poet "widens the sphere of
human sensibility, for the delight, honor and benefit of human nature. Poetry affects a
catharsis of vicious feelings such as hatred and malice and also of prejudices arising through
false refinement and social snobbery.
 51

The one central aim of poetry should be the "joy of that pure principle of love". For this
reason Wordsworth condemns satire and all revolutionary or reform propaganda. He thinks
the effects of industrialization and urbanization are useful and thus poems like "Michael" and
"The Brother" are moral and political achievements in favor of true agrarian democracy. With
the passage of time Wordsworth's point of view became more and more didactic. He writes in
one of his letters to George Beaumont, "every great poet is a leader: I wish either to be
considered as a teacher or as nothing."
Wordsworth knew that poetry is not merely a vehicle for conveying moral truths.
Pleasure is an important function. It is for this reason that he advocates the use of metre.
Metre tempers and restrains the passions." It raises the mind to a new plane of consciousness
and enhances aesthetic distance. It has the tendency to "divest language, in a certain degree;
of its reality and thus to throw a sort of half-consciousness of unsubstantial existence over the
whole composition." Wordsworth did not believe that poetry is merely a means of conveying
truth. He opposed it to science. Poetic truths are more religious insights, but they are not
identical with each other.
Wordsworth holds an ambiguous position in the history of criticism. In the words of
Rene Wellek, he inherits from Neo-Classicism a theory of the imitation of nature to which he
gives a specific social thrust: he inherits from 18th century a view of poetry as passion and
emotion which he again modifies by his description of the poetic process as "recollection in
tranquility" He takes up rhetorical ideas about the effect of literature, binding society in a spirit
of love. Though Wordsworth left only a small body of criticism, it is rich in survivals,
suggestions, anticipations and personal insights.
Self-Assessment Questions
Complete the sentences based on Wordsworth’s theory of poetry:
1. Poetry is spontaneous_________________________________________
2. As the vehicle of an emotional state of mind, poetry_________________
3. Poetry originated in ___________________________________________
4. Poetry is competent to express emotions chiefly by___________________
5. It is essential to poetry that its language____________________________

3.6 Summary
In this lesson, you studied landmark literary critic William Wordsworth and his seminal critical
text “The Preface to Lyrical Ballads,” first published in 1800. This text is considered as a
manifesto to British Romantic literary movement which registered a Radical departure from the
earlier classical and neo-classical creative critical practices. You also acquainted with the
British Romantic criticism in relation to such key concepts as ‘poetic diction’ ‘subject matter’
language and the very idea of being a poet with a very distinct and different poetic vacation.
Above all, you saw how the most revolutionary point of romantic criticism is that it discards
the theory of imitation which had been the faith of critics since the days of Aristotle. According
to Wordsworth, poetry is not a not a mode of imitation but “spontaneous overflow of powerful
 52

feelings.” Shelley calls poetry the “the expression of the imagination.” According to Romantic
criticism all poetry is born of imagination and the critic’s function is to reveal its working.
Literary judgment has not to take into consideration set rules but the working of imagination
and genuine emotions.
3.7 References
 Abrams. M. H. : The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical
Tradition.
 Coleridge, S.T.: Biographia Literaria, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 22.
 Daiches, David: Critical Approaches to Literature.
3.8 Further Readings
 Garrod, H.W.: Wordsworth.
 Saintsbury, George: A History of English Criticism.
 Scott-James, R.A.: The making of Literature.
3.9 Model Questions
Q. 1 Discuss Preface to Lyrical Ballads as a manifesto of literary primitivism.
Q. 2 Write an essay on Wordsworth’s views on poetry as different from that of neo
classical conception.
Q. 3 What are Wordsworth’s views on poetic diction and and the subject matter of
poetry.
Answers to Self-Assessment Questions
1. overflow of powerful feelings
2. poetry is opposed not to prose but to unemotional assertions of fact or science.
3. primitive utterances of passion.
4. its resources of figures of speech and rhythm.
5. be spontaneous and genuine

****
 53

Lesson 4

PREFACE TO LYRICAL BALLADS-II

Structure
4.0. Objective
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Wordsworth on ‘Creative Process’
4.3 Wordsworth on Poetic Diction
4.4 Drawbacks of Poetic Diction
4.5 Historical Importance of the Preface
4.5.1 The Plan of Lyrical Ballads
4.5.2 The Historical Context of the Preface
4.5.3 The Preface as a bridge between neo-classical concerns and Wordsworth's Poetic
practice
4.5.4 General criticism of the Preface as a historical document
4.6 Wordsworth's theory of Poetry
4.6.1 Coleridge's criticism of some of the major ideas of Wordsworth's theory of Poetry
4.6.2 Eliot’s Criticism Wordsworth's theory of Poetry
4.6.3 Wordsworth's shortcomings as a Critic
4.7 The Impact, Historical Value and Critical Validity of the Preface
4.8 Summary
4.9 References
4.10 Further Readings
4.11 Model Questions

4.0. Objectives
After reading this lesson you will be able to:
● discuss the process of poetic composition that is how poetry comes into being
● identify the difference between Wordsworth and Coleridge on the issue of poetic
diction
● explore the difference between Classical and Romantic concerns and conceptions of
poetry
● critique the Romantic conceptions of poetry, especially from the perspective of T.S.
Eliot
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4.1. Introduction
In the previous unit you were introduced with the general idea of Romantic sensibility which
registered a marked departure from the earlier modes of literary creative-critical practices. In
this lesson you will familiarize yourself with the process of poetic composition and creation. In
this regard i.e. the production of poetry you will find discussed the role of observation and
description, sensibility, reflection, fancy and imagination, invention and judgment. You will
also find discussion on Wordsworth’s theory of poetic diction and limitations of the same. The
lesson will bring into light why the preface is considered a landmark document in terms of
historical significance and its critical validity. And at last you will find on what grounds S T
Coleridge and Eliot critiqued Wordsworth’s take on criticism.
The lesson will assess the Historical Importance of the 'Preface' and its critical validity. At the
end of lesson, a select bibliography is provided for your perusal so that you may read critics on
this critic, and enlarge upon the guidelines in these lecture-scripts.
4.2. Wordsworth on ‘Creative Process’
D. Nichol Smith remarks: "It would be difficult to find a poet who has told us more
about the conditions of the composition of his poetry than Wordsworth has." To this end, says
H. W. Garrod, "he was restless both to observe and to observe himself observing ... a habit not
friendly to a lively sensibility." Now, in these two statements is summed up the cause of the
confusion that surrounds Wordsworth's famous observation in his Preface to the Lyrical
Ballads (1800): Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from
emotion recollected in tranquility…..
In order (a) to make an intelligent assessment of the impulse behind, and the meaning
of the two parts of this statement, and (b) to see if there is contradiction between them, it is
necessary that we first study Wordsworth's mental habits as a poet, and poetic aims and
practice.
We shall first show that Wordsworth was not a 'spontaneous' poet but a 'reflective' one.
In section 2, we shall argue that he was in favor of art and discipline rather than mere
'spontaneity'. After this, in section 3, we shall examine the case from the opposite angle, to see
how he could be called 'spontaneous' and to study the three stages of Wordsworth’s use of the
word 'tranquility', and of three stages of his creative process. In section 5, we again see that
Wordsworth's conscious poetic aims lead us away from the view of him as a spontaneous poet.
In section 6, we explain how sensations could become the stuff of poetry that would have a
good moral influence. This provides a philosophical and a Hartleian basis for reconciling the
seemingly contradictory ideas in Wordsworth's observation which we are discussing in the
present lesson. In section 7, we go further ahead in the same direction, and critically examine
Wordsworth's complete statement, which confirms our view that Wordsworth's famous
statement actually describes three stages of creative process, including both recollections in
tranquility and spontaneous creation.
Section 1
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Tennyson, having read the words, 'Someone had blundered', in a prose account of the
'Charge of the Light Brigade's sat down at once, and, with the rhythm of these words in his
head, wrote the poem in a few minutes. This was not the way Wordsworth wrote his poems.
His works do, indeed, contain ten poems which he describes as 'extempore': and as Oliver
Elton rightly points out, Wordsworth's verse has not always the character of "emotion
recollected in tranquility for his 'distinctively heroic writing has the force of a passion which is
recorded while it is still alive, and which yet has nothing hysterical about it'. But in general, it
is true to say that Wordsworth was not given to poetizing an experience immediately after it
had occurred: Wordsworth admitted as much. He said that he could not make a present joy or
pain the matter of a song. Thus, when his brother, John was drowned, he completely failed 'to
give vent to my feelings in a poem, because I was overpowered by my subject'. Again, in his
conversation with Aubery de Vere, Wordsworth condemned a minor poet for writing poetry for
his immediate impressions. Wordsworth comments: "He went out with his pencil and notebook
and jotted down whatever struck him most. He went home and wove the whole together in a
poetical description. But nature does not permit an inventory to be made of her charms. He
should have left his poems behind and gone forth in a meditative spirit: and on a later day, he
should have embodied in verse, not all he had noted, but what he best remembered of the
scene, and he would then have presented us with its soul and not with the mere visual aspects
of it."
This gives an excellent account of Wordsworth's own poetic practice of excluding the
accidental aspects of an object, scene or experience, and embodying its 'ideal and essential
truth'. The importance of memory and the exercise of imagination to embody the 'soul' of
experienced reality are also made equally clear. It is thus that to Wordsworth even the meanest
flower could give 'thoughts that do often lie too deep far tears' (Immortality Ode).
In the 'Preface' to the Edition of 1815, Wordsworth gives a revealing description of the
'power' requisite for the production of poetry in the following order:
1. Observation and Description
2. Sensibility
3. Reflection
4. Imagination and Fancy
5. Invention
Judgment--to decide how and where, and in what degree, each of these faculties ought
to be exerted.
Stephen Gwynn has very well described Wordsworth's Creative process; illustrating it by
reference to his famous poem 'The Leech-Gatherer'.
"With Wordsworth, poetry was not an immediate response to the stimulus of beauty; it
was the welling up of feeling long stored in the heart and brooded over, rendering not the detail
but the spirit of a landscape ..... Spectacles of sorrow or of hardship, moved him as they move
us, but he watched and waited till the vague pity grew into articulate speech and revealed itself
for what it is-a sense, for example, of the cruelty in human institutions which sends the old
 56

man to fend off starvation by leech gathering on the lonely moor and of the splendor in the
human soul, which can bear with fortitude such a mountain of oppression."
Wordsworth always endeavored to work out an emotional motive from within through
reflection. Consequently, as Hugh Chisholm actually observes. "Though he dealt with humble,
common and simple themes, his poetry was not simple". The emotion or object was ever
simple, though.' intensely experienced, but the imaginative structure is generally elaborate,
and, when the poet is at his best, supremely splendid and gorgeous. No poet has built such
magnificent palaces of rare material for the ordinary everyday homely human affections.
Likewise, Hazlitt had said much earlier; "the incidents are trifling the reflections are profound.
He clothes the naked with beauty and grandeur from the stores of his own recollections no one
has displayed the same pathos in treating of the simplest feelings of heart."
Section 2
So far we have been adducing opinions in favor of the view that Wordsworth was a
reflective poet rather than a spontaneous one. Indeed, Wordsworth himself seems to support
the view that far from spontaneity, he valued discipline, far from 'unpremeditated' poetic
expressions; he assiduously sought to revise and refine his poems. In short, he would prefer
the discipline of craft to the intensity of a passionate cry. A Cry is momentary and must soon
die, but art saves it from dying by embodying it in art.
There is a good deal of evidence of Wordsworth's constant meticulous revisions of his
verse. The reason, as he put it was that, "my first expression I often find detestable, and it is
frequently true of second words, as of second thoughts, that they are best."
It may come as a surprise to some lovers of Romantic poetry to learn that Wordsworth
was sincere in his appreciation of formal discipline, as his sonnet "Nuns fret not at their
convent's narrow room" unambiguously reveals. In regard to the use of metre he spoke about
"the sense of difficulty overcome", and of the advantage of its regularity in imposing upon
overwhelmingly painful emotions such a discipline of rhythm as to render it bearable, even
pleasurable. Wordsworth was well aware of the paradox of discipline allowing the enjoyment of
maximum freedom. "Me this uncharted freedom tires." he cried in a poem. These are the words
of Wordsworth, the poetic artist.
Section 3
But there was another side to him as well. Many a time, says Wordsworth, verses came
in such a torrent that he was unable to remember it. Several of his sonnets were penned in
such moments of 'creative flood'. No wonder that he wrote: "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow
of powerful feelings." As he took his frequent long walks he would compose verse in his mind.
Whether it was the roaring of the wind, the rain pattering on the roof or the silver stream
flowing harmoniously, they would induce the poetic mood, and no doubt, at such times
spontaneous creation of poetry took place. At such times Wordsworth was the devoted servant
of his Muse.
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Now that we have some evidence for both the views of Wordsworth we may ask; How can
we reconcile the view of poetry as spontaneous creation with the view that it takes its origin
from emotion recollected in tranquility?
Section 4
T. S. Eliot expressed his view that "emotion recollected in. tranquility" is an inexact
formula. "For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning,
tranquility" ('Tradition and the Individual Talent'). Poetry, for Eliot, "was a concentration, and a
new thing resulting from the concentration, of a very great number of experiences ....."Arguing
from a different angle. H. W. Garrod also expresses his disagreement with stand taken by
Wordsworth. It would be erroneous, he writes, "to believe that his (Wordsworth's) creation
proceeds from a mood of tranquility ….Sensation is passionate sinking to sleep anon, and then
some day or other, "ten years hence, stirred up anew in the mysteriously quickened
imagination. It is this hour of passionate re-awakening which is the hour of poetry." Garrod
explains the creative process as involving three stages.
First : The emotion of sense set up by the object or incident itself.
Second : The recollection, or contemplation of that emotion in tranquility,
and
Third : There is the emotion gradually set up in the mind, an intellectual
disturbance, or excitation, similar to the first emotion but unlike
that, producing a state of enjoyment. (Wordsworth' does not explain
what causes are responsible for this change).
This is how even simple, seemingly insignificant objects or sensations could finally bring
about that mysterious spiritual exaltation.
Section 5
We have now to approach the problem from the point of view of Wordsworth's poetic
aims. We shall see that these lead us away from the view of poetry being a spontaneous
overflow. His 'Preface' sets it down clearly that there was a definite theory behind his poems in
the Lyrical Ballads. Not only that, his poems were a conscious experiment, involving a careful
exclusion of the vices of the Neo-classical poetry and a deliberate choice of humble and
ordinary subjects. His emphasis on the reform of the people's sensibility as well as their moral
being also points in the same direction. He wrote "my writings will co-operate with the benign
tenderness in human nature and society and .... be efficacious in making men wiser, better,
and happier." The teacher in Wordsworth prompted him to declare that the purpose of his
poems was to "teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, and to feel, and
therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous.
The Philosopher in him believed that the object of poetry is truth. But in the end the Poet
has his say: "We have no sympathy except with what is propagated by pleasure." And, that
sheds some light on the dark path we have been following. Hartley's associational psychology,
which left a lasting influence on Wordsworth and his 'Preface', will explain the process.
 58

Section 6
According to Hartley, the mind is passive in perception, a mere tabula rasa upon which
the outside world writes its impressions. In accordance with this strict empiricism, Hartley
stressed the importance of sensation as the basis of all our knowledge, including our moral
principles. Morality, in his view, was the product of experience, built up from the influence of
the environment upon one's mind and character. Hartley believed that a sensation and a
simple idea are almost identical, the difference normally being that an idea is fainter' than it
corresponding sensation. It was Hartley who explained to Wordsworth's satisfaction how the
mind moves from sensation, through-perception to thought. Simple sensation gets associated
in the mind in order to form complex ideas through a merging or mingling of desperate
experiences. We can now see why a sensitive, well stocked mind and a retentive memory were
essential in Wordsworth's view to associate reports from the senses with moral feelings. It was
in this way that Nature poetry could have a healthy moral influence. It is for this that
Wordsworth stresses the poet's having a more than usual organic sensibility, a memory that is
wax to receive and marble to retain, and on having 'thought long and deeply,'
Section 7
Sensations being of primary importance in the poetic theory of Wordsworth (as of Keats
too: 'O' for a life of sensation rather than of thought!), a fresh and revealing light is cast on
Wordsworth's claim: "I have at all times endeavored to look steadily at my subject." This might
appear as a view not strictly in keeping with these generally accepted in this age. But we know
from Wordsworth's poetry that this was only the first stage, the stage of sensation and
observation. He knows that illuminations or revelations followed when he left his mind open to
external influences in wise passiveness." It was then that he would get into a "serene and
blessed mood,"
In which the affections gently lead us on-
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things. (Tintern Abbey)
Now this of course was not the moment of creation but of gestation coming to an end in
an experience both rich and profound.
That Wordsworth was different from other poets would be clear from what has been said
above, and, therefore it may not be proper to apply his criteria to the work or experience of
other poets. But as far as Wordsworth himself is concerned, his own explanation in the
'Preface' supports the view of Garrod as well as T. S. Eliot. Here is Wordsworth explaining how
the 'spontaneous overflow' originates from 'emotion recollected its tranquility':
 59

"The emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquility gradually

disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation is
gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind."
We may now sum up the various stages of Wordsworth's creative experience as follows:
1. First came observation and sensation. He always kept himself open to "the mighty
world of 'eye and ear' in 'wise passiveness.'
2. His sensibility would enable him to articulate to fit words to sensations to give them
meaning and value.
3. Next he would allow his sensations, along with their corresponding ideas, to dwell
together with those previously stored in his mind and --(as even T.S. Eliot, who spoke
of the mind functioning as a catalyst, admitted) --from complex new wholes.
4. Finally, some phrase, sound, object, idea or sensation would so impinge on his mind
as to throw its contents into an uneasy calm gradually coming to a head as a state
farthest from tranquility, and boiling up over through the poet's mind on to paper .
In other words, the moment of sensation came first, and was pleasurable, but not yet
ripe for poetic expression. Sometime must then be allowed to pass, so that its accidental
elements fade out or vanish, leaving only the soul of the original experience in the memory
available for creative purposes. During this usually long period of gestation there was
emotional tranquility, as the mind kept at work behind the scenes shaping sensations into
perceptions, and these into conceptions. In the crucible of the mind imagination, fancy,
invention, and judgment worked on the given materials of experience, This is the stage when
emotion is being recollected in tranquility. Then, one day, suddenly the mind is stirred up by
some object or sensation associated with what is lying dormant in his mind in a manner that
reminds us of Proust--and there is a 'flood', what Wordsworth calls "the spontaneous overflow
of powerful feelings."
In short, what Wordsworth meant by his famous statement about poetry was that in his
case, the composition of Poetry went through four stages: immediacy of sensation, articulation
of sensation into perceptions and conceptions, tranquility of recollection and spontaneous
overflow at' the moment of composition. There is thus no contradiction in Wordsworth's
statement. But it provides us with such a neat generalization that there is a danger of our
forgetting Wordsworth's meticulous revisions, his working over his poems after the creative
flood had subsided, or passed. We must, therefore, keep this in mind whenever we examine
Wordsworth's generalization about the birth of poetry, otherwise we would not be serving the
cause of either literary criticism or truth.
4.3 Wordsworth on Poetic Diction
Before we discuss Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction, it would be well to take down
his major premises, concerning the language of poetry. In his Aduertisemeni prefixed to the
Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth says that the poems in the collection are in the nature of
an experiment, "Written chiefly with a view to ascertain how far the language of conversation in
the middle and lower classes of society is adapted to the 'purpose of poetic pleasure". It is
 60

however, in the long preface to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads (1800) that he puts the
issue on broader grounds, and explains his own view of poetic diction:
"The principle object then, proposed in these poems was to choose incidents and
situations from common life, and to relate or describe them throughout as far as this was
possible, in a selection of a language really used by men, and, at the same time, to throw over
them a certain colouring of the imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the
mind in an unusual aspect, and further and above all, to make these incidents and situations
interesting by tracing in them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature,
chiefly, as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement.
On the genetic side, the 'Preface' explains why the language of "low and rustic" persons
is likely to be poetic: "Humble and rustic life was generally chosen because in that condition
the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are
less under restrain and speak a plainer and more emphatic language: because in that condition
of our life our elementary feelings coexist in a state of greater simplicity and, consequently,
may be more accurately contemplated and more forcefully communicated because the manners
of rural life germinate from these elementary feelings, and, from the necessary character of
rural occupations, and more easily comprehended, and are durable, and lastly because in that
condition the passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of
nature.
The language, too of those men has been adopted (purified indeed from what appears to
be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust because
such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of
language is originally derived and because, from their rank in society and the sameness
and narrow circle of their intercourse, they convey their feelings. emotions, in simple
and unelaborated expressions."
Observing that some of the most interesting parts of his poems in the Lyrical Ballads
were written strictly in the language of prose. Wordsworth makes a wider generalization: "It
may be safely affirmed that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the
language of prose and metrical composition." Qualifying his first raw statement that "the real
language of man" is the right material, he adds, that it is to be purified from provincialism, and
from all "rational causes of disgust and dislike." It is to be "selected", it is to be "the real
language of men in a state of vivid sensation.'' ''All good poetry", the Preface proclaims, "is the
spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
Wordsworth is proud of having uttered "little of what is usually called poetic diction." He
contrasts with his own style "the gaudiness and inane phraseology" of many modern writers.
His objection to poetic diction is that it is not true to nature -- either to external nature or the
human nature in its response to the external world (Wimsatt). In the zeal to "vindicate the
poetry of earth" he attempts to exercise the power of exiting the sympathy of" the reader by a
faithful adherence to the truth of nature. To quote Wordsworth, "I have at all times endeavored
to look steadily at my subject: consequently I hope that there is in these poems little falsehood
 61

of description, and that my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective
importance."
In the course of his arguments, Wordsworth also contends that even honest expression
can become bad poetry by being repeated. "I have ……. abstained from the use of many
expressions, in themselves proper" and beautiful, but which have been foolishly repeated by
bad poets," till such feelings of disgust are connected with them, "as it is scarcely possible by
any art of association to overpower."
Wordsworth's dictum that the language of poetry is "a selection of the real language of
men in a state of vivid sensation" has been a subject of much criticism which began with
Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. Wimstt's summary of Coleridge's argument, about poetic
diction is reproduced below:
(1) Coleridge said that if Wordsworth, in arguing that the language of "material
composition" is essentially the same as that of prose, meant only that poetry and
prose have the same vocabulary, or dictionary, on which to draw, he was" uttering
a truism. Coleridge concluded that Wordsworth really meant that the poetic
mariner of combining words was no different from that of prose. And this, he
retorted, was patently false.
(2) Coleridge argued that if a given image or figure (for instance, the "image" of
Phoebus as the sun) is used badly by a given poet (for instance, Gray in a sonnet
criticized by Wordsworth) the reason for the badness is not that the figure is a
repetition of what other poets have done, but that it is in some way a violation of
"grammar, logic, psychology," "good sense" or "taste" the" rules of the
IMAGINATION. Another poet might be found (for instance, Spenser) who had used
the Phoebus image well.
(3) Coleridge argued that education, and not the lack of it, tends to make a poet.
Uneducated men are disorderly in their writing; they lack "purview." If the
peasantry of Wordsworth's Westmoreland and Cumberland spoke a pure and
vigorous language, this came not from uninstructed communion with nature, out
from spirit of independence and from a solid religious education and acquaintance
with the Bible and the hymnbook.
One kind of speech (socially defined) could not be more real than another. But in a given
instance it might be either more or less poetic. In his appreciation of Wordsworth's own poetic
performance, Coleridge noted that Wordsworth suffered the difficulties of a ventriloquist in his
undue liking for the dramatic form. Either a rustic speaker was invested with a Wordsworth
authority of utterance, or an opposite fault appeared, matter-of factness, circumstantially, and
a down right prosaicism. "I've measured it from side to side: it is three feet long, and two feet
wide." It is not possible for a poet, urged Coleridge, especially not for a lyric poet, "to imitate
truly a dull and garrulous discourse, without repeating the effects of dullness and garrulity."
Commenting upon the first argument, Hazlitt remarked that Coleridge had reduced.
Wordsworth's argument to this that there is nothing peculiar about poetry. According to
 62

Garrod, this is an underestimate because Wordsworth has perfectly good answer to this
objection. The poet who composes in a "selection "from the real language of men" escapes "the
language of any other man of commonsense". In the exact degree in which he is poet; "the
language of poetry must be real, a true and not a false language; but because it is to be poetry,
it cannot be language of "commonsense" but only that part of the real language of men as-will
make up -into imagination of the poet.
A fairly objective assessment of Wordsworth's theory and practice of poetic diction has,
however, tome from Wellek. According to him Wordsworth's objection to 18th century poetic
diction, and his reaction in favour of colloquial speech excited an immediate debate which
hardly appears called for. In his view, Wordsworth rejects "poetic diction" in a narrow sense,
i.e. a fixed sacred vocabulary with its exclusion of what it considered low or trivial. What he, in
fact, objects to are "specific stylistic devices, such as- personification, periphrasis, Latinisms,
and grammatical licenses, to syntactical features like inversions and frequent antitheses and
to structures which are merely enumerative and hence similar to some kind of catalogue
raisonne. These objections might extend to the use of classical mythology, or to the 'pathetic
fallacy' if it seemed uncalled for and too violent; on some occasions he was merely applying
common sense standards of true and accuracy. At times Wordsworth's criticism is direct
against what we would call 17th century characteristics: quaintness, conceits, extravagant
hyperboles, verbal wit, and elaborate obscurity. For reasons not always discernible in the text,
Wordsworth tolerates these devices if they seem to indicate that there was an "undercurrent' of
genuine emotion.
Wellek makes a telling comment on Wordsworth's failure to propound an unambiguous
theory and his violation in his practice of his own rules: "The phrasing of many of
Wordsworth's objections is too loose and incautious, his use of the term 'language' so
uncertain that he left himself wide open to Coleridge's refutation from his own practice.
Wordsworth himself uses many devices against which he objected. His syntax can be very
involved; he sometimes' uses very bookish polysyllabic words, his poems are full of the pathetic
fallacy; and even many instances of 18 the century types of periphrasis can be found in his
poems. Wordsworth in his critical writings was incapable of defining the difference between
what was to him a legitimate and even central animating metaphor and a false arid artificial
one. Neither could he describe, theoretically, why certain inversions are right and others
wrong."
The literary criticism of Wordsworth, in Wellek's considered opinion, is usually supposed
to mark a break with neo-classicism. The whole stress has been placed on his naturalism ("the
poet reproducing the speech of humble and rustic life") combined with his emotionalism ("the
view that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings). Wellek reinterprets these
two ideas in the light of the whole range of Wordsworth's criticism.
Wordsworth's recommendation of the 'natural language' of man needs interpretation. If
it means the actual language of rusitcs, even Wordsworth himself could not have thought of it
as applying 10 more than a few of his Lyrical Ballads. He himself defended these only as
"experiments" and in later editions he recognized that his observations on diction had "so little
 63

application to the greater part, perhaps, of the collection, as subsequently enlarged and
diversified, that they could not with any propriety stand as an introduction to it," and he
relegated them, therefore, to an appendix.
Besides, Wordsworth himself considerably modified his recommendation of rustic
speech. At times, he has the social distinction in mind. He contrasts the speech of the
"salesmen" of Lake country with that of "London wits and witling" of people who have "to do
with routs, dinners, morning calls, hurry from door to door, from street to street, on foot or in
carriage."
At times Wordsworth's "rustic speech" becomes difficult to distinguish from generally
human speech, emotional language, purified for the purpose of the poet. He speaks about a
selection of the real language of men", about expression, "simple and unelaborated" but
"purged from causes of dislike or disgust." Wordsworth recognizes .that selection alone, will
"separate the composition from the vulgarity and meanness of ordinary life." The poet must'
remove what is painful , and disgusting. He "Selects from the real language of men, or which
amounts to the same thing, composes accurately in the spirit of such selection". This surely
leaves all the leeway anybody could demand. Wordsworth actually ends, in good neo-
classicism when he requires "the general language of humanity and when he appeals to the
common principles, which govern first-rate writers" mall nations and languages," He
continuously assumes that there is a core of language common to all men, comprehensive to
all, from which the learned artificial poet deviates at his peril.
But Wordsworth has other positive recommendations than mere naturalness and,
universality. Poetic language must be language in a "state of vivid sensation" and hence "if
selected truly and judiciously, must necessarily be dignified and variegated and alive with
metaphors and figures." To be "dignified and variegated" seems an odd pair of requirements,
but these are the traditional demands of ancient rhetoricians, for the "high" style. We have in
Wordsworth, as many times before in the history of rhetoric, not merely a demand for
vividness, Metaphor is associated with passion, for in passions we are supposed to use figures
spontaneously. Passionate figurative language has often been thought to have been the
language of primitive man. Like many 10 th century author, Wordsworth tells us that "the
earlier poets wrote naturally, feeling powerfully, in a figurative language". The rhetorical figures
of learned 18th century appear to Wordsworth as a distortion, a misapplication of this original
language which was spontaneous expression. Wordsworth believes, apparently, that the poet's
language is really inferior to what men in passion, especially in former days had said, "The
language of the poet falls short of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual
pressure of those passions". The poet's words are inferior to these "emanations of reality and
truth". The language of the early poets differed from ordinary language, but it differed
legitimately because it was the language of extraordinary; presumably heroic, occasions. Still it
was a language really spoken by men.
Wordsworth thus seems well on the way towards some kind of primitivism similar to
that of certain Scotch critics of Herder. This naturalism consists of a recommendation of the
poetry which the primitive bard was supposed to have used. Paradoxically, Wordsworth does
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not differ here from Gray, who wrote his turgid, highly "figurative", "elevated" odes, The
Progress of Poesy and The Bard, with such a theory in mind.
But Wordsworth does not take this point of view consistently. He is, one must admit
affected by the contemporary concern for folk poetry: We mow that he thought highly of Burns
and Birger and considered English poetry "absolutely redeemed" by the publication of Percy's
Reliques. He himself wrote much in ballad stanzas and folk songs forms.
But Wordsworth keeps aloof from many implications of this view. He suspects and
ridicules the craze for Ossian, that "phantom begotten by the snug embrace of an impudent
Highlander upon a cloud of tradition" arid he never, of course, rejects the tradition of learned
Latin poetry as Herder and many other Germans did. This may have had something to do with
his classical training, his firm regard for ancient Rome, which also had its political reasons. He
never ceased admiring Lucretius, "a far higher poet than Virgil", Virgil himself, whom he began
to translate, and even Horace his "great favourite". Wordsworth's great hero in poetry and life
was Milton, and not far below him was Spenser; both are the most learned, even bookish poets
of English tradition. Thus in a curious way, the wheel has come full circle: at first sight
Wordsworth sounds like a naturalist defending the imitation of folk ballads and rustic speech:
or at least as a primitive of the same sort as Herder, favoring simple passionate "nature" poetry
and condemning "art" and the artificial. But actually Wordsworth assimilates Spenser, Milton,
Chaucer, and Shakespeare to his concept of "nature" without making them over into
primitives.
Also, the criticism of the Augustan tradition made by Wordsworth was by no mean
indiscriminate. Wordsworth knew Dryden and Pope intimately and had a great admiration for
the Georgian tradition of descriptive and reflective poetry of the 18th century. There is
continuity in style and ideas between Thomson, Akenside, Dyer and Wordsworth which can
hardly be exaggerated. Wordsworth merely shared the view of Joseph. Warton and Pope
"unluckily took the plain when the heights were within his reach". The height must mean the
higher genres of sublime poetry; "the plain" must refer to the colloquial verse of the Satires and
Epistles.
The language spoken by men came to, mean something very different from naturalism.
It finally meant the language of Milton and Shakespeare, "the impassioned language of the
great poet."
4.4 Drawbacks of Poetic Diction
The great Roman orator Cicero had divided style into three categories: the low used to
prove, the middle used to please, and the high or lofty used to move. Though this distinction
was chiefly for use in oratory, yet it got used by poets and proved useful in distinguishing the
'kinds' of poetry by their style. It was believed that the elegiac used the low style, the pastoral
the middle, and the epic the lofty. Low words and phrases were dismissed as being unfit for
poetry. Technical words too were debarred from being used in poetry. The two categories of
words which were taboo for poetry were the low and technical. The poets were at liberty to use
any language they liked after keeping away from these two categories. Poetic diction was "a
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system of words at once refined from the grossness of domestic use, and free from the
harshness of terms appropriated to particular arts." Employed judiciously by gifted writers it
served the poets, but falling in the hands of mere versifiers, it soon degenerated into artifice.
These versifiers thought that they could transmute the common place into the grand and
sublime by the use of personification, periphrasis, inversion, antithesis, Latinisms. We will give
the example of periphrasis only- shepherds were called lithe rural race" a bright expanse of
flowers in the fields "their flowery carpet", singing birds "gay songsters of the feather'd train."
In this way poetry drifted away from natural expression altogether.
It was this abuse of poetic diction rather than poetic diction which Wordsworth
disapproved. The poetry of the Lyrical Ballads was in keeping with Wordsworth's theory that
poetry should deal with incidents and situations from common life and "to relate or describe
them, throughout as far as possible in a selection of language really used by men."
Wordsworth explains why low and rustic life was chosen. It is because in that condition men
speak from their personal experience and convey their feelings and notions in simple and
unelaborated expressions. Such a language "is a more permanent and a far more philosophical
language than, that which is frequently substituted for it by poets who think that they are
conferring honor upon themselves and their art in proportion as they separate themselves from
the sympathies of men and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression in order to
furnish food for fickle taste and fickle appetites."
Wordsworth points out that as a natural corollary to his concept of poetic style the
language of poetry cannot differ from that of good prose.
Wordsworth recommends the use of metre and when pointed out that just as there is a
difference between poetry and prose regarding metre, so there could be other valid difference
between prose and poetry. Wordsworth replies that he recommends "a selection of the language
really spoken by men.” The stress is on selection. When this selection is made with true taste
and feeling, then there is a natural difference between prose and poetry. The words and
phrases for poetry have to be chosen judiciously. Wordsworth even admits the possibility of
what Johnson called "flowers of speech", arising in the process, "for, if the poet's subject be
judiciously chosen, it will naturally and upon, fit occasion, lead him to passions the language
of which if selected truly and judiciously, must necessarily be dignified and variegated and
alive with metaphors and figures.
The point is, Is Wordsworth really saying anything different? Is he not propounding a
poetic diction of a different kind? His concept of poetic diction says that the vulgarity of
common speech should be refined by taste. Metaphors and figures should be added to it to give
it dignity and variety. Is this concept in any way different from the one against which he
protests? Wordsworth's own practice is so different from his theory. His greatest poems--
"Tintern Abbey", "The Immortality Ode", "The Solitary Reaper" and others are not written "in a
selection of language really used by men." It is true that there is a certain part of Wordsworth's
poetry which is of "incidents and situations from common life". This criterion is certainly
fulfilled in Wordsworth's poetry. This means that Neo-classical critics were narrow in their
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appreciation of good poetry and did not judge poetry on genuine merit. Wordsworth laid stress
on this and overestimated the possibilities of his own concept of poetic diction.

Self-Assessment Questions
1. Make a list of all the statements Wordsworth has made regarding the creation of
poetry.
2. Read the text carefully and note the passages where Wordsworth talks of poetic
diction.
3. Try and find the difference between the two editions of the "Preface". In which
years were they published?

4.5 Historical Importance of the Preface

"… there is in his poetry and in his 'Preface' a profound spiritual revival"
T.S. Eliot
4.5.1 The Plan of Lyrical Ballads: Let us start at the start with the plan of Lyrical
Ballads; for that is what we must turn to if we wish to understand the historical importance of
the 'Preface', We have a precise record of it in chapter XIV of S.T. Coleridge's Biographia
Literaria. During the first years, when Wordsworth and Coleridge were neighbors, their
“conservation turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the
sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving
the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of imagination.” Out of these conversations
emerged the idea that 'a series of poems could be composed of two sorts', To Coleridge fell the
task of making supernatural agents and incidents credible and dramatic enough to appeal to
human affections, and to Wordsworth, the task of making the ordinary and the familiar
charming and new, transformed by the power of imagination; But as it is impossible to improve
upon Coleridge's account, let us turn to his famous passage which is admirably concise in
spite of its wider ranging suggestiveness, Coleridge records:
"It was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters
supernatural, or at least romantic yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human
interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination
that willing, suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic, faith, Mr.
Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object, to give the
charm of novelty to things of every day, and to excite a feeling analogous to the
supernatural, by awakening the mind's attention to the lethargy of custom, and
directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible
treasure but for which (because of familiarity and narrow personal interests) we have
eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not and hearts that neither feel nor understand." .
After reading this, surely, one can understand what gave the initial direction to
Wordsworth's argument in the 'Preface'. The concern with the supernatural, the romantic, as
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well as' the ordinary is only secondary; the primary concern is with the interplay of 'our inward
nature or human interest' and external reality - natural as well as supernatural. What both the
poets aspired to do was to re-sensitize their readers so as to restore them their natural gifts of
a seeing eye, a sensitive ear, arid a heart that could feel and understand.
4.5.2 The Historical Context of the Preface: And now, in order to achieve the aim set out
above, it was clear that subject matter and language of poetry must change. Poetry must
return to nature and use simple and direct language. But People were not yet ready for the
change. A taste for the new kind of poetry needed to be created and antagonism to it overcome.
This was the context of, and the justification for, the publication of the 'Preface'. Such an
approach was nothing new. Dryden and others had done it earlier.
Wordsworth's protest against the excesses of poetic diction is not a lone case in the
history of English poetry. Two kinds of protest against artificial poetic diction or linguistic
excesses have been generally known; (a) that of the classicist, "hostile to pedantry and
affection, and arguing the cultivation of polite and graceful speech" and (b) that of the
romantic, opposed to unnatural diction and syntactic, license, arid favouring the primitive, the
native, the simple and directly passionate. As Rene Wellek writes, "every innovator in the
history of English poetry has felt that he was reviving the spoken language. Donne thought his
style more natural and colloquial than Spenser's. Dryden reacted against the artificialities of,
metaphysical wit, and T.S. Eliot and" Ezra' Pound in our own day advocate--spoken language
in poetry."
As innovators, Wordsworth and Coleridge sought to make a clean break with the neo-
classicism of the earlier era when poets could see nature only through the spectacles of books
and describe it only through poetic diction which could never attain more than a pseudo-
classical dignity: when they could hear the music only of heroic couplets and were deaf to
nature's harmony as well as to the music of the spheres; and as far as their heart was
concerned, they displaced it with their head, became rational, and went crazy, because they
had forgotten that man cannot live by bread alone. The poetry of the previous age was urban,
gregarious, artificial, didactic, uniformed by tender feelings, and devoid of insight into the dark
places of human psychology, It was a poetry of wit, parody, and satire aimed at men and
women of fashion and education. Naturally, from the, range of poetic subjects the ordinary and
the humble were excluded as being unworthy of poetic treatment.
What was undertaken by Wordsworth and Coleridge was a very bold project, and
experiment of far reaching consequences. They set out deliberately to go against the current
and to challenge contemporary poetic tastes as well as practice--all in the service of realism,
naturalism, romanticism, and democratic ideals. Realism, in regard to the choice of themes
from common life; naturalism, in the reproduction of the speech of humble and rustic
character; emotionalism, in the stress on feelings giving importance to the action, rather than
the other way round; democratic ideals of individualism and the worth and dignity of every
human being, and finally an eschewing of false sentiment as well as artificial diction-these are
the important strands of the poetics of the romantic movement, as enunciated by Wordsworth.
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4.5.3 The Preface as a bridge between neo-classical concerns and Wordsworth's Poetic
practice
The break with the earlier poetic practice was not complete; it could not be; so widespread and
vicious was its hold that poets worked under its influence even against their better judgment.
Wordsworth himself, who sought simplicity of diction and transparency of utterance, as a
matter of principle, could not entirely escape the power of poetic diction. No less powerful were
the promptings of his deeper instincts which enable him to scale dizzying heights of thoughts,
or to lose himself in his mystic visions even when the impulse that had first propelled him on
his poetic flight came from a humble object or a simple incident, His practice, in short, failed to
match his principles.
This should make it possible for us to see how his poetic practice became a bridge
between neo-classic poetic theory on the one hand, and Wordsworth's manifesto of Romantic
poetry on the other. As Rene Wellek has observed, that far from-making a radically fresh start,
Wordsworth simply adapted neo-classic ideas and modified them to suit his purposes as the
following points illustrate:
1. Wordsworth inherited the neo-classic theory of poetry as 'Imitation' and he modified
it by giving it a specific social twist before he could accept it.
2. He modified the 18th century view of poetry as passion and emotion by adding to it
'recollected in tranquility.'
3. He extended and amplified neo-classical rhetorical ideas about the effect of poetry,
into a theory of its moral effect on society, the poet binding society in a healthy
relationship through the workings of the spirit of love.
4. He directed the neo-classical views on Farley and Imagination into a fresh channel
so that his mystical experiences and Coleridge's view of the organic unity of a work
of art could both be seen as the achievements of the play of the higher faculty of the
imagination, which, as Coleridge explained does not work in complete isolation from
Fancy.
5. As Wellek remarks, "Wordsworth actually ends in good neo-classicism" when he
requires "the general language of humanity" in his appeal to the "common principles
which govern first rate writers in all nations and tongues".
6. T. S. Eliot, in "The Use of Poetry and the use of Criticism", says that when
Wordsworth urged the use of language of "men", he was only saying in other words
what Dryden had said, and fighting the battle which Dryden had fought."
7. Prof. Arthur Beatty points out that when Wordsworth spoke about his poem as an
'experiment', - and appealed to his readers to approach them with an unprejudiced
mind, he did not use the arguments in favor of genius of 'imitation'. He first appeals
to nature, and claims that these "attempts" must not be judged by a narrow
definition of poetry but by the truth of 'nature'.
8. Wordsworth quotes with approval Sir Joshua Reynold's neo-classical view that
'accurate' taste in poetry; and in all the other arts, is an acquired talent, which can
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only be produced by thought and a long-continued intercourse : with the best

models of composition.
9. Wordsworth agrees with Aristotle's view that the object of poetry is not individual
and local but general... but one doesn't have to go that far, since Dr. Johnson, in the
18th century, had likewise declared; "The business of the poet is to examine not the
individual but the species, to remark general properties arid large appearances.
"There is also a stylistic link between Wordsworth's 'Preface' and Dr. Johnson's
Prose. As Geroge Watson remarks, the prose of the 'Preface' is of a polished
stateliness that is the child of Johnson and Gibbon.
What we have been saying above is that there is an unmistakable element of historical
continuity of poetic theory coterminous with the poetic reform proposed and under-taken by
Wordsworth.
4.5.4 General criticism of the Preface as a historical document
Criticism of Wordsworth's 'Preface' may be divided into two categories: general and detailed.
Let us first have a look at the general criticism which has often taken the form of either (a) a
study of the gap between Wordsworth's theory and actual practice, or (b) a consideration of the
literary and extra-literary tendencies.
(a) Coleridge writes in Bioqraphia Literaria : "With many parts of this Preface…….I
never concurred; but on the contrary objected to them as erroneous in principle, and as
contradictory (in appearance at least) both to other parts of the same 'Preface' and to the
author's own practice in the greater part of the poems themselves", He was in fact, satisfied
when Wordsworth relegated this prefatory disquisition to the end of his second volume, to be
read or not at the reader's choice.
Walter Raleigh likewise notes that he hardly ever observes his own rules but adds that
"the poems in which he most nearly observes them are often among his best: In partial
disagreement with this view, the record is set right with perspicacity and justice, by George
Saintsbury, who writes:
His theory led him to the composition of some silly things, and never in the least helped
him to the composition of some fine ones; but in practice he constantly neglected it. No
poet has a more distinct poetic diction, a diction sometimes more really stiff and non-
natural than that of any Augustan of the decadence-than Wordsworth.
In fact, Wordsworth himself revised his views later, saying that his 'observations' on
diction had so little application to the greater part, perhaps, of the collection, as subsequently
enlarged and diversified, that they could not with any propriety stand as an introduction to it,
and he relegated his preface to the obscurity of an appendix .
b) Some critics, like Coleridge, have criticized the Preface for its confusion,
illogicality and inconsistencies. Rene Wellek refers to Wordsworth's belief that although the
language of the early poets was different from ordinary language - yet it was the language
really spoken by men: and comments that ''Wordsworth thus seems well on the way towards
some kind of primitivism"……"But Wordsworth's view (which was shared by Coleridge) that
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science would enrich poetry· and help in taking an aesthetic view of the world, makes Wellek
modify his view thus: "It certainly shows that at this point at least Wordsworth had given up
some of his primitivism - which, of course, never put complete reliance in a past golden age --
and that he kept his trust in man's creativity and the basic continuity of human, feelings,
predicting that poetry will be necessary at all times."
Cazamian singles but another aspect of the 'Preface' to condemn. He says; "The doctrine
of Lyrical Ballads is an aesthetic application of sentimental democracy."
Irving Babbitt, the American critic, makes perhaps the most damaging criticism of
Wordsworth's central theory in his book, Rousseau and Romanticism:
"He (Wordsworth) proceeds to set up a view of poetry that is only the neo-classical view
turned upside down. For the proper subject and speech of poetry he would turn from
the highest class of society to the lowest, from, the aristocrat to the peasant. The
peasant is more poetical than the aristocrat because he is closer to nature, for
Wordsworth as he himself avows, is less interested in the peasant for his own sake than
because he sees in him a sort or emanation for the landscape."
While it is impossible to refute the first observation of Babbit, we can surely offer at
least a partial defense on behalf of Wordsworth. Much though Wordsworth admired the 18th
century Georgian: descriptive and reflective poetry, the poems he wrote for Lyrical Ballads are
neither nature poems nor landscape poems of the descriptive, or reflective variety; they are
poems about people of humble birth just as he had proposed in the 'Preface' to choose for this
poetic purpose. So, Babbitt is not quite right in devaluing, or underestimating the importance
of the humble element of Wordsworth's poetry.
4.6 Wordsworth's Concept of Poetry
From a consideration of the language of poetry, Wordsworth goes on to comment on the poetic
art itself. He defines good poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." In that
case there is not much difference between his idea of poetry and Shelley's 'Skylark' which
pours his full heart, "In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. If it is merely a spontaneous
overflow then how does Wordsworth reconcile his contention that the language of poetry is a
selection of language with metre superadded? These two processes require the poet to have
leisure and a rational approach in order to refine his craft of poetic composition. If the poet has
to spend time and technique in order to select the right words and to add metre to it, then it
means poetry is not merely "a spontaneous' overflow" of feelings.
Wordsworth seems to be giving contradictory statements. For example "spontaneous
overflow of powerful feelings" and "emotions recollected in tranquility" are the very opposite of
each other. The first one comes all of a sudden, whereas recollection is done deliberately, and
in tranquillity. Both are not the same thing and it is difficult to reconcile the two contradictory
statements. Wordsworth seems to be giving the impression that both mean the same thing. He
tries to elucidate the first statement by the second. George Watson in his The Literary Critics
observes that if poetry is tithe spontaneous overflow" then poetry "is the final product" of the
"unforced" overflow of powerful feelings. But Watson feels that Wordsworth's second statement
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is the more considered statement. Also it is in consonance with Wordsworth's own poetic
composition. He would come across a sight which 'moved him e.g. a solitary reaper or the
daffodils. The impression would, be stored in memory that later on would be recalled in calm
and contemplative mood, and then the poem would be written. The process involved in writing
poetry meant the re-living of the emotion which was experienced initially. This means that
poetry is the product of the original free flow of the emotion not as it is felt for the first time but
as it is felt upon recollection. Had there been no emotion felt to begin with, there would have
been no recollection of it in tranquility and hence no expression of it in poetry.
But we must keep in mind that Wordsworth's poetic process involved the use of rational
craftsmanship. He always composed his poems with the greatest care not trusting his first
expression. In fact, he generally found his first effort detestable. In a letter to Gilles he writes,
"It is frequently true of second words as of second thoughts that they are the best." The
principle of spontaneity in poetic composition is not advocated anywhere else in the 'Preface'
except in that solitary phrase.
Regarding the function of poetry, Wordsworth does not think it is mere self-expression
as "spontaneous overflow" would suggest. The important point to notice in the 'function of
poetry is its effect on the reader; for the poet is a "man speaking to men". If there was no
reader then poetry would be, a mere voice in the wilderness. Wordsworth believes that poetry
is meant to give pleasure along with giving a moral gain which far outweighs aesthetic
pleasure, Aesthetic pleasure is conveyed by the poet's way of saying things and by his use of
rhyme and metre. The moral gain is accrued because feelings get refined. Poetry conveys
knowledge regarding man and nature. It also conveys those qualities which make life richer
and fuller. These qualities are enumerated in "The Recluse";
Truth, Grandeur, Beauty, Love and Hope
And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith.
A poet possesses a greater power to feel and to express his feelings than other men. He
has the capacity to reach the readers' heart. The same objects (e.g. the daffodils) may evoke no
emotions in the ordinary man but for the poet they may become the means of arousing feelings
which elevate and convey a sublime truth. The poet's feelings are saner, purer and more
permanent. The reader too gets influenced and after reacting to, the poet emerges a saner and
purer human being i.e. better than he was before his experience of having read a great poem.
According to Wordsworth, poetry is not only concerned with, beauty but also with truth.
It is concerned with man's knowledge of himself, his environment and the world around him.
Science too pursues truth but scientific truths are confined to the material world where as
poetic truth concerns the world of emotions and spirituality. According to Wordsworth, poetry
is a great force for the good. In a letter to Lady Beaumont he writes that his object in writing
poetry was "to console the afflicted; to add sunlight, to daylight by making the happy happier;
to teach the young and gracious of every age to see, to think and feel, and therefore to become
more actively and securely virtuous". It is for this reason that he thinks that every great poet is
a teacher. In a letter to George Beaumount he writes: "I wish either to be considered as a
teacher or as nothing". In a letter to lady Beaumount he writes that his poems "Will co-operate
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with the benign tendencies in human nature and society, and will, in their degree, be
efficacious in making men wiser, better, and, happier". The benign tendencies are defined as
"relationship and love" which poetry promotes. In fact, this is one of the functions of poetry. In
this Wordsworth differs from the Neo-classical. They are of the belief that poetry teaches by
appealing to the intellect or good sense. Whereas Wordsworth implies that it appeals to the
emotions and that love and relationship are fostered by poetry inducing a purgation of feelings.
Wordsworth's critical writings make the end of the old school and the revival of a still
older school that of the Romantic school of Elizabethans: Wordsworth opposed the Neo-
classical practice of judging a work of art by ancient models. These tests were based on ancient
models. Wordsworth, (rightly argued that a work may be flawless, as far as structure, diction
and metre are concerned; and yet fail "to please always and please all." It may satisfy a critic
who is looking for these niceties. But such a work may not satisfy a reader who is looking for
that quality which makes a work of art move him. From this Wordsworth logically came to the
conclusion that literary excellence lay neither in a particular diction nor in a particular mode
of writing. True literary excellence lay in the healthy pleasure that a reader ought to get. If the
writer has not been able to move the reader and give him pleasure, then any theories regarding
diction or language etc. were futile. The primary importance should be given to what the reader
gets.
4.6.1 Coleridge's criticism of some of the major ideas of Wordsworth's theory of
Poetry
In our attempt to assess the critical validity and soundness of the 'Preface', we have so far
examined some general critical observations on the 'Preface'. In 'order to supplement that
extensive view with an intensive one, we turn our attention now to Coleridge's detailed
criticism of some of Wordsworth's major pronouncements.
Coleridge begins on a positive note. He refers to Wordsworth's attempts to reform poetic
diction, and to poeticize the truth of passion; his understanding of the way a reader
experiences a "pleasurable confusion of thought" from artificial diction or ornaments of speech;
and his stress on that state which is induced by the natural-language of impassioned feeling.
In all these respects, says he, Wordsworth undertook a useful task, deserves all praise, both
for the attempt and for the execution. But he has differences with Wordsworth on the following
matters:
1. that the proper diction for poetry is that language chosen, with some modifications,
from the speech of men in real life, especially, when they are in a state of vivid
sensation;
2. that there neither is, nor can be any essential difference between the language of
prose and the metrical composition;
3. that he had generally chosen low and rustic life; and
4. that from the objects with which the rustic hourly communicates, the best part of
language is formed.
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Coleridge first takes up the view that the proper diction of poetry is the language spoken
by 'men in real life' after its disgusting characteristics have been eliminated by the poet
possessing taste and sensibility. He argues that this view can apply to a limited class of poetry.
Next, he objects to the word 'real'. He adds: Every man's language varies according to the
extent of his knowledge, the activity of his faculties adds to the depth or quickness of his
feelings. Every, man's language has, first its individualities, secondly, the common properties
of the class to, which he belongs; and thirdly; words and phrases of universal use. Now, the
problem gets even more complicated when we consider that language' in a certain place is
affected by such factors as the character of the clergyman….. the existence or nonexistence of
schools, and the presence of readers of weekly newspapers. Coleridge cites Dante's view with
approval, that the language of communication 'exists everywhere in parts, and nowhere as a
whole.' In short, it seems to Coleridge that Wordsworth is engaged in a wild goose chase.
He then contends that Wordsworth has not strengthened his case by adding the phrase
'in a state of excitement.' "For," says Coleridge, "the property of passion is not to create, but to
set in increased activity."
After this he goes on to take issue on the question of 'selection'. Irrefutably, he argues,
"the very power of making the selection implies the previous possession of the language
selected. Moreover, if a man of the poet's keen sensibility and refined taste makes the
selection, in what sense would the selected language remain typical of the common man? He
quotes some lines from a poem published in Lyrical Ballads, and persuasively shows that no
rustic could have placed the words the way they are in the poem.
1. Even on the question of metre, Coleridge's view is contrary to Wordsworth's for he
supports its use (a) "as having its' origin in a state of increased excitement, thus
being closely associated with poetry; (b) providing continued excitement of
surprise as well as its gratification through regularity, (c) as assisting the
recollection and preservation of truths or incidents in poetic forms; (d) as being 'the
proper form of poetry', poetry being thus imperfect and defective without metre; (e)
as affording, through its regularity, a unity of all the parts as "assimilated to the
more important and essential parts; and finally (f) as it has been the practice of the
best 'poets, of all countries and in all ages………."
2. Taking a stand diametrically opposed to Wordsworth's he declares; "There may be,
is and ought to be an essential difference between the language of prose and
metrical composition."
3. About Wordsworth's choice of humble and rustic characters, Coleridge says that his
claim is a misguided one. Wordsworth's chosen characters are low arid rustic, 'but
not as low and rustic' that they should give readers a pleasure of doubtful moral
'effect through a sense of superiority at perusing a happy imitation of the rude
unpolished manners and discourses of their inferiors. "I am convinced," argues
Coleridge, "that for the human soul to prosper in rustic life, a certain vantage
ground is a pre-requisite. It is not every man that is likely to be improved by a
country life, or by country labor. Education, or original sensibility, or both, must
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pre-exist…otherwise the ancient mountains, with all their errors and all their
glories, are picture to the blind, and music to the deaf."
4. Finally, as regards the growth of the best part of language, Coleridge says that the
rustic's limited experience and scanty vocabulary can never form the best part of
language. The best part of human language is derived from reflection on the mind
itself. It is formed by a voluntary appropriation of fixed symbols to internal acts, to
the process and results of imagination; the greater part of which has no place in the
consciousness of uneducated men." As an incontrovertible proof, he adds, "The
extreme difficulty; and often the impossibility, of finding words for the simplest
moral and intellectual processes of the language of uncivilized tribe has proved
perhaps the weightiest obstacle to the progress of our most zealous and adroit
missionaries."
Yet, when all is said and done, Coleridge' adopts in the end a different strategy of attack
which looks like a generous defense. He remarks that Wordsworth's pronouncement about
using the actual language, of men, etc. is so groundless, so strange and overwhelming in its
consequences, that "I cannot, and I do not, believe that the poet did ever himself adopt it (the
actual language of men) in the unqualified sense, in which his expressions have been
understood by others ... "
4.6.2 Eliot's Criticism of Wordsworth’s theory of Poetry
T.S. Eliot in his "The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism" comments on Wordsworth's
criticism. I will quote the relevant lines, "Wordsworth by no means worried himself to excess in
observing his own principles. The language of the middle and lower classes of society is of
course perfectly proper when you are representing dramatically the speech of these classes,
and then no other language is proper; similarly, when you are representing dramatically the
language of the upper classes; but on other occasions, it is not the business of the poet to talk
like any class of society, but like himself- rather better, we hope, than any actual class, though
when any class of society happens to have the best word, phrase or expletive for anything,
then the poet is entitled to it."
Wordsworth advocated a conversational style in poetry. Yet he failed to appreciate it in
those who had that style. For example Donne's poetry has a peculiarly conversational style but
neither Wordsworth nor Coleridge appreciated him for his style. Both judged him under the
influence of Dr. Johnson's eighteenth century sensibility. Eliot says, "Much of the poetry of
Wordsworth and Coleridge is just as turgid and artificial and elegant as any eighteenth century
die-hard could wish. What then was all the fuss about?"
Wordsworth's "Excursion" is turgid. At times the "Immortality Ode" and "Tintern Abbey"
also lapse into a stylish diction, Wordsworth has not been able to compose his longer poems
according to his theory. Ironically enough, the prose of the 'Preface' itself is like eighteenth
century prose. It is Wordsworth's shorter poems which in some manner conform to his theories
regarding poetry. In "Solitary Reaper", "Resolution' and Independence", "Michael", "Ruined
Cottage" his 'Lucy' poems, we find that deep and lofty thoughts have been expressed in simple
spoken language. In these poems spoken language acquires rhythm and becomes poetry.
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4.6.3 Wordsworth's Shortcomings as a Critic

What Coleridge's devastating Critique of the 'Preface' has demonstrated is the weakness of
Wordsworth as a theoretician, not as a poet he long continued to praise him as the poet of "The
vision and the Faculty Divine." Geroge Watson, too, regards the 'Preface' as an example of
Wordsworth's inability to theorize." R. L. Bret and A.R. Jones likewise conclude that
Wordsworth's views remain the expression of rather confused anti-intellectualism
…….Wordsworth's poetic vision remained a personal one which even his own 'Preface' could
not wholly explain.
It may also be admitted that Wordsworth wrote very little criticism, he inaugurated no
new school nor did he extend the frontiers of criticism proper. H.W. Garrod speaks of the
'Preface' as first class pamphleteering.
4.7 The Impact, Historical Value and Critical Validity of the Preface
Wherein, then lies, the value of the 'Preface'? Why is it regarded as a document of great
historical importance?
According to J. H. Smith and E. W. Parks "it dated a new era, and raised a wall between
the 18th century and the 19th. To some it is a powerful document in .the liberating of letters
from bondage'; to others it is 'the Pentateuch of the anarchists'. To Smith and Parks it is a
document that liberated Wordsworth from such erroneous 18th century ideas as are expressed
in the following words of Barry Carl. Nature feeds our minds through our senses without any
efforts on our part. This is that confusion of the world of sense and world of intellect, utterly
distinct, in reality which has undermined the basis of thought" in the 18th century.
Commenting on this, Smith and Parks write: "It is in freeing Wordsworth .... from such a
current as this that the great 'Preface' is alone powerful.
Taking a wider view, Rene Wellek observes: "though Wordsworth left only a small body
of criticism, it is rich in survivals, suggestions, anticipations and personal insights."
We may, in conclusion, sum up the reasons, which in our view, make Wordsworth's
'Preface' a document of great importance, historically as well as critically.
In the first place it articulated theory which formed the basis of a new kind of poetry,
incidentally showing that even when poets valued spontaneity, freshness of response, and
profuse strains of unpremeditated art, their poetry had as firm and 'meditated' a theoretical
base as that of any other age.
Secondly, it deliberately excluded from criticism such neo-classical questions as:
(a) how far are rules to be followed?
(b) whether in imitating nature, one should turn to the 'ancients' or the 'modern' or
neither but to nature?
(c) whether 'genius' needed to be schooled?
(d) what form of 'poesy' was the 'highest' ?
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By avoiding these conventional concerns, the 'Preface' provided an alternative work for
the criticism of poetry.
Thirdly, it provoked a critical debate that began by demolishing some of his own views:
progressed through a re-examination of some of the most important issues relating to theme,
diction, imagination and fancy, metre and the interaction between poetry and society, and
poetry and the work of science; and that continues still.
Last, but not the least, is the question of aim: The 'Preface' was meant to persuade and
convince unsympathetic readers to receive Lyrical Ballads as an 'experiment' in a new type of
poetry with an open mind. Did the 'Preface' succeed in its professed aim? In spite of all its
errors or faults no doubt, it did. What better authority can we cite than Coleridge, who, as we
have seen earlier, was certainly not a blind admirer of the 'Preface'. He acknowledged that a
comparison of the poems published before the 'Preface', with those published in the ten or
twelve years after, has left 'no doubt on my mind' that Mr. Wordsworth is fully justified in
believing his efforts to have been by no means ineffectual. He goes on to add that in the verses
not only of his admirers but also of those who were hostile to his theory as well as poetry, are
the impressions of his principles plainly visible.
The star of Wordsworth the poet may not be very much in the ascendant in our century
of 'The Waste Land', but there is not the least doubt that the critical issues he dealt with are as
relevant today as were in his time. This is what accounts for the historical as well as critical
importance of the 'Preface'.
4.8 Summary
In this lesson, you familiarized yourself with the process of poetic composition and creation. In
this regard i.e. production of poetry, you found discussed the roe of observation and
description, sensibility, reflection, fancy and imagination, invention and judgment. You also
learnt about Wordsworth’s views on poetic diction and limitations of the same. The lesson also
brought into the light why The Preface is considered landmark document in terms of historical
significance and its critical validity. And at last you saw on what grounds Coleridge and Eliot
critiqued Wordsworth’s take on criticism and creativity.
4.9 References
 Wellek, Rene: A History of Modem Criticism (The Romantic Age)
 Wimsatt & Brooks: A Short History of Literary Criticism, Vol. III.
 Garrod: Wordsworth.
 Smith, J.H. and Parks, E.W.: The Great Critics.
 Watson, George: The Literature Critics.
 Wellek, Rene: A History of Modern Criticism: The Romantic Age.
4.10 Suggested Readings
 Wimsatt, W.K. and Brooks, Cleanth: Literary Criticism: A Short History.
 Wordsworth, William: Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. (1800)
 Parrish, S.M.: The Art of the Lyrical Ballad.
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 Brett, R.L. and Jones, A.R. ed.: Lyrical Ballads, Introduction.

4.11 Model Questions
1. What was the contribution of Coleridge in the Preface or in the "Lyrical Ballads" as
you gather from the "Preface"? .
2. What are Wordsworth's views regarding the language and subject matter of poetry?
3. How does William Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads open the debate of poetic
diction?

*****
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Lesson 5

WILLIAM BLAKE’S SELECTED POEMS

Structure
5.0. Objectives
5.1. Introduction
5.2. William Blake’s Biographical Sketch
5.3. Critical Estimate of Blake’s Works
5.4. “Tyger”—Summary
5.4.1. “Tyger”—Analysis
5.5. “The Chimney Sweeper”—Summary
5.5.1. “The Chimney Sweeper”—Analysis
5.6. Summary
5.7 References
5.8. Suggested Reading
5.9. Model Questions

5.0 Objective
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
 Critically assess Blake’s place in the Romantic Age
 Comprehend a general view of the life of Blake as an author
 Identify and learn about his major works
 Critically analyse the prescribed poems
5.1. Introduction
William Blake was an English poet, painter and printmaker. He is regarded as a pivotal figure
in the field of poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. His revolutionary art and writings are
believed to have been inspired by the visions that he saw. The lesson provides a brief
biographical sketch of the poet and a detailed analysis of his poems that have been prescribed
in the syllabus.
5.2. William Blake’s Biographical Sketch
William Blake, born in Soho, London, in 1757, is not only known as an acclaimed writer but is
also regarded as an artist and a visionary, perhaps for many a mystical man. He is known to
have had religious visions since his early childhood days; in fact, Blake claimed to have seen
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an angel when he was quite a young boy. However, his artistic talents led his father, who was a
hosier, to send him to Henry Pars’ drawing school at the age of 10, where he learnt to copy
from prints and plaster casts, and in 1772 he was apprenticed to the engraver James Basire.
His parents were generally sympathetic towards his artistic temperament and they even
encouraged him to gather Italian prints. Blake was enrolled in the Royal Academy schools in
1779, but life drawing did not appeal him; he chose classical sculptures and Greek vase
paintings. There he came in close association of leaders of the neoclassical movement such
as John Flaxman and Thomas Stothard. Blake did not live in luxury, though he managed to
survive except for a few times when he had to depend on his friends for support. In fact, it was
only after his death that his genius was fully acknowledged, recognized and appreciated.
Temperamentally, Blake was free spirited and known to speak his mind to the extent that
people would call him mad. Blake died on August 12, 1827; he was buried in an unmarked
grave in a public cemetery and Bunhill Fields. After his death, his influence steadily grew
through the Pre-Raphaelites and the later noted poets such as T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats.
5.3. Critical Estimate of Blake’s Works
Blake believed that art should deal with great historical, religious and philosophical subjects.
In the 1780s he also exhibited several apocalyptic subjects at the Royal Academy. A continuing
theme of his work was the conflict between rulers and their people, a radicalism that coincided
with the period of the French Revolution. It was after the death of his father that Blake got
time to develop a printing technique combining his visionary texts and images on one printing
plate. The first successful work of this kind was the Songs of Innocence (1789), to which was
later added Songs of Experience (1794). Songs of Innocence was followed by The Book of Thel,
one of Blake’s works of prophecy, and in 1790 by The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, an attack
on the Christian mystic Swedenborg and an account of Blake’s own spiritual and artistic
struggles. Visions of the Daughters of Albion, America and Europe, three further books of
prophecy from 1793–1794, were based on Blake’s views that the French and American
Revolutions were the precursor of the Final Judgment of mankind and that America was the
embodiment of political and spiritual liberty. Further small books, Los, Urizen, and Ahania,
retellings of the Old Testament, were full of strong images, and 12 large individual prints, with
some of his most famous images such as Newton, followed in the mid-1790s. But all these
books were sold in very small numbers, copies of each edition differently compiled and colored.
However, with the publication of Poetical Sketches in 1783, Blake began to be recognized as a
poet. Blake is considered a Romantic writer, though for many he remains on the fringes of that
literary movement, because of the presence of the characteristics of Romantic literature found
in his writings. Romanticism is generally thought to have started with the 1798 publication
of Lyrical Ballads, written by Romantic authors William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge. Blake was, however, different from other first-generation Romantic writers. First, he
was a very mystical man, claiming to have seen an angel when he was very young. Religion
had a strong influence on Blake. However, as an adult Blake was hostile to the Church of
England – indeed, to all forms of organized religion. His earlier work is primarily rebellious in
character and this would align him to the other Romantic writers as champions of personal
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freedom. Romantics were attracted to rebellion and revolution, especially concerned with
human rights, individualism, and freedom from oppression. Blake rebelled against England's
church. He found it difficult to abide matrimonial laws regarding monogamy—especially when
his wife could no longer have children. Other characteristics that can be found in Blake's
poetry are his tendency to rely on his imagination and a great many references to the
supernatural.
Of all the romantic poets of the eighteenth century, William Blake (1757-1827) is the most
independent and the most original. In his earliest work, written when he was scarcely more
than a child, he seems to go back to the Elizabethan song writers for his models; but for the
greater part of his life he was the poet of inspiration alone, following no man’s lead, and
obeying no voice but that which he heard in his own mystic soul. Blake's Songs of
Innocence presented us with language representative of sight through the eyes of a child.
His Songs of Experience, then, represented his view that one must experience to see and that
experience, too, can corrupt people, thus taking away the child's innocence. Blake clearly had
a vivid imagination, noteworthy of this era. Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience depict
a popular polarization, as did his piece of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a firm collection of
thought. Though the most extraordinary literary genius of his age, he had practically no
influence upon it. Indeed, we hardly yet understand this poet of pure fancy, this mystic this
transcendental madman, who remained to the end of his busy life and incomprehensible.
5.4. “Tyger”—Summary
The poet seems to be suggesting that just as a piece of art carries the mark of its creator,
similarly Nature would also reflect the traces of its maker. Tiger is an animal which is on the
one hand strikingly beautiful and on the other hand fiercely violent and scary. The speaker in
the poem, thereby, begins with a curious question as to who could have created a creature like
the tiger—“What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame they fearful symmetry?” He then wonders
what kind of divine force would be behind such a creation. Each subsequent stanza stretches
the question further. The speaker broods over the means and instruments that the creator
must have used. Comparing the creator to a blacksmith, he ponders about the anvil and the
furnace that the project would have required and the smith who could have wielded them. And
once when the job was done, how did the creator feel about the final creation? The poem, in
the penultimate stanza just before it closes, tosses up yet another question: “Did He who made
the lamb make thee?” the parallel being drawn between the two animals also carries the
essence of the poem, perhaps suggesting the two versions of God and its creation.
5.4.1. “The Tyger”—Analysis
“The Tyger” was first published in William Blake’s 1794 volume called Songs of Experience. The
poem is composed in six quatrains in rhymed couplets. While the meter is regular and
rhythmic, the uncomplicated and neat stanzas of the poem, which carry a string of questions,
well articulate a single central idea. The poem’s opening stanza dramatically presents the
question —What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?— and the
successive stanzas expound upon the idea conceived here. Blake puts forth an established fact
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that just as any piece of art would carry the mark of the artist, nature would also carry the
traces of its creator.
The first stanza and sixth stanza, alike in every respect except for the shift from ‘Could frame’
to ‘Dare frame’, asking about the divine force responsible for the creation of the beast. The
speak goes on to wonder that since tiger is a dreadful and a horrifying creature, why would
God create such a beast. In other words, the poem poses an argument as to what does the
existence of evil and violence in the world tells us about the nature of God. For, this is a world
where both beauty and horror can coexist in a single being. Tiger is an animal which is on the
one hand strikingly beautiful and on the other hand fiercely violent and scary. The speaker in
the poem, thereby, begins with a curious question as to who could have created a creature like
the tiger—“What immortal hand or eye/ Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
As the poem progresses, it takes on a figurative function, and comes to exemplify the spiritual
and moral problem that the poem attempts to explore. Since the tiger’s remarkable nature
exists both in physical and moral terms, the speaker’s questions about its origin must also
encompass both physical and moral dimensions. The poem’s series of questions repeatedly ask
what sort of physical creative capacity the “fearful symmetry” of the tiger signifies; assumedly
only a very strong and all-prevailing being could be capable of such a creation. At the same
time, the speaker underscores the idea that this kind of creation could not be a slapdash
production. The second stanza continues the fire imagery established by the image of the tiger
‘burning bright’, with the mention of ‘the fire’ of the creature’s eyes, and the view of the creator
shaping the tiger out of pure fire, as if the divine hand had reached his hand into the fire and
casted the creature from it. Moreover, the imagery of fire has the connation of both purification
and destruction. In the third stanza, the speaker continues wonder about the kind of bodily
strength and the skill that must have been geared up and consumed to fashion this tiger
together. The speaker s mesmerized by this creature as he thinks about its physical attributes,
which could allude to that of God. Furthermore, in the fourth stanza, Blake introduces another
central metaphor, explicitly drawing a comparison between God and a blacksmith. Like a
blacksmith, the creator has hammered the base materials into the living and breathing fierce
and violent creature that now walks the earth. As a blacksmith cuts, beats and forms metal
after considerable toil, God has shaped the animal. The fifth stanza is a bit perplexing. For
long, “stars” have been associated with the destiny of man. The line is suggestive of God’s arch
angel Satan’s rebellion against the will of God. He refers to all-mighty creator looking with
reverence at his finalized creation. The lamb can dually mean ‘the lamb of god’ or lamb from
his poem ‘The Lamb’. The former is an open reference to Jesus Christ (the Lamb of God), sent
by God on earth to atone sins of mankind. The unanswered questions in the poem leave the
reader in awe at the complexity of God’s creation, the magnitude of his power.
5.5. “The Chimney Sweeper”— Summary
“The Chimney Sweeper” has been published in two parts in Songs of Innocence in 1789
and Songs of Experience in 1793. The poems are set against the dark backdrop of child labor
that was prevalent in England in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Small boys of age five and
six were sold due to their small size as sweeps to clean chimneys. These children were
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oppressed and had a diminutive existence that was socially accepted at the time. The first part,
titled as “The Chimney Sweeper: When my mother died I was very young” (Innocence), has
children and their innocence as the subject, underscoring how it is exploited and ruined by the
society. The speaker is a boy who, after having lost his mother, is sold as a chimney-sweeper.
He then tells the story of a fellow sweep, Tom Dacre, who cried when his head was shaved to
avoid infection from the soot. After being consoled by the speaker, Tom has a dream in which
he and others like him have been liberated by an angel and the joys of childhood come back to
him. The poem ends with a moral advice to Tom that if one performs one’s duties, one need not
fear any harm.
The second part, titled as “The Chimney Sweeper: A little black thing among the snow”
(Experience), begins as a dialogue and reflects upon the attitude of the society towards child
sweeps. Through the poem, the sweep tells that only because he doesn’t make a hue and cry of
his miserable life, the society things that he has not been wronged. People, including his
parents, would try to please God while making him suffer and exploiting his childhood.
5.5.1. “The Chimney Sweeper”— Analysis
Blake, through “The Chimney Sweeper” (Innocence), underscores the evil of the child chimney
sweeps and exploitation and susceptibility of innocence. The poem opens with the speaker,
who is the child sweep, stating that his father sold him off as a chimney sweeper after his had
mother passed away. He was still a small boy, could hardly speak properly and yet he is
burdened with the job of cleaning the chimneys. As a result his childhood is completely ruined,
his innocence is being subjected to misery and suffering, as he now sleeps all covered with soot
and dust. In the subsequent stanzas he goes on to tell the account of Tom Dacre, a fellow
sweep. In fact, Tom Dacre is a very popular character in Blake’s many poems. Tom was called
‘Dacre’ because he belonged to Lady Dacre’s Almshouse, which was situated between St.
James Street and Buckingham Road. The inmates of the Almshouse were foundling orphans,
who were allowed to be adopted by the poor only. It may be a foster father who encased the boy
Tom by selling him to a Master Sweeper. Tom can’t stop crying because his head was shaved,
just as the back of a lamb is shaved for wool. The reference to the lamb also alludes to the fact
that the docile and submissive animal is used as a sacrifice just as the childhood has been
sacrificed in order to meet the greed and comfort of the society. The innocence is tainted by the
world of experience.
The sweep then consoles Tom by saying that now when he is bald, there is no worry about his
hair getting spoiled by the soot or any infection. This comforts Tom and at night during his
sleep, Tom has a vision. He dreams that several sweeps like him, named Dick, Joe, Ned and
Jack, are lying dead, locked in a black coffin. In the fourth stanza, the vision is completed. An
Angel, who was carrying a shining key, came near the coffins and opened it, setting all the
bodies free from the bondage. The freed little sweepers of the chimney ran down a green
ground, washed themselves in the water of a river and dried themselves in the sunlight to give
out a clean shine. This was really a very delightful moment for these chimney-sweepers, who
got freed from the shackles of bondage labor and exploitation.
In the fifth stanza, the little boy continues narrating the dream of Tom. All the little boys were
naked and white after washing because their bags of clothes were left behind. They cast off the
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heavy baggage of life along with the bags of dirt and soot at the time of their death. Now all
white, a color that symbolizes purity, the little chimney-sweeper boys ride the clouds and play
in the wind. It seems that it is now that they are reliving their childhood. Moreover, the image
of clouds floating freely is Blake’s metaphor for the freedom from the material boundaries of
the body and an important visual symbol. The Angel told Tom that if he would be a good boy
he would have God for his father and there would never be any misery or suffering for him.

In the last stanza of Blake’s poem, The Chimney Sweeper, the narrator tells that Tom woke up
and his dream broke. Once again they were pushed towards the drudgery of their daily life.
Tom and other little sweeper boys rose up from their beds in the dark and got ready to work,
taking their bags for soot and the brushes to clean chimney. The morning was cold, but Tom,
after having that dream, was feeling happy and contended. In the last line of the poem, a moral
has been thrown up: If all do their duty, they need not fear any harm. The present state of the
sweeps is miserable but it is the hope of a happy afterlife that keeps them going with a smile.
In the second poem, “The Chimney Sweeper” (Experience), Blake underscores the bleak life of
sweeps and the grave injustice meted out to them. A winter of the late 18th-century England
forms the setting. Having been abandoned by their parent, the child sweeps are left to be
exploited by the selfish society. Neither the Church nor the government comes to their rescue.
The poem opens with the image of a little kid described as a “little black thing” as he is covered
from head to toe in soot because of his job as a chimney sweeper. His soiled appearance is in
stark contrast to the white snow around him. White stands for purity whereas black stands for
sin. With the aim of this contrast Blake wants to show that attacking that child’s purity is no
less than a heinous sin. The child tells the speaker that his parents have gone to pray in the
Church. Here as well, Blake is criticizing the parents who sell off their kids so that they can
derive monetary benefits out of that transaction and then they have the audacity to go and
pray to God.
In the second stanza, the child sweep, while feeling bitter towards his parents and society, says
that they pushed him into this world of misery and pain, ruining his childhood and taking
away his happiness. Now instead of playing, he can only sing songs of suffering and misery.
His life is riddled with pain, the joy of innocence is lost. The child goes on to state that since he
has accepted the harshness of his life without complaining, everyone thinks that he is happy
as such and that nothing wrong has been done to him. To the people, the child seems content,
though he is living a miserable life. The poet then sheds light upon the cruelty of such parents
and employers who let little children work and made it justifiable by posing as if that
exploitation did not inflict any harm upon the children. For Blake, even the King and in fact
God himself become conspirators in ruining the child’s life and taking away his childhood.

Self-Assessment Questions
1. What is significance of the title of the poem “The Chimney Sweeper.”
2. What are the thematic concerns of the poem “The Chimney Sweeper.”
3. What are the thematic concerns of the poem “The Tyger.”
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5.6. Summary
The lesson begins with introduction to William Blake, a significant writer in the history of
British literature. The subsequent sections of the lesson provide a brief biographical sketch of
the writer and a note on his works. It goes on to discuss Blake as a Romantic poet before
giving a summary and a detailed analysis of Blake’s poems—“The Tyger” and “The Chimney
Sweeper”— that have been prescribed in the syllabus.

5.7 References
 Jacob Bronowski, William Blake, 1757-1827: A Man without a Mask (Penguin
Books, 1954.
 D.W. Harding, “William Blake”, From Blake to Byron: The Pelican Guide to English
Literature ed. Boris Ford, Vol. 5, Penguin, 1957.
 Mark Schorer, William Blake: The Politics of Vision, H. Holt and Company, 1946.
 Morton D. Paley (ed.), Twentieth Century Interpretations of Songs of Innocence and
of Experience, Prentice-Hall, 1969.
 Northrop Frye, “Northrop Frye on Milton and Blake”, Collected Works of Northrop
Frye Vol.16, ed. by Angela Esterhammer, Uni. of Toronto Press, 2005.
 Morris Eaves (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to William Blake, CUP, 2003.
 William Blake: The Critical Heritage By G. E. Bentley Jnr, Routledge, 1995
 William Blake, Visionary Rebel By Stern, Fred, The World and I, Vol. 24, No. 10,
October 2009
5.8 Further Readings
 The Chained Boy: Orc and Blake's Idea of Revolution By Christopher Z. Hobson,
Bucknell University Press, 1999
 Converse in the Spirit: William Blake, Jacob Boehme, and the Creative Spirit By
Kevin Fischer Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004
 William Blake By Kathleen Raine Longmans, Green, 1951
 Blake: Complete Writings with Variant Readings By William Blake; Geoffrey
Keynes, Oxford University Press, 1972
 Selected Poetry By William Blake; Michael Mason Oxford University Press, 1994
 Wonders Divine: The Development of Blake's Kabbalistic Myth By Sheila A.
Spector, Bucknell University Press, 2001
 Knight of the Living Dead: William Blake and the Problem of Ontology By
Kathleen Lundeen, Susquehanna University Press, 2000
 Locke and Blake: A Conversation across the Eighteenth Century By Wayne
Glausser University Press of Florida, 1998
 Spiritual History: A Reading of William Blake's Vala, or the Four Zoas By Andrew
Lincoln, Oxford University Press, 1995
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 The Moment of Explosion: Blake and the Illustration of Milton By Stephen C.

Behrendt University of Nebraska Press, 1983
 William Blake, Richard Phillips and the Monthly Magazine By Paley, Morton D,
Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 51, No. 1, Spring 2012
 William Blake and the Hunt Circle By Ripley, Wayne C, Studies in Romanticism,
Vol. 50, No. 1, Spring 2011
5.9. Model Questions
(i) How is this different from its companion in Songs of Innocence?
(ii) Discuss the theme of exploitation in William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper”.
(iii) What is the significance of one-word change from the first to the last stanza of the
poem “The Tyger”?

*****
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Lesson 6

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH’S SELECTED POEMS

6.0. Objective
6.1. Introduction
6.2. Wordsworth’s Biographical Details
6.3. Literary Background
6.4. Wordsworth’s Critical Estimate
6.5. “Lines Written In Early Spring”— Summary
6.5.1. “Lines Written In Early Spring”— Analysis
6.6. “London, 1802”— Summary
6.6.1. “London, 1802”— Analysis
6.7. “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”—Summary
6.7.1. “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”—Analysis
6.8. Summary
6.9. References
6.10. Further Readings
6.11. Model Questions

6.0. Objectives
After reading this lesson you will be able to:
● understand the role of the acclaimed poet of Romantic Period, William Wordsworth
● discuss his art of poetry in context of the prescribed poems
● discuss the poetic themes and philosophy of Wordsworth through a discussion of the
prescribed poems.
● critically evaluate the poem “Lines Written In Early Spring”
● critically evaluate the poem “London, 1802”
● critically evaluate the poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”
6.1. Introduction
William Wordsworth is regarded as the Nature poet. The lesson offers a brief biographical
sketch of the poet and then presents critical analysis of his poems prescribed in the syllabus.
The lesson contains summary and critical analysis of the prescribed text so that you can
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understand and attempt any questions related to the texts. The model question and self-
assessment question will help you prepare for the final examination.
6.2. Wordsworth’s Biographical Details
The second of five children, William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth,
Cumberland, England. He was only seven when his mother died and at the age of 13, he
became an orphan. Despite these losses, he did well at Hawkshead Grammar School—where
he wrote his first poetry—and went on to study at Cambridge University. Wordsworth received
an excellent education in literature, classics and mathematics. In addition it was at
Hawkshead that Wordsworth indulged in the pleasures of the outdoors. The natural scenery
always remained a source of inspiration and theme for his poetry. In 1787, Wordsworth moved
to St. John’s College, Cambridge. Having been put off by the competitive pressures at the
university, he devoted much time to long walking tours. After taking his degree, he returned to
France in 1791 where he met a Frenchwoman, Annette Vallon. While Paris obsessed his
youthful imagination, the French Revolution influenced his mind and nature. But soon
Wordsworth had to return to England and was cut off there by the outbreak of war between
England and France.
A significant period of Wordsworth’s life was the time when he was living with his sister
Dorothy. From her he was introduced to the love for flowers and all beautiful things on the one
hand and sympathy, almost divine in nature, for even the lowliest form of human life. She
perhaps was the largest inspiration for the poet. In the last part of his life, he retired to his
beloved lake district and lived at Grasmere and Rydal Mount. Without doubt and with much
patience, he continued his work. Little before his death, Wordsworth was hailed as one of the
greatest living poets of England and in 1843, Wordsworth was awarded the honorary title of
Poet Laureate. He died in 1850, at the age of eighty, and was buried at the churchyard of
Grasmere.
6.3. Literary Background
Romantic Movement dates its origin in 1798 AD with the publication of Lyrical Ballads. It is a
term generally applied to the first third of the 19th century. During this time, literature began
to move in channels that were not entirely new but were in strong contrast to the standard
literary practice of the eighteenth century. How the word “romantic” came to be applied to this
period is still bewildering. Originally, the term was used to for the Latin and Roman dialects
used in Roman provinces and the stories written in these dialects. Derived from the French
romaunt, it initially only meant “like the old romances” but then it began to carry certain
characteristics. Romantic, according to L.P. Smith in his Words and Idioms, implied “false and
fictitious beings and feelings, without real existence in fact or in human nature”; it also meant
“old castles, mountains, forests, pastoral plains, waste and solitary places” and a “love for wild
nature, for mountains and moors”.
The term, in the late 17th century, came to refer to certain poets who despised and spurned
the models of the past, they took pride in the freedom of eighteenth century poetic codes. The
reaction to the standard literary practice and critical norms of the eighteenth century occurred
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in many areas and in varying degrees. Reason no longer held a high place that it had held in
the eighteenth century; its place was taken by imagination emotion and individual sensibility.
A concentration on the individual and the minute replaces the eighteenth-century insistence
on the universal and the general. Individualism replaced objective subject matter. Classical
literature quickly lost the esteem and Romantic writers turned back to their own native
traditions. The standard eighteenth-century heroic couplet was replaced by a variety of forms
such as the ballad, the sonnet, blank verse and the Spenserian stanza. Moreover, the
Romantic writers responded strongly to the impact of new forces, especially the French
Revolution and the promise that it offered—liberty, equality and fraternity. It was the
combination of new interests, new attitudes and fresh forms that produced a body of literature
that was strikingly different from the literature of the eighteenth century.
Some of the main characteristics of Romantic literature include a focus on the writer or
narrator’s emotions and inner world; celebration of nature, beauty, and imagination; rejection
of industrialization, rationalism and social convention; idealization of women, children, and
rural life; inclusion of supernatural or mythological elements; interest in the past; frequent use
of personification; experimental use of language and verse forms, including blank verse; and
emphasis on individual experience of the sublime.
6.4. Wordsworth as a Poet: A Critical Estimate
William Wordsworth was always concerned with two things—Nature and Man. He did not
believe in the conventions and formalism associated with writing of poetry. Thus, his poems
are simple and unadorned. He revolted against the artificial sentiment and mechanical poetic
style of the eighteenth century. He rather found the mystery in everyday things of life.
Wordsworth’s literary career began with Descriptive Sketches (1793)which was composed while
being on the banks of the Loire in 1791 and 1792.His literary career reached the climax with
publication of Lyrical Ballads, in 1798, and it was with Poems in Two Volumes (1807) that his
powers as a poet touched new heights. From the very start, Wordsworth was recognized for his
originality and his vision of nature as the metaphor for God’s mind. Another significant work
among his literary credits is Tintern Abbey is regarded as the condensed spiritual
autobiography of the poet.
Wordsworth’s initial poetic efforts were addressed to and as his “dear native regions”. They
remained a lifelong source of inspiration for him even though in his later years he tended to
forsake nature as a direct source for subject matter. The impetus towards uniquely
Wordsworthian poetry happened during the ambitious walking tours. Wordsworth’s poetry is
recognized to be spontaneous and emotional, seeking to depict the beauty of nature and the
quintessential depth of human emotion.
As for the quality of this early poetry, it was somewhat uncertain. There was much of the plain
language that Wordsworth was to become famous for, but it was used awkwardly and self-
consciously. There was great borrowing, both of poetic device and of image. In all, clearly the
rambling phrase was meant to be a departure from the snug couplet in vogue at the time, an
intention which indicated the independence and daring of the poet. The poet was on the one
hand inspired by the countryside and on the other side influenced by the rationalistic
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philosophy of William Godwin. While “On Salisbury Plain” exhibits the former it was “Guilt and
Sorrow”, reflecting Godwin’s philosophy, marked a great and momentous change in style and
introduction of tighter versification. However, description of humble life is well presented in
plain language. He usually adopted forms including narrative, lyrical, elegiac and the sonnet.
Wordsworth’s poetry has a soothing effect, offering glimpses of beauty that never perishes.
6.5. “Lines Written In Early Spring”— Summary
The poem was published in 1798, the year when Wordsworth and Coleridge signaled their
arrival on the literary scene. The poem is in a form of a ballad and consists of six quatrains.
Literary or lyrical ballads grew out of an increasing interest in ballad from among social elites
and intellectuals, particularly among the Romantics like Wordsworth, Coleridge and Keats.
They were attracted to the simple and natural style of these folk ballads, encouraging them to
imitate it. A literary ballad is a poem that tells a tale without music. Traditional folk ballads
crystallized out of the mists of the ancient oral tradition while modern literary ballads use the
old narrative forms to retell traditional legends or to tell stories of their own.
In “Lines Written in Early Spring”, Wordsworth expresses his appreciation of the beautiful
nature and his concerns regarding the path the humanity is leaning towards. A walk near the
village of Alford inspired this poem. Wordsworth was a fervent walker, and would often pen his
poems while on the move or would at least write down about the scenes of nature that opened
before him during his long walks. His remained concerned about the human condition and the
direction in which the civilization was progressing. Wordsworth is acclaimed as the poet of
nature. In his writings, Nature assumes a significant role and takes on a personality. In fact, at
times, it is transformed into a divine spirit that pervades everything around. If one were close
to nature then he or she would feel much nearer to God as well. The poem is primarily about
nature and landscape. Wordsworth here describes a bittersweet moment. As he reclines in a
grove, he listens to the melody of nature through the songs of birds. He drives pleasure from
his surroundings but at the same time more solemn and dismal thoughts cross his mind. He
laments that the connection between nature and man’s soul has been ruined now. He
contrasts the world of nature, which is congenial and delightful, with the failure of mankind to
live up to that ideal model of nature. Though the depiction of Nature is graceful, the negative
effects of mankind can be felt throughout. There is a sense of beauty and a sense of sorrow to
everything mentioned in the poem. This applies to Nature itself, mankind, and to the
connection forged between them. Just as the speaker describes plants, flowers, and birds
enjoying life, this should apply to man. Sadly, it seems this is not the case and this grieving
closes out the poem.
6.5.1. “Lines Written In Early Spring”—Analysis
Nature forms the central theme of the poem. The poem draws out descriptions of natural
surrounding that are visually enticing and invigorating. Moreover, it underscores the
connection between everything on Earth, including human beings, and the divine through
nature. Nature, more than being a tangible element, is something that one can feel and
experience. The poet insists that we not only see and touch Nature but we also consume it.
The poem begins with a description of something melodious. An unnamed narrator sprawls
and dawdles underneath a tree in the wilderness, wondering at the all-pervasive character of
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Nature—“a thousand blended notes”— while drawing a parallel with the omnipotence of God.
Along with describing the enchanting beauty of Nature, he also highlights its divinity, as he
revives his fond memories of the past. He suggests that the all-prevailing nature is similar to
the omnipotence character associated with God. But, as the poet wonders about nature, its
mesmerizing beauty and seamless existence, his thoughts shift to the miserable condition of
man and the suffering that man has imposed on his fellow beings.
As he recollects and appreciates the past, there is a growing longing for what was. He is taking
delight in the nature that surrounds him, underscoring how it all builds up beautifully.
However, while basking in this beauty of Nature, he feels that a sense of sadness has overcome
him. The reason for the low feelings is revealed as the poem unfolds.
Furthermore, the personification of Nature is demonstrated by the use of capitalization and the
attribution of the feminine pronoun: “To her fair works did Nature link/ The human soul that
through me ran.” The lines hints at the important role nature plays in the sentiment of the
poem, perhaps reflective of the speaker’s own feelings. The speaker suggests that Nature and
the human soul are closely connected. In other words “Nature” is linked to humanity through
the very idea of a soul; that Nature’s soul is not that different from man, and that, although
the world has forgotten about it, yet it is man’s natural state to be close to Nature. This was
one of Wordsworth’s principle philosophies: that it was man’s innate state to be close to
nature. Moreover, Nature is made capable of taking decisions and is presented as a doer of the
right things. But soon sad feelings overshadow poet’s delight in nature and stops him from
fully enjoying his connect with Nature. He briefly moves away from the beauty of nature to
reminisce on the misery that other humans have caused each other since time immemorial. In
other words, it is this connection of man and Nature and what man has done that brings out
the melancholy tone. The line "what man has made of man" bears much significance. It is a
comment on the course man has opted for. This can relate to how people treat each other, how
society impacts life. Another, deeper level of meaning comes in with the connection to Nature.
Since man’s soul and Nature are linked, anything man does affects Nature. This is the reason
behind the speaker’s lament.
The poem continues with a visual description of natural beauty— Through primrose tufts, in
that green bower,/The periwinkle trailed its wreaths…In these lines, the reader can see how
different flowers and trees come together in a shaded, peaceful place. The speaker believes
“every flower / Enjoys the air it breathes”. This is possibly a continued commentary on
mankind. The personification of the flowers could be symbolic of the link between the Nature
and the people and also the speaker would like to believe that every person enjoys life. In fact,
presence of nature as a living thing— ‘trailed’, for the periwinkle; ‘breathes’ for the flowers— is
quite striking for the reader. Throughout “Lines Written in Early Spring”, Wordsworth attempts
to create the idea of a world that is alive, full of life and only a slightly removed from humanity.
The speaker is then engrossed in the play of birds, as they go on hopping around, as if they
were children in the ground. An excitement is built around them. The speaker says that he is
curious to find out about the thoughts that would be crossing their mind, all that they would
be wondering about. Whether big or small, these birds seem to be full of energy and in a spirit
of delight.
In the next two lines— The budding twigs spread out their fan,/To catch the breezy air— the
poet is hinting at the beginning of life, in its various forms and different stages. The "budding
twigs" are attempting to reach out for the things they need, to grow and survive. In other
words, it would metaphorically mean that different forms of life would reach out for happiness,
enjoying life and not merely breathing.
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The next quatrain continues in a similar vein as the earlier ones. The speaker presents his
belief that nature lives happily and freely. The movement in nature presents a stark contrast to
the fixity of the poet and its non-entity. As the speaker-poet connects with nature, he realizes
that he has no presence in the poem because it is subsumed by the nature. He considers
nature to be holy and a step towards heaven and thereby deserving an utmost respect.
The poem ends with the speaker’s lament— Have I not reason to lament/What man has made
of man?—underscoring how man has made another man to suffer, destroying the nature as well.
The speaker-poet insists that it is Nature that plays a significant role in healing souls, but man
has been ruining the efforts of the nature. Man has also hampered the bond between Nature and
man.It ends on a solemn note, wishing that the world of nature, untouched by the miseries of
humanity, continues on while the human soul, bound in its rigid cage of mortality and reason,
is left behind to experience the misery of the human world.
6.6. “London, 1802”— Summary
The sonnet was first published in 1802 and forms a part of a group of poems generally referred
to as “Sonnets on Independence and Liberty”. The poem deals with the criticism of the socio-
cultural and political state of England at the beginning of the 19th century which is in
complete contrast to England’s ideal image of the 17th century. He is critical of England and
its people and looks back nostalgically to a happier time in English history. Wordsworth
laments the fact that John Milton is no longer around and it is the time when England needs a
guiding voice as him. The speaker expresses his disapproval regarding the state of the nation,
stating that it has now turned into a stagnant sordid marsh and that the English people have
forgotten all that made them glorious. Milton had stood for liberty and freedom of various
kinds. Milton had lived during the English Civil War and had supported Oliver Cromwell and
the Parliamentarians who had fought against King Charles I. The poet aims to convey that in
the absence of Milton, the nation is suffering and turning to the ruins.
6.6.1. “London, 1802”— Analysis
The speaker of the poem, which is in the form of a Petrarchan sonnet, begins with an
emotional outburst as he calls out “Milton!” He says that Milton should have been living
because his country, England, needs him now—“this hour”. The speaker says that the nation
is now like a wetland of stagnant waters and all institutions are losing their standing. Be it the
church (“altar”), the military (sword”), the writers (“pen”) or even the home (“fireside”), all have
lost their meaning and sheen in the English society. Moreover, he states that “the heroic
wealth of hall and bower have forfeited their ancient English dower of inward happiness”,
meaning that the heroic wealth that made the home and countryside great has been given up.
The accomplishments of the forefathers that offered contentment and “inward happiness” have
been lost. The poet proclaims that the men have become selfish, and it would require Milton to
return in order to restore England to its previous greatness and glory, reinstate the virtues that
the country and its people were once known for.
In the second part of the poem, Wordsworth elevates Milton to a level that is much higher
than ordinary people. He praises the gifts of Milton, asserting that they made him one in a
million, a star shinning bright. He conveys his admiration for Milton in these lines. The poet
insists that Milton’s is the lone voice, an artistic voice, in the wilderness that could sway
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people. Milton’s selfless and “pure” voice is the only one that could cut through the jabber and
show England the right direction. Being “majestic”, grand like a king and “free”, without
shackles of materialism, Milton lived a humble life and performed duties of and like a common,
ordinary man. He Wordsworth here becomes nostalgic of the times when Milton was alive and
contrasts it with the present, corrupt society of England. However Wordsworth laments that
Milton died like a God, he was too perfect but still he performed the “lowliest duties”. These
duties could mean his profession as a writer or just the drudgery that a commoner goes
through before meeting his eventual end. Nevertheless, Milton remains supreme, says the poet
with much sadness, and it is only with his return that the nation could be rinsed of its
blotches.
6.7. Ode: Intimation of Immortality—Summary
The poem, in which Wordsworth puts forth the idea of immortality in terms of spirituality
instead of immortality, is a philosophical exploration of soul’s place in this universe.
Wordsworth believes that when we take birth in this world, we carry with us our spiritual
reality, a connect with the heaven. But gradually, as we grow older, that connection is lost and
we move away from God. According to the poet, a child can see a divine light in the objects of
nature, which then begin to disappear as he enters adulthood. In other words, Nature nurtures
man like a mother, offering never-ending love and pleasure. But when a child grows, he forgets
all the glory he had witnessed before. The splendor of nature is lost in the darkness of worldly
pain and misery. The poet argues that the divinity of soul is eclipsed by the worldly affairs. The
poet is rather happy to recollect his childhood memories, calling the child the best philosopher
because a child is able to hold on the divine glory. The poet checks the child from imitating an
adult, for he believes that grown-ups have been driven far away from the inner reality. The
poet knows that his childhood days would never return, but he grows philosophical as he
realizes that his love for Nature, for natural objects will never die.
6.7.1. Ode: Intimation of Immortality— Analysis
Wordsworth’s Immortality Ode, as it is often referred to, is written in eleven variable ode
stanzas with variable rhyme schemes, in iambic lines with anything from two to five stressed
syllables.
The ode is considered to be a masterpiece on the subject of the influence that childhood
memories of nature has on a grown-up mind. The poem puts forth the belief of Wordsworth
that life on earth is a reflection of an earlier, purer existence which can be recalled during
one’s childhood but is forgotten in the process of growing up.
In the first stanza, the speaker states reflectively that there was a time when all of nature
seemed as if it was an unfolding dream, “apparelled in celestial light”, and those moments have
passed away now— “the things I have seen I can see no more.” He can neither replay that time
nor can he hope for it to happen again.
In the second stanza, the speaker-poet says that he can still view the rainbow, and that he still
finds the rose mesmerizingly beautiful; the moon seems to be taking delight in panning the
sky, and that starlight and sunshine each have their own charms. Despite all this, the speaker
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feels that the earth lacks what it once had, the glory of nature and its elements. Furthermore,
in the third stanza, the speaker says that he is filled with remorse and sadness when birds’
songs fall on his ears during the spring season and when he watches the lambs jumping and
playing. However, it is the sound of the falling waters nearby the reverberations of the
mountains and the flurry of the winds that drive energy into the speaker. He goes on to declare
that his sadness will no longer be a damper for the season of joy when the entire earth is in a
state of bliss. And then he urges a shepherd boy to get into this frenzy and playful mood.
In the next lines again the speaker-poet addresses the Nature and asserts that his heart
participates in the Nature’s festival of happiness and it is not correct to let grief overcome the
feelings of happiness. On a lovely May morning, he would like to join the children as they
laugh and play. But then, when he looks at a tree and a field, he is reminded of something that
has gone by and he realizes that a pansy that has fallen at his feet has done the same thing.
He asks what has happened to “the visionary gleam”: “Where is it now, the glory and the
dream?”
In the fifth stanza, he declares that human life is merely “a sleep and a forgetting”—that
human beings on this earth are in a state of slumber, and they have forgotten all about the
previous realm which was purer and more glorious. “Heaven,” he says, “lies about us in our
infancy!” As children, he states, humans are still able to preserve the memory of a place that
has been magical, the traces of which can be felt on earth. But as the child grows into an
adult, he sees that magic disappear. The terrestrial pleasures conspire to make man forget the
glories of the realm that he came from.
The speaker then looks at a six-year-old boy and begins to imagine his life, thinks about the
love his parents would feel for him. He sees the boy playing with some imitated fragment of
adult life, “some little plan or chart,” replicating “a wedding or a festival” or “a mourning or a
funeral.” The speaker feels that all human life is a merely an imitation. He addresses the child
as though he were a mighty prophet of a lost truth, and rhetorically asks him why, when he
has access to the glories of his origins, and to the pure experience of nature, he still hurries
toward an adult life of custom and “earthly freight.”
Suddenly the speaker experiences a surge of joy at the thought that his memories of childhood
will always grant him a kind of access to that lost world of instinct, innocence, and
exploration. In the tenth stanza, bolstered by this joy, he urges the birds to sing, and urges all
creatures to participate in “the gladness of the May.” He says that though he has lost some
part of the glory of nature and of experience, he will take solace in “primal sympathy,” in
memory, and in the fact that the years bring a mature consciousness—“a philosophic mind.”
In the final stanza, the speaker says that this mind—which stems from a consciousness of
mortality, as opposed to the child’s feeling of immortality—enables him to love nature and
natural beauty all the more, for each of nature’s objects can stir him to thought, and even the
simplest flower blowing in the wind can raise in him “thoughts that do often lie too deep for
tears.”
Wordsworth consciously sets his speaker’s mind at odds with the happy surroundings of
nature, a rare thing to do especially for a poet whose consciousness is so in sync with nature.
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Understanding that his grief stems from his inability to experience the May morning as he
would have in childhood, the speaker attempts to enter willfully into a state of cheerfulness;
but he is able to find real happiness only when he realizes that “the philosophic mind” has
given him the ability to understand nature in deeper, more human terms—as a source of
metaphor and guidance for human life.

Self-Assessment Questions
1. Critically analyze the poem “Lines Written In Early Spring.”
2. Critically analyze the poem “London, 1802.”
3. Critically analyze the poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.”

6.8. Summary
Besides the biographical details of poet William Wordsworth, the literary period to which
Wordsworth belonged is briefly discussed. The summary and analysis of the three poems—
“Lines Written in Early Spring”, “London, 1802” and “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”—is
given along with a brief account of Wordsworth’s other works.
6.9 References
 William Wordsworth, a Poetic Life By John L. Mahoney, Fordham University Press, 1997
 William J. Rolfe, William Wordsworth, American Book, 1889
 Wordsworth: Poetical Works by William Wordsworth; Thomas Hutchinson, Oxford
University Press, 1996 (Revised edition)
 Romantic Marks and Measures: Wordsworth's Poetry in Fields of Print By Julia S.
Carlson, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016
 John L. Mahoney, William Wordsworth, a Poetic Life, Fordham University Press, 1997
 Julia S. Carlson, Romantic Marks and Measures: Wordsworth's Poetry in Fields of Print,
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016
 Stephen Gill (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Wordsworth, CUP, 2003.
6.10. Further Readings
 Browning and Wordsworth By John Haydn Baker, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
2004
 The Fountain Light: Studies in Romanticism and Religion in Honor of John L. Mahoney
By J. Robert Barth, Fordham University Press, 2002
 Wordsworth in His Major Lyrics: The Art and Psychology of Self-Representation By Leon
Waldoff, University of Missouri Press, 2001
 Wordsworth: Centenary Studies Presented at Cornell and Princeton Universities By
Douglas Bush; Earl Leslie Griggs; B. Ifor Evans; Lionel Trilling; Willard L. Sperry; John
Crowe Ransom; Frederick A. Pottle; Gilbert T. Dunklin, Archon Books, 1963
 Wordsworth's Maculate Exception: Achieving the "Spots of Time" By Larkin, Peter,
Wordsworth Circle, Vol. 41, No. 1, Winter 2010
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Wordsworth and the Motions of the Mind By Gordon Kent Thomas, Peter Lang Publishing,
1989
The Romantic Dream: Wordsworth and the Poetics of the Unconscious By Douglas B. Wilson,
University of Nebraska Press, 1993
Providence and Love: Studies in Wordsworth, Channing, Myers, George Eliot, and Ruskin By
John Beer, Clarendon Press, 1998
The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth By William Wordsworth; Dorothy Wordsworth;
Ernest De Selincourt; Chester L. Shaver, Clarendon Press, vol.1, 2000 (2nd edition)
6.11. Model Questions
(i) Discuss Wordsworth as a Nature Poet with reference to the poems prescribed.
(ii) Describe the idea of immortality as discussed in Wordsworth’s ode.
(iii) Write a critical evaluation of the poem “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.”
(iv) Write a critical evaluation of the poem “Lines Written In Early Spring.”

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Lesson 7

JOHN KEATS’S SELECTED POEMS-I

Structure
7.0 Objectives
7.1 Introduction
7.2 An Introduction to the Romantic Period
7.3 Early Romantic Poets
7.4 The Main Features of Romantic Poetry
7.5 An Introduction to the Poet: John Keats
7.6 The Odes: A Brief Introduction
7.6.1 Summary and Critical Analysis of the Poem “Ode to Nightingale”
7.6.2 Summary and Critical Analysis of the Poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
7.6.3 Summary and Critical Analysis of the Poem “Ode to Autumn”
7.7 Summary
7.8 References
7.9 Further Readings
7.10 Model Questions
7.0 Objectives
After reading this lesson you will be able to:
● understand and enlist the features of the Romantic Poetry
● discuss Keats’ art of poetry in context of the prescribed poems
● critically evaluate the poem “Ode to Nightingale”
● critically evaluate the poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
● critically evaluate the poem “Ode to Autumn”
7.1 Introduction
John Keats is regarded as the major Romantic poet. The lesson offers a brief biographical
sketch of the poet and then presents critical analysis of his poems prescribed in the syllabus.
The lesson contains summary and critical analysis of the prescribed text so that you can
understand and attempt any questions related to the texts. The model question and self-
assessment question will help you prepare for the final examination.
7.2 An Introduction to the Romantic Period
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Changes in literary modes do not occur abruptly, nor are these modes, when established,
so dominant there is no writer who remains unaffected by them. Long before the Augustan
principles of Reason and Correctness came to be challenged on a broad front, a new spirit was
beginning to be felt in poetry. It was not that poetry had any new tricks to learn; but values
which Pope and his followers had discarded were coming into their own again. There were
deeper chords in the heart to be stirred than the poetry of wit had been able to touch. In
Thomson's Seasons, Nature appeared herself at first-hand, not mere conventional descriptions
of her by poets who recommended her as a tonic to the town-weary. In this respect Wordworth
observes: “Expecting the Nocturnal Reverie of Lady Winchelsea and a passage or two in the
Windsor Forest of Pope, the poetry of the period intervening between the publication of the
Paradise Lost of Milton and the Seasons does not contain a single new image of external
nature, and scarcely presents a familiar one from which it can be inferred that the eye of poet
had been steadily fixed upon the object, much less that his feelings had urged him to work
upon it in the spirit of genuine imagination”. Thus there was the protest against the bondage
of rules the return to nature and the human heart, the interest in old sagas and medieval
romances as suggestive of a heroic age, the sympathy for the toilers of the world, the emphasis
upon individual genius, and the return to Milton and the Elizabethans, instead of to Pope and
Dryden, for literary models. Of this breakaway from the classical school, these are the following
aspects to be considered:
(a) There is a renewed appreciation of Nature in the second half of the eighteenth
century. The slogan of the transitional poets was “Return to Nature”. The Nature was given due
place in the classical poetry. But it was the conventional, bookish Nature of the artificial
pastoral, and it dealt with urbane life. Thus it was deficient in any genuine feeling for nature.
Seasons of Thomson reflects that he was an extremely careful observer of nature. It abounds in
description of Nature which is purely photographic. We should not reproach him, but it was
credit to him. He was a describer and enumerator of Nature which foreshadows great poets of
Nature i.e. Wordsworth and Shelley. The other precursors of the Romantic Reactions were
Gray, Collins, Blake and Burns whose poetry reveals an intimate knowledge and love of
Nature. Their attitude towards Nature comes nearest to the Wordsworthian spirit.
(b) There is a readmission of emotion, and even of personal emotion, into poetry.
(c) There is a widening of interests until Man and Society are no longer the main
themes, and Satire is no more the general tone.
(d) Interest in the Middle Ages and Celtic myths is an instance of the reawakening power
of a non-classical past. For Dryden, Pope and Johnson, the term Gothic, applied vaguely to the
Middle Ages, was synonymous with barbarism. Culture was supposed to have slept from the
time of the Roman Empire in the Italian Renaissance; and in a country filled with buildings,
manuscripts, customs, and countless other reminders of the Middle Ages, no one thought of
turning to medieval cathedrals or poems for guidance in art. By the middle of the eighteenth
century, however, many men were showing an awakened interest in the past, and before long
Gothic become a term of admiration rather than reproach. It is necessary to look outside of
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Johnson's circle to find the indications of this departure from neo-classicism which held
promise of important innovations in literature.
(e) There was also reaction against the poetic forms of the Augustan age. The main
feature of this reaction in style was the abandonment of the Popean couplet for experiments in
other kinds of verse. It is probable that these experiments were in part prompted by natural
impatience of a single monotonous form, and a corresponding desire for change. Thus the old
forms which were in abeyance in the classical age, were revived on account of the influence of
Spenser and Milton". As Thomson exemplified the Spenserian influence, at work in the
eighteenth century, Collins,' Young, and Gray mark that of Milton. Young reverted to Milton's
blank verse; Collins and Gray abound in echoes, and indeed in literal borrowings, from
Milton's earlier lyrical work. To Milton's example in L'Allegro and II Penseroso is perhaps due
to the fact that both these poets, after they had abandoned other conventions of neo-classic
verse, persisted in the use of those lifeless personification-Wan Despair brown Exercise, Music,
sphere-descended Maid in which the Augustan age-delighted.
(f) Good sense was the chief characteristic of Dryden and Pope's poetry. But in the
middle of the eighteenth century we are conscious of some change. “What is it? It is the advent
of sensibility – an emotional sensitiveness that soon found expression in the literature, and
gradually merged into the larger and deeper imaginative life of the Romantic Revival”.
(g) The naturalistic kind of poetry laid a great emphasis on the elemental simplicities of
human life. There was a radical simplification of the themes which formerly used to be based
upon the conventions of society. As Hudson remarks: “This resulted in poetry in the quest for
more elementary themes, which of course had to be sought among the unsophisticated country
- folk rather than amid the complexities of the recognized centers of culture and refinement,
and for more-natural modes of treatment. Greater simplicity in the subject-matter chosen, in
the passions described, and in the language employed, were thus among the principal objects
aimed at by many poets of the new generation.
7.3 Early Romantic Poets
In this era there were the important poets who are considered to be the precursors of the
Romantic Movement. Their contribution to the Romantic Movement which was at its triumph
in the nineteenth century, is discussed below:
1. John Dyer: (1700-1758) : In the same year as Thomson's Winter appeared Dyer
published Grongar Hill, a poem which is the work of one who went for his inspiration to Nature
and to Milton.
2. Edward Young (1683-1765) : Young belongs to the Churchyard School, but he was
earlier a satirist of Pope's school. The only poems that deserve our consideration are the
Universal Passion and Night Thoughts. The Universal Passion consists of seven satires in neat
couplets, and the theme in Fame. They are vigorous, and contain many happy, terse phrases;
indeed, his contemporaries considered him second only to Pope as a satirist, and we must
admit that the best of these satires - those On Women, the fifth and sixth - are by no means
unlike Pope's epistle On the Characters of Women. But it is not as a member of Pope's school
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that Young is remembered; his name really lives only by the Miltonically inspired Night
Thought. It consists of nine books, of which eight constitute 'The Complaint' and the last 'The
Consolation.
3. Robert Blair (1699-1746): He also belonged to the Churchyard School. He was
gloomier than Young. His well-known poem is 'The Grave' which consists of about eight
hundred lines of blank verse and dwells with a sort of morbid enjoyment on the horrors of the
tomb. The poet enes to answer what his world is :-
"What but a spacious burial-field unwalled,
Strewed with death's spoils of the spoils animals
Savage and tame, and full of death men's bones?
The very turfon which we tread once lived,
And we that live must lend our carceases
To cover our own offspring.
4. James Thomson (1700-1748): Though he is not regarded a great poet, yet he carries
prominence in the history of literature, because he contributed to the growth of the love of
Nature in eighteenth century. In his age there was no genuine sense of natural beauty and the
charms of rural life. Augustan poetry was a poetry of city life. “Nature in its wilder and more
rugged aspects shocked the refined taste of generation which had been trained to prefer the
trim garden to the unspoiled hillside. According to the artificial conception then prevalent,
nothing could be beautiful save what had been reduced to symmetry by rule and line. In the
words of a typical and authoritative exponent of their ideas! Addison, “we find the works of
nature still the more pleasing the more they resemble art.”
James Thomson was a Scotsman who came to London in 1725. "In dealing with the
poetry of the fifteenth century we noted the fact that, while the landscape of the English
writers of that time was wholly bookish and conventional, that of their Scottish
Contemporaries was often pointed directly from reality and with great care and accuracy; and
we asked the reader to bear this in mind since we should presently learn that Scottish poets
“did much to bring the love of nature, into later English literature.” James, Thomson, being a
Scotsman exercised a great influence on English literature of the development of naturalism.
In 1726 Thomson published a section, Winter of a poem which he afterwards continued
under the titles Summer, Spring and Autumn, and which was published in 1730 as The
Seasons. To a reader of to-day, accustomed to a subtler appreciation of nature than Thomson's
this poem seems a rather humdrum, chronicling of the sights, experiences, and thoughts
connected with the changes of year; and the moral digressions, the compliments to patrons,
the personifications, and the frequently stilted rhetoric, tend to obscure the real freshness and
truth of Thomson's observation. But to the readers of his own day the novelty was great. For
two generations the first hand study of nature had been comparatively neglected. Literature
had found its interests in urban life; or, if it ventured into the country at all, it was into the
conventional, unreal country of the pastoral tradition. The Augustan age cared more for a
formal garden in the Dutch or Italian style than for the sublimest natural landscape in the
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world; and when, by the necessity of their subject, Augustan authors had touched upon
ordinary natural phenomena, they chose a style rich in literary connotation and appropriate to
their formalized and “civilized” concept of nature. Accordingly Thomson's poem seemed
surprisingly simple and direct in its approach to outdoor nature. His views of English
landscape, now panoramic and now detailed his description of the first spring showers, of the
summer thunderstorms and of the terror of the wintery night, showed an honest
understanding and sensitivity. Thomson's popularization of scientific themes, particularly the
concept of nature which Sir Isaac Newton had revealed, also contributed to the pleasure of the
eighteenth-century reader. In the Hymn with which The Seasons concludes, a higher mood
appears- a mood of religious ecstasy in the presence of nature, prophetic of Wordsworth, by
whom, indeed, Thomson was highly valued;
Ye forests, bend: ye harvests, wave to him.
, Breath'e your still song into the reaper's heart
As home he goes beneath the joyous moon.
Thomson's other most important work is The Castle of Indolence published in 1748. It is
an allegorical poem written in the Spenserian stanza. It has somewhat the same sort of
relation to the romantic element in the later poetry of the century of The Seasons has to what
is known as naturalism. The poem is in two cantos, the first dealing with the delights of the
Castle, the second with the feasts of “the Knights of Art and Industry.” In language of the poem
is meant to be archaic, and the writer endeavors to use simple words as far as possible. The
opening part of the poem describes the Castle in the following courses:
Full in the passage of the vale above,
A sable, silent solemn forest stood,
Where nought but shadowy forms were seen to move;
As idlesse fancied in her dreaming mood
And up the hills, on either side, a wood
Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro,
Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood
And where this valley winded out below,
The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, the flow.
5. Thomas Gray (1716 - 1771): He was the most learned poet. He was educated at
Eton and Peterhouse Cambridge. After going for a long continental tour he returned to
Cambridge through lack of a more definite occupation. His poems are divided into three
periods, in which we may trace the progress of Gray's emancipation from the classic rules
which had so long governed English literature. In the first period he wrote several minor
poems, of which the best are his Hymn to Adversity and the odes To Spring and On a Distant
Prospect of Eton College. These early poems reveal two suggestive things: first, the appearance
of that melancholy which is romantic and characterizes all the poetry of the period; and
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second, the study of Nature, not for its own beauty or truth, but rather as a suitable
background for the play of human emotions.
In the second period he wrote a. well known poem named The Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard, in which the romantic tendencies developed very strongly. In fact, it is one of
those poems which have entered so deeply into the fabric of the English mind that it is
impossible to view them with detachment. The feelings it expresses are so universal and the
phrasing so perfect, that it is difficult not to regard it as a thing which has always existed. In
one sense, The Elegy is a very ordinary poem, in another and deeper sense it is a very original
one. As long as men have existed they must have felt the pathos of a life passed in complete
obscurity; yet it was reserved for Gray to put this feeling into words of solemn elegiac rhythm
that makes them memorable forever.
Full many a gem of purest ray serence,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean beer,
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air
The greatness as well as the popularity of The Elegy consists in its universal appear. The
solemnity of evening, the simple pathos of human life and the moving association of a village
church set in a homely landscape of southern England are expressed by Gray with a perfection
which is beyond praise. Commenting on this poem, Lovett and Moody observe; The Elegy,
perhaps the most widely known and loved of English poems, is the finest flower of that
literature of melancholy which Milton's II Penseroso, acting upon the awakening romantic
sense of the second quarter of the eighteenth century, brought forth in remarkable profusion.
A large part of the charm The Elegy comes from the poet's personal, sensitive approach to his
subject. He lingers in the churchyard, nothing the signs of approaching nightfall, until the
atmosphere of twilight musing is established, after which his reflection upon life and death
have a tone of sad and intimate sincerity, in its recognition of the dignity of simple lives lived
close to the soil and in its sympathy with their fate, The Elegy looks forward to the
humanitarian enthusiasm which marked the later phases of romantic poetry.
To quote Edmund Goose, “The fame of The Elegy has spread to all countries, and has
exercised an influence on all the poetry of Europe, from Denmark to Italy, from France to
Russia. With the exception of certain works of Byron and Shakespeare, no English poem has
been so widely admired and imitated abroad; and after more than a century of existence, we
find it as fresh as ever. It possesses the charm of incomparable felicity, of a melody that it is
not subtle to charm every ear, of a moral persuasiveness that appeals to every generation, and
the metrical skill that in each line proclaims the master. The Elegy may also be looked upon as
the typical piece of English verse, our poem of poems, not that it is the most brilliant or
original or profound lyric in our language; but because it combines in more balanced
perfection than any other all the qualities that go to the production of a line poetical effect.
Two other well-known poems of this second period are the Pindaric Odes. The Progress of
Poesy and The Bard. The first is strongly successive of Dryden's Alexander's Feast, but shows
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Milton's influence in a greater melody and variety. Edmund Goose says: “In these passages
especially where he employs the double rhyme, we seem to catch in Gray the true modern
accent, the precursor of the tone of Shelley and Byron, both of whom, but especially the
former, were greatly influenced by this free and ringing music.
“This manner of rhyming, this rapid and recurrent beat of songs, was the germ out of
which have spring all later material inventions and without which Mr. Swinburne himself
might now be polishing the heroic couplet to its last perfection of brightness and sharpness”.
Another ode of Gray is The Bard which is founded on the legend of the slaughter of the Welsh
bards by Edward I on his conquest Wales. The bard of the poem, before throwing himself
headlong from the mountain's height, laments over his slaughtered brethren and foretells the
ruin of Edward's race. The poem is, in every way more romantic and original. It breaks
absolutely with the classical school and proclaims a literary declaration of independence.
In the third period Gray turns momentarily from his Welsh material and reveres a new
field of romantic interest, in two Norse poems, The Fatal Sisters and The Descent of Odin
(1761). Gray translated his material from the Latin, and though these two poems lack much of
the elemental strength and grandeur of the Norse sagas, they are remarkable for calling
attention to the unused wealth of literary material that was hidden in Northern mythology. To
Gray and Percy is due in large measure the profound interest in the Old Norse sagas which
has continued to our own day.
Gray is perhaps the least productive of all the greater English poets. No man has won so
large a reputation with so small an amount of work. There are several causes to account for
his small output. Firstly, he seldom enjoyed robust health, and seems to have lived in a state
of gentle melancholy. Secondly, he was not interested to get his works published. This was the
reason that almost everything that Gray wrote remained in manuscript up to the time of his
death. Regarding scantiness of Gray's works, Oliver Eiten observes: “There is little to show that
his talent was blighted a Mathew Arnold thought, by the spirit of his time. Probably he would,
never have written much although a century later he would have written otherwise. He
distrusted himself, cherished a rigid ideal of perfection in form and was never satisfied with his
work. He did not, like Shelley or Wordsworth, solemnly dedicate his work to art or the uplifting
of mankind. He wrote his Verse in the intervals of taking notice about a. hundred other things
Plato's Dialogues or English meters, or Norman architecture of the orders of insect. Poetry was
among his favorite pursuits, and he was one of the wire men who prefer reading to writing.
6. William Collins (1721-1759): He resembles Gray in the quality and the quantity of
his writings. His first poem, Persian Ecologues was written when he was seventeen. It was later
on published under the name of Oriental Ecologues. It is romantic in feeling, but is written in
the prevailing mechanical couplets. His next poem is Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the
Highlands. It is an important poem because a new world of witches: pygmies, fairies and
medieval kings are introduced. His well-known poem is the Ode to Evening. It is deeply
saturated with the spirit of the English landscape. Collins' lyrical and descriptive powers are
happily blended. All the impression absorbed from a contemplation of many evenings are here
brought together and rendered in phrases of wonderful concentration, by his description of the
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breathless silence of evening broken only by the heedless hum of the beetle as it flies parts the
traveler; of the reflection in sheets of still water of the last gleam of light; and of the somber
beauty of a wide landscape under the rainy, autumn skies, Collins belongs to that group of
poets who have felt and described most truly the peculiar beauty of the English countryside.
The form of the Ode, which is in short unrhyming stanzas, is both fitting and original.
Appreciating the Ode to Evening, Blundell remarks; “Underlying the whole fabric, the whole
intricacy of decoration, there is the inspiration of the English alliance with and spiritual
perfection in Nature. Even in hours of wild weather there is the comfort, there the prototype of
rest, the secret immortality if whose tide we are all swayed and by whose tide we are purified
and saved, the watcher and the humanities and solitudes which he contemplated are all
subjects of that quite rule. That is the culmination of Collins' Ode to Evening and the cause of
why of all the charms in this incantation our country repeats most often and with the utmost
understanding of those lines;
Be mine the hut
That from the mountain's side
Views wilds and swelling floods,
And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires,
And hears their simple bell, and works o'er all
They dewy fingers draw
The gradual dusk veil.
The famous Ode in the Passions is very rich and elaborate in its metrical form, and
illustrates the influence upon Collins of Milton's lyrical art. The Passions here are shadowy
personification, and the effect of the whole poem is rather cold, but it shows clearly that the
technical secrets of lyrical poetry were beginning to be rediscovered.
Collin's complete work contains little more than fifteen hundred lines, which carry great
importance in the history of English poetry. In this small amount of work there are numerous
merits and demerits of this poet. He was a man not exempt from the faults of his age; his
poetry is cold and too fun of personified abstractions.
The striking point to be noted about Collins' poetry is that he is regarded as the
precursor of the Romantic Movement: though he adhered to the Greek traits of versification yet
he is romantic through and through in mood and sentiment. His romantic genius can be noted
in Odes on several descriptive and allegoric subjects. He was deeply influenced by Spenser and
Milton. His great poem Ode to Evening is wholly Romantic in mood.
As Thomson, Collins and Gray from a group of early romantic poets, so at the close of the
century we find a similar group of later romanticists who illustrate the progress of the
movement and the richer fulfillment of its promise, and mark the transition to the great period
of romanticism in the nineteenth century. They are Gold-smith, George Grabbe, Williarn
Cowper, William Blake and Rebert Burns who may be called later Romantic poets. Goldsmith,
Blake and Burns appeal to us at once and in nearly all their best Work; Cowper's charm, even
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in his longer work, we must acknowledge as soon as we readily read our may into The Tesk;
Grabbe is less attractive, but his power of realistic descripti6n is undeniable.
1. Oliver Goldsmith (1718-1774): Though his poetical production is not large, it is
notable. His first poem, The Traveller (1764), deals with his wanderings through Europe. The
poem, about four hundred lines in length, is written in the heroic couplet and is a series of
descriptions and criticisms of the places and peoples of which he had experience. It contains
descriptive passages of considerable beauty phrased in simple language, and the couplet is
melodious and polished. The poem has his characteristic charm and grace, and reveals a clear
perception of the sufferings of the poor, where “laws grind the poor, and rich men make the
laws.” In this poem he abides by the old “heroic” couplet, and to that extent he is Pope's pupil :
but it is in his fresh, clear, truthful descriptions of natural scenery that we note in him one of
the tendencies of the best poets of the last half of the eighteenth century.
Goldsmith's another important poem is The Deserted Village, which appeared in 1770. It
is longer and more elaborate than its forerunner, which in many respects is closely resembles.
It abounds is charming pictures of village life as it appeared to the writer, and in plaintive,
melancholy personal reflections. Touching and pathetic as much of it is, a stranget
cheerfulness runs through it, as through all Goldsmith's works, which is perhaps one reasons
why the reader is more apt to admire the delicate beauty of the descriptive portions than to be
deeply stirred by those which are meant to move him to tears. This poem is eminently suitable
for learning by heart, either in whole or in part, and it is one of the few beautiful poems which
are not spoiled for the learner by the process. Its freedom from subtlety, its simple diction and
melodious versification, are things which the young can enjoy, and of which their elders do not
tire.
Commenting on the poetry of Goldsmith, E. Albert observes: “The peculiar humor and
pathos of Goldsmith are hard to analyze. Both emotions arise from simple situations, and are
natural and free from any deep guile, yet they have a certain agreeable tartness of flavor, and
show that Goldsmith was no fool in his observation of mankind. Often the humor is so dashed
with pathos that the combined effect is attractive to a very high degree.
2. George Crabbe (1752-1832): He was a clergy man. He wrote many tales in verse
which depict with unflinching realism the life of villages and towns. His chief volumes of tales
are: The Village, The Parish Register, The Borough and Tales in Verse. He was determined to
“hold the mirror up to Nature” as he saw it, and to break away from the ancient pastoral
convention. He was too fond of depicting the seamy side of life, but he depicted it as an artist,
not as a photographer, thus avoiding one of the principal faults of more recent realists. The
peculiar flavor of Crabbe's poetry is due to the contrast between their matter and their
manner. Poetically speaking, he is an extreme Radical in his matter, and an ultra Tory in his
manner. His experiments in realism powerfully affected the new school of poetry, and help to
ring the death-knell of the elegant and artificial verse of the eighteenth century; but his verse
is the verse of Dryden, and he adhered, with rare exceptions, to the heroic couplet. Crabbe
could tell a story well. He had the trained eye of a botanist and geologist for stocks and stones.
He, could draw admirable landscapes. Whether depicting Man or Nature, he kept his eyes
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firmly fixed on the object. He links the generation of Burke, Johnson, and Reynolds to that of
Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron. Laslie Stephen says of him: “Crabbe's realism preceding even
Cowper, and anticipating Wordsworth, was the first important indication of one characteristic
movement in the contemporary school of poetry. His clumsy style and want of sympathy with
the new world isolated him as a writer. But the force and fidelity of his descriptions of the
scenery of his native place, and of the characteristics of the rural population, give abiding
interest to his work. His pathos is genuine and deep, and to some judgment his later works
atone for the diminution in tragic interest by their gentleness and simple humanity.”
3. William Cowper (1731-1800) : He was the son of a rector of Great Berkhampstead.
He was educated at Westminster School. At the age of thirty-one he endeavored to obtain the
appointment of Clerk of the Journals of the House of Lords; dread of the public examination
which was necessary drove him insane and he tried to commit suicide. From his mania he
recovered, but he thereafter lived in retirement. He produced his poems late in life, but in bulk
the work is large. In 1782 he published his first volume, which contained The Progress of Error,
Truth, Table Talk, Expostulation, and other poems. Its success was only moderate. Most of
these poems are satiric, and Cowper was too gentle and too little a man of the world to make
an efficient satirist. “His next work is The Task (1785) a long poem in blanks verse, dealing
with simple and familiar themes and containing many fine descriptions of country scenes. In
places the style is marked by the prevailing artificial tricks, and as a whole the poem is seldom
inspired with any deep or passionate feeling'; but his observation is acute and humane, it
includes the homeliest detail within its kindly scope, and he gives us real nature, like Thomson
the The Seasons. At the end of volume the balled of John Gilpin finds a place. It is an excellent
example of Cowper's prim but sprightly humor, an extraordinary gift for a man of his morbid
temperament." His last poem The Catawaylife, was written in 1799, a year before his death.
The poem gives a tragic finality to his life. It describes the doom of a poor wretch swept
overboard in a storm. His admirable letters, of which several editions have been published,
throw light on his simple, gentle, and humane personality.
Cowper was in a sense, the most original poet of his age. His poetry is notable as
heralding a simpler and more natural style than the classical style of Pope and his inferior
imitators. “His message was a still voice calling men away from all that is false and artificial to
what is natural and true.” As a poet, he was perfectly natural and without affectation, “He is
one of the best descriptive poets in English literature. His descriptions of rural scenery, and
domestic rural life, have hardly been surpassed by any other poet. Endowed with a wonderful
gift of observation, he describes scenes and objects with perfect truthfulness and accuracy,
making his pictures wonderfully life-like. As Hazlitt observes, “he has a fine manly sense, a
pensive and interesting turn of thought, tenderness occasionally running into the most
touching pathos and a patriotic and religious zeal mounting almost into sublimity.” A
pronounced religious and moral tone, a noble sympathy with all forms of sorrow and suffering
a burning, hatred of oppression and outrage, a strong faith in man and idealism, a love of
nature for its own sake-these are the outstanding characteristics of Cowper's poetry.
7.4 The Main Features of Romantic Poetry
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According to Arthur Compton-Rickett, the most dominant features of Romanticism are; a

subtle sense of mystery, an exuberant intellectual curiosity and an instinct for the elemental
simplicities of life. The movement was an essential counterpart of the Renascence and
reformation which were shaping and revolutionizing the attitudes and spirit of the age. It led
people to the discovery of the glories of the world of nature and the realization of the dignity
and importance of man as man. The new idealistic philosophy of Kant and Hegel in Germany,
the social theories of Rousseau, the French Revolutionaries' slogans of 'Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity' and the call for 'Return to Nature' and to the elemental simplicities of the country
life, lent the movement an earnest vitality.
The subtle sense of mystery is manifest in the emotion. of awe and wonder in the
presence of unknown and the known and a sense of ecstasy when face to face with beauty in
nature and in human nature. This led to the development of a sense of mystery and idealism
and a quest for establishing a link between Man and Nature, and investing the latter with a
living-spirit, the same that man shares. The writers were attracted to the study of the past, the
mystic atmosphere of the middle ages and they developed a heightened interest in its folklore
and legendary wealth. Supernatural, the weird and unearthly phenomena lying beyond the
palpable, material world, became an intimate concern with many practitioners of the new
trends set up by the Movement. However the romanticists felt at home in describing the
simple, native life of ordinary men and women, their day-to-day joys and sorrows, the “still
small voice of everyday life.” Thus they transfigured reality through their new powers of
sensitive feeling and vision. Scott's historical novels revealed faithful pictures of the Scottish
life-landscape and character. The sense of mystery applied to natural phenomena led poets
like Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats to look at nature from a different angle. Wordsworth
invested nature with a spirit and found in it,
The anchor of my purest thought, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being (Tintern Abbey)
Coleridge revealed his exquisite perception of the mysteries that surround the common
place things of everyday life (The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan). Shelley's devotion to liberty and
his whole hearted belief in love as the prime factor in all human progress led him to etherealize
common subjects in his inimitable lyrics. (The Cloud, Old to the West Wind, the Skylark), Keats
took from medievalism and Hellenism material for, fashioning his sequestered land of beauty
(Endymion, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Ode to a Nightingale, Ode on a Grecian Um Ode to
Autumn). The reawakening of this sense of mystery led the poets from an appraisal of nature's
charm to a passionate abandonment to her magic. In their attitude to man, these poets
invested human life with a tender sanctity and spiritual significance.
The second characteristic of the Movement, an 'exuberant intellectual curiosity' is a
natural corollary to the kindling of the imagining faculty. This was manifest in the revival in
Gothic art and architecture of the Middle Ages as a source of artistic and intellectual
inspiration. This also led to the emergence of English poetic style. The poets took to ballads,
the ancient folk-lore and experimented with its material peculiarities (Coleridge and Keats). A
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new interest in native, literary origins was stimulated as against the 18th century Heroic
Couplet, to satisfy the aesthetic and emotional elements. It further encouraged a 'speculative
and inquisitive' turn of mind which is evident in Wordsworth's poetic theory, Shelley's logical
power, Coleridge's psychological insight and Keats’s concern with Beauty. The intellectual
stimulus had turned many of these poets into philosophers. A new tradition of literary
criticism had emerged and its concern was to reveal beauty rather than pick loop holes. Their
creative imagination and historical method liberated criticism of absolute standard of relating
it to the considerations of time and place. These poets have left the richest and most
constructive criticism in English literature which is both intellectual in its bearings and
imaginative in its sweep.
Another element of Romanticism is an instinct for the elemental simplicities of life. The
rising tide of industrialism and commercialism resulted in the loss of the dignity of man,
squalor, spirit of competition and a rat race for material well-being. The basic values of life and
respect for the individual had been eclipsed by the rapidly growing concern only for the
masses”. The Romantic Movement reacted to this and its larger naturalism sought to take
people back to Nature from the superficial complexities of an industrial civilization.
William Blake sang about the innocence of childhood. Wordsworth wrote about these
simple country folk and infused a sense of mystery in their day-to-day life. The Romanticists'
sense of curiosity led them to find inspiration not only from the Greek art and the Middle Ages
but also, close at hand, from the simple, unsophisticated everyday life. The changing seasons,
the setting sun, a trailing cloud, the cool breeze, frost and flowers, the chirping of birds,
ordinary peasants, cottage girls, shepherds-these became subjects of the richest poetry of the
age. A new wave of Humanitarianism manifested itself in the concern for the democratic
aspirations, glorification of liberty, dignity of man, power of human love and in the natural
instincts of the human heart.
It is often remarked that in the case of lesser poets Romanticism became synonymous
with escapism, running away from the pressing problems of the age which needed solution of a
socio-economic character. They got obsessed which the remote and the faraway rather than
what was there face to face. The Augustan ideals of propriety, balance and correctness had
yielded place to fanciful extravagance and wild flights of the imagination. Whereas this may be
true, it is also to be understood that any movement is a reaction to the previous one and the
pendulum tends to swing to the other extreme. However the age stood badly in need or
freedom from the old moulds of thought and styles, fresh air and an unblessed imaginative
look at the things around. This was what the writers and thinkers of the age achieved. They
have left us a rich and robust, intensely profound and magnificently variegated treasure in the
form of the Romantic poetry.
7.5 An Introduction to the Poet: John Keats
Seven years younger than Byron, three years younger than Shelley, Keats, born in 1795,
was son of a livery stable-keeper who had married the daughter of the owner and succeeded
his business, but died in 1804, when Keats was only eight years old. His mother a “lively
woman”, a nymphomaniac and a heavy drinker, remarried only a couple of months later but
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felt unhappy and came back leaving her husband as well as her property. Keats was shocked
and, in Hamlet like mood, wrote “all my life, I have suspected everybody” But he was very fond
of his mother. She had returned consumption-stricken and he nursed her, cooked her meals,
sat up nights, read novels to her. When she was dis-allowed visitors, he sat up outside with a
drawn sword. Her death in 1810 staggered him and he became a changed man.
He had joined school at Enfield under Rev. Clarke, but had no love for books or any
other intellectual interest. Woman, wine and snuff were his "beloved trinity". He was fond of
fighting and would fight anyone, including his brothers, morning and evening with 'terrier
courage'. After his mother's death, however he got fond of books, instead of games, read all day
long and won all prizes. Rev. Clarke's son, Charles, who became his great friend, read to him
Spenser's Epithalamion and Chapman's Homer. He also gave him the Fairie Queene, which
awakened his poetic genius. From The Fairie Queene, he passed on to Virgil's Aeneid which he
set to translate, but found it defective in structure, and then on to Chatterton, Byron, Chaucer
and Milton. He got particularly fond of classical literature and Lampiere's Classical Dictionary.
The charm of Greek and Roman myths struck to him for life. All this he owed to Charles and
he wrote:
Ah! Had I never seen
Or know your kindness what might have been!
Charles also introduced him to Leigh Hunt who had a great influence on his early work.
In gratitude, he said.
I am brimful of the friendliness
That in a little cottage I have known.
At fifteen, he felt school and was apprenticed to a surgeon by his unsympathetic
guardian uncle against his wishes. After some time he gave up this apprenticeship. 'I find I
cannot exist without poetry”, he said. He had already fallen under the influence of Spenser,
now he got interested in Wordsworth and lastly and permanently in Shakespeare. He regarded
passages from Shakespeare as “things real". The influence of Milton and Hunt also became
tremendous, though not wholly for the good.
Though full of energy and courage he suffered from morbidity of temperament,
particularly with regard to women. On the whole, he classed women with roses and
sweetmeats' for whom he had no time. He gave up the idea of marrying. “The roaring of the
wind is my wife and the stars are my children”. Even after meeting Fanny Brawne whom he
loved passionately, he thought that 'a man in love cuts the sorriest figure in the world.
In 1817 appeared his first book of poems but it attracted little attention. Next year
appeared his major poem 'Endymion', completely under the influence of Hunt, and he left on a
tour of Scotland with his friend Brown. The tour delighted him, but he contracted fever and
inflammation of the throat and had to return. This was the beginning of his tragic career. On
his return, he found that 'Endymion' haél been bitterly attacked by 'Blackwood's Magazine and
Quarterly Review, not only for its poetic defects, but also for his association with Hunt, known
for his Tory politics. It caused him great pain and blighted the sale of his books. The poem had
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serious faults, especially on the score of over sensuousness. Keats himself admitted that it was
a feverish attempt rather than a deed accomplished. His mind, he said, was at that time 'a
scattered pack of cards'. But the reviewers overdid their job and failed to see some of its
beauties that the modern critics have discovered. That perhaps was not their fault. We, in the
post-Freudian age, are inclined to be more liberal in our views about sex and sensuality. The
poem is now regarded by some critics as an allegory (though Keats himself does not seem to
have meant it for one) that passes from the love of nature and 'sensuality of the earlier two
books to the union of physical and spiritual love in the last two, embodied in the Indian Maid.
That of course does not absolve the poem of many serious faults. It has some beautiful
passages, but on the whole it is immature.
To add to his unhappiness, Thomas, one of his two brothers (for whom he had “affection
passing the love of women) died of consumption, in spite of his assiduous nursing, and the
other, George, left for America with his wife Georgiana who had been a great comfort to him.
Luckily he had around him a group of loyal and devoted friends who came to his rescue. He
came to stay with Brown at Hampstead Heath where he met Fanny Brawne who swept him off
his feet and proved both his delight and torture. Another friend Haydon, a painter, drew him
away from Hunt's baneful influence to Milton's grand style and large epic conception. “The
three great things in the world”, he said, “were Wordsworth's Excursion:, Haydon's pictures
and Hazlitt's depth of taste.” But more intimate than both, was Reynolds to whom he opened
his heart completely.
Let us also remember that though the scathing reviews had blighted his chances of
financial independence, of winning fame, even of marriage, they stirred him to great effect
towards improvement, with the result that within a year, he produced half a dozen poems or
more which can rank among the greatest in English literature.
His next major poem 'Isabella', was a great improvement and so on also 'St. Agnes, which
indicated his supreme sensuousness and masterly technique. Better things were soon to come.
The year 1819 has been called 'the living year' (Gitting has written a whole book on it) in which
appeared his great odes. Lamia and Eve of St. Mark. He was now under the influence of
Wordsworth and Shakespeare who deepened and enlarged the scope of his genius.
His passion for Fanny caused him extreme torture. Though not altogether unresponsive,
she was incapable of the depth of passion that he demanded. Between the extremes of love;
and jealously, he was being utterly consumed, particularly because, having contracted
consumption, he knew that he was not to live long and enjoy his love. The doctors advised him
sojourn to the warmer south and he left for Italy with his friend Severn in whose lap he died in
1821 at the age of twenty six. His end was brave, “Severn, lift me up I am dying I shall die
easy, don't be frightened - be firm and thank God it has come.” Severn adds, “He gradually
sank into death, so quite that I still thought he slept”. Severn also says, “The silent growth of
flowers seemed to Keats”, perhaps the only happiness I have in the world." His last word was
beautiful.
It is sometimes supposed that vile attack on “Endymion” hastened his death. Byron even
wrote that his life was “snuffed out by an article”. That is not true. As a boy he was brave and
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had a penchant for fighting. Charles Clarke even talks of his ungovernable passion. Later
Keats himself wrote, "Praise of blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of
beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic of his own works “Again, “I shall even
consider public as debtors to me for verses, not myself to them for admiration which I can do
without”.
Temperamentally, he was a happy man full of fun and gaiety but tension, frustration and
constant anxiety about monetary troubles, disappointed love and a fatal disease made him
morbid and nervous. Though his letter gives the impression of a healthy mind and delightful
temper, his own evidence is to the contrary" I have a horrid morbidity of temperament. My
mind has been the most discontented and restless one that was even put into a body too small
for it” (He was only five feet).
Keats is known for his loveable character. Of his boyhood, Holmes, his school-fellow,
talks of “his extraordinary vivacity and personal beauty” and Charles of “his high mindedness,
his utter unconsciousness of a mean motive, his placability, his generosity”. No wonder that he
was a man who had many loyal and generous friends. In consumption, when the patients are
isolated, he was nursed by the Hunts as well as the Browns. Shelley also wrote to him from
Italy to come there and when ultimately, he went, he was accompanied by Severn, who nursed
him till his death with extreme devotion. Among his friends; he counted, besides Severn,
Reynolds, Hazlitt, Coleridge, Lamb, Haydon, Shelley, Leigh Hunt, Brown. His real character is
revealed in his letter to some of them, his sweet qualities of courage and affection and his
unselfish tenderness. When he died Shelley wrote one of the greatest elegies in English
literature, Adonais.
7.6 The Odes: A Brief Introduction
The great Odes have for long been placed at the centre of Keats' achievement and for that
matter at the centre of the English Romantic achievement as a whole. These odes have most to
tell us when they are taken not only together as a group but as an integral part of Keats, total
achievement, as a mature reflection of the particular concerns with which he wrested
throughout his career. We can understand them as a series of closely-related and progressive
meditations on the nature of the creative process, the logical out-growth of his involvement
with Negative Capability.
Robert Bridges praising the Odes says, “Had Keats left us only his odes, his rank among
the poets would not be lower than it is, for they have stood apart in literature, at least the six
most famous of them.” These six odes are “Ode to Psyche”, “Ode to Nightingale”, “Ode on a
Grecian Urn”, Ode on Melancholy, “Ode on Indolence” and “To Autumn”. Legouis and
Cazamian emphasise the suggestive quality of these odes by saying, “The most original
character of his art is its density, each epithet is extraordinary rich in suggestion”.
An ode, by its definition, is a lyrical poem on an exalted theme in an exalted style, in the
form of an address. Keats odes are lyrical in the sense that they are an expression of his mood,
not in the sense of being egotistical-self dramatization. They are an emotional but the emotion
is restrained. These odes have been written in a mood of what Keats called “Negative
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Capability”, that is, a mood of indolent reception without imposing one's own view; a mood of
doubt and uncertainty without any pre-conceived, positive notions. The style is truly exalted
and their objective treatment makes them Shakespearean. The odes are also in the form of an
address.
7.6.1 Summary and Critical Analysis of the Poem “Ode to Nightingale”
David Perkins speaking of the Ode says, “The dramatic development that takes place in
the Ode lies partly in the gradual transformation of a living nightingale into a symbol of
visionary art. By means of the symbol the Ode explores the consequences of commitment to
vision, and it does so, comes close to implying that the destruction of the protagonist is one of
the results, “In Ode to a Nightingale the continuing vehicle of escape is the song of the
nightingale; for as the poet in his trance contemplates the nightingale, he sees it withdrawing
further and further from the human world. As the poem proceeds the bird finally crosses into a
realm where the poet cannot follow. But there is momentary union, and in it the poet, standing
in the forest, is able, like the nightingale, to sing of summer even though the time of year is
only mid-May.
Keats does not mean that the bird is literally 'immortal', but he takes the nightingale's
song, the song of innumerable nightingales reaching back over the centuries to 'ancient days'
as a symbol of permanence. Generations pass like this passing night, yet the song of the
nightingale endures from age to age. In the Melancholy Ode Keats accepts impermanence
inevitable, but in this poem the passing of youth happiness and beauty cannot be accepted
without a struggle. The thought fills him with horror and depression.
The tendency to lapse away into a kind of swoon, the impulse to give up the battle by
seeking oblivion, dominates the opening:
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk.
The key words, 'aches', 'drowsy numbness', 'pains', 'dull opiate', Lathe wards had sunk',
produce a cumulative effect of drugged langour, aided by the movement of the verse.
It is an excess of happiness, brought about by entering into what he imagined to be the
happiness of the bird, that has occasioned the poet's mood. His mood notwithstanding, the
words 'happy' and 'happiness' cannot help causing a change of feeling in the reader. There
comes a sense of refreshment after the narcotic drooping of the first four lines, the fifth line
onwards, a new brightness is added to 'beechen green', 'summer' and 'full throated ease'.
In the second stanza the nightingale and its song seems to have given way to other
thoughts, taking their origin from the word 'summer'. These are thoughts of wine, the
colourful lands in which its grapes are grown and the gaiety which it brings. A general
atmosphere of warmth predominates - sun burnt mirth. Then suddenly the whole atmosphere
changes, and we see the reason behind the poet's craving for 'a drought of vintage'
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That I might drink and leave the world unseen.

And with thee fade away into the forest dim.
In the third stanza are lines about the inevitable decay of youth and beauty alongwith
the happiness that comes with them. The bird is envied for it has never known human
suffering. Keats was probably acutely conscious of the suffering that his brother Tom's death
at a young age had caused him. But soon we realize that the earlier line about happiness were
related to the excessive happiness that Keats links with the depression. The happy and
pleasant thoughts connected with wine were simply a kind of 'walking dream'. His longing for
wine does not means a thirst for warmth and gaiety, it expresses a desire for oblivion, a
yearning to 'fade away into the forest dim'. Wine is sought as an 'opiate', or even as a poison
like hemlock.
In this frame of mind, Keats would certainly not resist temptation to 'twist wolf's bane,
tight rooted for its 'poisonous wine'. But he has a spring of vitality in him which even the most
gloomy thoughts cannot permanently subdue. It is this vitality which makes the poem, for in it
we have that upsurging feeling for life that pulls against the longing to 'fade away' either 'to
Lethe' or 'the forest dim. It means oblivion, one way or the other. We realize at this point why
Keats has not been wrong in attributing his depression to 'being too happy in thine happiness.'
The nightingale is imagined to be happy 'because it is not human, because it has never known
the 'weariness, the fever and the fret of human existence.' And the poet knows too well that the
happiness he feels in mentally following the bird into wood 'among the leaves' cannot last, he is
human being after all, and what is human must pass away. His depression is thus in the
happiness itself.
But in the fourth stanza the poet tries vigorously to pull, himself together. Gloomy
thoughts about the human lot is dismissed, together with the possibility of wine (Bacchus and
his pards) as an alternative to them. Keats will now take refuge in poetic fancy.
Away ! away ! For I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards,
In spite of the 'dull brain', poetic fancy carries the poet swiftly to the nightingale in its
perch up among the tree-tops where the moon and stars can be seen.
Already with thee ! Tender is the night,
And happily the queen-Moon is on her throne,
Olustered around by all her starry Fays.
Poetic fancy, indeed working very prettily here, but there is something very artificial
about the reference to the 'Queen moon' and the idea of the stars as fairies. This, we find, is
deliberate, for the 'viewless wings of Poesy' turn out to be ineffectual as the chariot of Bacchus.
Poetic fancy does not last long. No sooner are the three pretty lines over than Keats is on the
ground again, back to the reality.
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But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through vendurous glooms winding mossy ways.
The implied comment is that 'Poesy' as represented by the previous fanciful lines, is too
flimsy a thing to afford much in the way of sustenance. The light of the moon fitfully reaches
the poet as the breeze parts the branches.
The fifth stanza shows a delighted response to the sensuous beauty of the physical
world. The poet is not describing what he actually sees around him. He tells us explicitly that
there is not enough light for him to distinguish the flowers growing on the ground and the
blossoms on the trees and the hedges. But this is not the same thing as the previous poetic
'fancy' for the working of his imagination are here rooted in a thoroughly solid notion of what
the invisible blooms are like. The language has its peculiarities, for example the contrast
between such homely words as the 'seasonable month', and 'soft incense', embalmed darkness,
dewy wine, we know, of course that Keats is literally referring to the scent of the flowers and
the nectar of the musk- rose. But the words are such as to conjure up thoughts of 'luxury.
Stanza VI gives us Keats at his most morbid. All the swooning and luxuries of his earlier
work seem to have been leading to this:
Darling I Listen: and for many a time,
I have been half in love with easeful Death
Call'd him soft names a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath.
And then come the lines in which he feels that it would be 'rich to die'. 'To' cease upon
the mightnight 'with no paîn'. It can be noticed that the emphasis is upon what is 'soft' and
'easeful'. Death is accepted, not as abrupt extinction or lingering demise, but as painless
dissolution. The poet once more wishes to 'Fade far away' and 'dissolve'. Soft incense, of stanza
V and 'dewy wine' of the musk-rose has brought the idea of oblivion back to the surface of the
poet's consciousness. Keats now sees the morbid impulse clearly. Yet Keats is only half in love
with easeful Death'. The unquenchable vitality of Keats is nowhere more apparent than in his
stanza. For it is this upsurging feeling for life that makes him sweep aside the luxurious
thoughts of being 'rich to die'. There would be no richness' about it at all. The bird would go on
singing whilst, he having become merely a lifeless 'sod' would no more be able to enjoy the
song.
And so Keats moves on to his affirmation of a belief in permanence, in an enduring
principle of life, a belief symbolized by the song of the nightingale, heard by countless
generations over the centuries. The generations pass, but they cannot silence the nightingale's
voice. Keats imagination ranges back across the years of the time when emperors had their
court jesters, who could hear the nightingale's song just as their regal masters did, in distant
days of the Old Testament, represented by the story of Ruth; and at least, in the astonishing
conclusion of the stanza, to something yet more remote;
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The same that oft times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas; in fairy lands, forlom
One way of interpreting these lines in that the bird's song had often inspired tellers of
fairy stories, thought this meaning is only partly relevant. The manners in which we can
properly analyse the line is by considering the suggestive properties of the words themselves.
The effect depends upon contrast. Here it is contrast between the enchantment and mystery
suggested by 'Cham'd', 'Magic', and 'fairy', the emotionally disturbing associations of perilous'
and 'forlorn', and the visual impact of 'foam', and the very homely word 'casements' -
casements which seems literally to open at the· caesura in the penultimate line, for the
observer to gaze fourth upon the waves. In this stanza VII, Keats sets up the nightingale as a
symbol of permanence and immortality.
Having gone so far into the depths, where the 'casements' of his own consciousness have
briefly opened upon something long buried, it is not surprising that the poet wakes up to his
surrounding with something of a start.
Forlorn ! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self
Keats mentally bids the nightingale farewell, and with it the 'fancy' which has led him so
far away from his 'sole self '
Adieu 'The fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is farmed to do, deceiving elf.
The bird's song being now 'buried deep' in the next valley glades, the poet asks himself;
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music-Do I wake or sleep?
It these lines Keats had made himself deliberately ambiguous. The reason is that he is
striving towards a satisfying conception of permanence. He has not really found it yet, though
the song of the nightingale will do for the time being as an indication of the kind of thing he is
looking for and trying to say.
After reading the complete poem we see that for Keats, death becomes associated with
fulfillment. Throughout the poem darkness has been gathering about the poet as he moves
into the nightingale world - 'there is no light' : 'I cannot see', embalmed darkness' any finally
'Darkling'.
Finally, we may note that it is not the bird that 'fades' but its song. Thus if the departure
represents the flight of a living bird, it is also presented as the fading of a vision. Moreover, the
song does not merely fade. With a final, ironic reflection upon the theme of death, it is
described as 'buried' as if to imply the denial of any possibility of hearing it. And the poem
ends with uncertainty and a question: was the process that has taken place a momentary
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glimpse of truth ('a vision') or a subjective half dream; and is the poet's inability to experience
it on an reality or a lapse into insensibility?
7.6.2 Summary and Critical Analysis of the Poem “Ode to Autumn”
To Autumn' is Keats supreme triumph in the handling of poetic resources. To quote M.R
Ridley (Keats' Craftsmanship : A study in poetic Development 1964), this Ode has not indeed
the Merlins spell of the Ode to a Nightingale', nor the tense ethereal beauty of the 'Ode on a
Grecian Urn'. But neither has it the weak ending that mars the magic of the one, nor the touch
of a didacticism that weakens the urgency of the other. The transparency of its beauty is
unflecked.
To many readers 'Autumn' is the most satisfying of the Odes for additional reasons. It
contains no pronouncements, no overt statements of significance like 'She dwells with Beauty
-- Beauty that must die', no sense of obvious personal involvement. On the surface the Ode
might seem to be more than a consummate piece of 'nature poetry', in which the sights,
sounds, scents and the very 'feel' of autumn are given to us in marvelous evocative language.
That it does convey an impression of the season so vividly that a reader who has never lived in
a temperate climate will know from the poem what autumn is like. It is an important part of its
distinction. Yet it does more; and does it without any hint of explicit 'preaching'. Superficially,
altogether different from 'Ode on Melancholy' 'To Autumn' is profoundly related to that poem.
As we have seen the Melancholy ode accepts the impermanence of beauty and joy as inevitable.
Keats may not be particularly glad about this inevitability, but he does not cry out against it as
he does in the 'Ode to a Nightingale' or, with far greater restraint in the, 'Ode on a Grecian
Urn'. 'To Autumn' goes further. Here impermanence is accepted without the least trace of
sadness, for the reason that Keats is able to see it as part of a larger and richer permanence.
The greater permanence is the continuity of life itself, in which the impermanence of the
individual human existence is one tiny aspect of a vast and deathless pattern. The rotation of
the seasons offers a symbol of this continuity that is immediately satisfying. Keats is nearest to
explicit statements about the theme of this poem at the beginning of the last stanza, where for
a few movements he wistfully recalls the sounds of a past season:
Where are the songs of spring? Aye, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too.
Though not explicit in pointing the parallel between the passing of the seasons and the
transience of the individual human life, Keats is plain about the futility of regretting that
spring has gone by. What is past is past. After all autumn has its own characteristic sounds,
which are as much part of the year as the 'songs of spring'. Moreover although autumn will. be
followed by the cold barrenness of winter, winter will in turn give way to a fresh spring. Life
goes on. The individual year may be drawing to its end' but there will be a new year to take its
place.
The season of autumn is like full maturity of an individual man's life, all in richness and
tradition. It is therefore not surprising that Keats should use personification throughout the
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poem, as in the first stanza, where autumn is thought of as a person on terms of the warmest
friendship with the very source of warmth itself that is the sun.
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless,
With fruit the vines that round the thatch eves run.
'Conspiring' has in this context none of its customary sinister association. Its effect is to
add to the impression of warmth by intensifying the intimacy of two bosom friends. The
conspiracy is a matter of two warm intimates benevolently putting their heads together to see
how they can increase earth's growing abundance. Keats deliberately employs the word
maturing' in an ambiguous way. In one sense, 'maturing' refers to what the sun is actually
doing, since its radiance is what brings the fruits of earth to ripeness. But at the same the sun
can itself be regarded as undergoing a maturing process. It is like a fruit reaching final
maturity, radiating a mellow glow which must soon be followed by the chill of winter, when all
the fruits are picked and the harvest has been gathered in.
Personification of autumn continues in the second stanza where the season assumes the
shape of people in various scenes typical of the season. The first four lines take up to a
granary.
Who hath not seen thee op amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abmad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor
The hair soft lifted by the wintowing wing.
The function of 'careless' is to imply that the task of gathering the harvest has been done
and the store house has been filled. There is no more work to do. Notice how the sound of the
soft wind of autumn is hinted at in the words 'winnowing wind'.
We then move to a cornfield, in which autumn appears as a slumbering reaper lying
besides his half-finished furrow, his reaping hook, inactive for the time being, spares the next
swath of corn and the followers tangled in it. The last four lines of the stanza afford equally
line instances of enactment. Autumn now figures as a gleaner, that is to say, a person who
picks up the bits and pieces left behind in the reaped field when the crop has been carted
away. He is visualized stepping across a small stream, his head loaded with his gatherings.
The concluding stanza opens by briefly recalling the past, but goes on to dismiss regrets
for the departed Spring as merely vain, as autumn has its own music. Besides the 'music' of
the 'gathering swallows', two other sounds call for special mention:
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, born aloft.
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies,
And full-grown lamb bleat from hilly bourn.
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‘Wailful choir' and 'mourn', while deftly characterizing the noise made by crowd of gnats,
cannot help also linking their sound with the idea of a funeral dirge for the year. It is true that
the year is still very much alive. Yet hint of death is impossible to miss. At the same time, the
varying power of the 'light wind' sometimes living, sometime dying, suggest the particular,
position of autumn, poised between the brilliant 'life' of summer and the 'death of winter'. Full
maturity, after all, means that youth has been left far behind. The bleating heard 'from hilly
bourn' is made by 'full grown' lambs. Observe the manner which the transition from the
second line of the passage to the third simultaneously conveys the impression of rising and
falling, and by momentarily saving the sense suspended, gives the effect of poise between two
alternatives analogous to autumn's crucial position in the cycle of seasons.
There are other hints of death in the stanza:
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue.
Yet the idea of death is not treated with horror or resentment. The day is dying softly the
rosy 'bloom' of sunset takes away the stark barrenness of the now fully reaped cornfields. And
in any case, the very reference to the close of day, like the final line about the swallows, carries
with it a suggestion of its opposite. Just as the swallows will come back next year, so another
day will dawn, for the great moment of life goes on however transient the existence of the
individual.
The “Ode to Autumn” is written in a ripe style. Mellow fruitfulness is the fittest
expression of a ripe apple. The bosom friend of the maturing sun' is softly sensuous. 'Mellow' is
further reinforced by 'Swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells with sweet kernel'. Keats is
in perfect control of his imagery which indicates that experience behind it is genuine. There is
no false note or inconsistency anywhere. The whole poem indicated the decline of a day. The
first stanza is about the beginning with its mists morning, the next stanza is about the warm
day when autumn is performing various jobs of a watcher, gleaner or ciderpresser. The final
stanza represents the evening. The day is soft dying and the stubble plains are touched with
rosy hue. Gathering swallows twitter in the sky. The birds gather in the evening to fly back to
their nests. The idea is of slow death. Middleton Murray says about this Ode that it is "the
perfect and unforced utterance of truth contained in the magic words of Shakespeare,
'Ripeness is all'.
7.6.3 Summary and Critical Analysis of “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
Keats does not mean the urn must literally last forever, any more than he expects us to
believe that one nightingale has been singing ever since the time of the Old Testament, for the
urn is in theory just as liable to destruction as any other object of man's making. But the fact
that it has already endured for so long, and the likelihood will entitle it to a care for its
preservation which the majority of antique beauty objects in this world do riot receive, make it
a peculiarly satisfying symbol of permanence.
The central significance of the ode is given in the last stanza, where the poet, having
addressed the urn as 'Cold Pastoral' goes on to say:
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When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shall remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st.
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty'...that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
What concerns us is Keats' idea of the urn remaining “in midst of other woe than our’s”.
By this he means that although one generation of suffering human beings will be replaced by
another generation, and so on over the years, the urn will continue to exist as it is an
unchanging thing of beauty in the midst of the changing woes of rising and passing
generations.
The urn is 'cold' in the very obvious sense that is an inanimate object, without the warm
blood of human life, and made of a substance which is normally cold. Its 'coldness', in this
sense is thus linked with its power to endure, as opposed to the living and dying of 'warm'
humanity. There is more about 'coldness' for it points to an aspect of its beauty implied at the
very beginning of the poem.
Thou still unravished bride of quietness
Thou foster child of silence and slow time.
The words 'still unravised bride' strike an immediate note of surprise. This 'marriage'
between the urn ud 'quietness' is likened metaphorically to a human marriage that has never
been consummated. The 'bride' retains her virginal purity. Not only is she' a partner in no
physical union: it is implied that she is the 'child' of an equally non-sensual relationship – not
the issue of 'silence and slow time', but their 'foster-child'.
These metaphors have the effect of stressing the calm, non-human purity and
detachment of the urn. There are subsequent suggestions of the urn's remoteness from what
the poet regards as impure, unrewarding, and distressing in the human lot. The urn is not
more pure than humanity; it is also a better and sweeter story-teller than the human poet:
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express,
A flowery tale more sweetly than our ryhme.
What the tale means, what exactly are those situations cannot be known for the 'Cold
Pastoral' has nothing to utter.
The second stanza tells us why the urn is regarded as story-teller superior to the poet.
No, lines Keats are more paradoxical than these. There is, an idea of music in his mind, yet it
remains no more than an idea, for these 'melodies' do not impinge upon the physical hearing:
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter, therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
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Because, it appeals to the 'spirit' rather than to the gross 'sensual ear' of ordinary
hearing this music is thought of as being superior to that which may be heard in the normal
way. We realize, therefore, that the fact that Keats cannot ascertain the precise meaning of the
scenes depicted on the urn is to him a positive virtue in this work of art. The story is 'sweet'
because it is without all the gross human circumstances, the paraphernalia of 'what happened
before and what came later', that must be handed by the human story-teller. The Urn merely
suggests situations.
There are two scenes which suggest situations easily imaginable as taking place in the
real world. The first is a youthful musician, the second, a lover pursuing his maiden. the poet
gives us another quality in the work of art, which is considered to be a supreme virtue, and
which is part of its value as a symbol of permanence. Whereas in 'real life' the youth would at
last stop singing and the tree would lose their leaves in late autumn and winter, the scene
represented pictorially on the Urn cannot change. And although the lover can never capture
his maiden, for they ....... fixed parts of a motionless pattern, he should take comfort from the
fact that his love for her likewise cannot change, nor will her beauty fade.
The break between 'thou canst note leave' and ‘Thy Song' firs suggest interruption of the
song, but we realize that by breaking the flow of the sense. Keats impedes the movement of the
words, thus emphasizing the idea of the scene as fixed and immobile. There is a similar effect
produced by the clogging repetition of 'never' in the next line, which likewise retards the flow
and suggests the unchanging stance of the lover, caught forever in pursuit that can lead to no
goal.
Stanza III dwells upon the thought of these changeless scenes. In 'them' at least beauty
does not die, pleasure does not turn to poison, joy is not perpetually bidding adieu (as in the
Melancholy ode).
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd
For ever panting and forever young.
Keats is drawing a distinction between ordinary human notions of 'happy love' and what
he, at the moment, regards as the far more genuine happiness of the 'Bold lover' portrayed by
the Urn. His love is 'happy', precisely because it is 'still to be enjoyed*, and will never attain
consummation. By repeating 'happy', the poet stresses the unchanging continuity of his state.
Human love in the real world, on the other hand, though it may be 'enjoyed in a physical
sense, brings with it an aftermath of sorrow:
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Notice the contrast between the feverishness of that last line and the general air of
coolness and stillness surrounding the Urn.
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In the fourth stanza the Urn slowly turned around, so that other scenes are offered to
our mental vision.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice
To what Green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her siken flanks with garlands drest?
The dominant word is 'mysterious', which not only refers to the priest and the rite he is
going to perform, but describes the poet's feelings about everything that he mentions in this
stanza. The picture of the 'little town' reminds us of the Urn's changelessness:
And little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be: and not a soul to tell
Why thou art esolate, can ever return.
There is a definite difference between the feeling conveyed here and that communicated
in the previous two stanzas. Whereas Keats has expressed nothing but profound envy for the
changeless state of the 'Fair youth' and the 'Bold lover' he seems at the end of stanza IV to
introduce an unexpectedly mournful note. The strongly emphasized word 'disolate' cannot help
carrying with it a feeling of sadness and chill.
The fourth stanza has ended by dwelling on a scene empty of human figures. This makes
an ideal transition to the opening lines of the last stanza, which stress the non-human quality
of the Urn again and again.
O Attic shapel fair attitude with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought
With forest branches and the trodden weed
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out off thought .
As doth eternity; Cold Pastorall:
The Urn, despite its beauty, is 'un-human' rather than 'non-human', so icily chaste does
it appear in those words. The work of art may be exquisitely beautiful and satisfying as life can
rarely if ever be, but life, in spite of its woes, has a warmth that creeps into poet's
contemplation of the marble figures. It is almost as though he were breathing life into them.
The words 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty' are imagined as being uttered by the Urn. The
urn we have been told, teases us 'out of thought as doth eternity'. By likening the Urn to
eternity, Keats reinforces its value as a symbol of permanence, and also tells us that it has the
same capacity to divert us from rational thinking as bewilderment at the idea of eternity. The
word 'tease' implies that Urn tantalizes the beholders.
Keats presents the idea of permanent happiness as nothing more than a beautiful
impossibility, which the urn as 'friend to man' may help us to see sometimes as a possibility “A
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friend to man' it is, at the same time coldly remote from men. The unchanging work of art has
its own limitations, just as the changing world of transient human life has its virtues.
Keats does not come down heavily on either art or life. The feelings of attraction and
repulsion, felt in respect of both, meet and mingle in the poem to form an essential part of its
total meaning. The tensions explored between them are dealt within 'Keats' effort to achieve
within himself 'a sort of oneness.' Certainly he has achieved here a poem off superbly
organized effect, which magnificently balances the claims of both the work of art and breathing
human life. A work in which the controlling intelligence is well to the fore, it asks for intelligent
readers, which it has not invariably received. Hence the absurd notion that it sets p a claim for
an Absolute beauty as a kind of religion, and that it advocates the doctrine of Art for Art's
sake, when the truth of the matter is that Keats means' Art for life's sake”.

Self-Assessment Questions
Q. 1 Write a summary of the poem “Ode to Nightingale.”
Q.2 Write a summary of the poem “Ode to Grecian Urn.”
Q.3 What are the major features of Romantic Poetry?
Q.4 Comment on the precursors to Romantic Movement.

7.7 Summary
In this lesson you have learnt about the Romantic Movement and the poets who were
precursors to the movement and influenced the later Romantic poets. Apart from this, this
lesson has provided you a brief introduction to Keats’s art of writing poetry. This English
Romantic lyric poet dedicated to the perfection of poetry marked by vivid imagery that
expressed a philosophy through classical legend. The detailed discussion on the three
prescribed poems included in the lesson will help you understand the development of Keats as
a poet of Nature, as a Romantic poet and also use of sensuous imagery in his poems.
7.8 References
 John Keats: Selected Poetry, Elizabeth Cook, Oxford University Press, 1996
 The Odes of Keats, Harold Bloom, Chelsea House, 1987
 Keats' Craftsmanship: A Study in Poetic Development, M. R. Ridley, Clarendon
Press, 1933
 John Keats: The Critical Heritage, G. M. Matthews, Routledge, 1995
 Life of John Keats, Charles Armitage BrownDorothy Hyde BodurthaWillard
Bissell Pope, Oxford University Press, 1937
 Word like a Bell: John Keats, Music and the Romantic Poet, John A. Minahan,
Kent State University Press, 1992
A Life of John Keats, Dorothy Hewlett, Barnes & Noble, 1950 (2nd Rev. edition)
7.9 Further Readings
 John Keats and the Culture of Dissent, Nicholas Roe, Clarendon Press, 1998
 Mind of John Keats, Clarence Dewitt Thorpe, Oxford University Press, 1926
 John Keats and the Ideas of the Enlightenment, Porscha Fermanis, Edinburgh
University Press, 2009
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 Forever Young: A Life of John Keats, Blanche Colton Williams, G.P. Putnams
Sons, 1943
7.10 Model Questions
Q.1 Discuss Keats as a poet of Nature in context of prescribed poems.
Q.2 Discuss Keats as a typical Romantic Poet with references from the prescribed
poems.
Q.3 Explain the theme of ‘permanence’ versus ‘mutability’ in the poem “Ode to a
Nightingale”?

*****

Lesson 8

JOHN KEATS’S SELECTED POEMS-II

Structure
8.0 Objective
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Thematic Concerns in the Keats’s Poetry
8.2.1 Theme of Transience and Permanence
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8.2.2 Negative Capability and the Odes

8.2.3 Keats as a Sensuous Poet
8.3 Keats’ Achievement as a poet of Odes
8.4 Important Terms Related to Romantic Literature
8.5 Summary
8.6 References
8.7 Further Readings
8.8 Model Questions

8.0 Objectives
After reading this lesson you will be able to:
● discuss the poetic themes and philosophy of Keats through a discussion of the
prescribed poems.
● discuss the theme of transience and permanence in Keats’s poetry
● discuss the concept of Negative Capability in context of the prescribed Odes
● discuss Keats’s achievement as a poet of Odes
● discuss Keats as a sensuous poet
8.1 Introduction
The lesson contains major thematic concerns in Keats’s poetry. All the concepts related to his
poetry such as negative capability, element of sensuous, and theme of permanence of art, are
discussed in detail so that you can understand and attempt any questions related to the texts.
The model question and self-assessment question will help you prepare for the final
examination. Some important terms are explained in the glossary section.
8.2 Thematic concerns in the Keats’s Poetry
8.2.1 Theme of Transience and Permanence
Keats wrote on most of the standard subjects; nature, poetry, love, art, and fame and death.
But his significant poems center on a single basic problem -- the problem of transience and
permanence, on changeability inherent in nature and human life. David Daiches observes: “In
the Odes, Keats explores the relation of transience and permanence, pleasure and pain, reality
and illusion, art and life with brilliant poetic force”. Openly or in disguise his poem debates the
pros and cons of a single hypothetical problem and its implications - transience or earthly
existence and its permanence by means of visionary imagination. As Keats gradually came to
feel that the kind of imagination he pursued was a false notion or temptation. He, in the end,
traded the visionary for the naturalized empirical imagination, embracing experience or
process as one of the main chief god. Thus to him, the real the apparently changing
phenomena became ultimately permanent.
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Both the movement and the vocabulary of the Odes suggest a rich slow, brooding over
beauty and joy with a full realization both of beauty and the pain its disappearance will bring,
but with an enjoyment of such intensity and depth that it makes the movement eternal in
quality if not in duration. “The material for the poetic imagination,” says C.D. Thorpe, 'are
those of actuality as we know it, abstracted from the accidents of time and place, and
transfigured into symbols of universal truth and life. Art offers an escape into a life its own”.
The work of art must reflect and lead back into actuality as we know it, Characteristically for
Keats, the lyric begins in the real world, takes off an imaginative flight to visit the ideal and
visionary and then, for variety of reasons, but more often because he finds something wanting
in the imagined ideal, or because, essentially being a native of the real world, he discovers that
he does not or cannot belong permanently to the ideal and so returns to the real. But now he
has come back with much more understanding of human condition. And to understand is to
accept and rejoice as also to forgive and be relieved from the burden of guilt. With a change in
his attitude towards it from the experience of the journey or the quest, the same person, back
to his “sole self” accepts the truth of reality which had earlier disturbed him with its terms and
transience in the beginning of the poem.
The main theme of the Odes as David Perkins observes, “is the theme of quest for
permanence”, and ultimately finding it in the world of phenomenon. Daiches remarks: “In the
Odes, Keats explores the relation between transience and permanence, pleasure and pain,
reality and art with brilliant poetic force.” Keats affirms the great truth that, for mortals, the
timeless can live only in relation to the temporal, the infinite in relation to the finite. The
knowledge of the “truth” - affirmation and acceptance of man as he is and world as it is - can
release man from pulls and pressures that time and place exert upon him. Only, the artist or
the visionary has to negate has identity and annihilate his self that he had earlier cultivated as
man. It is through his “negative capability” or self-denial that Keats attains self-realization. In
the end, the immediate reality becomes the ultimate reality. The Nightingale and the Urn follow
the pattern of flight and return all the way through ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Autumn’ enact the return
and arrival back home where earlier he had departed from. In the end, earthly values triumph
over urnly visions, for Keats find they are the enduring verity, the truth of moral existence.
Human happiness is the summum bonum (the highest good, especially as the ultimate goal
according to which values and priorities are established in an ethical system) for Keats and in
the Odes he fearlessly explores the ways and means of its attainment.
To Psyche, essentially presents Keats in the very process of feeling the reality of his own
being rather than uniting his consciousness with an aesthetic aspect, apart from himself. The
legend of Psyche, typifies the purification of human soul by passion or suffering. Ultimately to
build Psyche's temple, “in some untrodden region of my mind” is to widen consciousness. But
an increased consciousness carries with it the dual capacity for pleasure or for pain. “Pleasant
Pain” is peculiarly appropriate oxymoron for the rendition of an earthly, a poet's paradise,
where all contrary statements are equally true and valid. In fact the theme of To Psyche is the
theme of invocation. He invokes to Goddess Poetry to give him enough creative energy whereby
to take up the hazardous task of exploring the nature of reality and illusion, of permanence
and transience, that he had delightedly brooded over as subject matter for his next two
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incomparably great Odes. The myth of Eros and Psyche provided him with a frame work to
work out the substance of poetry as he would like it to be. “The casement to let the warm love
in” emphasizes the openness of imagination towards heart's affection. This greeting by Keats'
own emotion of the sensations from his subject will soon prove to be an important aspect to
the Ode to a Nightingale. Psyche is a sexual fertility goddess who renews consciousness and
thus renews the earth. The process of celebration of life in its three fold rhythm of birth,
growth and death, has already been grasped. Keats is now ready for grappling with the baffling
problem of the relation of art to life, of the timeless to the temporal.
Ode to a Nightingale is by common consent the greatest and the most courageous of
Keats’s poems, for, here the thoughts of grim reality are not far removed from dreams of
sensuous pleasures. A vital response to the immediate and the actual triggers the imagination
which then departs from whichever object may have released it, to create or catch vision of
delight and wholeness. By means of symbol nightingale the Ode explores the consequences of
commitment to a vision, and as it does so, comes close to implying the destruction of the
protagonist - Keats the man. And in the very logic of things, nightingale, the symbol of timeless
visionary art, has to vanish. Keats realizes that the poet who creates can offer little consolation
to the man who suffers., Art, however does offer a type of permanence; and by startling
transformation in the penultimate stanza the nightingale becomes a symbol of the artists and
its song a symbol of art. The only way in which the 'ecstasy' it offers can be made eternal is to
die at this moment of greatest sensuous happiness. But we have to understand that it is not
for extinction that longing for death stands; it is a deep desire to resist the encroachment of
outside experience; to remain enclosed in its own kind of contentment. Longing for death is to
make happiness that Keats knows to be transient last forever. And we should note that he was
only 'half in love with easeful death”. The other half of his consciousness knew well enough
that this answer (death) is only the negation of any possible answer. Death, “life's high mead”,
is the most intense of all sensations - an impulse toward a self-destroying oneness with things
a notion of meaningful withdrawal or self- immolation; something which is necessary for the
process of creation. It is true in his ardor for permanence, the poet momentarily make the
nightingale immortal, but at the cost of destroying any sympathetic union with it. The voice
that he hears “this passing night” is:
The same that oft times hath
charm'd magic casements; opening on the foam
of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Truth of actuality intervenes and asserts itself. The world of the nightingale is found to
be “perilous” and “forlorn”: it is a place of seduction, illusions this and destruction. Only
soulless creatures like nightingale can inhabit demoniac world. Keats realizes that it is not
worth his while to go in for this pathetic beauty by foregoing his human privileges of integrity
and morality. Even though pleasant, fancy cannot sustain the dream fabric sadder and wiser
he makes a conscious choice of coming back to human habitation. Man triumphs over the
artist and Keats is happier in his acceptance of the world as it is: the poet attains a happy
state of disillusion:
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Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is famed to do, deceiving elf
The poet has been tolled back to his “sole self”: he recaptures his essential human
through an understanding of the nature of beauty” or “vision”. This song is not merely a song
of joy but a “plaintive anthem” like the sorrowful Ode of the Indian maiden in 'Endymion', a
song nevertheless of triumph and self-fulfillment. Three ways of escape from time to time-wine,
poesy and death all fail. He is happy to apprehend the validity of the eternal cycle an unbroken
chain of being and becoming. After his return from the non-human, fugitive world, Keats
celebrates life through the tragic, almost ecstatic acceptance of reality, with evil, death and
ugliness as its inevitable constituents. Immortality, for Keats the man, now lies in his
mortality, permanence only in his transience, infinity in his finiteness. Of 'Nightingale'
Middleton Murry remarks: “Its marvel is that it holds suspended, in moment of absolute
beauty, tension between time and eternity between joy and sorrow, between mortality and
immortality, between Life and Death. Human Hesse echoes Keats' view when he says: “Life is
lived only in moments, not in eternity” and Michelangelo clearly perceived that 'trifles make
perfection, and perfection is no trifle.”
On Grecian Urn is a Hamlet among Keats' Odes in more sense than one. The Urn
reconciles the dead with the living. It provides a vehicle of continuity. In the Urn as in the
Nightingale, Keats is, to begin with, painfully conscious of the tolling of time transience of life.
So far the poet who creates can offer little consolation to man who suffers. But on the level of
poetic creation, the conflict disappears. Transitory human happiness is given permanence in a
different sense, by being embodied in a work of art. In this noisy and changing world, there is
something beyond sound, beyond change. The poet is concerned to establish an enduring
value on earth and he finds it as the Ode begins in the existence of beauty in art. Trying to find
a bridge between life and art, between reality and appearance he chooses a Grecian Urn as his
symbol for articulating the paradox of state carving to convey dynamic action. Urn conveys the
notions of experience but, unlike Nightingale, it does not allow the poet to enter and share the
life it portrays. He has to stand on the outside as a spectator. Thus Urn as a symbol enables
the poet more to be objective intellectual and detached than did the Nightingale. The Urn is a
manifestation of the formless absolute in time and space, with physical attributes of the
formless divine essence compounded of inertia, motion and equilibrium. The Urn is “still
unravished bride of quietness”, “foster-child of Silence and slow Time”-epithets at once sublime
and pitiful. The disinterested, detached view of existence that Keats empirically cultivated after
going through 'the purgatory blind’ in To Nightingale enabled him now as if intuitively to
equate men with gods--a startling but reassuring perception:
What leaf fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or of the dales of Archady?
And further
What men or gods are these?
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Keats perceives mortality and immortality as informing each other, the momentary and
the timeless being essentially one.
From the second stanza Keats, with a bemused, tolerant sensibility and with soft subtle
irony, communicates to us what he did in the seventh stanza of To a Nightingale. ‘Unheard
melodies are sweeter', because they provide music to his delighted imagination: here is not the
actual song but essence of the song. At this stage he finds himself caught up in the sublimity
and 'parity' of life depicted on the Urn, a dream of perpetual spring and youth and beauty. It
appears that what Art may sacrifice of the loveliness and freshness of Nature it attains
permanence which nature attains not. But everything happy and beautiful that is portrayed
here is not real, is not true for the mortals. For the bride to remain “unravished” is a saddening
thought. Art is after all the arrest of time and motion. Act is free from satiety: it is elevated,
calm and sublime. But the picture on the Urn are one of arrested restricted, frozen life. The fair
'youth cannot' leave his song... the trees 'cannot' be bare : bold lover 'can never have' the bliss
of a warm kiss. The picture in fact is one of horror and pathos; here we have another fairyland
forlorn”. By way of consolation or perhaps as a compensation Keats, the poet then moves on to
building an earthly paradise which is “happy”, “for ever new” still to be enjoyed, free from
symptoms of sated passion that breeds fever, disquiet. But this is not the goal that Keats the
man looks for.
The speaker in the Ode exists in Time and must succumb to it: but in his contemplation
of the timeless figures on the time-defying Urn he experiences a moment of truth which
intensifies, his awareness that it is but a moment. More precisely, the figures on the Urn cast a
circle, the traditional symbol of perfection, illustrating the paradox of imperfection and the
virtue of struggle; for the lovers eternally approach the maidens without the possibility of
meeting. The paradox acquires greater articulacy when, as in the “Nightingale” a see saw
opposition between earthly and ‘urnly’ values ensues in which, up to a point the decision could
go either way. Ultimately he is trying to reach out to the inner realities; not merely to the
visionary sights. In the fourth stanza, we find his attitude changes by his arrival at a final
decision in favor of earthly life of which “cold pastoral” is a symbol. The imagery of a sacrificial
holiday, mysterious priest, garland-dressed heifer, as an offering to the gods; little town
emptied of its fold on the day of festival, little town with silent streets now desolate because of
celebration on “this pious morn”, constitutes a picture full of sympathy and suggestiveness.
Passion and sacrifice are the two varieties that impart meaning to human life that is the stuff
of all great art. Together they make for suffering which according to Wordsworth, is permanent,
obscure and dark, and has the nature of Eternity. In relation to the holy festival, the desolation
acquires relevance and meaning. Here in a mood of serene contemplation and luminous order,
this desolation is transcended, for Urn, symbolizing repose in tension with its silent eloquence,
dynamic action and eternal, 'fair attitude', gently seduces him into an extraordinary life of
imagination.
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity; Cold Pastoral?
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The puzzled, discursive analytical activity of the intellect is useless. It is a moment of

rapturous recognition. The “cold pastoral” is “a friend to man”. Passion, suffering and sacrifice
are the privileges of human beings and Keats realizes that, on mortal plane, they alone are a
permanent variety. The next logical development in an apprehension come when the Urn the
compassionate sharer and consoler of human woe, exultantly says:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty. This is all
Ye know on earth; and all ye need to know.
In the Urn's value lies its character as a work of art, not in its being a possible substitute
for life in actual world. In the last resort, it reaches beyond the emotions to something
impersonal and absolute. The essence of art is the limitation of the ideal which can tell
something important about the real virtues in the realm of the actual. As imagination seizes
intellect, Keats realizes that nothing is beautiful but the real and nothing but the real is
beautiful. The Urn symbolizes the identity of truth and beauty because the intensity of art
results in a happy balance (between vision and reality) so that what the artists' mind takes for
beauty must also be truth. Truth is discovered not by reason but imagination, beauty is also
created and preserved by imagination. As the source of beauty and truth is the same, they
should be identical.
Keats, with his spirited intellectual imagination, captures the dream world, for after all, it
is a dream world but he is consciously aware of the impossibility or, even necessity of escape
into that world form “the strife, the agonies of human heart”. For a brief moment the two
worlds of the real and the deal merge; the lifeless permanence of art is balanced against the
transitoriness of realized love. .
But beyond the knowledge that joy and beauty must pass lives the awareness that they
give way to misery, insurmountable by joy. Something in Keats says that the consolatory
principle of beauty being truth propounded by the Urn is true only for the artist while he is
concerned with his art. It is no less true that while he is at work (as an artist) with his
imagination kindled with a symbol of some remote, vast, sublime, reality, this is all that he
knows as certainty and all that he needs to know as certainty and all that he needs to know for
the proper pursuit of his special task. In fact On a Grecian urn tells what great means to those
who create it while they create it; and only as long as art this doctrine is not applied beyond its
proper confines; it is not only clear but true. On a Grecian urn deal with the problems of the
artist in relation to life. After all the consolatory doctrine that the Urn propounds is beyond the
grasp or reach of ordinary mortals.
As we move on To Melancholy and To Autumn, we can easily detect the traces of unease
and disillusion even with this consolatory concept of oneness of the beautiful and the true.
Anything that remotely smacks of a doctrine or of something ultimate is not acceptable to
Keats, the man. Romanticism is a disposition to seek within and beyond the actual for the
ideal world that will soften the asperities of the actual or, better, interpret them in such a way
as to suit the needs of the heart: and Keats feels that it is not sufficient to be a romanticist
hugging the illusioned view of the universe. He would strive to be a man like Shakespeare, his
“presidor”, and stop reaching out for fact and reason. Ultimately he is unwilling to opt for the
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visionary advantage of art over Nature. He doubted whether he had adequately attained the
quality which went to form a man of achievement; that is 'Negative Capability. In the two great
central Odes, with their running battle between commitment and detachment, he had irritably
reached after what evidently was a final resolution of the dilemma of life and death, of
permanence and transience. Keats' obsession with time reaches its culmination in the Grecian
urn which has at its center a series of tolling repetition: “Not ever, Never never, For ever, not
ever, For ever, For Ever.” This obsession is characteristic of To Nightingale also. In both, he is
working out the problem of art in relation to man and his life.
In To Melancholy and To Autumn, there is no looking before and after, no distraction
from Fame and Death. As in 'To Indolence' and 'To psyche', he is back to the problem of human
happiness. There is no commitment to vision or some sublime concept. Despite all the
mortifying pain and suffering of these days, he is at perfect peace with himself and the
universe. These Odes are an epitome of a daring bid for detachment, and now actuality is more
beautiful than visionary beauty. He would not entertain any false melancholy associations to
“down the wakeful anguish of his soul”. For Keats, true melancholy involves a sudden increase
in consciousness, not a gradual evasion of its claim. Melancholy, the wakeful anguish is, “ache
at the heart of felicity”. Only beauty that must die is beauty- the real beauty that in its
cyclicity, is permanent. The intensity of the deepest variety of life, sadness or suffering can be
comprehended only by a man who is capable of experiencing the raptures of delight. There are
no contraries or polarities any more, no indulgence in self-oblivion wherewith to dodge
melancholy: here is a positive, ecstatic, stoical submission to the harsh realities of life.
Melancholy, the fertility goddess, will have nothing to do with the sordid aspects of life:
She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
An Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips.
The imagery of “weeping cloud”, “droop-headed flowers” “April shroud” “rich anger of
mistress” ironically all affirm that the enduring color of fresh life is only a grave color. The
most successful souls are those that have learnt to receive and enjoy with equal zest and
thankfulness both pleasures and pains. Happiness presents itself before man wearing the
crown of sorrow. He who welcomes it must also welcome sorrow. The poem ends on a note of
triumph, surrender and self-fulfillment for the worshiper of the Goddess of Melancholy
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might
And be among her cloudy trophies hung
Genuine beauty evokes melancholy reflection at her transience, but thrives on her very
momentary career.
This matured power of moral introspection is to be experienced in a yet greater degree in
Keats' truly Shakespearean lyric 'To Autumn'. In active cooperation or “full-greeting” of the
experiencing imagination and its object the nature of “identity of the object is grasped so
vividly that those associations and qualities that are strictly relevant remain and discordant
ones “evaporate” from this fusion of object and mind. Hence “Truth” and “Beauty” spring
simultaneously into being. Here, there is an atmosphere of breathless placidity, a spirit of
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generosity and prodigal luxuriance. Only “To Autumn” accepts the inevitability of the Cycle-the
three fold rhythm of life, growth and death. Keats now apprehends human life in terms of
phases of animal and natural existence. His perception of all truth as “animal” went along with
a sense of individual life as organism that grows, matures and decays. Thus does the “superior
intelligence” of the poet sees the life of man and grasp it as development and decline. “Nothing
can be seen in isolation” that is Keatsian vision. Generally considered a symbol of decay and
death, autumn is celebrated by Keats as a season of fertility, ripeness and joyous abandon.
Keats sees the cycle of seasons whole and sees it steadily, so that all disagreeable vanish.
There are numerous images of ageing and ripening. For the sun is maturing: it is not
only ripening things but it is also moving ripeness to its inevitable culmination --dissolution. In
the last stanza, the close of the year is coincided with sunset, the songs of Spring are over and
night is falling, but the feeling of sadness is merged in the feeling of the continuous life of
nature, which eternally renews itself in insect and animal and bird; and the close of the Ode,
through solemn, breathes the spirit of hope.
Since according to Keats, nothing exists in isolation, spring is not enjoyed purely in and
for itself but as a part of the annual cycle. The whole (the infinite) is apprehended in the part
(the finite). The moment and the eternity, in their essence; are one. Everything has a use, a
role to play in the total process. Death is recognized as something inherent in the course of
things and ripeness implies dissolution. “Death is life's high mead” as he said in one of his
great sonnets: transience of death is the condition and price of fulfillment and wholeness.
The Ode is informed with placid shining tension, a dynamic harmony, a breathless
placidity. Keats is insisting on the mingled heroic ethic and humanistic aesthetic that the
natural is a beautiful and apocalyptic precisely because it is physical and ephemeral. The poet
attains that serenity and repose which he had so far been seeking in vain. As the real and the
ideal, so the temporal and the timeless are essentially one. Here the problem of transience and
permanence just vanishes.
Keats’s capacity for ignorance and powers of skepticism gave him, paradoxically; as we
might think at first sight, great balance of mind and ability to suffer disillusion without strain.
In practice he could achieve an unusual stability and capability of submission to what he
thought were inevitable aspects of human experience, the integral parts of the process. The
Nightingale looks beyond the passage of time to an eternal summer; the Urn to a world which
never bids the Spring adieu. Time is transcended in them; their origin is the desire to deny
time. But Autumn abides in time and space unselfconsciously. It is saturated with the sense of
and acquiescence in the passing. The Nightingale and the Urn look to eternal joy: Autumn
rests in a poignant fusion of joy and sorrow. The Ode to Autumn, has its eternity also; different
indeed from the eternities of the Nightingale and the Urn, and at once embracing the
transcending time, the images of harvest and approaching death being so quiet and
reassuring. The calm objectivity of the Ode is evidence enough that Keats finds in autumn his
adequate “objective co-relative”, the poem is purely descriptive requiring no explication in
terms of feeling. The poem itself is imperishable as Keats' place is with Shakespeare. By
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constant annihilation of the self that he alongside assiduously cultivated through

disinterestedness and affirmation of life in all its aspects; he has won his immortality.
8.2.2 The Concept of Negative Capability and the Odes
It is only recently that Keats' readers and critics have taken note of comments in his
letters on the nature of Shakespeare's sensibility. In fact his definition of the poetical character
in his letter to Richard Woodhouse, has become a dominant and recurrent point of reference in
Keatsian Criticism and a major factor conditioning our response to, and understanding of
Keats' poetry. His letters and Odes have become more of a testament of critical and human
wisdom. Keats' early craving to “burst our mortal bars” through senses was eventually
subdued and chastened by a sober acceptance of our imperfect human condition. “Now-a-
days” as W.J. Bate has said, “Keats is part of our literary conscience.
Having taken Shakespeare as his model, Keats was discomfited by the ever-recurring “I”
in Wordsworth. He spoke not unkindly of “the Wordsworthian or egotistical sublime” and
considered half aloud whether “Wordsworth's grandeur was not in some respect contaminated
and rendered obtrusive by the poet's sonorous song.” Hazlitt, a bit earlier, had described
Shakespeare as “the least of an egotist that it was possible to be. He was nothing in himself,
but he was all that others were. His genius shone equally on the evil and on the good, on the
wise and the foolish, the monarch and beggar” Shakespeare, he once said "had only to think of
anything to become that thing. Keats wrote of Shakespeare “His (Shakespeare's) life was an
allegory and his works are the comment on it" So was Keats own.
But frequent, personal contact with Wordsworth had disillusioned Keats because of the
elder poet's complacency, egotism and didacticism: as a consequence, there was during the
winter of 1817-18 a drift away humanitarianism. The counterbalance was an ever-deepening
appreciation of the impartiality and impersonality of Shakespeare. Further, he felt with
Coleridge, that Shakespeare's mind is transformed by the world. Milton transforms it, that the
former is perpetually involved in the act of becoming before it can create while the latter always
making the world before it can become anything. One can say that Wordsworth's or Milton's
procedure is restrictive whereas Shakespeare's is expansive and inclusive. Both Milton and
Wordsworth began with a preconceived view-- Milton with Christianity and Wordsworth with
Pantheism and then affirmed them. His views about Shelley are no less illuminating.
In the aforementioned letter to Woodhouse on the nature of the poetical character Keats
remarks: “it is not itself - it has no self - it is everything and nothing - it has no character - it
enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor, mean or
elevated- It has as much delight in conceiving an lago or an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous
philosopher delights the chameleon poet”. Further, “A poet is the most unpoetical of anything
in existence, because he has no Identity -- he is continually in for - and filling some other Body
Earlier, when Keats, in his well-known letter to December 21,1817 to his brothers
George and Thomas, announced his belief in Negative Capability, he set himself a task which
even he, with his extraordinary courage and insight, was not fully able to accomplish. He then
said: At once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in
Literature - I mean “Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties,
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mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason – “Shakespeare could,
according to Keats, remain content with half knowledge, with his neutral intellect, and without
any determined character. Such an apprehension led him (Keats) to a kind of universal
kinship not only with beauty, but also with all manner of vividly active elements of experience.
Keats' capacity for ignorance and power of skepticism paradoxically gave him great balance of
mind, an ability to suffer disillusion without strain of regret. This resulted in empathy quite
extraordinary, of a degree of intensity scarcely ever equaled by any English poet. In his long
Journal letter of Oct. 14, 1818 to George Georgiana Keats, he says, “I feel more and more every
day as my imagination strengthens, that I did not live in this world alone, but in thousand
worlds.
No poet in the literary history of the West has striven so assiduously to work out the
essentials of his own kind of poetry to the exclusion of everything else. Keats deplored Shelley's
dissipation of his energies in other subjects than pure poetry and chided him for is
“Magnanimity”, for his desire to become a trumpet of revolution in society. He, instead wished
Shelley to “load every rift of his subject with ore”. “Artist” he suggested, “Must serve his
Mammon - his own art rather than humanity”. He would not stomach the idea of causes -- and
missions. Great Poetry must be unobtrusive. He intensely hated poetry that had “palpable
design upon the readers”. He would not be a theoretician or a doctrinaire. The Genius of
Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man. It cannot be matured by law and precept
but by sensation and watchfulness in itself. In fact, “as Gittings observes, Keats is far ahead of
his time, his criticism of Wordsworth is outstanding in both its justice and general
appreciation.” And says T S Eliot on Keats' aesthetic theory: “There is hardly one statement
which considered carefully and with due allowance for the difficulties of communication, will
not be found to be true: and what is more, true for greater and mature poetry than anything
Keats every wrote. "Keats reaction to the world of experience and his distillation therefore was
unusually complex. “Light and Shade” pro and con “both terms which appear in Keats' letters
are strong elements in this comprehension of the nature of reality. He was considerably
affected by Hazlitt's ‘insistence that the law of contrasts (Blake's contraries) was fundamental
to the understanding of human conditions. He observed in one of his letters that a world of
pains and troubles is very necessary to school on intelligence to make it a soul. This awareness
of brutal reality was constant in Keats' thinking; and often resulted in protective reservation
even to the point of paradox in the context of Negative Capability. Notwithstanding his
“abstractions” and “Speculations” of which he talks in his letters, a keen awareness of the
sensational is still a part, and the most essential part of a poet's equipment.
There is in Keats' temperament a kind of magnetic polarity of positive and negative
contentions. The woes of the world which he should accept and transcendent are at times
exigent that the only solution is to reject them outright. But Keats is able to reconcile the two
because of his unusual breadth of vision, and because of admirable strength and sweetness of
his character. The negative expressions occur most frequently in the poems which reveal
tension or conflict or deep problem in Keats mind. It would, of course, be folly to call him in
any sense a nihilist. His courage and clear-eyed acceptance of the evils of experience turn his
very distresses into assets. Negative capabilities, is thus not a tenet of escape but a tolerantly
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skeptical reconciliation to the thought of the impossibility of escape quality that one, reaches
by the dismissal of the self--the highest form of art. Sense of beauty in everything with a great
poet obliterates all considerations of what is disagreeable and painful. It is a full away from
romantic ego-centricity to objectivity in the midst of harrowing personal miseries and
sufferings not dominating them through fact and reason, but controlling them through
understanding of their true nature. It means that the poet becomes oblivious of himself while
creating some poetic work. Keats had this capacity of negation of himself in its profoundest
sense Keats' life and work are an evidence of a detached, undemanding existence in the midst
of mysteries and doubts. “Axioms are not axioms till they are proved upon our pulses”, he
mused. This state of mind causes all disagreeable to evaporate from one's being in close
relationship with beauty and truth. For Keats, the necessary preoccupation of poetry is
submission to things as they are, without trying to intellectualize them into something else,
submission to people as they are; without trying to indoctrinate or improve them. Keats found
this quality at its fullest in Shakespeare.
This way of feeling grows naturally into a strong, active and dramatic tendency, into a
wish to participate in the life of things, an understanding of other people that is everywhere
evident in his letters and poems. The empirical humanism is called for stoical acceptance of
good and evil as inevitable constituents of reality.
It is the intensity of seeing imaginatively, the capacity of making an intensely powerful
response to the world of phenomena and facts, usually ugly and disagreeable that transforms
the truth of fact into a truth of affirmation, of life, through the mediation of beauty. The way
Keats faces the dilemma of life demands the stoicism of a tragic hero.
The peculiar function of imagination in Negative Capability is not so much an escape
into, or, identification with a dream world or beauty and art but an escape back to the actual
world. The role of sensation, sense perception, of initial response to an object of desire is
essential for triggering the whole process of the indulgence, denial, and realization of self.
Negative capability starts from the 'sensational' goes through the ideal and return to the world
of senses, in the acceptance of the actual which earlier he had rejected. For such a response to
the world of phenomena Keats, as a man, assiduously cultivates identity, a strong sense of
existence, self-hood and individuality. It helps him to identify himself with the object of his
contemplation. It is this identity that he sacrifices in the process of creation. The idea of reality
and the idea of the self and its annihilation go together for him.
From the time Keats began to write his great Odes, “he desired to perceive how suffering
might be justified; to 'seize the events of the wide world so as to see the “dark realities of this
world" in such a way as to reconcile them with beauty. The delightedly sober broodings (that
his Odes constitute), persistently suggest a “disinterestedness which occurs through what is,
by paradox, both an acceptance of and release from “animal” nature. He was naturally
disposed to believe that the entirety of human experience is an indivisible whole which he
perceived as a unity in which all sufferings and evil took their place and contributed to a
perfection which satisfied the demands of imagination. Thus does Keats celebrate “the holiness
of heart's affections.
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In “Ode on Indolence”, vital response-the immediate and the actual-here three figures
carved on an urn triggers the imagination which then departs from whatever object may have
released it to create or catch vision of delight. The tone for the grand tragic chorus of the Ode
is quietly set by the motto. “They toil not, neither do they spin” which is from the famous
passage in the Sermon on the Mount (Mathew VI. 28-31) that begins 'Consider the lilies of the
field, how they grew; they toil not neither do they spin; And yet I say unto you that even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these”. Lilies are not a means to a separate
end or a cause of a resulting effect; they contain within themselves their own purpose for being
is their only purpose. The motto provides a clue to the essential point in this seminal poem (as
also in Autumn, his last, perfect Ode): for Keats tries to convey that he had achieved something
of a kindred state of pure being during that morning when he steadfastly warded off his
“demon Poesy” along with love and Ambition. Banishing his 'demon', his creative faculty
focuses the poem on the realm of the actual, but he subtly pierces beneath the sensory
without going into the mystical or ideal which have brought on “apartness” a retreat from
actuality that he resolutely kept out of the poem. Instead what he is doing, is perceiving
intuitively and immediately that is, without the mediation of the senses, his own state of rich
awareness; while it is process, a state which is his “only happiness and a rare instance of the
advantage of the body overpowering the mind”. She indolence links up through imagery and
sensibility, with the future, with the Nightingale, the Urn and the Autumn and the thread is
the same ripeness, that is flowering; fruition, death and immortality. In his essay on Tradition,
Eliot argues that the poet's mind should remain “insert” and “neutral” towards the subject
matter. The mood of the Ode exemplifies what J. Krishnamurthi terms as “choiceless
awareness”- an ability to be aware, without trying to pick out only what we want to be of
Essentially, this ode presents Keats, as Patterson points out, in the very process of feeling the
reality of his own being rather than uniting his consciousness with an aesthetic object apart
from himself. The poet would shut himself off from external world to experience intensely the
imaginative reality in stillness (“nothingness”) amidst nature, the sensuous enjoyment that is
its own justification as well as the way to apprehension of mystic reality, Indolence reveals
Keats' ability to grasp fully the reality of conscious selfhood or identity as man-something that
later on the poet sacrifices in the act of creation as a poet. Keats intuitively apprehended (what
Eliot centuries later propounded) that one has to have self in order to know what it is to-
annihilate in the process of creation.
Since the “shadow figures” represent love, ambition and “my demon Poesy” objectives
that man pursue with relentless intensity and engulfing zeal, they are potentially demonic,
Illusory agents capable of absorbing his interest and luring him from the “new leaved vine” and
“throstle's lay” that made “ripe” the 'drowsy hour' from a world of “budding warmth” into “little
heart's short fever fit”. A powerful response to object-reality is necessary to trigger imagination.
Initially Keats “burn'd and ached for wings to follow them”. But soon follows the desire to
escape from these blandishments and harshly does Keats repudiate “the voice of busy
commonsense” so even here, as in Ode on a Grecian Urn, the poet is teased out of thought.
Negative Capability lies in the poet's capability for indolence, disillusion, disenchantment
rather than in mere identification with or enchantment with “powerful” varieties of life like love
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and fame. This indolence is a positive thing bringing a calm pervasive happiness which is near
to suspension of senses for some other and more elusive but more illumination kind of
experience:
O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense
Unhaunted quite of all but nothingness?
The Ode to Psyche presents Keats' most acutely realized vision of human love in its
relation to nature, a concrete expression, that is, of the thesis long age proffered in Endymion.
Here we find the cosmic nuptials of Eros and Psyche in the lap of nature:
Hush'd cool-rooted flowers fragrant eyed,
Blue; silver white, and budded Tyrian
This is a spring world after the “dying into life” of on Indolence. The Ode celebrates the
only just one triumph of love over death through submission to suffering that transforms a
mortal into a deity. Keats' ultimate devotion is neither to the object world not to any power
outside himself. The fable of Psyche typifies the purification of human soul by passion and
suffering. Such a soul, according to Keats, will be the confluence of Beauty and Truth, the
epitome of the finest art here the “casement emphasizes the openness of imagination (Psyche)
towards, hearts' affection (Eros) Keats” Psyche is a creative, sexual goddess who renews
consciousness and thus renews the earth. In the Ode is suggested Keats' process of the
creation of art or poetry.
The opening lines of complex last stanza state Psyche's temple will be built in some
untrodden region of Keats' mind. The implication is that the process is one of “soulmaking” or
“spirit creation”, in an undiscovered country. To build Psyche's temple is to widen
consciousness. But an increase in consciousness carries with it the dual capacity for pleasure
or for pain. The oxymoron “pleasant pain” is peculiarly appropriate to any rendition of an
earthly or poet's paradise. The legend of Psyche affirms that we cannot reach infinity unless we
embrace the finite. Without going through trials and travails of human experience, the
attainment of immortality, “going back home to symbol essences”, here the earth, is not
possible. And without suffering there is no redemption.
The Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on a Grecian Urn more clearly emphasize Keats' striking
departure from the central creed to popular romanticism. He once remarked: “Scenery is fine-
but human nature is finer” the austere romanticism of Keats is to be found in his middle Odes
wherein he states the dilemma of human life caught inescapably at one in the evils, tragedy,
suffering, self-recognition and redemption. The poet is caused upon to choose between the
ideal and the real: and denial is a pre-condition to affirmation for a poet of Keats' sensibility. In
the Nightingale, negative capability lines not so much in the poet's achievement of identity with
the bird and its raptures as in his returning to his “sole self”, in his identifying himself with
reality and truth, in his acceptance of mutability and death. The total experience of the poem
presents the disillusioned awakening to the fact that “fancy cannot cheat so well as she is
famed to do”. He does not call it imagination which, to him, was man's highest faculty of
perceiving truth. By means of the symbol of nightingale, the poet explores the consequences of
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commitment to vision and realizes that it implies death of man, his protagonist. The world of
the soulless nightingale is a magical fairyland; and elfin grot: it is “perilous” and “forlorn”. The
poet who creates can offer little consolation to the man who suffers. Keats the man triumphs
over Keats the poets, and he stoically refuses to forego his unique prerogative of reality and
integrity for a vision of sublimity. In the logic of things, if Keats, the man is to live, the
nightingale must gradually vanish, releasing the poet for a return to the harsh human world
“Where but to think is to be full of sorrow. And leaden-eyed despair”. This affirmation is
achieved through a sweat singing nightingale, with its mythological association of suffering
and passion, effecting the purging of the emotions of terror and pity. In the process, the initial
self-centered disquiet is replaced by a self-aware surrender to the spirit of here and now.
‘The Ode on Grecian Urn’ is the Hamlet among Keats' odes. It epitomizes the paradox of
static carving to convey dynamic action, reconciling the dead with the living. In the hue of
personal emotion attained by the very nature of the symbol-calm, remote and austere-Keats
attains greater negative capability than he does in the Nightingale. The Urn does not allow the
poet to enter and share the life it portrays. He has to stand on the outside as a spectator.
Keats again is concerned with the problems of art in relation to life and he, as an artist can
offer no healing touch to the suffering man. But on the level of poetic creation the conflict
disappears. Transitory human happiness is given permanence in a different sense, by being
embodied in art. The Urn symbolizes the identity of truth and beauty because the intensity of
art results in a happy balance (between vision and reality) so that what the artistic mind seizes
as beauty must also be truth. Keats, however, does not turn his back upon what is human,
however transitory it may be. It is an ironically pathetic suggestion that the bride immortalized
in art “still unravished”, the lover thus portrayed cannot embrace his beloved and the trees
cannot shed their leaves, thus forfeiting the privilege of mortality and renewal. The Urn now
recognized as 'cold pastoral', however, releases the springs of imagination which discover it as
a “friend to man”. But Keats calmly emphasizes that art represents what is known as the
arrest of life.
The second and the third stanza express with perfect felicity the vital difference between
life which pays for its unique prerogative of reality by satiety and decay, and art which, in
forfeiting reality gets in exchange permanence beauty. Negative capability is a self-fulfillment
through the denial of visionary delights. Here as in the Nightingale, negative capability starts
from the sensational, goes through the ideal and returns to the world whose endearingly pitiful
picture is suggestively drawn in the fourth stanza where the impressions of emptiness, silence
and desolation stand out images that paradoxically also imply fulfillment of heart's desire on
this pious, sacrificial holiday. Art (“my demon Poesy”) is no substitute for life, for truth.
The final comment on the significance of the journey with the bird is chiefly negative
(“the fancy cannot cheat so well”) while the final comment concerning the journey to sacrifice
(with the urn-figures is essentially positive and forward-looking (Thou shalt remain, in midst of
other woe/than ours a friend to man)”, embodying a distinct advance in the treatment of deep,
underlying theme of all the odes as a group: man's relationship to the world and surrender to
the world as it is in which art can serve as a mediator and reconciler. In the Urn there is
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greater affirmation of the actual world of men and things which cannot be supplanted by the
visionary which at best merely extends the range of beauty a few steps beyond the actual, and
at worst “spoils” the singing of the nightingale for all practical purpose. In accordance with the
symbols which the two poems severally employ, the Nightingale is more 'romantic', personal
and diffuse than the Urn which is more 'classical' restrained and objective. In the Nightingale
there is a note of hysteria the Urn is quieter, more self-possessed and mature.
The last two Odes 'On Melancholy and To Autumn' mark a brief interlude during which
Keats seems, despite his mortifying pain and suffering, to be at perfect peace with himself and
the universe--a consummation that Negative Capability aims at. There is no commitment to
vision which he now equates with the death of essential man.
In both these Odes, the problems of the artist are in abeyance and with a remarkable
self-absorption the poet returns to the ordinary human experience, to the problem of
happiness in life. They represent Keats poetic vision away from the romantic dreamy world to
the realization and celebration of actual life, of the world of truth that is naturally informed by
beauty.
The 'Ode on Melancholy' recognizes that sadness is the inevitable complement of the
moments of intense sensuous happiness that so far have been the peaks of his experience:
She dwells with beauty-Beauty that must die:
And joy, whose hand is ever at his lips.
Binding adieu.
It is, therefore, as vain to attempt to escape from the inevitable pain as to expect light not
to cast shadow, Melancholy springs from the transience of joy, and the transience of joy is a
part of its nature. In Melancholy, there is recognition that melancholy is “ache at the heart of
felicity.” The type of poetry, its supreme mood, is precisely that mood in which is so
apprehended that the awareness of it is anguish, “a wakeful anguish of the soul”.
The Ode to Autumn is Keats' consummate rendering of the supreme beauty of the actual
world. The poem is entirely impersonal and purely descriptive. There is no looking before and
after, no pining for what is not but complete abandonment to the present as it is and found to
be so rich and lovable. “The poetry of the earth is never dead”. Music may be “plaintive” but it
is nothing short of 'anthem'. Autumn as poetical symbol is commonly the prelude to winter.
Keats sees as the motto of Indolence means as in the world of nature, quiet dissolution.
In the Autumn, the poet himself is completely absent, there is no 'I' no suggestion of
discursive language that we found in the preceding Odes. The thought of death is
unobtrusively present in numerous images of fertility. The emotion has been completely fused
with the object (thus losing separate identity) and expressed itself completely through it.
There are no questions, no conflicts in the poem. Here all the pangs of romantic longings
and classical aspirations pass over into a delighted brooding of mellow content--a mood
disturbed by no regrets for songs of springs. The ode recaptures the dreamy sensuous element
of Keats' nature completely and triumphantly recreates the mood of the indolence. The
Autumn embodies the master theme of Endymion--and it would no doubt have been theme of
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Hyperion - the inevitability of the cycle, rejoicing in relationship with seasons the Sun and the
earth and the fruition that stems from such relationship.
With amazing objectivity, the poet controls the harrowing personal miseries through
understanding their true nature, not by trying to dominate them through fact or reason. 'To
Autumn’ extends the range of the Odes to include the consummate state of human mind's
power to attain deep fulfillment in the ever-ripening present. The feeling or sadness is merged
in the continuous life of nature and the close of the Ode, though solemn, breathes the spirit of
hope.
While commenting on Negative Capability, D.G. James points out that the Odes embody
three features of Keats' feeling and thought. The foremost is capability of submission to
suffering- the naturalistic order of things and men. Secondly, the Odes exemplify the
apprehension of human life in terms of the phases of animal and natural existence. Keats'
perception of all “truth” as animal went along with a sense of the individual life as organism
which grows, matures and decays: thus the “superior imagination” of the poet sees life of man
and grasps it as development and decline. The third feature that informs the Odes is
“disinterestedness” which comes from this apprehension and which exists “betwist two
extremes of passion, joy and grief' Keats modestly kept aloft the humble standard of
disinterestedness, leading to the continual birth of new heroism as in the 'case of Socrates and
Jesus-above the “pious frauds of religion” and the “house-pocus of perfectibility”. In his Odes,
them is a progressively stronger tendency on the part of the protagonist man, to better more
vigorously at the barriers that restrict human experience to the confines of morality achieving
resignation and acceptance of mortal lot.
8.2.3 Keats as a Sensuous Mystic
The anti-romantic reaction of the last few decades left two poets relatively undamaged
and even elevated Blake and Keats. The New critics found much to admire in these poets who
strove towards a vision beyond the moral limits. They were the great rebels against the old
concept of reason, for them more important were intuition and vision. Their primary artistic
purpose was to show men a vision of the possibility of true freedom of the spirit to help them
realize the potentialities by trusting their intuition. Keats' poetry, like Blake's articulates his
impatience with conditioned ethics. His is an art which ultimately seeks, through the objective
world, an inner reality. Poetry, at its highest, like religion or philosophy has always been a
vehicle for penetrating into the “life of things”. Arnold was of the view that “after man has
abandoned his belief in God, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life's redemption”.
A mystic is concerned with direct communication of the soul with God or Ultimate Reality,
seeking absorption into the infinite. He is a person who attains or believes in the possibility of
attaining insight into mysteries, transcending ordinary human knowledge or consecutive
reasoning by immediate intuition in a state of spiritual ecstasy. In the Ode of Psyche, we find
Keats at a moment of rapturous recognition job the heathen goddess - the long neglected
human soul in the suffering and misfortune. It is an act of creation when “I see and sing by
own eyes inspired”. The poet-mystic seeks inspiration, in his own perception, of the elements
and offers a worship to the creation of his own inspired eyes. It is the vision of a mystic in a
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trance that perceives also the fact of evil of life very clearly. A mystic sees and celebrates life in
its totality - life in all its contradictions, opposites and paradoxes. It is in this sense that Keats
can be termed a mystic.
But there is one important qualitative difference between Blake and Keats. Keats had a
more passionate love than Blake for the visible world and has too often been treated as a man
who longed for sensuous impressions. Keats is a perfect illustration of one aspect of
romanticism. He is probably the most sensuous poet in English and his poetry is a riot of
sounds, sights, colours, perfumes. He even communicates sensation of touch. In the Eve of St.
Agnes, a girl undressing in a cold room after a ball “unclasps her warmed jewels one by one”
In. his Odes the impressions of his senses responding to experience with a painful intensity or
aching joy is at its most powerful and provides the root of his contradictory feelings and
aspirations. There are countless illustrations which establish Keats sympathetic identification
with scenes and landscape. The richly evocative imagery is all in keeping with appropriately
varying moods which are those of luxurious enjoyment of the moment of happy insensibility,
subdued melancholy, wakeful anguish, nostalgia for far off times and enchanted world and an
intense quest for truth and reality. His mind roamed over life as a whole. Keats is remarkably a
sensitive collector, organizer and transmitter of sensations, one who tested to the full the
beauties of the world and sought to increase them, both in his poems and in his letters. In To
Psyche, while “thoughtless" wondering, Keats faints with surprise to see Eros and Psyche,
“beneath the whispering roof of leaves and trampled blossoms”.
, Mid hush'd, cool-rooted flowers fragrant-eyed.
Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian.
In a few words, every beauty that flowers have-scent, form, stillness, coolness, colouring,
is summed up. Here, as elsewhere, we find concentration upon full rich essence or images that
are welded to perfection. Keats is rightly admired for his “art of distillation”, a marvel of
spirited imagination.
A vital response to the immediate and the actual triggers the imagination which then
departs from whatever object may have released it, to create or catch visions of delight, Keats'
capacity for ignorance and powers of skepticism untamed by any cynicism deepened his
response to sensations from object reality and paradoxically gave him greater balance to suffer
disillusion without strain. Keats saw the imagination as a power which both creates and
reveals through creating. When the objects of sense laid their spell upon him, he was so stirred
and exalted that he felt himself grasp the universe as a whole. Sight and smell and touch
awoke his imagination to a sphere of being in which he saw vast issues and was at home with
them. Keats resembled Blake in his conviction that ultimate reality is to be found only in the
imagination. Keats starts with the love of senses, moves towards essence, starts with the love
of things and moves towards the love of ideas from the love of appetite towards immortal
longings. Even as he moves “back home to symbol essences” he is his state of wake and sleep,
never totally loses touch with the actuality the truth of the phenomena that sent him
“sensations sweet” and triggered the creative process of imagination. He is happy, as in the
Nightingale, to be back to his "sole self-a self that is whole an sole only in his relation to and
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acceptance of things and mean as they are “all art”, Keats believed, “is a reaction from life, but
never, when it is vital and great, an escape”. A fundamental quality of Keats' genius was a
scrupulous devotion to the object of attention whether this was a landscape, a constellation of
feelings as in a poem, or the character displayed in quarrel between Reynolds and Haydon. He
had a strong, almost an intensive sense of identity of others as also an extraordinary
receptiveness to the identity of other things and persons. Thriving on sensations as he did,
Keats became aware that a poet could not remain content to tell as prisoner of his senses; his
sensations must be filtered at once through a judging mind and intuitive perception. 'The story
of Keats' short life is rich in the adventures of the spirit on the perilous seas and in permanent
and rewarding victories of mind and heart. The world to him was a: “vale of soul-making” and
the world of pains and troubles to school an intelligence and make it a soul”. And amazingly,
he never forfeited his capacity for joy. It is in this sense that Keats is a sensuous mystic.
The Romantic Movement was a prodigious attempt to discover the world of spirit through
the unaided effort of the solitary soul. It was special manifestation of the belief in the worth of
the individual which philosophers and politicians had recently preached to the world. The
Romantics knew that their business was to create and through creation to enlighten the whole
sentient and conscious self of man, to awaken his imagination to reality which lies behind or
in familiar things, to rouse him from the deadening routine of customs to a consciousness of
immeasurable distance and unfathomable depth, to make him see that mere reason is not
enough and that what he need is inspired intuition. They take a wider view both of man and
poetry than was taken by their staid and rational predecessors of the eighteenth century
because they believed that it is the whole spiritual nature of man that counts and to this they
made their challenge and their appeal. A new world is created when imagination seizes power.
In his “Defence of Poetry,” Shelley attributes special knowledge to the poet :-
“He not only beholds intensely and present as it is and discovers the laws according to
which present things ought to be ordered but he beholds the future in the present and his
thoughts are germs of the flower and fruit of latest time ... a poet participates in the eternal,
the infinite....
For Keats, too, the present reality could not but be spiritual, providing an independent
illustration of Hegel's doctrine that nothing is real but spirit. He felt oneness of things, the
unity of all beings by not trusting to logic but to insight, not to analytical reason but to the
delighted inspired soul which in its full nature transcends both the mind and the emotions.
Keats accepted the works of imagination not merely existing in their own right, but as having a
relation to the ultimate reality through the light which they shed on it. He too, in his own way,
is religious, in the sense of holiness of reality and the mystery and delight which he felt in the
presence of the world of phenomena. Blake's religion denied the existence of God apart from
men. Romanticism is the Endeavour, in the face of growing factual obstacles to retain or to
justify that illusioned view of the universe and of human life, which is produced by an
imaginative fusion of the familiar and the strange, the known, and the unknown, the real and
the ideal, the finite and the infinite, the material and the spiritual, the natural and the
supernatural. It is a disposition to see within and beyond the actual for an ideal world that will
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soften the asperities of the actual, or better, interpret them in such a way as to suit the needs
of the heart. Romanticism is basically mystical, for its distinctive realm lies beyond the domain
mere senses. It is a faith or a system of beliefs expressible only through emotional or symbolic
art.
Writing of Byron, Keats said, “He describes what he sees - I describe what I imagine -
Mine is the hardest task.” As his Grecian Urn and Autumn amply substantiate that everything
finite has its own infinity that is to be realized through self-awareness and not through
reaching after fact or reason. In fact finite can live only in relation to the infinite, through the
apprehension of the polarities of life and death, love and hatred, evil and good. Keatsian vision
is that nothing can be seen in isolation. The present and the past are indissolubly knit and
they are in their integral relationship, in a state of constant fluidity. If they seem to turn from
each other, it is to recoil for a more intimate meeting. In the Grecian Urn, once the poet is
caught in the life pictured on the Urn, a see-saw opposition between the earthly and urnly
values ensues, in which, up to a point, the decision could go either way. Ultimately, he is
trying to reach out to the inner realities of everything, not merely to the visionary sights. It is
wrong to say, that his world seen through imagination is contrasted with the real world. Art
offers an escape into a world of its own. The world of art must reflect back into actuality as we
know it. Both the worlds, in their essence, are one and the same. Keats sees the essence in the
'sensational vision', and beauty in things real and true. Keats confronts the pain and tragedy
of life ultimately through the ecstatic acceptance of death, life's high mead”. Thus he pressed
onward to a vision of beauty of life as it is not just an illusioned view of it.
For a mystic, the supreme reality is designated as the Self which, paradoxically is
cultivated by its oblivion, by a continual process of a self-annihilation. Then the T or the ego,
dies and a strong sense of identity grows. The only sensible aim which man may have in his
life is fully realize this identity and to reunite himself with his divine essence. This union may
be called Yoga. This is accepting oneself, accepting others as they are the simultaneous
acceptance of what appears in one's mind and what appears in the external world, is a glimpse
of Enlightened. For Keats, the total impression of the moment, the fusion of his own subjective
emotions with sensations from the outside world is the ultimate reality. The frame - work of
the myth of Psyche helps Keats to explore for himself what constitutes real poetry for him, to
work out the substance of poetry as he would like it to be. The 'casement' that “ope at night/
To let the warm love in” emphasized the openness of imagination towards heart's affections.
The way Keats listens to the nightingale, its song to him is much more than a mere song;
it is also an event in the timeless order of things:
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down.
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown.
Keats, says Bowra, does two things here. He addresses the individual living nightingale
which has inspired his poem, but he passes beyond it to an ideal bird which is symbol of
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unrestricted, timeless song. Similar is the case with the “unheard mileages” that sound
sweeter to his delighted imagination: they are transmitted into “ditties of no tone.” It is no more
so the actual song but the essence of the song. Thus does the poet try to find a bridge and
establish an indissoluble link between life and art, the real and the ideal. At such a moment of
mystic ecstasy, men and gods are seen in their essential oneness:
What leaf fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities morals or of both
In Temple or the dales of Arcady
What men or gods are these?
Grasping the inner reality of static carving to convert dynamic action the music in Keats
sees the infinite in things finite, the essence in the sensational vision and beauty in things real
and true.
To describe the immediate and intuitive grasp of the truth of things - or of the beauty of
things - for beauty was, in Keats' belief, only another aspect of truth - He hit upon the word
“sensation” - and wrote the sentence which of all his sayings is most easy to misinterpret and
which yet lies closer than any other to the heart of his thinking. “Oh, for a life of sensation
rather than of thought”.
Keats depreciated the attempt to impose an intellectual pattern upon the dark and
inscrutable mysteries, shunning dogmas and creeds. “For the sake of a few fine imaginative or
domestic passages, are we to be bullied into a certain philosophy engendered in the whims of
an Egotist?” Again, “Poetry should be great but unobtrusive thing which enters into one's
soul”.
To Keats, poetry was joy wrought out of sensations, unlike Wordsworth to whom it was a
spiritual vision ultimately born of his sublime egotism. This peculiar sensibility helped him
strainlessly cultivate objectivity, disinterestedness and took him out of romantic ego-centricity
that plagued most of the other great Romantics.
Keats' exquisite appreciation of sensations would lead him into 'a sort of temper, indolent
and supremely careless. And he rejoices that "in this state of effeminacy, the fibers of the brain
are relaxed in common with the rest of the body”. In such a state of 'happy insensibility”,
neither pain nor pleasure could disturb or distract him. He exultantly remarks, “This is the
only happiness, and is rare instance of the advantage of the body overpowering the mind”. The
poet, in his seminal Ode, “On Indolence", captures a moment of luxurious enjoyment which
neither love nor poetry nor ambition makes it worthwhile to give up, and its sensuous
happiness thus experienced is complete and sufficient and its own justification despite its
momentary and transient nature that gives rise to longing for a world in which such moments
could become eternal. This mystic trance like state of pure being is a visionary state where one
can be in direct contact with reality. This kind of direct unhindered, inertly alert contact, this
innate and instinctive experience, was considered by Keats as the very essence of poetic
creation. The pleasure he finds in stillness, 'nothingness’ amidst nature, is a sensuous
enjoyment of the moment when he can effortlessly turn his back even on his 'demon poesy' his
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creative faculty. Even in his most intellectually refined Ode, “On a Grecian Urn,” he can
comprehend the essential oneness of Beauty and Truth only when the Urn teases him out of
thought, into an extraordinary life of imagination. The “Cold Pastoral” is discovered as “a friend
to man in the midst of other woe than ours”, “What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be
truth”. The Urn becomes a manifestation of the formless absolute in Time and Space with
physical attributes of the formless Divine essence.
The mood which is the precondition to his “self-indulgence” to followed by Self-denial i.e.,
on negative capability is one of “thoughtlessness” and “nothingness”. It is one of repose in
tension, of inert of “natural wakeful life”, of that objectivity and impersonality which is the
highest net of genuine classicism that transcends considerations of mere form, fact and
reason. “A man of achievement” must be capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries and
doubts, as in such a temper alone shall we learn submission to things as they are, without
trying to intellectualize them into something else and submission to people as they are,
without trying to indoctrinate or improve them. “Shakespeare had only to think of anything in
order to become that with all circumstances belonging to it” wrote Hazlitt. And Keats once
wrote, “I am not speaking myself, but it is a character speaking in whose soul I reside. Myself
is swept aside” This “indolence” or “nothingness” is a positive thing bringing a calm pervasive
happiness, which is near akin to suspension of senses for some other and elusive but more
illuminating kind of experience. It is shouting out of all thoughts and letting in only the sweet
sensations that are creative in Keats of “the wakeful anguish of the soul”. It is only in such a
mood that a poet attains objectivity in the midst of harrowing personal miseries and suffering,
not dominating them through rationalization and intellectualization but controlling them
through understanding of their nature- that pleasure and pain, evil and good etc. belong to the
same essence of things. Here the world is the vision of a mystic. And he is awake who thinks
himself “asleep”, said Keats.
This state of mind causes all disagreeable to evaporate from one's being in close
relationship with beauty and truth. The misery of the human world, burden of human
suffering and pains of life are equally acceptable with the most ethereal world of imaginative
beauty. Keats once said, “At the height of intense imagination, he had been cheated into some
fine passage- not so reality”. He gained the most clear and steady vision of life only in that
state when he could write the most real things about existence. This transmutation of a sense-
perception into "a thing of beauty and a joy forever” and celebrating it with ecstatic self-
oblivion is the peculiar mode of a mystic. To Keats, the real and the ideal are one and the same
thing. In this state of self-abandon, the poet is totally disinterested and detached, full of
compassion, affection and understanding of the things as they are and men as they are. The
mood tends towards activity-a detached exploration of experience. It is a balanced tension of
excitement when sensation rouses him to an intuitive perception of the essence of things-to a
fuller understanding of reality.
He feels himself as a part of the cosmic, celestial process. All sense of isolation and
frustration vanishes in such a state. And an involvement, which is celebration of life as it is,
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comes when one is truly detached. Commitment of genuine vintage is possible only when 'one
is disinterested. The great Odes are written in this mood of choiceless awareness.
Art offers an escape into a world of its own. The world of art must reflect and lead back
into actuality as we know it. To Keats, the sensuous mystic, it is not just the Urn or the
nightingale that is art or a thing of beauty-it is the symbols presented by them that are the
“The objects of his delighted brooding. No doubt his imagination is stirred at the sight of
beauty, but this beauty he views with a touch of reality. It is the real truth and real beauty
that he is after. “In a world of inexplicable mystery and pain”, says Douglas Bush, “the
experience of beauty is one sure revelation of reality; beauty lives in particulars, and these
pass-but they attest a principle, a unity, behind them. And if beauty is reality, the converse is
likewise true that reality, the reality of human experience, of suffering, can also yield beauty,
in itself and in art". Everything finite has its own infinity that is to be realized through self-
awareness. In fact, finite can live only in relation to the infinite-through the apprehension of
the inevitability of the polarities like life and death, love and hatred. “Plaintive anthem” and
"cold Pastoral" reassure, reconcile man about his morality which is but a part of a vast,
timeless process of Keatsian vision, more especially in on Melancholy and to Autumn, where
"ripeness is all", implies that nothing can be seen in isolation:
She dwells with beauty-Beauty that must die;
And joy whose and is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu;
And
Ay, in the very temple of Delight,
Veil'd Melancholy has her sorvon shrine.
The total man triumphs over the more poet in Keats, life over 'mere' art. Keats the poet,
who through his creative faculty, can move into “fairyland forlorn” subserves. Keats the man
who suffers. The man in him who feasts and celebrates the vital facts of life wouldn't permit
him to diminish his vision. Life comes rushing in, stultifying every theory, whether of Aristotle,
Donne, Dryden, Coleridge, Arnold or Eliot. It is, as the last poet says, the poet's sensibility-
ready susceptibility to sense impression-that matters “Melancholy” is not the result but the
condition of the greatest intensity of experience.
Pain and grief are Nature's reminder to the soul that the pleasure it enjoys is only a
feeble hind of the real true delight of existence. In each pain and torture of our being is the
secret of a flame of rapture compared with which our greatest pleasures are only dim
flickerings. It is this secret, the sacred truth- which forms the attraction for the soul of the
great ordeals, sufferings and fierce experiences of life which the nervous mind in us shuns and
abhors. The mystic sees life steadily and sees it while so that for him all disagreeable vanish
from their being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth. In a mood of rapturous triumph,
the poet-mystic divines that only those capable of ecstasies of highest enjoyment of joy can
apprehend the finest shades of Goddess Melancholy and thus their souls are entitled to claim
a seat of pride in her ethereal temple:
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His souls shall taste the sadness of her might,

And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
To Autumn, with its breathless placidity, articulates the master theme of Endymion and it
could no doubt have been the theme of Hyperion- the inevitability of, the Cycle and the
Process. The macrocosm-microcosm parallel is dominant in Keats. Man, has his season, as
have the sun, the planet. The Sun, Man the planet are linked in his poetry of mystical
correspondences. And things are linked through the rhythm. The sense of gentle sadness and
the idea of dissolution and death consequent upon ripeness inform every line, but the sense of
sadness is emerged in the feeling of the continuous life of nature, which eternally renews itself
in insect and animal and bird. And the close of the Ode, though solemn, breathes the spirit of
hope. Here Keats seems to have not the fleeting mystic vision, he has developed the mental
poise as a saint who has seen life in its totality. The truth perceived during a vision becomes a
way of life-the seer's warp the way of acceptance wherein lies joy's impermanence is accepted
without the least trace of sadness. Genuine beauty may evoke melancholy-but thrives on her
very momentary career as the moment captures for us the permanence of her joy. The greater
permanence is the continuity of life itself, in which the permanence of the individual human
existence is one tiny aspect of a vast and deathless pattern. The whole is apprehended in the
part and the consummation in the inauguration.
In Hyperion and in several of his letters, Keats repeats two phrases-“beauty in all things”
and “love of good and ill”. They suggest condition beyond both sorrow and joy, the realization
that only the truth-only reality-which by the very ordering of human life is destructive of
individual happiness is beautiful. It is submission, not in despair but in thankfulness to the
necessity of oneness of life and death.
By associating sensible experience with some undefined superior order of things, Keats
more than his illustrious contemporaries, has enriched our appreciation of the familiar world
and awakened, like Blake, new awe, wonder and admiration for it. Keats, the sensuous mystic,
saw the extraordinariness of things ordinary. “To all who are dissatisfied with a current order
or a conventional scheme of things,” remarks Bowra, “this spirit brings not an anodyne but an
inspiration.” From Discontent, it moves to a vision of a sublime state in which the temporal,
without losing its individuality, is meaningfully related to the timeless, and the many defeats of
the given world are seen to be irrelevant and insignificant in compression with the mysteries
which enclose it. The poet of the negative capability becomes an active agent in a world which
exists by perpetual process of creation. Keats, like a mystic, takes part in this process of
making man aware of the reality which sustains the changing visible scene and in the cause
and explanation of everything that matters in it. We must admire the spirit in which he
approaches his task and admits that the problems which he seeks to solve must not be
shirked by anyone who wishes to understand the universe in which we live.”
8.3 Keats’s Achievement as a Poet of Odes
By common consent, the Odes mark the highest development of Keats' genius and give
promise of Shakespearean heights he might have achieved, had he lived longer. The Odes,
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more than anything else, illustrate the progress of Keats' sensibility from romantic
egocentricity to objectivity. It is in his quality of mind and spirit that Keats is Shakespearean.
No other romantic poet, not even Wordsworth, has the mature power of moral introspection
that Keats has. Again Keats possesses, to a remarkable degree, the power of self-absorption,
the wonderful sympathy and identification with all things. He is neither an idealist like Shelley
nor a moralist like Wordsworth. He strove to be a pure poet, holding aloft “the humble
standard of disinterestedness”. He temperamentally subscribed to the Greek ideal of beauty,
inward and outward. Rejoicing in the “holiness of heart's affection”, he scrupulously avoided
moralizing. The Odes are a testimony to Keats' sense of integrity-the consonance between
word, thought and deed-that marks the works of Shakespeare. He would have nothing to do
with 'egotistical sublimity' or, for that matter, sublimity per se that does not permit a person to
achieve a willing, if not ecstatic, submission to the world as it is and men as they are.
Keats who had realized 'the bitter-sweet of this ‘Shakespearean fruit', describes in his
Odes the progress of imagination from the fanciful and the. delightful to its most serious
occupation-a wish to participate in the life of others-“the agonies, the strife of human heart”
This open susceptibility, joyful receptivity, this choiceless awareness is in the ultimate
analysis, the same as Eliot's celebrated theory of “Impersonality of Poetry” that calls upon a
poet to remain what Keats has called “a neutral intellect” or happy in sensibility - the “glorious
nothingness”. He thus achieved a “self-awareness thought”, by which finite could be realized-
by getting “teased out of thought” His poetry like that of Dante, is not a “dull opiate” to make
men forget their miseries inflicted by life, but to cultivate an intellectual and spiritual
experience, necessary for soul-making.
The great Odes are a telling commentary on Keats' life. In his personal life, he had a
strong, almost an intrusive, sense of identity of others so that “when am in a room with people
the identity of everyone in the room begins to press upon me that I am in a very little time
annihilated”. We could err, however, if we suppose Keats extraordinary receptiveness to the
identity of others that informs the texture of all the great Odes, that it was a mere quick of
temperament or an odd psychological idiosyncrasy. On the contrary, his mind had, it seemed
to Hopkins, “the distinctly masculine power in abundance, his character the manly virtues".
And we know what Mathew Arnold meant when he said in his indispensable essay “the thing
to be seized is that Keats had flint and iron in him, that he had character”. He alone, among
the great Romantics, established an explicit connection between his capacity for sensitive
openness and the true character of a poet, a perception that is confined by the modern literary
criticism. In his famous definition of the poetical character, at least of “that sort distinguished
from the Wordsworthian or egotistical sublime” he gave an essential property of the poet,
“Negative Capability that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries,
doubts, without any reaching after fact and reason.”
The true line of Keats' development, lost in Hyperion in a waste of misdirected energy,
misguided submission and frustrated purpose, is recovered in the Odes. These are the poems
of a sensibility both powerful and exquisite, on the point of attaining its maturity, on the point
of completing its self-education. Here his soul shall taste the sadness of her (Melancholy's)
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might. And be among her cloudy trophies hung. The Odes are a triumphant, tragic celebration
of life through the cultivation of "a wakeful anguish of the soul”. Thus is on Melancholy, to
speak nothing of the immutably perfect To Autumn, more a human document than literature.
And because of his perpetual questing for 'permanence and seeking for truth”. Keats is liable
momentarily to be guilty of certain imperfection. But our recognition of these will only make us
wonder all the more at the triumph of the lacerated spirit, which the Odes, written at an
unpropitious time and in the most tragic conditions, represent.
The fruit of Keats 'maturing mind and sensibility is the set of six Odes, On Indolence,
Psyche, On a Nightingale, On a Grecian Urn, On Melancholy, and To Autumn, all written
between March and September of 1819. These poems are different in kind from their
predecessors like Endymion, Lamia, St. Agnes, Hyperion etc. While the earlier odes are
painfully sensuous and decorative, these are tragic and mystic. They are enlarged,
complicated by a dimension of human experience unknown in the former. Their distance from
the earlier poems may be indicated by saying that while Spenser is the dominant influence
there, here it is Shakespeare, as the supplier of external literary tricks – a Shakespeare who is
grasped, subordinated to Keats' purposes and dissolved in Keats own idiom.
No influence, however, powerful, is good till it is transmuted and transcended; and no
other romantic poet could outgrow that mighty phantom forefather, Milton. Keats' too, took
him for his model “to refine his sensual vision”. The third great literary influence on Keats'
poetic career is Milton and poem in which it is manifest is Hyperion. Soon with his spirited
intellectual imagination, Keats sensed how his choice of Milton as an exemplar was a
disastrous one. Keats himself admitted when he abandoned his project, “Life to him would be
death to me”. Milton is out to assert Eternal Providence, with palpably positive capability: some
meretricious motive, Keats felt, has sullied the greatness of the great benefactor of humanity
like Milton.” The Genius of poetry must work out its own salvation in a man”, writes Keats to
James Hessey, “It cannot be matured by law and precept but by sensation and watchfulness,
itself. “Again,” with a great poet the sense of beauty overcomes every other consideration, or
rather, obliterates all considerations”. No two poets could have been so radically different
from, so constitutionally unsympathetic to one another; not two poetic styles could have been
so naturally antagonistic. While Milton was a man of solid certainties, Keats was happy to live
with his ignorance, indolence and nothingness. He was a seeker and a seer who arrived at his
convictions with difficulty and becomes a man of intellectual integrity, tentatively and fluidly.
On the other hand, Keats' form and meaning accommodated themselves so easily to the
influence of Shakespeare. The Odes are a living testimony to the fact that Keats, in a measure
unequaled by others, could absorb the high architects, ones which go with complete poetic
development. Shakespeare-like these odes are but not imitation of Shakespeare. It were the
Neoclassicals who reveled in imitation. That failing -one of imitation- marked and marred some
works even of his great contemporaries excepting that of Coleridge.
There is fine blending of the classical and the Romantic in Keats' Odes. In them there is
harmonious fusion of romantic ardor with classical purity and orderliness. The Odes show an
amazing sense of proportion in the Greek manner and present a well-designed evolution of
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thought. Together they form a choral whole and none can be read in isolation. In fact, it is
Keatsian vision that nothing can be seen in isolation.. Keats like the Greeks saw ideas
embodied. This imaginative attitude helped Keats to create beautiful concrete mythology. He
too, like Greeks, felt the presence of Proteus in the Sea, of Dryads in the trees and of Naiads in
the brooks.
The Odes of Keats stand alone in literature, new in form and spirit and owing nothing to
any predecessor. Had Keats left us only his Odes, his rank among the poets would not have
been, lower than it is. “The great Odes, especially perhaps the “Ode to Psyche”, are enough for
his reputation”, remarked T.S. Eliot, one of the most authoritative critics of English literature.
Mathew Arnold appropriately said of him, “He is with Shakespeare” “I think”, said Keats, “I
shall be among the English poets after my death” Indeed this prophesy of a poet has proved to
be true. And Keats shall always be with us. His Odes have conferred immortality on Keats.
Keats' universality, based primarily on the great mind that produced the Odes, has won
approval from critics as A.C. Bradley, John Middleton, Murry, Lytton Strachey, T.S. Eliot, F.R,
Leavis and the New critics of American scholarship, and his reputation has suffered none of
the eclipses that many of his contemporaries, such as Shelley, Byron and even Wordsworth
have experienced. Poets as individually eminent as W.B. Yeats have echoed him in their
greatest works and his present position, both as a poet and as a thinker and writer about
poetry, stands as high as at any time.
8.4 Important Terms Related to Romantic Literature
Supernaturalism in Romantic Poetry
Romantic poetry was a reaction to the classical poetry of the Eighteenth century, which
centred mainly around man's activity. There was no place for imagination in it. The poet was
just to observe life around him and depict it in his poetry. Romantics introduced into poetry
the element of imagination. For subject they went to the middle ages instead of contemporary
events. At the same time, i.e., the end of the eighteenth century, a similar movement was going
on in the field of novel. The realistic novel had given way to Gothic fiction, which dealt with
supernatural action. The middle ages were full of supernatural stories. People then believed in
ghosts and spirits. Romantic poets included supernatural element in their writings. We find
this element especially in the works of Coleridge and Keats. Wordsworth started from natural
and raised it to supernatural in the form of mysticism. Coleridge's use of the supernatural is
subtle and refined. The enchanted palace of Kubla Khan, the vampire haunted castle of
Christabel and the demon infested sea of The Ancient Maurines are some of finest poetry of the
Romantic era. Keats’ poem ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ has element of supernaturalism.
Romantic Revival
Romantic Revival' is à convenient term applied to a movement in English literature
during the last quarter of the Eighteenth century and the first thirty years of the nineteenth. It
was marked by a rejection of the ideals and rules of classicism and neoclassicism of the
eighteenth century and by an affirmation of the need for a freerer, more subjective expression
of passion, pathos and personal feelings. The Romantic period is usually taken to run between
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1798, the year in which Coleridge and Words worth published Lyrical Ballads and .1832 when
the Reform Bill was passed. Reacting against the classical rules of the eighteenth century,
romantics introduced certain features in literature. First was, under the influence of French
philosopher. J.J. Rousseau, the return to nature, there was an increasing interest in the
natural, primitive and uncivilized way of life. They tried to link human moods with the moods
of Nature. Secondly, a revival of concern to value feelings and emotion rather than man's
capacity to reason. Thirdly, the importance was given individual. As wisdom and morality are
conceived in terms of individual's response to the world outside rather than as a coherent
collection of reasoned ideas and opinions. Lastly, Imagination becomes a key word for
understanding Romanticism, Imagination, to many Romantic poets, represents the mind's
power to create harmonious meanings out of chaos of impressions, ideas, feelings and
memories which inhabit it at any one moment.
Negative Capability
Negative Capability is a poet's capacity to forget his own personality and enter
imaginatively into the existence of his subject. He assumes the character of the whole universe
forgetting his own likes and dislikes. According to Keats, the necessary pre-condition of poetry
is submission to things as they are, without trying to intellectualize them, to accept people as
they are. A poet must become oblivious of himself. He should negate his own ego. Personal life
must be subordinate to the demands of his poetic mission ignore the demands of his own flesh
for it can threaten to disturb the flow of ideas and disrupt his poetic vision. To achieve this he
should make up his mind about nothing and let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts
and ideas. He should have no individuality or any determined character, no philosophy of his
own. Keats thought all charm flies at the mere touch of philosophy. He should depict life in all
its variegated texture. He should assume a 'chameleon camouflage'. He must become one with
the subject, and must stoically accept the good and evil as inevitable constituents of reality.
Self-Assessment Questions
Q. 1 Comment on sensual imagery used in Keats poems.
Q.2 What is Negative Capability?
Q.3 Comment on theme of transience and permanence in Keats poetry?
Q.4 Comment on the precursors to Romantic Movement.

8.5 Summary
In this lesson you have read about major thematic concerns in Keats’s poetry. All the concepts
related to his poetry such as negative capability, element of sensuous, and theme of
permanence of art, are discussed in detail so that you can understand and attempt any
questions related to the texts. The model question and self-assessment question will help you
prepare for the final examination. Some important terms are explained in the glossary section.
8.6 References
 Keats' Craftsmanship: A Study in Poetic Development, M. R. Ridley, Clarendon
Press, 1933
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 John Keats: The Critical Heritage, G. M. Matthews, Routledge, 1995

 Life of John Keats, Charles Armitage BrownDorothy Hyde BodurthaWillard Bissell
Pope, Oxford University Press, 1937
 Word like a Bell: John Keats, Music and the Romantic Poet, John A. Minahan,
Kent State University Press, 1992
 A Life of John Keats, Dorothy Hewlett, Barnes & Noble, 1950 (2nd Rev. edition)
8.7 Further Readings
 John Keats and the Culture of Dissent, Nicholas Roe, Clarendon Press, 1998
 Mind of John Keats, Clarence Dewitt Thorpe, Oxford University Press, 1926
 John Keats and the Ideas of the Enlightenment, Porscha Fermanis, Edinburgh
University Press, 2009
 Forever Young: A Life of John Keats, Blanche Colton Williams, G.P. Putnams
Sons, 1943
8.8 Model Questions
Q.1 Discuss Keats as a sensuous mystic with examples from the prescribed poems.
Q.2 Discuss Keats’s concept of Negative Capability with examples from the prescribed
poems.
Q. 3 Discuss Keats’s achievement as a poet of Odes.
Q. 4 Discuss the idea of permanence of art with reference to the prescribed poems.
Lesson 9

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER -I

Structure
9.0. Objectives
9.1. Introduction
9.2. Introduction to the Poet and his Major Works
9.3. Introduction to the Poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
9.4. Origin of the Poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
9.5. Defining the Ballad
9.6. Summary and Critical Analysis of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
9.7. Summary
9.8. Glossary
9.9 References
9.10. Further Readings
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9.11. Model Questions

9.0. Objectives
After reading this lesson you will be able to:
● discuss the literary achievements and poetic contribution of S. T. Coleridge to
English literature.
● define the literary genre of ‘Ballad.’
● critically evaluate the poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’
● discuss the main themes that run through the poem.
● describe varied aspects of the poet’s literary style.
9.1. Introduction
Dear students, this chapter introduce you to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the most
representative poets of the Romantic poetry which dominated the English literary scene in the
last decades of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Deeply influenced by J. J. Rousseau’s
philosophy which guided the French Revolution, Coleridge and his literary associate William
Wordsworth are credited with liberalizing and democratizing English poetry from its Neo-
Classical limitations. As a romantic poet, Coleridge is particularly distinguished for his love of
supernaturalism, mysticism, medievalism, beauty, nature and music. His noted poems such
as ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ ‘Kubla Khan,’ and ‘Christabel’ present a perfect blend of
all these elements and establish him as a poet of rare talent. This chapter introduces you to
the varied aspects of his ‘The Rime’ and enables you to assess its poetic merit critically.
9.2. Introduction to the Poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, hailed as the greatest representative of the Romantic sensibility
which dominated the literary world in the post-Augustan era, was born on 21 October, 1772 in
Devonshire, England to a parish vicar. An imaginative, sensitive and introspective child,
Coleridge preferred books to human company in his school days after the death of his father in
1781, and found solace in reading Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare and the Bible. His wide range of
reading and amazing eloquence won him both, an admission in Jesus College, Cambridge and
the admiration of fellow students. However, following the rejection of his first love, Mary Evans
and financial issues, he left the college to enlist in the army under a pseudonym. That he was
ill suited for the job was soon discovered and his eldest brother paid for his release from the
regiment, and he joined the university once again. Though he was a diligent pupil, his political
liberalism, religious atheism and revolutionary zeal aroused by the French revolution offended
the authorities and he was forced to abandon his studies in December, 1794 without
completing his degree. All this while, ill health and financial debts also chased him. In June of
the following year, he met Robert Southey (whose sister-in-law he later married) on a walking
tour to Oxford and befriended him. Both were deeply inspired by Rousseau and the French
Revolution, and envisaged migrating to America to establish an ideal communistic and perfect
human society on the banks of Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania – a utopian experiment in
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creating an egalitarian and self-sufficient agrarian system – which they called ‘Pantisocracy.’
However, after his hasty and unhappy marriage with Sarah Fricker, this ambitious and
impractical idea was soon shelved. As a result of his erratic career, a period of aimless
wanderings ensued though he did manage to write a few poems apart from writing and editing
a political journal The Watchman for some time.
It was in 1797 that Coleridge became friends with another towering figure of the Romantic era,
William Wordsworth. Regarded as one of the most famous and fruitful literary associations, it
allowed Coleridge’s creative genius to bloom and won him wide recognition. The collaboration
of these two temperamentally different poets who esteemed each other’s’ poetic genius led to
the composition and contribution of Coleridge’s finest works including ‘Kubla Khan’,
‘Christabel’ and ‘The Rime of Ancient Mariner’ to the publication of Lyrical Ballads (1798) at
the young age of 25 years. It is believed that the finest poetic output of Coleridge belonged to
the first year of his association with Wordsworth. However, just like his friend, Coleridge too
felt disillusioned by the violence unleashed in the last phase of the French Revolution and this
dampened his revolutionary fervor. While Wordsworth sought solace in his love for nature,
Coleridge found consolation in the metaphysical and philosophy. That is why, during their
travel across Europe together, Coleridge concentrated more on the study of German
philosophers including Kant, Schlegel, Lessing and others.
Meanwhile, several factors including the death of his son Berkley, marital dispute and his own
poor health dragged him into depression and increased his dependence of opium. To improve
his health and sagging spirits, Coleridge began a two-year long trip to Italy, Sicily and Malta.
After his return, he delivered a series of lectures on Shakespeare and poetry on which his
reputation as a literary critic rests till date. Amidst his personal turmoil, separation from
Wordsworth in 1808 and a profound sense of misery, he delved into philosophy and criticism
considerably. Though he was a man of rare genius, Coleridge lacked will power and sense of
commitment. Hence many of his ambitious dreams and poetic projects remained fragmentary.
In another productive phase of his literary career which lasted from 1810-16, Coleridge
delivered lectures, wrote for newspapers and prepared another edition of his poems before
penning his magnum opus -- a literary biography called Biographia Literaria (1817) which
enshrines his critical views on the Romantic ideals of art.
When Coleridge’s health deteriorated in 1816, a doctor-friend, Dr James Gilman took him
home and tended to him personally to control both, his illness and addiction to opium. His
gradual recuperation resulted in the completion of Coleridge’s philosophical and critical works
such as Sibyline Leaves (1817), The Statesman’s Manual (1817), On Method (1818), Aids to
Reflection (1825) and Church and State (1830) which placed him among the top most
influential intellectuals of the era. He passed away in 1834 due to complications caused by his
dependence on opium.
9.3. Introduction to the Poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is one of the most well-known and anthologized poems by S
T Coleridge. Hailed as the finest fruit of the Romantic spring, the poem appeared for the first
time as the opening poem of Lyrical Ballads – a joint venture of Coleridge and Wordsworth in
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1798 and has had six published versions since then. Coleridge made use of numerous archaic
expressions in the first version to lend it a peculiar flavour, but these were reduced in the
later revisions following adverse criticism.
The poem, spread over 600 lines written in the form and style of a Folk Ballad, weaves around
its readers, an intricate, enticing and magical web of imagination, suspense, horror,
medievalism, death, beauty and love of nature. Its unmatched treatment of the supernatural,
richness of imagery, complexity of symbols, multiple levels of meaning and imaginative appeal
establish Coleridge as a master craftsman and a true representative of the romantic spirit.
Widely admired for its sensuous details and mystical power, The Rime of Ancient Mariner is
indeed a landmark in English literature.
The poem narrates a poignant tale of the physical and spiritual suffering of an old sailor who
had wantonly killed an innocent bird, and the miseries of his shipmates who had validated
his dastardly act. Based on the Christian themes of sin, punishment and redemption, the
poem enshrines a deep moral lesson for the entire humanity. It iterates that a sinner and his
supporters shall have to pay a price for their wrongs, sooner or later. It emphasizes that
redemption lies in love, and the best way to pray to God is to love and value His creation –
birds, animals, humans and nature. Hence, ‘The Rime’ is regarded as a didactic or an
allegorical work.
9.4. Origin of the Poem
The idea of writing “The Rime of Ancient Mariner” came from the poet’s friend Mr John
Cruikshank who shared a dream about a man suffering from a dire curse for having
committed some crime and about a skeleton ship with figures. When Coleridge revealed this
dream to Wordsworth, the latter found it to be a perfect subject for Coleridge’s poetic genius to
work on. Consequently, on 20 November 1797, the plan of writing The Rime of Ancient Mariner
was finalized during a walk. In the next few months, with his fertile imagination, vast
knowledge of historical sea voyages and unmatched poetic genius, Coleridge converted this
vague dream into his most remarkable contribution to English poetry. He presented the
finished text to William and Dorothy Wordsworth on 23 March 1798.
In Chapter XIV of his Biographia Literaria, Coleridge affirms that both he and Wordsworth had
agreed to contribute two different kinds of poems in their joint publication – Lyrical Ballads –
to liberate the 18th century poetry from artificiality and monotony. While the latter was to focus
on Nature, Coleridge was assigned the responsibility of writing poems about “persons and
characters supernatural, or at least, romantic.” ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ fulfilled
these requisites perfectly.
9.5. Defining the Ballad
As told earlier, “The Rime of Ancient Mariner” is spread across nearly 625 lines which are
divided into seven parts of varying lengths, and is written in the form of a ballad. A Ballad may
be defined as a narrative poem with an abrupt beginning, written generally in a simple
language to tell some story tersely through dialogue and action. This verse form was adapted
for singing or recitation of some interesting or dramatic event in a simple narrative form. In
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many regions, the ballads constitute the earliest form of narrative verses which were prevalent
even before the written word was fully developed.
Derived from a Latin word ballare which means ‘to dance,’ the ballad is a form of traditional
narrative poetry which was widespread in Europe and has had a long past. Majority of English
ballads date back to the 15 th century, however there are some which describe even earlier
events. According to J. A. Cuddon, “The ballad poet drew his raw material from the community
life, from local and national history, from legend and folklore. Hs tales are usually of
adventure, war, love, death and the supernatural” (Cuddon 73).
There are generally two kinds of ballads -- the Folk/Traditional ballad which is anonymous
and transmitted orally from one generation of semi-literate or illiterate people (especially in the
rural backgrounds) to the next over centuries. In almost every country, the folk ballads were
the earliest forms of literature narrating tales of adventure, tragedy or valour of some popular
regional or local figure. Some of the traditional ballads include The Elfin Knight, The Cruel
Mother, The Demon Lover and The Two Sisters.
The other kind is called the Literary Ballad which is not anonymous and is written by a poet in
its typical narrative style and is inspired by the themes and structure of folk ballads. Poets
across ages have imitated popular traditional English and Scottish ballads. It was revived in
the 18th century by the Romantic poets in both, England and Germany. Some of the most well-
known ballads at the turn of the 18 th century include S T Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner; John Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci and Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol.
9.6. Summary and Critical Analysis of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Part I: The opening section of the poem lays the foundation of the narrative. In the typical style
of a ballad, ‘The Rime’ opens abruptly when a guest along with his friends is stopped outside
the gate of the venue of a wedding by an old man with “a long beard and glittering eye.” The
guest is annoyed and eager to escape his grip so as to enjoy the feast, fun and music at the
wedding. But the old man holds him back with his skinny hand and begins saying, “There was
a ship.” When the guest protests, the old man drops his hand but holds him captive with his
hypnotic gaze, forcing him to surrender to his will. Consequently, the wedding guest stands
still, as if spellbound, like a child eager to listen to an engrossing story. The rest of the poem
is the old mariner’s narration of the magical tale of his own experience. The Mariner’s tale
pertains to a ship which sets sail towards South with 200 sailors on board amidst loud
cheering of onlookers and a fine supportive weather. The wedding guest, who has no interest in
it, gets restless once again and makes another futile attempt to escape, but the old man’s
bright eyes hold him rooted and he continues the story.
The beginning of the voyage is marked by a favourable sun and breeze. But as it progresses,
the weather takes a turn and the ship is overtaken by a severe storm which brings mist, snow
and sharp cold in its wake, and drives the ship into the cold regions of southern end.
Surrounded by frozen sea and frozen silence, the sailors can see nothing except a white shroud
of snow spread all around them. Suddenly, to everyone’s surprise, a large sea bird, an
Albatross, emerges from the thick fog. It lands on the ship and wins the favour of all the
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sailors. They call out to him and feed him like a pet. As the weather begins to improve, they
hail it as a Christian spirit, a good omen, which has brought favourable winds to take them
northwards. Their companionship lasts for nine days, for on the tenth day, the Mariner, with
no apparent motive, shoots the bird down with his crossbow.
Critical Analysis:
The story which begins in an ordinary way about a journey of sailors soon enters the world of
the supernatural with the dramatic entry of albatross that materializes from the fog and enjoys
the hospitality of the sailors only to be killed wantonly by the Mariner. Thus the opening
section of the poem which begins with wedding festivities ends, quite paradoxically and
shockingly, with a murder.
Following the conventions of a typical ballad, Coleridge employs various devices to create the
desired impact on his readers, for instance, he uses repetition of “glittering eye” and “bright-
eyed” very effectively to draw attention to the snaring power of the old Mariner’s gaze, and “the
Wedding guest beat his chest” to show his helplessness. Similarly, to create a frightening world
of cold and mystery, Coleridge makes a brilliant use of repetition of words, sounds and images,
for instance:
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
Personification, which is a popular poetic device, is applied to allot attributes of a living being
to the storm and is projected as a malevolent force targeting the Mariner’s ship that appears
more like a victim pursued by a violent enemy.
And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
As the story of the sailor progresses, Coleridge, in the characteristic Gothic style, creates a
gripping atmosphere of fear, anxiety, uncertainty and imminent danger through a series of
vivid images of emerald ice, mist and snow, wondrous cold, snowy cliffs, ice splitting with
thunder, shroud, dense fog and many more. The opening part of the poem begins dramatically
and ends the same way with a confession of a crime. Though his motive is not clear, it is
evident that by killing an innocent bird, the Mariner has broken a sacred law of God and life.
Part II: The old Mariner continues the tale of their journey which has progressed in favourable
conditions, though without the presence of the Albatross. The sailors on board condemn the
killing of the bird of good omen, but when the weather clears and a bright sun begins to shine
in the sky, they too approve of the Mariner’s action and thus, become his accomplices in crime.
Hereafter, when they enter the Pacific Ocean, the wind drops, the sky becomes “hot and
copper” and the sun turns “bloody.” Despite their best efforts, the ship does not move. It
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becomes stagnant for days and the crew runs out of drinking water. In the unbearable sun,
the sea also begins to rot and resembles “a witch’s oil” with slimy things crawling on its
surface. Death flies (a kind of fish which emits a strange light) dance around them filling them
all with horror and revulsion. The sailors feel as if their ship has been held captive by some
malevolent spirit which has followed them to avenge the killing of the innocent bird. Now they
begin to accuse the Mariner of murder and hold him responsible for their miseries. To express
their anger, they remove the Cross from round his neck and hang the dead albatross instead
as a reminder of his brutal act.
Critical Analysis:
Part II of the poem reveals that the ship has passed Cape Horn, the southernmost part of
South America and is moving northwards closer to the Equator in the Pacific ocean. The sun is
capitalized in this section and accorded a symbolic meaning as an instrument of punishment.
The Sun which was warm, bright and gentle in the beginning of the journey now becomes
unbearable and torturous. Coleridge applies his knowledge of Geography most effectively by
charting the course of the ship across different latitudinal and climatic zones and providing
exact details of the conditions which prevail therein. While mist, fog and frozen snow
characterize the ship’s entry into the frigid polar region of the South Pole in Part I, harsh
“bloody” sun, “copper sky” and arid weather marks the equatorial region where the Mariner’s
ship is headed in Part II.
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
A unique feature of the poem is the symbolic value that Coleridge attaches to various elements
of Nature. The sun, the moon, the wind and the sea all acquire new meanings, shades and
characteristics in new situations. The sun which is warm, bright and glorious “like God’s own
head” in the beginning of the tale turns unkind, “bloody” and inhospitable after the crime. In
fact, Coleridge uses it as an instrument of torture and punishment. According to Robert Penn
Warren, the sun and the moon also exist in a symbolic contrast with each other. He avers, “Not
only is the moon associated with the bird, but the wind also. Upon the bird’s advent, a “good
south wind sprung up behind.” And so we have the creative wind, the friendly bird, the
moonlight of imagination, all together in one symbolic cluster” (Halmi et al. 677).
The retribution for the crime committed in the opening section begins in the second part. The
suffering of the thirsty men is brought out through vivid images that are disturbing and
horrifying.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
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Equally brilliant is Coleridge’s use of colour imagery. If the sky is copper, and the sun, bloody
red, water which resembles the “witch’s oil” burns “green, blue, and white.” Evidently, the
absence of the Albatross hailed by sailors in God’s name as “a Christian soul” brings
inhospitable conditions for the sailors. While the bird is viewed as a symbol of good luck, its
dead body which is hung round the Mariner’s neck at the end of the second section, becomes a
symbol of his sin.
Part III: The third part of the poem further conveys the horrifying plight of the sailors who are,
by this time, absolutely exhausted by the inhospitable weather. The brutal sun has not only
parched their throats but also dried up the wooden boards of the ship. One day, while gazing
hopelessly at the western sky, the Mariner sees something in the distance which begins to take
shape as it approaches them. What appears to be a mere speck turns out to be a ship much to
his delight. Desperate to share the happy news of a ship approaching to rescue them, he bites
his arm and sucks his blood to moisten his parched lips and tongue. A wave of happiness
spreads as the announcement revives the hope of their rescue. However, it turns out to be a
phantom ship, occupied by a crew of two grotesque female figures – Death and Life-in-Death –
who are seen playing a game of dice on the deck. Needless to say, in this strange game, the
crew of the ship is at stake. The Mariner is condemned to a Life-in-Death while his fellow
sailors fall in the lot of Death. Consequently, they begin to drop down as lifeless lumps one
after the other, and their souls whiz past him like arrows.
Critical Analysis:
The third section of the poem reveals the Mariner’s realization of his sin. It also brings out the
seemingly endless suffering and exhaustion of the sailors vividly through the device of
repetition:
There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye,
Their abject helplessness and physical discomfort captured in the inhuman act of biting one’s
own flesh to moisten one’s parched tongue and lips is conveyed very effectively in the following
lines:
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!
As the punishment of the sailors grows unbearable and their plight becomes pitiable, the poet
introduces a supernatural twist in the tale in the form of a spectre ship which moves even
without any breeze as if driven by some spirit. The suspense which Coleridge builds gradually
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in the poem seems to reach its climax in this section with the description of the uncanny crew
of two female figures on board the spectre ship whom Coleridge presents symbolically as Death
and Life-in-Death. Both are seen playing dice on the death to decide the fate of the en on
board. The description of their figures adds to the horror of the readers:
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.
The appearance of the ship which arouses some hope of rescue extinguishes it almost
immediately when Life-in-Death wins the Mariner, subjecting him to a life-long punishment,
while all the sailors fall in the lot of Death. Thus, at the end of the section, while the Mariner
watches helplessly, all his fellow sailors drop down dead one after the other. “The night in
which the Mariner’s companions die symbolizes the darkness in the soul when it suddenly
finds itself alone and robbed of familiar ties” (Bowra 70).
Part IV: This section depicts the alienation and lonely suffering of the Mariner. Having been
condemned to life-in-death, the Mariner is left alone on the ship with the dead bodies of his
fellow sailors scattered around him and staring him with a curse in their eyes. Their
unblinking accusing gaze and his abject loneliness torment the Mariner’s soul. Since he has
sinned against God’s creation as well as God, he feels alienated from both of them. It fills him
with self-disgust. His inability to pray worsens his plight for he cannot even die. Overcome with
an intense spiritual anguish, he hopelessly watches from the deck of the ship water snakes
swimming freely in the sea, making startling patterns with their multi-hued skins shining in
the moonlit water. The mesmerizing sight fascinates him and fills his heart with love and
appreciation for them. He marvels at their beauty and blesses them unknowingly. Immediately,
the heavy burden of the dead Albatross hanging round his neck falls down and sinks into the
sea. The same moment, he is able to pray.
Critical Analysis:
The section showcases loneliness as the worst kind of punishment a man undergoes.
Surrounded by the rotting sea and the corpses of his fellow sailors with curse in their eyes, the
Mariner suffers for his sin alone. He is cut off from all human interaction. In fact, even nature
seems angry and detached. His alienation from life, nature and God resultant from his heinous
crime is presented and re-enforced by Coleridge brilliantly through repetition.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
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Unlike his fellow soldiers, he cannot even die. Thus, his agony is not merely physical, but also
spiritual. However, his instinctive response to the beauty of sea snakes in the form of
appreciation and blessings dispels the curse, and he begins to mend his broken relationships.
This is symbolized by the dropping and sinking of the dead Albatross into the sea.

O happy living things! no tongue

Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
The moment he blesses them, God blesses him with His kindness. Liberated from the burden
of his crime, he is finally able to pray and heal his tormented soul. Evidently, the moral of the
poem which is integral to its theme, is affirmed in this section. Coleridge seems to convey the
message that “Love begets love, kindness begets kindness.”
Part V: In this section of the poem the process of Mariner’s spiritual regeneration continues.
Alone and thirsty on the deck, surrounded by corpses of his fellowmen for seven days and
nights, he has not been able to sleep at all. However, after he blesses the snakes, he is not only
able to sleep and pray, but is also comforted by the long awaited rain which drenches him and
quenches his thirst. He is revived physically and spiritually.
Meanwhile a storm begins to roar far away in the sky but its thunder makes the ship move
forth. As he watches lightning and downpour from a thick dark cloud in the distance, the
moon peers out of its hiding signifying hope and the ship moves on steadily and silently.
Gradually, the dead on the deck begin to rise, animated by “a troop of spirits” and start
steering the ship, raising “their limbs like lifeless tools.” Imagining this ghastly sight, the
Wedding guest who has been listening to the Mariner’s story with rapt attention, feels scared.
However, the old man, continuing his strange tale, reveals that not souls but a troop of
celestial spirits had entered the bodies of the dead men to manage the ropes of the ship. At
dawn, they begin to sing sweet songs and resemble a chorus of angels. Heavenly music
pervades the atmosphere much to the delight of the Mariner. Though there is no breeze, the
ship moves on steadily till noon as if driven by some spirit, only to stop when the music
ceases.
In a sudden movement, the ship bounces forward and backward, throwing the Mariner on the
deck in a swoon. As he lies unconscious on the ground, he hears two voices – of the Spirit of
Justice and the Spirit of Mercy -- debating about him and his sin. While one feels that he has
done enough penance through punishment, the other feels that he needs to repent more.
Critical Analysis:
This section of the poem marks the beginning of the Mariner’s regeneration. By blessing the
sea snakes unintentionally, he exhibits a heart that is kind and loving. The sin of Albatross’
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murder is absolved, but partially. A rejuvenating rain follows a refreshing sleep. Though he is
no longer alone on the deck, yet the company he has got is from beyond the realm of humans
and hence, terrifying. He is on way to recovery, but he still has penance to do. The strange and
erratic movement of the ship which leads to his unconscious state; the dead men rising and
the clearly audible debate between two voices are clever manipulations of the supernatural by
Coleridge to show that the Mariner’s penance is not yet over. He creates a Gothic atmosphere
soaked in horror to showcase the Mariner’s predicament in the following lines pertaining to the
dead sailors:
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.
The section also offers an insight into Coleridge’s love for nature and his ability to capture its
varied sounds which he blends them seamlessly with the atmosphere of mystery and fantasy
as is evident in the following lines:
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

Part VI: In this section too, the suffering of the Mariner continues. As he lies unconscious,
two voices continue to talk for a while and make the ship move at a very fast pace but when he
gains consciousness, it slows down. In the moonlit night, he is once again haunted by the
accusing eyes of the dead sailors surrounding him. However, its spell finally snaps and a
gentle breeze begins to soothe his agonized spirit, and the ship begins to move at a fast pace.
He is overjoyed to see the top of a lighthouse and a Church in the distance. Scared that this
may also be a dream, he begins to cry and pray to God, for in front of his eyes lies his
homeland, the shore from where he had stated this torturous journey.
Almost simultaneously, all the angelic spirits leave the dead bodies and stand in their own
form along the deck of the ship, shining in a bright light, waving their hands as if to draw
attention of the men on land. Luckily, a pilot on the shore sees their signal and rows out
towards the ship with his son and a hermit in his boat to rescue the crew. The Mariner is
happy to see the Hermit, for he would cleanse his soul and absolve it of sin.

Critical Analysis:
The section shows Coleridge’s unmatched talent in transforming the unreal into seemingly
real, and the impossible into plausible. Instead of creating a world dominated by ghosts or
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maniacs, he creates spirits who, according to C M Bowra, “watch over the good and evil actions
of men and requite them with appropriate rewards and punishment” (Bowra 55). We find that
the Mariner suffers pangs of guilt and remorse for his thoughtless and immoral act. He is filled
with self-disgust by the accusing eyes of his dead comrades. His spiritual agony is brought out
beautifully by Coleridge in the following lines:
The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

He feels as if some fearful fiend of vengeance is chasing him. This makes him restless -
Like one, that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
Coleridge shows how remorse and guilt bring humility and repentance which eventually win
him forgiveness. This is evident from the snapping of the final spell following which he has a
vision of angelic forms standing close to the corpses. When he has done the penance, the
supernatural powers which had punished him earlier, now send signals for his rescue in the
form of the seraph-band and draw the attention of the Pilot on the shore. Coleridge also
establishes the spiritual transformation of the Mariner who is delighted to see the Hermit who
would save his soul -
He will shrieve my soul, he’ll wash away
The Albatross’s blood.
Part VII: As the skiff boat with the Pilot, his son and the Hermit near the ship, they are
surprised to find that the bright lights which had drawn their attention had vanished. The
fiendish look of the ship scares them but they approach it on the insistence of the Hermit. As
the boat nears, the ship splits into two with a loud thundering sound and sinks like lead while
the stunned Mariner is pulled into the boat. As he tries to speak, the pilot, mistaking him for a
ghost, faints; the Pilot boy goes crazy while the Hermit begins to pray, forcing the Mariner to
row the boat himself. Once they reach the land, the Mariner narrates his agonizing tale of guilt
and suffering to the holy man and urges him to “shrieve” him.
The old man tells the Wedding guest that since then he has been moving from place to place,
driven by a “strange power of speech,” looking for an appropriate listener to share his story
with. The memory of his hideous act becomes so insistent that that he feels impelled to give
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utterance to it so as to seek relief. This is the penance he has to undergo all through his life.
Hence, he has narrated his tale to the Wedding Guest.
As the wedding festivities get over and evening bells are heard, the Mariner begins to walk with
him towards the Church and before bidding him goodbye shares the moral of his life-changing
story with the Wedding guest – that we must love and be kind to God’s creation – great or
small. To love His creation is to love God. With these words the Mariner goes away, and the
Wedding guest, left “stunned” and “forlorn” also returns home, a much “sadder and wiser
man.”
Critical Analysis:
The last part brings the Mariner’s wondrous tale to its end as he reaches his home country. He
meets the Holy Hermit and confesses his guilt. His soul is shriven and he is restored among
his fellow beings. With the sinking of the ship, though the traces of his sin, suffering and
horrifying experience are obliterated, his punishment of Life-in-Death continues. The memory
of his past still haunts him and compels him to roam from place to place and share his story
with others.
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
The Mariner is finally rescued and brought back to the civilization, his home country, to share
his life changing story of spiritual regeneration with those who will understand it and practice
it. It is through the narration of his tale to the Wedding-guest that Coleridge leads his readers
to his message and moral lesson:
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
Thus, the poem ends with a message of universal love. It also shows that the
“forgiveness of God awaits even the most hard-hearted sinners if they will only be ready to
receive it” (Bowra 71).
9.7. Summary
In this chapter you have read about Coleridge’s most well-known poem “The Rime of Ancient
Mariner” in a comprehensive manner. Apart from acquainting you with the literary genre of
Ballad, the chapter carries section-wise paraphrase of the poem. You have also been provided
with a detailed critical analysis of the same which covers varied aspects of the poem. This shall
enable you to handle various questions based on the text. The chapter also includes a list of
difficult words which appear in the text along with their meanings. The second part of the list
is included in the next lesson. Students are requested to also read the books listed at the end
of the chapter.
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Self-Assessment Questions:

1. Give the name of Coleridge’s literary biography.

2. Who is the narrator in the poem and to whom is he narrating his tale?

3. What appeared from the thick fog?

4. What was the tragic event that proved to be the turning point in the journey?

5. When did the dead Albatross fall in the sea?

6. Describe the crew of the phantom ship.

7. Who saved the Mariner from drowning?

8. What happened to the Mariner’s ship?

9. What was the parting message of the old Mariner to the Wedding guest?

10. Describe the impact of the Mariner’s story on the Wedding guest.

9.8. Glossary
1. Rime: a story in verse. (Rime is the old spelling of Rhyme)
2. Ancient: old (both in time and age)
3. kin: relatives
4. Quoth: said (archaic expression)
5. Eftsoons: soon after, immediately
6. Kirk: church
7. Bassoon: a musical instrument
8. Prow: front part of the ship
9. Emerald: a precious stone, deep green in colour
10. Clifts: cliffs
11. Swound: old/archaic form of swoon.
12. Albatross: a large sea-bird
13. Vespers: evenings; here, evening prayers
14. Uprist: up rose
15. Death fires: the phosphorescent light emitted by a ‘fire-fish’ which forebodes
death.
9.9. References
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 Bowra, C. M. The Romantic Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.

 Cuddon, J. A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New Delhi:
Maya Blackwell, 1998.
 Halmi, Nicholas, Paul Magnuson and Raimonda Modiano. Eds. Coleridge’s Poetry
and Prose. USA: W W Norton, 2004.
9.10. Further Reading
 Bloom, Harold. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. New
York: Chelsea House, 1986.
 Bowra, C. M. The Romantic Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.
 Cliffs, Englewood. Ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1969.
 Cuddon, J. A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New Delhi:
Maya Blackwell, 1998.
 Halmi, Nicholas, Paul Magnuson and Raimonda Modiano. Eds. Coleridge’s Poetry
and Prose. New York: WW Norton, 2004.
 Newlyn, Lucy. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge. England: Cambridge
University Press, 2002.
9.11. Model Questions
1. Discuss the major theme of the poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.’
2. Write a note on the main features of Coleridge’s poetic style.
3. Trace the Romantic elements in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Answers to Self-Assessment Questions

1. Biographia Literaria.

2. The old Mariner is narrating his tale to a wedding guest.

3. An Albatross.

4. The mindless killing of the innocent Albatross.

5. When the Mariner blessed the sea snakes shining in the sea water.

6. The Phantom ship carried Death and Life-in-Death.

7. The Pilot, his son and the Hermit saved the Mariner from drowning.

8. What happened to the Mariner’s ship?

9. That true worship of God is to love his creatures – big or small.

10. The Wedding guest returned home a sadder and wiser man.
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*****

Lesson 10

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER-II

Structure
10.0. Objectives
10.1. Introduction
10.2. The Supernatural and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
10.2.1. What is Supernatural?
10.2.2. Coleridge and the Gothic
10.2.3. Treatment of Supernatural Elements
10.3. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” as a Didactic or Moralistic Poem
10.4. Summary
10.5. Glossary
10.6. References
10.7. Further Readings
10.8. Model Questions

10.0. Objectives
Dear students, after reading this lesson you will be able to:
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 appreciate Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner from various standpoints
 discuss the supernatural elements inherent in the poem
 study its relation with the Gothic literature
 analyse it as a Moralistic or Didactic Poem
 understand the varied aspects of Coleridge’s poetic style
10.1. Introduction
Regarded as a true representative of the Romantic Era and all that it stood for, Coleridge’s
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is highly valued for its brilliant use of Supernatural
elements which is unique in many ways. The poem is also hailed as an Allegory or a Didactic
Poem for the moral lesson it conveys with absolute clarity and conviction. The poet’s love of
nature and fertile imagination blended seamlessly with his simple language, vivid imagery and
superb narrative skill render an unmatched quality to his literary style. All these features lend
an enviable place to Coleridge in the annals of English Poetry. This lesson deals with the
various supernatural elements that mark the poem, and its major thematic concerns.
10.2. The Supernatural and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
10.2.1. What is Supernatural?
Dear students, before we discuss the Supernatural elements in the poem, it is important to
understand the term and its history. The word ‘Supernatural’ refers to something which is
beyond the limits or realm of the natural; events which defy direct explanation by known or
established norms or laws. According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the word
refers to “those events, forces or powers that cannot be explained by the laws of science.” It is
synonymous with ‘Paranormal’—something beyond the normal, hence beyond human
understanding. It can also be described as something that we see or hear but the source of
which remains undiscovered or unknown to us. There are numerous manifestations or forms
of the supernatural which have fascinated man over the ages such as occult, mysticism,
magic, necromancy etc.
The supernatural has been an inseparable part of English literature since the beginning. Its
presence is clearly visible in fairy tales (for instance The Arabian Nights and Grimm’s Fairy
Tales) as well as poetry including Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Milton’s Paradise
Lost, John Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci, Walter de la Mare’s The Listeners and many more.
10.2.2. Coleridge and the Gothic
In fiction, the supernatural is most prominently seen in the Gothic Romances which flourished
in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. These works dated back to the medieval times and
were situated in old dilapidated buildings and haunted castles. They aimed to grip the
attention of the reader by creating an atmosphere of fear, darkness, mystery and the uncanny.
Scenes of graves, cemetery and churchyards were common to all such works as was violence,
murder, madness, overwhelming desire for revenge and death. Some of the most well-known
Gothic works of the times include Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, M G Lewis’ The Monk, W. W. Jacob’s The
Monkey’s Paw, H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man etc.
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By the time S T Coleridge came into prominence on the literary scene, the cult of the
supernatural popularized by the Gothic fiction was already on the decline but the idea
fascinated him and he saw immense possibilities hidden in it to be exploited in poetry. It
appealed to his creative genius and led to the creation of his finest works including
Cristabel, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan.
When William Wordsworth and Coleridge conceived the idea of their joint poetic venture Lyrical
Ballads, it was mutually agreed that while the former would aim at capturing the everyday life
and nature, the latter would direct his endeavours to persons and characters supernatural, so
as “to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to
procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment
which constitutes poetic faith” (Coleridge 6). By the time Coleridge began to write, the cult of
Gothic romances was on the downward slide. Though his own interest lay in the world of
mystery and unknown, he had a daunting task in front of him. Not only was he to write a
supernatural poem, but also make it relatable to human experience and acceptable to the
readers. The challenge lay in blending the unreal with the real, paranormal with the normal.
However, he succeeded in harmonizing the two as no one else has.
Unlike the practitioners of the Gothic art, he aroused thrill and fascination rather than fear
and revulsion. Discarding the traditional ghastly and blood curdling incidents which
characterized the Gothic literature, he gave a new shape, polish and shine to it by replacing its
crudeness with suggestiveness. The sheer horror and hideous monstrosity was replaced by an
aesthetic mysticism. A unique feature of Coleridge’s use of the supernatural was to integrate it
with human condition. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is not about the horror that the
Mariner experienced on the sea, it is about preserving and practicing human values like love,
pity and kindness, and following the moral path. Thus while the works of Monk Lewis and
Horace Walpole appear crude and artificial at times, Coleridge’s presentation and treatment of
the supernatural is realistic and aesthetic. He adopted the narrative method to present a series
of incredible events which present a profound criticism of life. In his conquest of the unknown,
he shunned the commonplace. Though a work of pure imagination, The Rime gradually widens
its thematic scope, includes characters, locations and events which defy the Gothic
conventions.
10.2.3. Treatment of Supernatural Elements
As already stated, instances of mystery and supernaturalism are woven brilliantly
within the theme and structure of The Rime of Ancient Mariner which narrates a fantastic story
of an adventurous voyage undertaken by nearly two hundred sailors including the narrator,
addressed by Coleridge as Mariner. Though the journey begins in favourable conditions, the
crew faces many vagaries of weather till a mystical albatross appears from amidst the
engulfing fog and snow in the south. Coleridge deepens the impact of this bird by associating it
with a Christian spirit of good omen and conducive weather conditions which persist even after
its murder. However, when the crew becomes an accomplice in the crime by validating its
killing, conditions begin to take a turn as if some supernatural power controls them. While the
sun begins to turn unbearable, the sea begins to rot and the death-fires dance around the ship
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as if predicting some ominous consequence of the sin committed by the Mariner and approved
by his fellowmen.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.
Thus with his fertile imagination Coleridge creates a fascinating world that appears both
mysterious and possible. There are several references to some strange spirit which seems to
have followed the ship “nine fathom deep … From the land of mist and snow” and holds it
captive in inhospitable conditions.
In the third section, Coleridge introduces a phantom ship, “a certain shape …/A speck, a mist,
a shape,” and the horrifying figures of Death and Life in Death on board playing a game of dice
to decide the fate of the sinners.
Her lips were red, her looks were free.
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.
The vivid description of these paranormal beings thickens the blood of readers as much as that
of the Mariner. However, as soon as their ghastly game is over, the fate of the sailors is sealed.
While the Mariner is condemned to suffer Life-in-Death existence as his punishment, other
sailors, having been won by death, start dropping dead one by one. Consequently, the Mariner
is left alone amidst the vast rotting sea and two hundred corpses to mourn and repent alone.
Unable to pray, he is deprived of all hope of salvation.
He is, however, saved by an act as involuntary as his earlier crime. When he instinctively
blesses the sea- snakes, shining in the moonlight, the spell of the curse breaks, and the dead
Albatross falls off his neck into the sea. Immediately, he is able to pray. His act of feeling and
kindness is rewarded with a refreshing sleep and blessed rain. Partly absolved of his sin, he is
almost instantly, able to re-establish his relationship with God. But Coleridge creates a surreal
world by reviving the corpses of Mariner’s fellow sailors. Much to the wonderment of the
Mariner and the readers, the dead men begin to rise. Animated by “a troop of spirits blest,”
these men begin to row the ship, and continue to do so throughout the still night.
The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up blew;
The mariners all ’gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools -
We were a ghastly crew.
The uncanny scene disturbs not only the Wedding guest but also the readers. At dawn, they all
stop working and begin to emit sweet sounds which fill the Mariner’s mind with sweet
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pleasure.
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard a skylark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!
Later, when the Mariner falls unconscious due to the jerky movement of the ship, he hears two
voices belonging to two heavenly spirits—the spirit of Justice and the Spirit of Mercy—debating
about his fate. Coleridge employs these two supernatural voices to convey to his readers that
the Mariner’s penance shall continue. When finally, the magical spell breaks, he sees his
motherland in the distance. Once again, a group of heavenly spirits comes to his help.

The seraph band, each waved his hand:

It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light.
Thus the seraph band paves the way for the Mariner’s rescue by attracting the attention of the
Pilot. His return to the human world is in contrast with his departure from it a few months
back. The ship having been a site of many unearthly experiences is no longer fit for the human
world. Hence, it splits into two and sinks while the Mariner, rescued by the Pilot and shriven
by the Holy Hermit, lives on like a timeless ghostly figure roaming from one place to another
narrating his unusual experiences.
I pass like night from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.
Thus in the poem, Coleridge leads us from the real world of sailors to a remote imaginary one
with such conviction as if he has visited it himself. Graphic description and vivid imagery
transport the readers to a fascinating world of his fertile imagination. He also possesses the
unusual gift of evoking the mystery inherent in people and things by lending them symbolic
value. The ancient Mariner, for instance, is presented as a mysterious character through
repeated references to his glittering eyes which hypnotize the Wedding guest, his skinny hands
and long grey beard. Similarly, the varied moods and colours of nature also add to the
supernatural atmosphere that pervades the entire poem. The wind, the sun, the sky, the stars
and the sea assume mysterious characters in varied circumstances. The inhospitability of the
sun and the winds after the crime enhance the grimness of the Mariner’s act. The sea begins to
rot while slimy things crawl on its sticky surface which resembles a witch’s oil. These
mysterious scenes are reminiscent of Kubla Khan, in which the “romantic chasm” is lent a
touch of mystery through “a woman wailing for her demon lover.” However, The Rime is not
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dominated by ghosts or machining persons but by “powers who watch over the good and evil
actions of men and requite them with appropriate rewards and punishment” (Bowra 55).
What makes Coleridge’s treatment of the supernatural in The Rime of Ancient Mariner unique is
his rejection of the crude and the gross. In fact, his depiction of mystery, suspense and
paranormal is suggestive. Instead of providing horrifying details, he calls into play the
imagination of his readers. He presents a vivid picture of the unearthly figures playing dice on
the phantom ship through a clever use of similes and colours – red, yellow, gold and white – in
the following lines:
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold;
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The nightmare Life-in-Death was she
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.
Here, Coleridge allows the reader’s imagination to visualize the dreadfulness of Death and Life-
in-Death while he focuses on capturing the impact of their fearsome looks on the Mariner and
his men: “Fear at my heart, as at a cup;/ My life-blood seemed to sip.” Even while describing
the death of his fellow sailors, one after the other, he avoids ugly details and presents the
uncanny event in the following words:
Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.
Thus, Coleridge defies the Gothic tradition of creating an atmosphere seeped in horror, terror
and revulsion through gruesome details of death, dead bodies and ghosts as practiced by
Horace Walpole, Monk Lewis and others. In this regard, C M Bowra very aptly asserts: “In his
quest for the unknown, Coleridge went outside the commonplace thrills of horror” (Bowra 55).
In fact, by deliberately avoiding the medieval elements of magic and witchcraft, Coleridge
accords a subtle, artistic and urbane treatment to the supernatural.
Moreover, Coleridge’s supernaturalism is inseparably blended with the psychological truth. For
him, imagination existed as a vehicle of truth. Hence, he uses it very effectively to enhance the
psychological and mental condition of his protagonists and arrest the attention of his readers.
He includes it in the greater scheme of things. In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, for instance,
it is through his unmatched use of the supernatural that machinery that he is able to impart a
profound moral lesson so convincingly. He exploits the world of mystery to present an
insightful criticism of life and human nature. The extra-ordinary events of suffering leading to
confession, guilt and penance are effectively employed to convey the moral lesson of universal
love and compassion for the entire creation of God.
Noted critic C M Bowra has rightly observed in his The Romantic Imagination, “The triumph of
The Ancient Mariner is that it presents a series of incredible events through a method of
narration which makes them not only convincing and exciting but in some sense criticism of
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life. No other poet of the supernatural has quite done this, at least on such a scale and with
such abundance of authentic poetry” (Bowra 55).
Critics have hailed Coleridge as a master craftsman who introduces supernatural elements in
his works by design without any abruptness or hurry. Very skilfully, he initiates his readers
into a world of familiar places, figures and happenings, followed by a gradual and subtle
inclusion of the mysterious. By this time the reader’s sensibility is attuned to the new world
and he is able to accept readily the mythical elements woven in the narrative. Moreover, he
locates the scenes of action in distant times and remote places. In this way, he suspends the
logic which governs the familiar world of reality, and acquires the freedom to create a new logic
in the new setting which is both, fascinating and reliable. His ability to present even the
unseen and the un-experienced with absolute conviction is brilliantly displayed in This Lime-
Tree Bower, My Prison, where he imaginatively charts the entire journey of his friends through
green meadows and picturesque valleys while being confined to a chair in his own garden.
Similarly, in Kubla Khan, the pleasure dome is described with such details and vividness that
it appears real. Clearly, with his fertile imagination, Coleridge is able to transmute his readers
into an amazingly mysterious yet believable world of imagination. What lends uniqueness to
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the dramatic intrusion of the unreal into the real, mystical
into the actual and the improbable into the probable.
10.3. As a Didactic Poem/Moralistic Poem/Theme of Crime, Punishment and Retribution
The Rime of Ancient Mariner has been variously interpreted by readers, scholars and critics.
While some regard it as a ballad, others enjoy it merely as a glittering fairy tale. There are a few
who believe it to be a myth, whereas some attach a deeper moral or symbolic meaning to it and
call it an Allegorical work. A careful study of the poem reveals that it is an interesting blend of
all these elements. However, despite these diverse standpoints what remains undisputed about
The Rime is that it is a philosophical poem rooted in the theme of crime and punishment, guilt
and retribution. Presenting a unique amalgam of the romantic, the imaginary and the
supernatural, the poem delves into the philosophical issues of universal love, and preservation
of Christian values of compassion and kindness by man. The tale of the crime of one man in
the poem grows into that of every man who is guilty of such an aberration.
Ironically, there are conflicting views about its moral too. While Mrs Barbauld felt that the
poem had no moral, Coleridge averred that it was perhaps too emphatically expressed. Some
critics are of the view that the moral was not a part of the original design of the poem, and was
appended later on as an afterthought quite like the introduction of supernatural machinery in
Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock. However, Coleridge’s own confession and a close
reading of the poem clearly exhibits that the didactic element is inextricably woven within its
thematic and structural aspect right from the beginning till the final part.
The theme of crime and punishment is introduced in the opening section which ends with the
murder of the albatross – hailed by the crew as a “Christian soul” and a bird of good omen that
brought pleasant weather and clear skies along with it. It enjoys the hospitality of the sailors
like a pet for nine days till it is shot down by the Mariner with his crossbow. Though the
motive of this dastardly act is never clarified, it is certainly a wanton, irrational and perverse
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act. The killing of an innocent bird is indeed a violation of the law of love and trust. Coleridge
is said to have believed in the Neo-Platonic concept of universal brotherhood i.e. a natural law
binds all beings, big and small, in a common bond and allegiance. By killing a harmless bird,
the Mariner breaks the sacred law of life and nature. Moreover, the Albatross was like a guest
who enjoyed the hospitality of the sailors. Evidently, by killing it recklessly, the Mariner
violates the sanctified relationship between a guest and a host. At a symbolic level, therefore, it
is a crime against the ordered system of the world. Therefore, the guilty must suffer.
The Mariner’s punishment begins from the second section itself. The world he encounters after
the crime is unfriendly, loathsome and inhospitable. The sun becomes unbearable, the wind
becomes still and the ship ceases to move. The crew, which had also aligned itself with the
Mariner without judging his act on the scale of right and wrong, also suffers. They are all
tormented by an unbearable thirst. Coleridge brings out their suffering very vividly in the
following lines:
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
As the sea begins to rot, slimy creatures crawl and death fires dance around them in the water
which “burnt green, and blue, and white” like “a witch’s oils.” They are plagued by the fear of
being chased by strange spirits. The torture intensifies in the next section is beautifully
conveyed through repetition of “weary”:
There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched and glazed each eye
A weary time! A weary time!
How glazed each weary eye-
Thus, the Mariner, bent under the cumbersome burden of the dead Albatross, begins to realize
he seriousness of the “hellish thing” he has done. Evidently, the Albatross is not just a bird. It
is symbolic of some higher existence which encompasses all living creatures. Hence, in killing
it, the Mariner is guilty not only of killing a solitary bird, but of violating the sanctity of life. His
act is a breach of the principle of trust and hospitality, reminiscent of the murder of the
unsuspecting King Duncan by Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. His act, which has no
moral, religious or ethical sanction, is an act against Nature and by extension, God. Therefore,
it is unpardonable and deserving of a grave punishment. Coleridge offers an insight into his
pitiable condition when on seeing a ship, he is unable to share the news with his fellow men-
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! A sail!
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However, much to their dismay, instead of bringing any hope of rescue, the phantom ship with
its horrifying crew of Death and Life-in-Death, seals their fate. While the Mariner is condemned
to suffer a Life-in-Death existence as his punishment, other sailors, having been won by death,
start dropping dead one by one. His suffering intensifies when his fellow sailors begin to drop
dead one after the other and their souls whizz past him like his arrow which had killed the
Albatross. His abject loneliness on the ship struck in the middle of an unkind sea makes his
affliction unbearable. “The night in which the Mariner’s companions die symbolizes the
darkness in the soul when it suddenly finds itself alone and robbed of familiar ties” (Bowra 69).
Alienated from God’s pity, nature’s gentle aspects and human companionship, the Mariner
suffers alone:
Alone, alone, all, all alone
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
A strong sense of guilt grips the Mariner’s heart. Surrounded by dead bodies which stare at
him with a curse in their eyes, the Mariner realizes the enormity of his sin. Unable to pray,
sleep or die, he goes through intense torture for seven days and seven nights.
A turning point comes when, tired, beaten and broken by his fate, the Mariner watches the
water snakes shining in the moonlight and carving fascinating designs on the bright surface of
the sea. Unknowingly, he blesses them. This involuntary expression of love is instantly
rewarded. Not only is he able to pray immediately, but is also freed from the burden of the
dead Albatross hanging round neck. Prayer is followed by a refreshing sleep and rejuvenating
rain. Quite mysteriously, his ship begins to move. However, in a state of semi-consciousness,
he hears from two heavenly spirits that his penance must continue. Coleridge describes his
predicament vividly through a simile of a man, who-
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
Thus, tormented constantly by fear and memories of the past, the Mariner is unable to find
peace. As the poem progresses, we find that his torment is not merely physical but also
spiritual. Remorse leads him towards humility, self-loathing and repentance. In this state of
purgation, divine spirits appear to engineer his restoration to the human world. Hence, finally
when the spell breaks, he is able to see his homeland, and is rescued. Although his soul is
shriven by the Hermit and the retribution seems over, yet his penance continues. “In the last
section, the guilty man has been shriven and restored to a place among living men. Most of the
visible traces of his crime have been obliterated, but his punishment of life-in-death is still at
work. Since he has committed a hideous act, the Mariner will never be the man he was. He
has his special past and his special doom” (Bowra 71). Henceforth, he is unable to go back to
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his former life or self, for the entire experience haunts him and torments his soul constantly.
He finds relief only when he narrates his mysterious and horrifying tale to others and warns
them against committing a similar sin. Like a ghost, the Mariner moves from place to place,
telling his tale and its lesson to select listeners.
Since then, on an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly story is told,
This heart within me burns.
While narrating his story the Mariner also voices Coleridge’s moral steeped in the Christian
ideology explicitly in the final section. Rooted in the ideal of universal love, kindness and
compassion, it clarifies that, “He prayeth well, who loveth well/Both man and bird and beast.”
It also defines the ideal form of prayer:
He prayeth well, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
The didactic element or the moral lesson woven inextricably within the thematic and
supernatural structure of the poem reveals that in the moral world of Coleridge, there are
“powers who watch over the good and evil actions of man and requite them with appropriate
rewards and punishment” (Bowra 55). The poem also establishes the moral idea that just as
not sin can escape punishment, no good deed ever goes unrewarded. This is vindicated by the
Mariner’s own ethical journey from an unbearable punishment for his crime against an
innocent bird to redemption through a single act of love and kindness extended to the sea
snakes.
Thus, The Rime of Ancient Mariner brings out Coleridge’s own vision of human existence, and
also conveys his personal philosophy of the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of all
Creation. Though a product of pure and fertile imagination, The Rime, quite paradoxically,
presents a world which appears unreal yet real; fictitious yet convincing. By blending its moral
element inseparably with the supernatural design of the poem, Coleridge has certainly
“widened its scope and created something much richer and more human” (Bowra 55).
Moreover, the introduction of the grave questions and fundamental issues of human life - of
crime and punishment, of right and wrong, of sin and redemption - saves The Rime from
becoming a mere fairy tale. C M Bowra has very aptly summed up the essence and moral of the
poem in the following words: “The poem is a myth of a guilty soul and marks in clear stages
the passage from crime to such redemption as is possible in this world” (Bowra 71).
Self-Assessment Questions
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Fill in the given blanks with appropriate words

1. The theme of The Rime is crime and -------------------.

2. The Rime first appeared in the anthology --------------------------.

3. The Rime is a romantic ------------------.

4. Like Kubla Khan and Cristabel, The Rime is known for its -------------------elements.

5. The suffering of the Mariner is not just physical but also -------------------.

10.4. Summary
Dear students, in this lesson you have studied how Coleridge has employed various
supernatural elements in ‘The Rime’ to convey his personal philosophy steeped in the
Christian thought. It also brings to you the diverse thematic concerns which lend this poem its
didactic or moralistic strain. The lesson also delves into various aspects of Coleridge’s distinct
poetic style which includes a brilliant use of imagery, colours, symbols, personification,
repetition, and similes to convey his ideas.
10.5. Glossary
Veer: turn about, change direction
The naked hulk: the phantom ship
Clomb: climbed
The horned moon: the crescent moon
Reek: to smell badly
The selfsame moment: immediately, instantly
Dank: wet, damp
Cleft: split into two
Crag: a steep rough rock
Jag: break
Corses: corpses, dead bodies
Shrieve: to absolve, to free
Ivy tod: ivy (a flower) bush
Vesper bell: bell announcing evening service
10.6. References
 Bloom, Harold. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. New
York: Chelsea House, 1986.
 Bowra, C. M. The Romantic Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.
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 Cliffs, Englewood. Ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1969.
10.7. Further Readings
 Cuddon, J. A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. New Delhi:
Maya Blackwell, 1998.
 Halmi, Nicholas, Paul Magnuson and Raimonda Modiano. Eds. Coleridge’s Poetry
and Prose. New York: WW Norton, 2004.
 Newlyn, Lucy. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge. England: Cambridge
University Press, 2002.

Answers to SAQs

1. The theme of The Rime is crime and punishment.

2. The Rime first appeared in the anthology Lyrical Ballads.

3. The Rime is a romantic ballad.

4. Like Kubla Khan and Cristabel, The Rime is known for its supernatural elements.

5. The suffering of the Mariner is not just physical but also spiritual.

10.8. Model Questions

1. How does “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” explore penance and redemption?
2. Discuss the treatment of Nature in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
3. Discuss the supernatural elements in the poem.

****
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Lesson 11

CHARLES LAMB: AN INTRODUCTION

Structure
11.0 Objectives
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Introduction to the Essay
11.2.1 Definition
11.2.2 History of the Essay as a Literary Genre
11.3 About the Author
11.3.1 Biography
11.3.2 Style of Writing
11.3.3 Notable Works
11.3.4 Essays of Elia
11.4 Brief analysis of Essays of Elia
11.5 Summary
11.6 References
11.7 Further Readings
11.8 Model Questions
11.0 Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
 learn about the genre of the essay
 comprehend a general view of the life of Charles Lamb as an author
 discuss his major essays and other works
 critically analyse the prescribed texts
11.1 Introduction
In this lesson, you shall read a brief biographical sketch of Charles Lamb, getting to know
about his body of work, his notable works, main themes and style of writing. You will study
about one of his most popular works Essays of Elia. Also, before embarking upon a study of
the essays which follow, it’s imperative that you’re introduced to the genre of the essay – its
origin, history and types so that it becomes clear to you how beautifully a Romantic like Lamb
subverted the traditional personal essay to produce a variety that’s highly imaginative,
reflective and empathetic.
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11.2 Introduction to the Essay

11.2.1 Definition
According to M. H. Abrams, “an essay is any short composition in prose that aims to discuss a
matter, express a point of view, and persuade us to accept a thesis on any subject, or simply
entertain. “The essay is not a systematic and complete exposition on its own and hence, differs
from a "treatise" or "dissertation". It is addressed to a general rather than a specialized
audience and discusses its subject in a nontechnical fashion, and often with a liberal use of
such devices as anecdote, striking illustration, and humour to augment its appeal.
11.2.2 History of the Essay as a Literary Genre
Theophrastus and Plutarch (Greek) and Cicero and Seneca (Roman) wrote essays long before
the genre became what we know it as today. In France, Montaigne is widely regarded as the
predecessor of the modern essay with his three volume Essais published in the mid-1500s. It
was Francis Bacon who naturalized the new form in English. However, while Montaigne's
essays are noticeable for his predisposition towards self-revelation and a light-hearted wit,
Bacon is more serious, objective, and didactic.
During the 18th century also called the Age of Enlightenment or Age of Prose and Reason,
essays became a preferred tool of social and literary activism; they also featured heavily in the
rise of periodical literature, as seen in the works of Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (periodicals
like The Tatler and The Spectator ) and Samuel Johnson.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Edmund Burke and Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote essays for
the general public. The early 19th century, in particular, saw a surge in the number of great
essayists in English – William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Leigh Hunt and Thomas de Quincy - all
penned numerous essays on diverse subjects. Essayists like Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, E.
M. Forster, James Thurber, E. B. White, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Susan Sontag, and Toni
Morrison, however, are notable twentieth-century practitioners of the informal essay.
For two centuries post Francis Bacon, the essay in England went on drifting towards the
original idea propagated by Montaigne, but it was only in the hands of the romantic essayists
of the early nineteenth century that it became wholly personal, light, and lyrical in nature. The
position of Lamb among these romantic essayists is the most distinguished. In fact, he has
often been called the prince of all the essayists England has so far produced. Hugh Walker
calls him the essayist par excellence who should be taken as a model. It is from the essays of
Lamb that we often derive our very definition of the essay, and it is with reference to his essays
as a criterion of excellence that we evaluate the achievement and merit of a given essayist.
Familiarity with Lamb as a man enhances for a reader the charm of his essays. We may not
find in him the massive genius of Bacon, or the ethereal flights of Thomas Browne, or the
brilliant lucidity of Addison, or the ponderous energy of Dr. Johnson, but none excels him in
the ability to charm the reader or to catch him in the plexus of his own personality.
11.3 About the Author
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11.3.1 Biography
Charles Lamb (10 February, 1775 – 27 December, 1834) was a prominent English essayist,
poet, historian and critic with a Welsh Heritage. He was born to Elizabeth Field and John
Lamb on 10 February, 1775. He had six siblings, four of whom perished in infancy. Charles
Lamb was the youngest of the remaining. Charles’ father, John worked as an assistant to a
barrister named Samuel Sath. As a toddler, Charles appears to have been brought up by his
mother’s sister, Hety. His sister, Mary taught him to read and write while he was still very
young. Lamb went to school at Christ’s Hospital, where he studied until 1789. In 1792 Lamb
found employment as a clerk at East India House and he remained there until 1825.
Charles suffered from a stutter and this "inconquerable impediment" in his speech deprived
him of Grecian status at Christ's Hospital, thus disqualifying him for a clerical career. While
Coleridge and other scholarly boys were able to move on to Cambridge, Lamb quit school at
fourteen and was forced to find a more ordinary career. After working at several insignificant
designations for some years, Charles was finally employed by the Accountants Office of the
British East India Company on April 5, 1792, where he continued to work until he retired with
a pension twenty five years later.
It has been recorded that both Charles Lamb and his sister Mary experienced fleeting periods
of mental health issues for which they had to be treated at specific mental health facilities in
the year 1792. In fact, it is said that in 1796 Lamb’s sister, Mary, in a fit of madness (which
went on to be recurrent) killed their mother. Charles, displaying courage and loyalty, is said to
have taken upon himself the onus of looking after Mary, after refusing his brother John's
suggestion that they have her committed to a public lunatic asylum.
Through all these years, Charles continued to pen down his experiences. He was in
Hertfordshire in the year 1792 when he met a young lady, Ann Simmons. Although the young
couple fell in love and Charles pursued her for several years, there is no concrete record or
proof of how their romance ended. Some of the essays that Charles wrote while wooing Ann
Simmons include “Dream Children” and “New Year’s Eve.”Though Charles’ efforts to woo Ann
appear to have been constant and convincing, she finally married a silversmith.
Some of Lamb's warmest childhood memories were of the time spent with Mrs Field, his
maternal grandmother, who was for many years a maid to the Plummer family, who owned a
large country house called Blakesware, near Widford, Hertfordshire. After the death of Mrs
Plummer, Lamb's grandmother had the solitary charge of the large home and, as Mr Plummer
was often absent, Charles had free rein of the place during his visits. A picture of these visits
can be glimpsed in the Essays of Elia.
Along with these influences, his religious opinions also strongly influence his works. Lamb’s
Christian views were very important to him; religion was his haven where he always sought
consolation. In the letters that he penned to Coleridge and Bernard Barton, he describes the
New Testament as his greatest guide. He was described by Coleridge himself as one whose
"faith in Jesus ha[d] been preserved" even after the family tragedy. Wordsworth also described
him as a firm Christian in the poem "Written after the Death of Charles Lamb".
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Lamb's own poems "On The Lord's Prayer", "The Young Catechist", "Composed at Midnight", "A
Vision of Repentance", "Written a Twelvemonth After the Events", "Charity", "Sonnet to a
Friend" and "David" demonstrate his deep religious conviction, while his poem "Living Without
God in the World" has been called a "poetic attack" on unbelief, in which Lamb articulates his
aversion to atheism, attributing it to vanity.
Charles stayed a bachelor all his life, mostly because of his commitment to his distressed
family. He died of a streptococcal infection, erysipelas, contracted from a minor graze on his
face sustained after slipping in the street, on 27 December 1834. He was 59. E. V. Lucas, his
principal biographer, fondly calls him "the most lovable figure in English literature"
11.3.2 Style of Writing
Lamb is celebrated for his simple, yet not simplistic, personal reflections on daily life, which
are almost always supplemented with a distinctive sense of both humour and tragedy. You will
find his essays to be penetrative, interpretive and mostly open ended.
Self- revelation
Lamb’s ‘thinking heart’ finds a story in everything that he saw or experienced. Never did Lamb
find pleasure in a systematic expression of thoughts or conventional order; he likes to ride on
sudden flashes of imagination. His works, especially the essays, are very personal revelations
of his own opinions, desires, prejudices and observations. He is very autobiographic in his
essays. His essays are, as it were, so many bits of autobiography by piecing which together we
can arrive at a pretty authentic picture of his life, both external and internal. What strikes one
particularly about Lamb as an essayist is his persistent readiness to reveal his everything to
the reader. The evolution of the essay from Bacon to Lamb lies primarily in its shift from
objectivity to subjectivity, and from formality to familiarity.
Wholesomeness
Because of his nostalgia and humorous idiosyncrasies, his works were conspicuously known
throughout the 19th and 20th century. He brought new warmth to English prose - prose which
was intense, which sneered and screamed but always came together with a wholesome glow.
Writing in that genre which has been called “the personal essay,” again and again Lamb made
literary delightfulness of the things that tormented him most—including his resentments and
drunkenness. Almost every work of his is immersed in a multiplicity of moods - sweet,
melancholic, sonorous, practical, romantic, nostalgic and subdued. The past, theatre, family,
friends, fantasy and religion were the basic themes around which his works were centred.
Quaint style – borrows from old-world writers
The style of Lamb is described as ‘quaint’, because it has the strangeness which we associate
with something old-fashioned. One can easily trace in his English the imitations of the 16th
and 17th century writers he most loved—Milton, Sir Thomas Browne, Fuller, Burton, Isaac
Walton. According to the subject he is treating, he makes use of the rhythms and vocabularies
of these writers. That is why, in every essay Lamb’s style changes. This is the secret of the
charm of his style and it also prevents him from ever becoming monotonous or tiresome. His
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style is also full of surprises because his mood continually varies, creating or suggesting its
own style, and calling into play some recollection of this or that writer of the older world.
Humility
Though Lamb is an egotist yet he is not self-assertive. He talks about himself not because he
thinks himself to be important but because he thinks himself to be the only object he knows
intimately. Thus his egotism is born of a sense of humility rather than arrogance.
Reflective but not didactic
Lamb is too modest to pretend to proffer moral counsels. He never argues, dictates, or coerces.
We do not find any "philosophy of life" in his essays, though there are some personal views and
opinions flung about here and there not for examination and adoption, but just to serve as so
many ventilators to let us have a peep into his mind. "Lamb", says Cazamian, "is not a moralist
nor a psychologist, his object is not research, analysis, or confession; he is, above all, an artist.
He has no aim save the reader's pleasure, and his own."
Despite not being a pedagogue, Lamb is yet full of sound wisdom which he hides under a cloak
of frivolity and tolerant good nature – wisdom that the reader is free to partake. Additionally,
he takes a peculiarly personal approach to his interactions with readers, calling them out for
response several times in his essays.
Rambling nature and light-hearted
Lamb never bothers about keeping to the point – he digresses a lot. Too often, we find him
flying off at a tangent and ending at a point which we could never have foreseen. However,
what these essays lose in artistic design they gain in the touch of spontaneity. This is what
lends them what is called "the lyrical quality.
Humour, Pathos and Humanity
Lamb's essays are rich alike in wit, humour, and fun. Hallward and Hill observe in the
Introduction to their edition of the Essays of Elia:"The terms Wit, Humour and Fun are often
confused but they are really different in meaning. The first is based on intellect, the second on
insight and sympathy, the third on vigour and freshness of mind and body. Lamb's writings
show all the three qualities, but what most distinguishes him is Humour, for his sympathy is
ever strong and active."1
Lamb uses frivolous puns, impish attempts at mystification, grotesque buffoonery, verbosity
and subtle strokes of irony to constitute his literary masterpieces.
However, what particularly distinguishes Lamb's humour is its close alliance with pathos.
While laughing he is always aware of the tragedy of life-not only his life, but life in general.
That is why he often laughs through his tears.
Imaginative
His inspiration from old writers gives his style a romantic colouring which is certainly
intensified by his vigorous imagination. Very like Wordsworth he throws a fanciful veil on the
1
Hallward, N.L, and Hill, S.C., eds. “Introduction,” Essays of Elia. Macmillan, NY: 1895. Pp 56.
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common objects of life and converts them into interesting and “romantic” shapes. His peculiar
style is thus an asset in the process of “romanticizing” everyday affairs.
11.3.3 Notable Works
Charles Lamb left us with a very rich legacy of work ranging from short stories, essays, poetry,
even plays, as well as letters filled with his exceptional intimate style and humour. Charles
began writing both for pleasure and as a means of increasing his income. He found that
writing allowed him to escape his life of anxiety and come back to it refreshed and
strengthened. Charles wrote in many genres including drama, fiction, and poetry. He also
wrote literary criticism which was penetrating, interpretive, and imaginative.He has written
about 56 essays, in all.
Lamb's first publication was the inclusion of four sonnets in Coleridge's Poems on various
subjects, published in 1796 by Joseph Cottle. The sonnets were significantly influenced by the
poems of Burns and the sonnets of William Bowles, a largely forgotten poet of the late 18th
century. Lamb's poems garnered little attention and are seldom read today. He was a much
more talented prose stylist than poet. Some of his well-known poems include ‘A Farewell To
Tobacco”, “A Vision Of Repentance”, “Beauty And The Beast”, “Beauty's Song”“ Choosing a
Name” and the most famous of them all “The Old Familiar Faces.” The subject of his affection,
Ann Simmons, has been a muse for a lot of his body of work. His " Anna" sonnets, which
appeared in the 1796 and 1797 editions of Coleridge's Poems, have a sentimental, nostalgic
quality. All were written after the love affair had ended, to Lamb's regret. His early novel, “A
Tale of Rosamund Gray” (1798), is also rooted in the Ann episode.
Lamb’s writings also include Blank Verse (1798), and with Pride’s Cure (1802). Novels, such as
The Adventures of Ulysses (1808) which was written with children in mind as the audience, it
is thus reminiscent of The Tales of Shakespeare, which he co-authored with his sister, Mary in
1807. We also have pieces such as Witches and Other Night Fears (1821) and The Last Essays
of Elia (1833), which is the second volume of the famous Essays of Elia (1823). This last
volume was in fact published shortly before Lamb’s death. It includes essay titles such as “A
Bachelor’s Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People,” “The Two Races of Men,” “My First
Play,” “Confessions of a Drunkard” and “Mrs. Battle’s Opinions on Whist.”
Lamb is chiefly remembered for his “Elia” essays, which are celebrated for their witty and
ironic treatment of everyday subjects. The “Elia” essays are characterized by Lamb’s personal
tone, narrative ease, and wealth of literary allusions. Never didactic, the essays treat ordinary
subjects in a nostalgic, fanciful way by combining humor, pathos, and a sophisticated irony
ranging from gentle to scathing.
11.3.4 Essays of Elia
Lamb’s greatest achievement was the collection of his remarkable letters and the essays that
he wrote under the pseudonym Elia for London Magazine, which was founded in 1820. In the
Essays of Elia, Lamb’s intimate and informal tone of voice enchants many readers, old and
young. The essays describe the strange world of the author’s fictional alter ego that is
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embodied is the melancholic character Elia, through which Lamb reinvents the tradition of
essay writing.
His style is highly personal and mannered, its function being to “create” and delineate the
persona of Elia, and the writing, though sometimes simple, is never plain. The essays conjure
up, with humour and sometimes with pathos, old acquaintances; they also recall scenes from
childhood and from later life, and they indulge the author’s sense of playfulness and fancy.
Beneath their whimsical surface, Lamb’s essays are as much an expression of the Romantic
Movement as the verse of Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Elia’s love of urban and
suburban subject matter, however, points ahead, toward the work of Charles Dickens.
The essay “On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century” (1822) both helped to revive interest
in Restoration comedy and anticipated the assumptions of the Aesthetic movement of the late
19th century. Lamb’s first Elia essays were published separately in 1823; a second series
appeared, as The Last Essays of Elia, in 1833.
11.4 Brief Analysis and Significance of Essays of Elia
Although “Dream Children” begins on a merry note, the dark side of life soon forces itself upon
Lamb’s attention and the comic attitude gives way to melancholy at the end of the essay.
Throughout the essay Lamb presents his children in such a way that we never guess that they
are merely fragments of his imagination – their movements, their reactions, and their
expressions are all realistic. It is only at the end of the essay that we realize that the entire
episode with his children is a merely a daydream. We are awakened by a painful realization of
the facts.
Lambs essays are highly evocative, and the reader feels empathy towards the characters. This
is a characteristic quality of the Romantic Essayists. In “Dream Children,” the narrator
comments on how similar the daughters face is to the mother and he can’t tell which of the two
is in front of him, but only in the end do we realize that the entire story was just a fragment of
his imagination.
The essays have a reflective quality. He talks about his schooling days in Christ’s Hospital in
“Christ’s Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago” wherein he speaks of himself in the third person
as “L”. “Rosemund Gray” is another essay in which he reflects upon his feelings for Ann
Simmons as the titular character and how their relationship doesn’t go too far due to Miss
Gray passing away.
In the essay "New Year's Eve," which first appeared in the January 1821 issue of The London
Magazine, Lamb reflects wistfully on the passage of time. “The Praise of Chimney Sweepers”
ponders upon the plight of the young chimney sweepers who are subjected to a life of misery
and labour instead of the carefree childhood that they are entitled to.
To conclude we can see that Lambs essays are very personal. They possess humour and
pathos like most romantic works of literature. Lamb is also praised for his allusive quality
which is noted by many literary critics. In fact, Lamb’s essays are popular for various reasons,
such as genial humour, touching pathos, humanitarian outlook, practical commonsense,
nobility and gentility of nature and above all the revelation of their creator’s self. These factors,
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individually as well as collectively, have won for Lamb a unique place in the history of English
essay.
Lamb makes good use of irony, nostalgia, shares with us his vivid fascination for the details of
things, including the very minutes of everyday life. In sum, Essays of Elia constitute a singular
text in which the author is clearly fascinated by the diversity of things, the unreality of the
past, the absolute uniqueness of experience as well as a keen awareness of the limitations of
writing.
Self- Assessment Questions
1. The two most renowned works of prose that Charles Lamb wrote are _____and _____
2. Lamb use of the personal essay makes his work highly ___________.
3. Lamb wrote under the pseudonym ______ for the London magazine.
4. Charles collected essays-under the title, Essays of Elia, were published in _________
5. Charles co-authored Tales of Shakespeare with his sister ___________
11.5 Summary
After reading this lesson, you have learnt about the biographical background of Charles Lamb
(1775 –1834) the English essayist best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's
book Tales from Shakespeare. You have also been introduced to his major works. You have
read about the literary genre of the essay as well as Lamb’s his journey as an essayist. Lamb’s
style and major themes have been dealt with in a detailed manner to provide you an extensive
insight into his works.
11.6 References
 Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Heinle & Heinle, UK: 1999.
 Courtney, Winifred. Young Charles Lamb. New York University Press, New York:
1982.
 Hallward, N.L, and Hill, S.C., eds. “Introduction,” Essays of Elia. Macmillan, NY:
1895.
 Lamb, Charles. Essays of Elia. OUP, London: 1978.
 Lucas, E.V. Life of Charles Lamb. G.P. Putman and Sons, London: 1905.
 Marvell, Andrew. Prose. Robson & Sons, UK:1873.
11.7 Further Readings
 Eiseley, Loren. The Man Who Saw through Time. Scribner Library. New York:
Charles Scribner’s, 1973.
 Klein, Jürgen. “Francis Bacon.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford, CA: Stanford University, 2012.
 Peltonen, Markku, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Bacon. Cambridge
Companions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
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 Simpson, David. “Francis Bacon (1561–1626).” In Internet Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. Edited by James Fieser and Bradley Dowden. Martin: University of
Tennessee at Martin.
 Vickers, Brian, ed. Essential Articles for the Study of Francis Bacon. Essential
Articles. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1968.
11.8 Model Questions
1. Discuss Charles Lamb’s writing style as an essayist.
2. What are some of the themes of Charles Lamb’s essays from Essays of Elia?
3. Comment on the autobiographical element in Charles Lamb’s prose/essays.

Answers to Self – Assessment Questions

1. Tales of Shakespeare , Essays of Elia
2. Subjective
3. Elia
4. 1822- 23
5. Mary Lamb

Lesson 12

LAMB’S THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY SWEEPERS

Structure
12.0 Objectives
12.1 Introduction
12.2 “The Praise of Chimney Sweepers”: Introduction and Key Themes
12.3 Summary and Critical Analysis
12.4 Summary
12.5 Glossary
12.6 References
12.7 Further Readings
12.8 Model Questions
12.0 Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
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 understand the condition of Chimney Sweepers in the times of Lamb

 summarise the essay “A Praise of Chimney Sweepers”
 discuss the main issues highlighted in the essay
 critically analyse the essay
12.1 Introduction
In this lesson, you shall get to know about the troubles of young chimney sweepers who had
inhabited and cleaned chimneys across London during the 18th and 19th centuries. Through
a thorough reading and critical analysis of the essay, you shall be able to understand how
Charles Lamb explains their misery and tries to urge the society to be more sympathetic
towards these young kids.
12.2 Introduction to “The Praise of Chimney Sweepers” and Key Themes
Charles Lamb appears to have dedicated this essay to this ilk of the labour class, the
professional cleaners who had cleared the chimneys of the accumulated soot for centuries.
Their lives are fraught with difficulties and the indifferent society doesn’t make things any
easier for them. Lamb makes a plea before the readers for adopting an attitude of helpfulness
towards these young chimney sweeps.
Some of the key themes of the essay are:
Plight of the Chimney Sweepers
The central theme of the essay is the predicament of the chimney sweepers who cleaned
chimneys across London for centuries. Most of these chimney sweepers were children, because
owing to their tiny and petite frames, they could clean the chimneys more effectively than older
men. These kids never got to experience the childhood that they rightfully deserved.
Exposing the heartlessness/apathy of the society
Most children in Britain were accustomed to seeing these chimney sweepers do their job, and
most of them did not pay much attention to them. Lamb is harshly critical of the indifference
with which the condition of these young sweeps has been normalised in the society.
The deep humanism and concern for the under privileged of the society
Lamb’s praise of chimney –sweepers shows his essential humanity and his profound
sympathetic nature. He urges the reader to give a penny or two pence of chimney-sweeper
whenever he happens to meet one. He even goes to extent of declaring that does not in the
least feel offended when a young chimney-sweeper laughs and jeers at him, because that
moment at least brings some joy to him. The author also grabs, the opportunity to eulogize this
friend Mr James White who shared the similar compassion towards young chimney sweepers
in order to entertain them, James White organized a banquet for young sweeps every year in
Smithfield during the St. Barthalomew fair.
Class Relationships
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Analysing class relationships in society has been a common theme of Lamb’s work. In this
essay, he has propagated the idea that nobility comes from one’s character and not from a
sense of entitlement, the roots of which lie in superficial trappings of class like wealth. Lamb's
tone of narration while citing various instances runs more on an ironic level, he is mocking at
those who benefit without doing any work at all. This could probably be a direct attack on the
suppression of the working class by the ruling class (or the bourgeois). He discusses this
politics in a very subtle manner.
Flights of fantasy and attention to detail – the romantic impulse
Lamb treats the grave subject of chimney sweepers with imagination and romance. The essay
caters more to the pathos of their lives than the ghastly physical horrors and dangers of their
profession. He tries to determine the reasons why these sweepers like Saloop, which otherwise
is normally tasteless. He also dwells upon the character of the chimney sweepers, noting that
there is a tinge of notability and gentility in them, the reason being a childhood abduction or
ravages of bad times. The vivid imaginary details have often led to the essay been called a “lyric
in prose”.
Ill-effects of industrialization
One of the negative effects of industrialization had to do with the way children were put to
work doing not only inappropriate but also unsafe jobs. This poem focuses on the plight of
child labourers during the Industrial Revolution. Blake writes in the voice of a child, which
lends immediacy to his words, particularly because the child addresses the reader directly—it
is "your chimneys" in which he is forced to work because his father has "sold" him into the
service of a chimney sweep. Blake continually personalizes the children he mentions, which
prevents the reader from being able to view the sweeper objectively.

12.3 Summary and Critical Analysis

Charles Lamb says that he likes to meet a chimneysweeper but he is more interested in the
young professionals than the grownup ones. These young sweeps are of such tender age that
Lamb compares their professional calls at dawn - when their services are called upon-- to the
'peep peep' notes of young sparrows at the break of day or to matin larks as they sing while
ascending the sky as sunrise approaches.
The blackened sweepers present a pathetic picture of their society. Lamb is sympathetic
towards them and refers to them as “dim specks, poor blots, innocent blackness or tender
novices blooming through their first negritude” while affirming that they were the products of
their society. Though white by birth, they looked like young Africans or clergy imps because of
the soot from the chimneys, which engulfed their identity. They seemed to serve as a lesson of
patience to humankind as they emerged from the top of a chimney with their cleaning cloth in
the stinging cold of a December morning. Their dark faces cannot strip them off their
innocence.
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Chimney cleaning, as a child, afforded mysterious pleasure, as the entire operation was
comparable to a daring act of entering “Fauces Averni” or the jaws of hell, an act that not many
could easily perform. Just when imagination began to overpower reality with the assumption
that the child no older than himself would never see daylight again, the feeble shout of the
sweeper as he emerged from the top of the chimney, holding his cleaning apparatus like a
victorious flag over a citadel never ceased to thrill him. He remembers hearing a tale that once,
a naughty sweeper was abandoned in the chimney with his cleaning cloth to indicate which
way the wind blew. It was as horrible as the spectacle of a child holding a branch of a tree in
some of the dramatic renditions of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
A morning walker may chance upon such a sweeper as he steps out for his work; Lamb
believes that generosity towards him will only prove the humanity of the donor for the
occupation of the sweeper is a hard one, making him suffer from blistered feet (“kibed heels”)
over and above being ill paid too.
Tea-the Chinese luxury is a beverage respected all over the world. However, a certain Mr
Read claims that the drink prepared by boiling the sweet wood of the sassafras tree, tempered
with milk and sugar is as delicious and as wholesome if not better than tea. His shop at Fleet
Street is the only one in London that serves this drink and though Lamb has never tasted it,
he believes that it would not agree with his palate. However, he has noticed that there are
many who consume it with evident relish, including those “not instructed in dietetical
elegances” – the people who consume an elegant or sophisticated diet.
By whatever coincidence or for whatever reason, Lamb observes that it is a particularly
favourite beverage of the chimney sweepers. The drink, which is slightly oily, may help to clean
the roof of the mouth to which the “fuliginous concretions” or sooty deposits cling or perhaps
nature had gifted them the sassafras tree as it had dealt them a raw deal in life. Being
penniless, they are unable to afford this too but it does not stop them from hanging their
blackened heads over the steam rising from the boiling pot to inhale the aroma and gratify at
least one sense organ. It evoked a rare pleasure in them comparable to the purring of cats
when they find a sprig of valerian. No philosophy can perhaps explain the phenomenon behind
these sympathies.
Though Mr Read believes that his house is the only one to serve this beverage, unknown to
him several establishments run by industrious imitators provide the same savoury drink for
much humbler customers. At the dead of dawn, when the rake and the artisan jostle for space
on the pavements, when the kitchen-fires are dead, the aroma of this concoction wafts from
the meaner dwellings of the metropolis. The rake who reels home after indulging in too many
alcoholic drinks until midnight finds it revolting as he passes by but the artisan stops w taste
and blesses the fragrant breakfast.
This is saloop, the much favoured drink of the working class of people like the herb-woman or
the gardener, but the chimney sweeper is unable to afford it. If anyone catches such a sweep
standing over a brewing pot of saloop, Lamb advices that it would be best to spend some small
amount of money to feed the penniless sweep a basin of the beverage and a slice of bread and
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butter. It would be a precaution against the soot billowing down from an unclean chimney onto
the food below or even a fired chimney in his house.
Lamb is particularly vulnerable to taunts and jeers from the common people and he is
disgusted by their habit of finding pleasure in a gentleman tripping as he walked or when his
stocking is splashed. Yet he can forgive a chimneysweeper's jocularity. A year ago, during
winter, he had slipped and fallen down on his back as he had been walking along Cheapside;
trying not to look ashamed, he had picked himself up in spite of the pain when he had noticed
a young sweep laughing at his ignominy. His eyes were inflamed; the soot from the chimneys
he cleaned irritated them but the fall had brought tears of mirth to his eyes as he pointed at
Lamb with a blackish finger to his mother and the mob. The twinkle in his eyes and his joy in
his otherwise joyless existence reminded Lamb of Hogart's painting - 'March to Finchley' where
the artist immortalizes a chimney sweep grinning at a pie-man as if the joy was to last forever.
The honour of a gentleman like Lamb could withstand the ridicule of such a sweep for it was
neither malicious nor mischievous; rather it was one of utmost glee.
However seductive a fine set of teeth may be within the rosy lips of a lady or of a gentleman,
they fail to influence Lamb in any way. However, the white and shiny teeth of the sooty
chimney sweep fascinate him. It is like the proverbial positive aspect of a sable cloud or like
the remnants of the gentry, which is not extinct yet; it is like a reminder of happier days or
even a hint of nobility. It even raises suspicions of good parentage, lineage and gentle
conditions or of a lapsed pedigree. The custom of introducing tenderly aged boys as chimney
sweeps makes the fear of clandestine and almost infantile abduction to be alarmingly true. The
courtesy and civility noticed in such children is so startling that forced adoptions seem
probable. A notable incident of this nature is the abduction of Montague and his recovery.
However, this is a solitary instance and many of such abductions have remained traceless.
The incident of a chimney sweep sleeping in the ducal bed of Arundel castle, the seat of the
Howards, seems to indicate that Lamb's assumption was correct. After a cleaning operation,
the poor sweep had lost himself in the labyrinth of rooms in the castle, and wearied by his
attempts to extricate himself from it, had decided to rest upon the snowy sheets of the duke's
bed. The grand bed and the decorated curtains, which are the cynosure of many visitors' eyes,
famed to be even more comfortable than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius did not
intimidate the young boy. Instead, he had laid his black head upon the pillow and slept like a
young Howard.
This story circulated among the visitors to the castle, vindicated Lamb's theory of the
chimneysweeper's origin as abducted children of noble descent. For no poor child would dream
of sleeping on the Duke's bed for fear of punishment. He would prefer to lie on a rug, a carpet,
or a couch but some force of nature, manifest in him had guided him to the bed. It might have
been an unconscious remembrance of his condition in infancy, when his mother or nurse had
laid him to sleep within similar sheets. By no other theory could the poor sweep's action be
explained except that he had perhaps felt as if he had been returning to his rightful place of
rest, a pre-existing sentiment to which he had instinctively given in.
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Impressed by such stories of mutation, Lamb's friend, James White instituted an annual feast
in an attempt to reverse the wrongs of fortune in these poor chimneysweepers. It was a solemn
supper at Smithfield, during the fair of St. Bartholomew where the master chimney sweeps
sent their young protégés to congregate at White's invitation. He took upon himself the role of a
model host and waiter. A convenient spot, at the north of the field, beside the pens, was
selected which was neither too near to attract unsolicited attention of other people neither was
it too far away from the general activities and crowds of people attending the fair. The guests
arrived by seven. The temporary parlours, with three tables, substantial napery and three
hostesses presided over her respective pan of hissing sausages at her respective table. James
or Jem White took charge of the first table as the headwaiter while Lamb and their friend Bigod
served at the other two tables. However, at times, older sweeps along with the younger ones
also attended the feast.
At least on one occasion, a young child had entered on the strength of his dark coloured
clothes but he was expelled with great indignation because he was a pretender. However,
largely the gathering was peaceful, harmonious and enjoyable because of the enthusiasm with
which White conducted the supper. The inaugural ceremony consisted of a general expression
of thanks to the invited guests, then he clasped the greasy waist of old dame Ursula, the fattest
of the three hostesses and kissed her which was greeted by a huge shout from the universal
host and happy grins startled the night with their brightness as the young sweeps enjoyed the
show. The children would then eat to their hearts content encouraged by their host to savour
some more meat, bread or drink. Though the food and the drink were ordinary, it filled the
bellies of the penniless sweeps which was the motive behind the feast.
Later the host toasted to 'the King' and 'the cloth'. The last toast was the most outrageous of all
'May the brush supersede the Laurel' which was appreciated by everyone, though it was not
certain whether he or she really understood what the toasts meant. All these and fifty other
fancies, which were felt rather than understood by the sweepers, were delivered standing on
top of tables. The orphans loved and enjoyed the entertainment provided to them where the
food was the biggest comfort.
This celebration in honour of the chimneysweepers ended with the death of James White.
Lamb's happiness also ended along with his friend's death. The chimneysweepers too miss him
and upon finding that no such feast in their honour at St Bartholomew's fair, they reproach it.
Along with its disappearance, the glory of Smithfield too departed forever.
Critical Analysis
The essay titled “The Praise of Chimney Sweepers” had been written by Charles Lamb and
dedicated to the chimney sweepers who lived and helped keep England clean during the 18th
and 19th centuries, when central heating, and electricity itself, had not as yet been invented.
Those were years when the world had not yet witnessed the invention of electric fires or central
heating. People were obviously forced to depend on open fires lit by charcoal that caused the
accumulation of back, grimy soot that needed to be cleared every day.
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Charles Lamb appears to have had a soft heart when he wrote this essay, praising the work of
the young chimney sweepers. Most people of his generation usually took the presence of these
chimney sweepers for granted.
This soft heart was perhaps also due to the fact that Charles Lamb had been a child who had
been largely observant and withdrawn. Although his sister Mary appears to have taught him to
read and write, it is obvious he had no real playmates, with who he could play childish games,
imagining like all children.
The essay had been set, like most of his other essays, by the essayist Charles Lamb against the
backdrop of London during the early 19th century. The tone of the narrative is pretty
conventional, which had been the predominant writing style adopted by most writers of those
times. In spite of this, however, Charles Lamb manages to maintain a touch of the personal
pathos, distinguishing the narrative as an essay. Lamb talks of their humour their love for
sassafras tea, their joyful smiles and their ecstasy at the annual banquet for young chimney
sweepers at the St. Bartholomew fair in Smithfield. The point to be remembered about essays
is that writers during the 18th and 19th centuries used essays to talk about personal
experiences. So essays were narratives of true life incidents and events, while short stories
were purely fiction.
Lamb is fond of interspersing his essays with anecdotes, “The Praise of Chimney-
Sweepers” contain at least three anecdotes. There is the story of how once he slipped in the
course of a walk and became the butt of ridicule for a young chimney-sweeper. Then there is
the story of the chimney- sweeper whose aristocratic instinct prompted him to get into a lordly
bed in order to rest his tired limbs. Finally, there is the long anecdote relating to the
sumptuous entertainments in honour of young chimney-sweepers. These anecdotes lend a
narrative interest to his essay.
Although chimney sweepers used to be a common sight in those days, few writers actually
dedicated entire essays to their hard work and contribution to society. It is quite possible that
as a young boy, Charles Lamb would have had opportunities to make friends with one or more
chimney sweepers. This essay is a rich feast for the literary connoisseur. Iteration is one of the
ingredients of Lamb’s style in his essays.
Self- Assessment Questions
1. “In Praise of Chimney Sweepers” highlights the plight of _________ and the apathy of
________ towards them.
2. Lamb’s essay titled _________ has often been called “lyric in prose.”
3. The beverage that the chimney sweepers find irresistible is called _______
4. Lamb’s friend, ___________ instituted an annual feast in an attempt to reverse the wrongs
of fortune in these poor chimneysweepers.
12.4 Summary
Through this lesson, you have got a vivid description of the plight of the young chimney
sweepers on early 19th century Britain. Major themes like class relationships, humanism and
the romantic vein of the essay have been explored in detail to help you comprehend and
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critically analyse this work of prose. It serves to be a bitter critique of the apathetic society of
Lamb’s time.
12.5 Glossary
1. Novices: amateurs , beginners
2. Nigritude: appeared black due to their faces covered with soot
3. Maternal washings...cheek: Very young
4. Matin lark: a bird which is heard singing early in the morning.
5. Imps: small in stature, they looked like dwarfs
6. Nipping: very cold
7. Fauces Averni: jaws of hell
8. Stifling caverns: suffocating caves (referring to narrow chimneys)
9. Sable : dark black
10. Macbeth: a tragic drama by William Shakespeare
11. Apparition: a ghost-like figure
12. Kibed: blistered
13. ‘yclept sassafras: a fragrant bark of an American tree
14. Avers: maintains
15. Olfactories: relating to the sense of smell
16. Infallibly: unfailingly
17. Palates... Dietetical elegances: people used to food that is considered sophisticated and
fine
18. Oleaginous: oily
19. Attenuate: weakened, reduced
20. Fuliginous concretions: sooty deposits (on the roof of the mouths of the chimney
sweeps)
21. Unfledged practitioners: immature workers
22. Salopian house: an outlet selling Saloop, the beverage made from sassafras
23. Parishes: an area that has its own local church and priest or minister.
24. Dim visages: dull faces
25. Affronts: insults
26. Jocularity: humour
27. Obdurate: stubborn, unaffected
28. Ossifications: calcium deposits (refers to teeth here)
29. Foppery: tom foolery
30. Lapsed pedigree: lost ancestry
31. Clandestine: secret, hidden
32. Infantile abductions: kidnapped when they were toddlers
33. Incunabula: a work of art
34. Quoited: escorted or thrown out
35. Unctuous : buttery
12.6 References
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 Courtney, Winifred. Young Charles Lamb. New York University Press, New York:
1982.
 Lamb, Charles. Essays of Elia. OUP, London : 1978.
 Lucas, E.V. Life of Charles Lamb. G.P. Putman and Sons, London: 1905.
 Marvell, Andrew. 1873. Prose. United Kingdom: Robson & Sons.
 Prashanth, Aswin. “Essaying the Personal: A Study of Essays of Elia.” “International
Journal of English Language, Literature and Humanities.” Vol. 4, Issue 8. August
2016.
12.7 Further Readings
 Shah, Umama. “Charles Lamb: Biography, Literary Works and Style.”
https://www.academia.edu/9279707/Charles_Lamb_Biography_literary_works_a
nd_style
 Stuart Curran (ed), The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Cambridge
University Press, UK: 1996.
 https://srcenglish.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/the-praise-of-chimney-
sweepers/
12.8 Model Questions
1. What is the central theme of the essay “In Praise of Chimney Sweepers”?
2. How are the ill effects of industrialization explored in the essay “In Praise of
Chimney Sweepers?”
3. Discuss Charles Lamb’s views on the society in the essay. What can we learn about
his own ethics from those views?

Answers to Self – Assessment Questions

1. The young chimney sweepers, the society
2. “In Praise of Chimney Sweepers”
3. Saloop
4. James White

Lesson 13
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LAMB’S DREAM CHILDREN: A REVERIE

Structure
13.0 Objectives
13.1 Introduction
13.2 “Dream Children: A Reverie”: Introduction and Key Themes
13.3 Summary and Critical Analysis
13.4 Summary
13.5 Glossary
13.6 References
13.7 Further Readings
13.8 Model Questions
13.0 Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
 outline and discuss the themes of “Dream Children: A Reverie”
 discuss the autobiographical elements of the essay
 critically analyse the essay “Dream Children: A Reverie”
 comment on the ‘unfulfilled familial fantasies’ of the author
13.1 Introduction
In the lesson, you shall read about a nostalgic conversation that the author has with his
imagined children about his imagined family. Through a critical and detailed analysis of the
essay, you shall be able to understand that it is narrative dedication to ‘what could have been
but never was’ and talks about the unfulfilled familial fantasies of the author.
13.2 Introduction to “Dream Children: A Reverie” and Key Themes
According to records that exist in literary history, the children mentioned in the essay only
existed in Charles Lamb’s dreams, hence the title. Reminiscing his childhood and lamenting
the loss of love in his life, Lamb tries to converse with his fictional children from a fictional
wife.
Some of the key themes of the essay are:
Regret and Loss
This essay exhibits the subjects of pain and guilt of getting deprived of the people whom we
loved from the core of our heart. The essay, being enhanced with despair, clarifies the worth
and necessity of childhood and the loved ones for an individual, without whom the life appears
to be dark and suffocating for the individual. Lamb begins on what seems to be a merry note,
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but the essay ends with lamentation and anguish of a dream that never became a reality – a
dream of fulfilled love and a joyous family
Nostalgia
The essay shows the author reminiscing about the happy memories from his childhood. In
conversation with his fictional children, he talks about his Grandmother and elder brother,
both of whom he loved very much. Very pictorially and beautifully, Lam etches forth the
readers a vivid picture of the ecstasy that was a part of his childhood spent with his family.
A dream-like quality
There is a sense of mystery and open-endedness in the essay. It is difficult to imagine or
identify whether the children he has spoken of in this essay are real or just a part of his
dreams. It seems as if Lamb had left it up to his readers to believe whatever end they wished
to believe in. Although he wakes up with just Bridget by his side, there’s no way to know if it’s
just a dream he had or it’s a dream he would have wanted to realise.
13.3 Summary and Critical Analysis
Lamb opens the essay “Dream Children” by declaring that kids like listening to the stories of
their elders, especially the ones they’ve never had a chance to meet or see. It is in the same
spirit that he decides to narrate the story of his grandmother, Mrs Field to his children, Alice
and John. Lamb’s grandmother, his children’s great-grandmother, lived in a ‘great house in
Norfolk’. This house was a hundred times bigger than the house they are living presently.
Lamb narrates his children the story of the tragic scene that had been carved out in the wood
upon chimney-piece of the great hall in the great house of his grandmother. However, this
wood chimney was then replaced by a marble chimney by the owner. His daughter Alice seems
to put on one of the looks similar to her mother in reaction to this anecdote.
Mrs Field, Lamb’s grandmother, was not the real owner of the house but due to her kind and
humble behaviour and her great religious devotion, she commanded everybody’s respect. The
owner of the house hired her as the caretaker and handed over it to her while he himself lived
in another house. Mrs Field lived in the great-house as if it was her own. Later on, the precious
ornaments of the great-house were shifted to the real owner’s house, however, they didn’t suit
the modern house. Upon hearing this, Charles Lamb’s son John smiled knowingly, because all
of them had been aware that even attempting to fit all those beautiful ornaments and fittings
into the other mansion was such a foolish act doomed to failure from the word go.
Furthermore, Lamb tells his children about his grandmother’s death and funeral that was
attended by a large number of people, both poor and rich. Even people from many miles
around had come to express their condolences and respect toward her. Mrs Field was very
humble and pious women who knew Psalms and a great part of Testament by heart.
Lamb then starts telling his children about their grandmother’s youth. She was tall, upright
with a graceful personality. She was the best dancer in the country until cancer attacked her
and deprived her of her skill, however, this disease couldn’t take her good spirits. A mention of
dance elicits an involuntary movement from Alice’s right foot.
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Lamb continues to tell Alice and John of how his grandmother used to sleep alone in an
isolated chamber of the house. Also, she believed that she saw two infant ghosts in the
midnight. She was sure that these were decent mortals that wouldn’t hurt her. Although his
maid slept with him, Lamb was quite frightened of the ghosts as he was not as religious as his
grandmother. John tries to look brave by expanding his eyebrows.
Lamb then tells his children about their great-grandmother’s love and affection towards her
grandchildren. Lamb, along with his siblings and cousins, visited his grandmother in holidays
where they, particularly he, spend most of the hours gazing around the old sculptures of the
Emperors of Rome. He would gaze them as much as the sculptures would appear to him living
or else he would turn marble; moreover, he would roam around in the mansion without getting
tired. He would use to be alone while roaming around in the empty rooms as well as the old-
fashioned, spacious gardens until a lonely gardener would cross him now and then.
He would spend his time scrutinizing at the vegetation and flowers. He was more satisfied in
spending his holidays amidst the “idle diversions” like basking in the sweet smells of the
orangery as if he himself were ripening along with the oranges, or intently watching the small
Dace fish darting to and fro in the pond while a pike seemed to sulk silently nearby; he
preferred these encounters with nature over the usual habits of children and sweet aromas of
peaches and nectarines. Both John and Alice decide to forego eating a bunch of grapes in lieu
of continuing to listen to the story.
Lamb, now, tells his children about their uncle John Lamb. Lamb’s grandmother would love
her all grandchildren, however, she had a special affection for John. John was a brave,
handsome, and spirited man. He had a unique sort of personality. For instance, others like
Charles Lamb would corner themselves, whereas John would use to mount on horses, tour
around the village, and would merge with hunters. With the passage of time, the attributes of
bravery and enthusiasm earned him the admiration of almost everyone in and out of the
family. John was a few years elder than Charles Lamb. John would carry Lamb, who was
lame-footed, on his back for many miles when he was unable to walk. This shows that he was
an extremely considerate brother.
However, John, in the afterlife, became lame-footed himself. Lamb still dreads that he had not
been sympathetic enough to endure the intolerant discomforts of John or even to recall his
youth when he was supported by John. However, when John passed away, Lamb would miss
him so much. He reminisced about his gentleness and his pettiness and desired him to be
alive again. He wanted him to alive again so that he could fight with him again. Lamb felt as
uneasy without him as the poor John felt when the doctor took off his limb.
The children at this point start mourning for their deceased uncle and demand Lamb to
proceed by narrating something about their dead mother. Then he started narrating them how
for the period long seven years he (Lamb) uncomplainingly dated the beautiful Alice Winterton.
When Lamb was narrating his experiences with his wife, he suddenly realizes that the old Alice
is communicating with him through the eyes of little Alice sitting in front of him. Lamb is
confounded by this similarity - he doesn’t know which Alice he is talking to.
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As Lamb tries hard to stare it appears that his children, John and Alice, are disappearing
before his very eyes. Finally, the two desolate features tell him that they are neither of Alice nor
of him, they are not children at all. They are but just a figment of his imagination. The children
of Alice calls Bartram father. Hence, they are merely dreams. It’d be quite long before they
could be realised as a concrete reality. Suddenly, Lamb wakes up and finds himself in the
bachelor arm-chair where he has fallen asleep with the loyal Bridget by his side, but his
brother John Lamb or James Elia is gone forever, to never return.
Critical Analysis
The title “Dream Children: A Reverie” appears to have been chosen with intention because from
the beginning to the ending, the entire narrative appears to have a dream-like feel to it.
Charles Lamb used humour, satire, pathos and nostalgia to express himself and convey his
intended meaning to his audience. Written under the pseudonym Elia, the essay like all his
other essays mirrored his personal experiences from real life. In fact, they appeared to be so
personal that no one would believe they were not real.
The description given by Charles Lamb is so realistic and tangible, that readers would be
forced to believe that the essayist Charles Lamb actually interacted and shared all this
information with his children. Yet, there have been reports that Charles Lamb had only dreamt
about having those children with Ann Simmons, who he was never able to actually marry. That
doesn’t take anything away from the brilliant narrative style of Charles Lamb.
There is a shift in the tone of the essay at various points. The shifts in the tone, from
humorous to tragic, occurred when the author describes the scene of his grandmother and
beloved brother death. Lamb appears to be nostalgic throughout the essay and longed for his
loved ones.
Charles Lamb talks about the tragedy in his life, his love for Ann Simmons that had been
rejected in favour of someone else. He is shown describing the entire episode to his children.
How did those children happen to be there, when he had never been married to Ann Simmons?
This and other essays do not mention a wife. It is not clear whether Charles Lamb ever married
anyone else. Yet he has spoken of his children so realistically, that his audience will be left
believing that the children really existed. Very dexterously, he constructs an entire tableau of
familial pleasure in order to acquaint his readers, in the most poignant way, with the solitude
pervading his existence - a sense of all that he had lost and missed in the world.
The reaction and response the children in the essay reflect the effect of the story on their mind
and turn the essay dramatic.
Towards the end of the essay, a twist in the essay comes when all the events in the story turn
out to be a dream. This adds suspense to the essay along with an open end. It appears as
though Charles Lamb had left it to his audience to think and find out whether the children
mentioned in the essay were real life children, or only existed in his imagination. This style of
writing is so beautiful and unique that his audiences will be left thinking about both the style
and the content long after reading the essay.
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Self- Assessment Questions

1. The main theme of “Dream Children: A Reverie” is ____________.
2. Grandmother Field was tall and upright but later she was bowed down by a
disease called ________
3. Charles Lamb loved a woman called __________ whom he never got married to.
4. The essay has deliberately been left __________ by Lamb.
5. Lamb misses his elder brother John, who was also called ________.
13.4 Summary
The lesson has given you a detailed understanding of the essay that has been taken from the
collection The Essays of Elia. You read about the feelings of loss and regret faced by the
narrator, Lamb. You must have clearly followed the themes of family relationships, nostalgia
and imagined fantasy. You also studied the significant autobiographical aspects of the essay.
13.5 Glossary
1. They: elders
2. Traditionary: about whom people have heard only from others.
3. Grand-dame : Grandmother
4. Field: Sarah Field, Lamb’s grandmother.
5. The ballad of the children in the wood: one of Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry, in
which the story of two children is told. The children inherited a property from their
father. They were under the guardianship of their uncle, who wanted to rob them of
their property and trusted two ruffians to kill them.
6. Chimney piece: enclosure guarding the fire place.
7. Robin Red-breast: Bird known as Robin, because its breast is red in colour.
8. Modern invention: Modern style.
9. With no story up on it: The story of the two children was not written on it.
10. Upbraiding: reproaching, angry.
11. The Abbey: West Minister Abbey where the monarchs, poets, etc. are buried.
12. Tawdry: showy but worthless.
13. Concourse: Procession.
14. Psaltery: The book of Psalms.
15. Testament: The two divisions of the Holy Bible.
16. Involuntary: Unconsciously.
17. Grave : Serious
18. Desisted: stopped
19. Bend her good spirit: make her dejected.
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20. Apparition: spirit or ghost.

21. Gliding up and down: floating in the air.
22. Busts: statues only up to the chest.
23. The old marble heads: the statue of the old emperors.
24. Fluttering tapestry: Curtains flapping in the air
25. Gilding: golden colour.
26. Nectarines with peaches: different kinds of sweet and juicy fruits.
27. Melancholy looking yew trees: Yew trees are generally planted in graveyards, and that
is why they are treated as symbols of sorrow.
28. Basking in the orangery: enjoying the sunlight in the orange grove.
29. Fancy : imagine
30. Graceful warmth: refreshing heat of the sunlight.
31. Dace, Pike: Kinds of Fish
32. Impertinent frisking: The leaping of the dace is considered impertinent perhaps
because dace is a small fish, while pike is a bigger fish.
33. Bust-idle diversions: Appearing to be busy but in reality purposeless.
34. Diversion: pastime.
35. Darted to and fro: Moved suddenly and quickly like an arrow.
36. Common baits for children: Usual temptations for child
37. Slyly: stealthily.
38. Relinquish: Give up.
39. Irrelevant: Worthless.
40. Heightened tone: More emotional voice.
41. Moping about in solitary corners: Sitting sulkily in lonely corners.
42. Mettlesome: spirited.
43. Imp: mischievous child.
44. Pent up: closed up, hidden.
45. Make allowances enough: allow sufficient consideration.
46. Haunted me: constantly occupied my mind.
47. Crossness: peevish temper.
48. Courted: pursued, wooed.
49. Coyness: shyness.
50. Re-presentment: reappearance.
51. Receding: disappearing.
52. Two mournful features: two sad faces.
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53. Which without speech.....effected of speech: The two vanishing faces of John and Alice,
even without uttering any words, seemed to speak out.
54. Thee: you
55. Lethe: One of the rivers in Hades or the Underworld. The water of the Lethe makes
people forget all about their past life i.e. their life on earth. Thus, they cannot recollect
anything of their earlier existence when they are reborn.
56. Bachelor chair: chair of the bachelor.
57. We are only what might have been: We would have been your children if you had
married Ann Simmons.
58. Must wait up on the tedious.....and name: The idea in these lines is that before one is
born on earth one has to wait for ages in the other world, on the banks of the river
Lethe.

13.6 References
 Courtney, Winifred. Young Charles Lamb. New York University Press, New York: 1982.
 Lamb, Charles. Essays of Elia. OUP: London, 1978.
 Lucas, E.V. Life of Charles Lamb. G.P. Putman and Sons: London, 1905.
 Marvell, Andrew. Prose. United Kingdom, Robson & Sons, 1873.
 Prashanth, Aswin. “Essaying the Personal: A Study of Essays of Elia.” “International
Journal of English Language, Literature and Humanities.” Vol. 4, Issue 8. August
2016. Web.
13.7 Further Readings
 Shah, Umama. “Charles Lamb: Biography, Literary Works and Style.” Web.
https://www.academia.edu/9279707/Charles_Lamb_Biography_literary_works_and_sty
le
 Stuart Curran (ed), The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism. Cambridge
University Press, UK: 1996.
 https://srcenglish.wordpress.com/2017/08/06/the-praise-of-chimney-sweepers/

Answers to Self- Assessment Questions

1. Regret and loss
2. Cancer
3. Ann Simmons
4. Open-ended
5. James Elia

13.8 Model Questions

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1. Comment on Lamb’s prose style as seen in his essay “Dream Children: A Reverie”.
2. Why the essay is titled “A Reverie”?
3. How does Lamb present the autobiographical elements in the essay?

******
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Lesson 14

WILLIAM HAZLITT: AN INTRODUCTION

Structure
14.0 Objectives
14.1 Introduction
14.2 About the Author
14.2.1 Biography
14.2.2 Style of Writing
14.2.3 Notable Works
14.3 Summary
14.4 References
14.5 Further Readings
14.6 Model Questions
14.0 Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
 understand the journey of William Hazlitt as an author
 critically evaluate Hazlitt as an essayist
 discuss his major essays and other works
 critically evaluate Hazlitt’s style of essay writing
14.1 Introduction
You’ve already read about the essay as a literary tool and the magnificent use of the personal
essay by Charles Lamb. This unit shall deal with another brilliant essayist William Hazlitt, an
English critic best known for his humanistic essays. You will study about Hazlitt’s life, the
major influences on him, his style of writing and the wide spectrum of subjects covered in his
writings.
The lesson contains summary and critical analysis of the prescribed text so that you can
understand and analyse the text. To understand the difficult terms used by the author a
glossary is provided in the end of the lesson. The model question and self-assessment question
will help you to prepare for the final examination.
14.2 About the Author
One of the most prolific geniuses that English Literature ever produced, Hazlitt was an
essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now
considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English language
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placed on the same pedestal of excellence as Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. He is also
acknowledged as the finest art critic of his age. Despite his high standing among historians of
literature and art, his work has not been read as widely as that of his contemporaries.
14.2.1 Biography
William Hazlitt (1778 – 1830) was the son of a Unitarian preacher and spent most of his
childhood in Ireland and North America. The family returned to England when William was
nine, settling in Shropshire. At puberty, the child became somewhat sullen and
unapproachable, tendencies that persisted throughout his life. He read intensively, however,
laying the foundation of his learning. Having some difficulty in expressing himself either in
conversation or in writing, he turned to painting and in 1802, travelled to Paris to work in the
Louvre even though war between England and France compelled his return the very following
year.
Hazlitt was educated at home and at a local school until 1793, when his father sent him to a
Unitarian seminary on what was then the outskirts of London, the Unitarian New College at
Hackney (commonly referred to as Hackney College). Although Hazlitt stayed there for only
about two years, its impact was enormous.
In April of 1798, Hazlitt joined Coleridge at his residence in Nether Stowey, where they both
spent time with the poet William Wordsworth. Again, Hazlitt was enraptured. While he was not
immediately struck by Wordsworth’s appearance, he saw that Wordsworth had the mind of a
true poet, and he had created something entirely new.
His friends, who already included Charles Lamb, William Wordsworth, and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, encouraged his ambitions as a painter; yet in 1805 he turned to metaphysics and
the study of philosophy that had attracted him earlier, publishing his first book, On the
Principles of Human Action. In 1808, he married Sarah Stoddart, and the couple went to live at
Winterslow on Salisbury Plain, which was to become Hazlitt’s favourite retreat for thinking and
writing. Shortly before the wedding, John Stoddart established a trust into which he began
paying £100 per year, for the benefit of Hazlitt and his wife—this was a very generous gesture,
but Hazlitt detested being supported by his brother-in-law, whose political beliefs he despised.
Although incompatibilities would later drive the couple apart, at first the union seemed to work
well enough.
Hazlitt continued to produce articles on miscellaneous topics for The Examiner and other
periodicals including political diatribes against any whom he felt ignored or minimised the
needs and rights of the common man. Defection from the cause of liberty had become easier in
light of the oppressive political atmosphere in England at that time, in reaction to the French
Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.Lamb, who tried to remain uninvolved politically,
tolerated his abrasiveness, and that friendship managed to survive, if only just barely in the
face of Hazlitt’s growing bitterness, short temper, and propensity for hurling invective at
friends and foes alike.
Although he successfully completed several literary projects, by the end of 1811 Hazlitt was
penniless. He then gave a course of lectures in philosophy in London and began reporting for
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the Morning Chronicle, quickly establishing himself as critic, journalist, and essayist. His
collected dramatic criticism appeared as A View of the English Stage in 1818. He also
contributed to a number of journals, among them Leigh Hunt’s Examiner; this association led
to the publication of The Round Table, 2 vol. (1817), 52 essays of which 40 were by Hazlitt.
Also in 1817 Hazlitt published his Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays, which met with
immediate approval in most quarters. He had, however, become involved in a number of
quarrels, often with his friends, resulting from the forcible expression of his views in the
journals. At the same time, he made new friends and admirers (among them Percy Bysshe
Shelley and John Keats) and consolidated his reputation as a lecturer, delivering courses On
the English Poets (published 1818) and On the English Comic Writers (published 1819), as well
as publishing a collection of political essays. His volume entitled Lectures on the Dramatic
Literature of the Age of Elizabeth was prepared during 1819, but thereafter he devoted himself
to essays for various journals, notably John Scott’s London Magazine.
Hazlitt lived apart from his wife after the end of 1819, and they were divorced in 1822. Hazlitt
could not for some time persuade himself to believe so. His mind nearly snapped. At his
emotional nadir, he even contemplated suicide. He later fell in love with the daughter of his
London landlord, but the affair ended disastrously, and Hazlitt described his suffering in the
strange Liber Amoris or The New Pygmalion (1823). In April 1824 Hazlitt married a widow
named Bridgwater. But the new wife was resented by his son, whom Hazlitt adored, and the
couple separated after three years. Part of this second marriage was spent abroad, an
experience recorded in Notes of a Journey in France and Italy (1826).
Few details remain of Hazlitt’s daily life in his last years. Much of his time was spent by choice
in the bucolic setting of Winterslow. But he needed to be in London for business reasons.
There, he seems to have exchanged visits with some of his old friends, but few details of these
occasions were recorded. Often he was seen in the company of his son and son’s fiancée.
Otherwise, he continued to produce a stream of articles to make ends meet.
By September 1830, Hazlitt was confined to his bed, with his son in attendance, his pain so
acute that his doctor kept him drugged on opium much of the time. His last few days were
spent in delirium, obsessed with some woman that in later years gave rise to speculation: was
it Sarah Walker? Or was it, as biographer Stanley Jones believes, more likely to have been a
woman he had met more recently at the theatre? Finally, with his son and a few others in
attendance, he died on 18 September. His last words were reported to have been “Well, I’ve had
a happy life”. William Hazlitt was buried in the churchyard of St Anne’s Church, Soho in
London on 23 September 1830, with only his son William, Charles Lamb, P.G. Patmore, and
possibly a few other friends in attendance.
Of all Hazlitt's voluminous writings, those which retain most value to-day are his literary
criticisms and his essays on general topics. His clear and vivacious style rose at times to a rare
beauty; and when the temper of his work was not marred by his touchiness and egotism he
wrote with great charm and a delicate fancy.
14.2.2 Style of Writing
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Stevenson said: “We may all be mighty fine fellows, but none of us can write William Hazlitt” 2

Influenced by Elizabethan and Restoration Writers

Hazlitt’s style was moulded by the influences he received from the Elizabethan writers, the
poets and dramatists of the Restoration, the prose writers of the eighteenth century, and his
contemporaries like Wordsworth and Coleridge. He quoted frequently from authors like
Shakespeare, Milton Pope, Rousseau, Sterne, Fielding and Wordsworth. He quoted frequently
from the Bible. His style is easy, incisive, homely, picturesque, and vigorous, since he
emulated Burke who “poured out his mind on paper”. Rejecting the pedantic devices like
antithesis and parallelism, he arrived at a forked, playful, and trimmed style.
Innate gift of expression
It was never his intention to display his knowledge through his essays, neither did he have any
aim to reform society, he developed a style which would help him to share his thoughts,
feelings, ideas with his readers so that he could carry them along with him. so that they may
share his point of view.
Unusual beginnings
A very striking observation or an epigram with which Hazlitt generally opens his essays serves
to catch the interest of the reader. Such as 'no young man believes he shall ever die.
A varied spectrum of thought
There is a sudden hurry of spirit which never fails to accompany the fine show of reason and
taste under which the mind is hardly at leisure to select or object. With his logic, his
philosophy, his enthusiasm and his experience, he carries the reader along and before he
realizes what the author intends to write about, Hazlitt moves on to some other allied subject
and from there to a logical conclusion, which may or may not have any connection with the
title of his essay.
A fine combination of intellect and feeling
Hazlitt did not believe in rules or study. He was capable of using common words and
energizing them with fresh and living significance. He knew the precise meaning of words and
was successful in employing each word, which could express his ideas, thoughts and feelings
adequately and precisely. Aphorisms abound in his essays and Hazlitt used words skilfully to
prove his point or to make his meaning explicit. Words appealed to his emotions giving him the
capacity to express himself in a picturesque manner. Hazlitt's appeal lies in his ability to
analyse intellectually and respond emotionally.
Familiarity of speech
He rejected Samuel Johnson's scholarly approach and tried his best to preserve the familiar
tone of speech. He was equally opposed to loose and vague forms of expression; he used both
short and long sentences. At times, his sentences seem rough, curt and unpolished as he tries
to evoke the essence of the spoken word. As he progresses, the sentences slowly gain warmth

2
Clark, Evert Mordecai. “The Kinship Of Hazlitt and Stevenson.” , Vol. 4.UTP, 1924.97-114. Pp 18.
 206

and as the author's enthusiasm increases, there is a sudden outburst elevating the expression
and making it virile. The author's manner matches his matter; his vigour matches his
language.
Meticulous choice of words
For Hazlitt, the precise choice of words and their proper arrangement assumes great
importance, more so since the written word must appear familiar and simultaneously must
convey exactly what the writer wants his reader to understand. The familiar style, according to
Hazlitt depends on the subject matter, the people addressed to, the writer's attitude towards
his topic and his readers. Hazlitt compared words to coins; just as coins, words acquire their
worth through custom and convention. Used appropriately, words are either vigorous or
forceful or they are insipid and weak, ultimately rejected like counterfeit coins.
Use of parallels
A unique feature of Hazlitt's style is his use of parallel construction and contrast. He used
words in pairs: art and humour, past and future, cant and hypocrisy, thought and action,
genius and common sense, writing and speaking. Authors are paired off as Shakespeare and
Jonson, Chaucer and Spenser, Addison and Steel Dryden and Pope, Gray and Collins.
Variety and richness
He believed that no one could relish a good style without reading it aloud and that 'no style is
good that is not fit to be spoken or read aloud with effect.' Hence, he felt that the rhythm of
language was necessary and he ascribed due importance to it. He used literary devices of
antithesis, alliteration, paradox, metaphor and simile whenever he required it.
Pictorial quality
Being a painter, he never lost his painter's view; most of his essays have vivid imagery lending
a pictorial quality to his work. In his essay 'On Public Opinion', he confides that his essays are
not, 'so properly the work of an author by profession, as the thoughts of a metaphysician
expressed by a painter.' Hazlitt's style is therefore unique and individual.
Wit, humour, irony and satire
Wit, humour and satire found their place in Hazlitt's essays. He had a great understanding of
human-nature and coupled with the bitterness seen in his own nature he could hit hard when
necessary. Hazlitt loved philosophy deeply and was able to expertly use it judiciously in his
fabulous use of satire. Hazlitt’s wit is blended with irony and satire. Irony is that mental
characteristic which transforms an unpleasant phrase, word, or idea into a pleasant one. It
has an element of sarcasm. In satire the critical activity is present, and it is directed towards
the unpleasant and unacceptable modes of behaviour; or it exposes to ridicule certain
drawbacks and weaknesses which make man unpleasant. Hazlitt was more ironical and
satirical. His insight into the real nature of human life and his prejudices led him to point out
those failings of man which need correction. Evocation of Animal spirits is yet another tool to
exercise wit.
Importance to empathy
The doctrine of empathy carries a lot of significance for Hazlitt thought out his body of work.
He opines that the critic must have taste which is empathetic. The artist reads human interest,
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values, and feelings into his objects and the critic reads or finds his values, feelings and
interests in the work of art.
A golden mean
Hazlitt wrote an essay “On Familiar Style”. This essay gives us in broad outline the salient
features of Hazlitt’s own style. It is a style which is neither simple, nor ornate, nor grotesque. It
is a familiar style which demands a great effort on the part of the writer because it is not
common or colloquial. If one writes as he likes, it may become a cheap style. The familiar style
is characterised by precision and purity of expression. It is the golden mean between the
simple and the ornate forms of expression.
14.2.3 Notable Works
Charles Lamb introduced Hazlitt to William Godwin and other important literary figures in
London. In 1805 Joseph Johnson published Hazlitt’s first book, An Essay on the Principles of
Human Action. The following year Hazlitt published Free Thoughts on Public Affairs, an attack
on William Pitt and his government’s foreign policy. Hazlitt opposed England’s war with France
and its consequent heavy taxation. This was followed by a series of articles and pamphlets on
political corruption and the need to reform the voting system.
Hazlitt began writing for The Times and in 1808 married the editor’s sister, Sarah Stoddart,
who happened to be a good friend of Mary Lamb. .
Hazlitt's most important works are often divided into two categories: literary criticism and
familiar essays. Of his literary criticism Hazlitt wrote, "I say what I think: I think what I feel. I
cannot help receiving certain impressions from things; and I have sufficient courage to declare
(somewhat abruptly) what they are." Representative of his critical style is Characters of
Shakespeare's Plays (1817), which contains subjective, often panegyric commentary on such
individual characters as Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet. This work introduces Hazlitt's concept
of "gusto," a term he used to refer to qualities of passion and energy that he considered
necessary to great art. In accord with his impressionistic approach to literature, Hazlitt's
concept of gusto also suggests that a passionate and energetic response is the principal
criterion for gauging whether or not a work achieves greatness. Hazlitt felt that Shakespeare's
sonnets lacked gusto and judged them as passionless and unengaging despite the "desperate
cant of modern criticism." Hazlitt was no less opinionated on the works of his contemporaries.
In the final section of Lectures on the English Poets (1812) he criticized Coleridge and
Wordsworth, whose emphasis on nature and the common aspects of life acknowledged, in his
view, "no excellence but that which supports its own pretensions." In addition to literature,
Hazlitt also focused on drama and art in his critical essays, many of which are collected in A
View of the English Stage (1818) and Sketches of the Principal Picture-Galleries in England
(1824).
In 1810 he published the New and Improved Grammar of the English Language. Post his
divorce with Sarah, which probably was the most difficult period in his life, he produced many
of his best essays which were collected in his two most famous books: Table Talk (1821)
and The Plain Speaker (1826). Others were afterward edited by his son, William, as Sketches
and Essays (1829), Literary Remains (1836), and Winterslow (1850) and by his biographer,
 208

P.P. Howe, as New Writings (1925–27). Hazlitt’s other works during this period
of prolific output included Sketches of the Principal Picture Galleries in England (1824), with its
celebrated essay on the Dulwich gallery. In France he began an ambitious but not very
successful Life of Napoleon, 4 vol. (1828–30), and in 1825 he published some of his most
effective writing in The Spirit of the Age. His last book, Conversations of James Northcote (1830),
recorded his long friendship with that eccentric painter.

Self-Assessment Questions
1. Hazlitt was introduced to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in ______.
2. Hazlitt is considered as great as essayist as Samuel Johnson and _______
3. In 1805, he turned to metaphysics and the study of philosophy, publishing his first
book __________
4. Hazlitt’s essay ________ broadly outlines the salient features of Hazlitt’s own style.
5. _____ introduced Hazlitt to William Godwin and other important literary figures in
London.
6. Hazlitt's most important works are often divided into two categories: ____ and ____.
7. In 1805 Joseph Johnson published Hazlitt’s first book, ______
8. Hazlitt was a leading expert in England on the writings of _________.
14.3 Summary
In this lesson, you have learnt about William Hazlitt as an essayist, his life and notable works.
You also read about the influences that crafted him as a writer. The lesson has given you an
overview of the major themes of his works and also of his style as an essayist in general. This
lesson will help you to understand the next lessons on Hazlitt’s essays “On Reading Old Books”
and “On Gusto”
14.4 References
 Baker, Herschel. William Hazlitt. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1962. Web. July 24, 2019.
 Bromwich, David. Hazlitt: The Mind of a Critic. Yale University Press, London: 1999.
 Chase, Stanley. P. “Hazlitt as a Critic of Art.” PMLA. Vol. 39, Issue. 1 (Mar., 1924), pp.
179-202. Web. Aug.12, 2019.
 Hazlitt, William. “On Reading Old Books.” The Spirit of the Age. Vintage, UK: 2009.
 ---• “On Gusto.” The Fight and Other Writings. Penguin Classics, London: 2000.
14.5 Further Readings
 Quennell, Peter. A History of English Literature. Ferndale Editions, London: 1981. Pp
380.
 Wardle, Ralph. M. Hazlitt. University of Nebraska Press, NE: 1971.
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 Whelan, Maurice. In the Company of William Hazlitt: Thoughts for the Twenty-first
Century. London: Merlin Press, 2005.
 Wu, Duncan. William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2008.
14.6 Model Questions
1. Comment on Hazlitt’s style as a prose writer.
2. Which writers influenced Hazlitt in his early life as a writer and how?
3. Critically evaluate Hazlitt’s place as an essayist in the history of English Literature.

Answers to Self-Assessment Questions

1. 1798
2. George Orwell
3. On the Principles of Human Action
4. “On Familiar Style”
5. Charles lamb
6. Literary Criticism, familiar essays
7. An Essay on the Principles of Human Action.
8. William Shakespeare

*****
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Lesson 15

HAZLITT’S ON READING OLD BOOKS

Structure
15.0 Objectives
15.1 Introduction
15.2 “On Reading Old Books”: Introduction and Key Themes
15.3 Summary and Critical Analysis
15.4 Summary
15.5 Glossary
15.6 References
15.7 Further Readings
15.8 Model Questions
15.0 Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
 outline, comprehend and analyse the essay “On Reading Old Books”
 critically evaluate the text “On Reading Old Books”
 discuss the major themes in the essay
 discuss Hazlitt’s prose style in the essay
15.1 Introduction
The lesson shall give you a detailed summary, outlining the basic ideas represented in the
essay. It shall also help you to understand the examples that the author gives to fortify his
arguments. The lesson contains summary and critical analysis of the prescribed text so that
you can understand and analyse the text. To understand the difficult terms used by the author
a glossary is provided in the end of the lesson. The model question and self-assessment
question will help you to prepare for the final examination.
15.2 “On Reading Old Books”: Introduction and Key Themes
Hazlitt's "On Reading Old Books" was first published in the "New Monthly" magazine. It is to be
found in Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819) and in The Plain Speaker (1826). In the
essay, Hazlitt declares his fondness for reading old books - for him, old books are familiar
books. Each single time that one picks up an old book to re-read, one is taken down the
memory lane to reminisce about the plethora of memories associated with it. There is a certain
security in going back to old books that no amount of novelty can over-ride.
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He then goes on to name authors and their works which he had enjoyed reading some of these
works transported him to the days of his childhood and, therefore, enabled him to look at the
world once again with the eyes of a child. He also gives us briefly the reasons why he
particularly enjoyed these works. In this connection, he names certain works written by Henry
Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Tobias Smollett, and Rousseau.
In the concluding lines of the essay, Hazlitt says that there are other authors whose works he
has never read but whom he would certainly have liked to read. Among these works are Lord
Clarendon's History of the Grand Rebellion, Froissart's Chronicles, and Fuller's Worthies.
Some of the key themes of the essay are:
 Hazlitt’s fondness for old books and his clear preference for going back to the ones
that he has read rather than opting for literature that is new and unknown.
 The history that the reader shares with each book that he reads forms a very
important part of not only his reading experience but also weaves itself into his
everlasting memories. The books that one spends time with are the ones that one ends
up falling in love with.
 Memory becoming an important tool of introspection and self-revelation.
 Hazlitt’s marked admiration for Edmund Burke and Jean Rousseau, despite the
eminent rivals the former had and the controversies that the latter faced.
15.3 Summary and Critical Analysis
Hazlitt begins the essay by declaring that he has a particular disliking for new books. On the
other hand, his desire to re-read the twenty or thirty odd volumes that he’s already familiar
with shows no sign of wavering. Despite this extreme position on reading books, there have
been instances where he’s picked up a new book Tales of My Landlord3, which later added
considerably to his humble library. There also have been incidents where he’s been
recommended books which he’s not had time to dive into as yet, like the ones written by Lady
Morgan4 or Thomas Hope5.
Furthermore, he comments that unlike women who judge books and fashion alike and thus,
believe only in “the newest gloss”, he is absolutely unimpressed by the novelty in books. He
doesn’t bother the librarians or the booksellers for new released, fresh copies of standard
periodical publications. Citing examples of the marble-bound books of Andrew Miller 6,
Thurlow’s7 State Papers and Sir William Temple8’s Essays, the author expresses his liking for
books which have stood the test of time. “I have more confidence in the dead than the living,”
he says, thereby expressing his keenness for the authors who have managed to live through
these books that have outlived them rather than the new writers on the block.

3
A series of novels by Sir Walter Scott
4
Sydney, Lady Morgan was an Irish novelist
5
Thomas Hope wrote Anastasius , or Memoirs of a Greek.
6
Andrew Millar was a Scottish publisher.
7
John Thurlow was the Secretary of State in Protectorate England.
8
Sir Willaim Temple was a baronet and English statesman.
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He divides contemporary writers into two categories – friends and adversaries. In both the
cases, we as the readers, fail to judge their books impartially due to overwhelming emotions of
either affection or dislike. Our personal acquaintance with the writer may affect our judgement
as well, as someone who might write intelligently may not be able to match up to that level of
genius in person while someone who has a charming personality may be insipid and
uninspiring in their writings. These “contradictions and petty details interrupt the calm
current of our reflections.” On the other hand, in order to familiarize oneself with the authors
who lived before our time and are still relevant and in demand, all one needs to do is dip into
the body of work they have left behind. Hazlitt emphatically states that “the dust and smoke
and noise of modern literature have nothing in common with the pure, silent air of
immortality” – he readily abandons the literary rumpus of his day for the quiet meditation of
an old book.
Hazlitt finds the old books familiar – he knows what to expect from them and this anticipation
in no way dilutes the satisfaction that he obtains from their numerous re-readings. He finds a
new book akin to a “strange dish”, that he has to pick apart while he experiences it for the first
time and is unable to make up his mind about what he thinks of it. He doesn’t like this
uncertainty of response, which lacks conviction and the assumed security of a second trial.
The old books, however, are the tried and tested recipes that he knows are going to be
delicious. He also calls the “new-fangled” books mere “rifaccimentos” of something that the
world has earlier been introduced to – they are no more than poor adaptations and recasting of
a literary or artistic work that belongs to a previous era and was far superior and sumptuous
in its original rendition. The new books are like dishes which have been rehashed from the
popular, original ones.
In reading a renowned author that he already knows, there is an assurance of his time being
properly utilized and his literary tastes being satiated – it’s like meeting an old, cherished
friend with whom time just flies away. Old books, thus, like trusted friends, always hold the
possibility of teaching something new. One is at liberty to not worry about rushing to the end,
to linger, skip and skim, for he has been there already. Hazlitt rightly points out that the
familiarity of old books extends to another level, namely the history shared by the book and
the reader. We as readers, tend to form relationships more personal and long-lasting with our
books than we do with the closest of our friends. The author says that in going back to a book
which figures on his list as a favourite, and enjoys a place of prominence for him (say the first
novel that he ever read), the delight coming from the ability to imagine and critically relish the
work is beautifully complimented by the joy of nostalgic memories added to it. He can’t but
reminisce about how he felt when he read it the first time, which like any other first
occurrence, is an experience that can never be replicated again.
Hazlitt then beautifully describes the significance that books carry for its readers. He calls
books “links in the chain of our conscious being,” which hold the different versions of our
identity together that in their absence, would stay scattered. Guiding us through our journey
of life, books serve to be the hooks on which hangs the load of our entire spectrum of feelings –
our ethical convictions, our collected fantasies, memoirs of our fondness and tokens of our
happiest times. We can hang and take off this load in umpteen permutations of bits and pieces
as and when we please. Books are “for thoughts and for remembrance!” Just like the wishing
cap of Fortunatus9, they never run out of granting us the best possible wealth, which is that of
fights of imagination. A single word has the wondrous ability to transport us not just to any
imagined place across the globe, but also to any imagined point of time in our own life
9
Fortunatus had an inexhaustible purse and a wishing cap, which readily provided anything and everything that he desired.
 213

Hazlitt then talks about his father (his namesake, whom he fondly calls Shandy in the essay)
who had to settle for the French comedian and actor, Bruscambille in order to entertain
himself. Hazlitt, on the other hand, would readily choose a volume of Tobias Smollet’s
picaresque novel Peregrine Pickle or Henry Fielding’s comedy Tom Jones to spend his leisure in
the best possible way, sprinkled with humour and laughter. He goes on to then quote a few
incidents from these works to underscore the fact that they are in fact, classic comedies which
have survived the test of time. He might open Tom Jones at any point in the novel - at the
Memoirs of Lady Vane, or Lady Bellaston’s adventures at the masquerade, or the altercations
between Thwackum and Square, or Molly Seagrim’s escape, or the incident of Sophia and her
muff, or the her aunt’s verbose lecture on morality —and he will ending up finding the same
amusing bustle of the liveliness that he remembers when he first read it, Many a time, seeing
an odd volume of these wonderful, renowned old English authors placed on a stand, or
noticing their names catalogued with the rest, resting among others on the shelves of a library
revives the entire plethora of memories and thoughts associated with them and sets “the
puppets dallying.” Hazlitt feels as if he’s been taken back into time by at least twenty years,
and he becomes the same child again who had first laid his hands on these books.
Hazlitt then quotes the anecdote of a philosopher, who made the quite unwise and wrong
deduction of wanting to be young provided he could take the experience he had earned back to
his childhood with him. Hazlitt says that the philosopher probably didn’t realise that the
biggest advantage of youth is to be absolved of carrying the burden of experience, which comes
with age nevertheless. To go back to feeling that free is a privilege, when one is able to drop the
burden of experience just like Christian 10 was able to slide the load he had been carrying for
long off his shoulders when he came up to the cross. A little duo-decimo, with the
characteristic musty smell of mouldy, old paper can take one to the time when “ignorance was
bliss” – when one might not have had knowledge but one definitely had fun exploring the
kaleidoscope of the world – looking through the prisms of fiction, gazing curiously at humanity
like looking at animals in a zoo, which one can see but not touch.
Going back to these old books sets all his senses tingling to the nostalgia of his prior
experience – he lucidly recalls not just the content, but also various others facets connected to
the time when he might have read the book for the first time. He remembers the people he
knew around that time, the venue where he had sat to read the book, the nature and ambience
around him when he was cruising through the pages, “the feeling of the air, the fields, the sky”
– these memories gush to the shores of his mind, along with his early impressions of the book
as he sets on yet another journey to explore it, devouring its pages once again. He prefers this
reminiscence to newly printed, sweet and fresh smelling paper of the latest novel from the
Ballantyne press or the Minerva Press. He feels as if he is revisiting his youth in its infancy –
he is taken back to being a carefree, little kid who had no worries and cares in the world,
whose “path ran down with butter and honey” as he ran up and down the corridors of his
father’s house – this recollection of one of the happiest times in his life supersedes any
excitement that newness can produce.
He remembers how Tom Jones, which was available in Cooke’s11 pocket edition was the first
book to “break this spell” and introduce him to the literature that he had never read because
he had only been used to the books at school or the ones related to Church and clergy, with
the exception of Romance of the Forest12
10
The main character in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
11
Charles Cooke, a major publisher of a number of pocket series which made him a fortune.
12
Gothic novel by Ann Radcliff
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Tom Jones initiated a completely different set of feelings for him – it was “sweet in the mouth...
not bitter in the belly” – it not only showed him the world that he identified with, but also made
him imagine the world that he would be living in. It talked more about the people who were like
Hazlitt himself, and not about the ones out of this world (might be a reference to the
ecclesiastical books that he found tiresome.). His heart has been excited at the thought of
events like a boarding-school ballroom dance or celebration of gala-day at Christmas, but
Cooke’s edition of the British Novelists seemed to have set his heart to a tune that made him
experience an unending dance through life, giving him limitless and relentless joy.
This pocket book, costing six pence, had the regular feature of leaving things in the middle to
create suspense – be it where Tom Jones discovers Square behind the blanket; or where
Parson Adams13, in the course of extremely confusing events, ends up sleeping with Mrs Slip-
slop. Hazlitt warns the reader to not believe in the world presented by Joseph Andrews as the
character of Fanny, that the reader would desire to meet, was not real and couldn’t be found in
reality and even if he did, it would be better for him to not have met someone like her. It is just
a very complex paradigm of emotions for Hazlitt, that almost leaves him speechless.
Hazlitt recalls the eagerness with which he used to wait for the next lot of these pocket books.
Never again shall he be able to share that delight with which he looked at the illustrations,
imagined the story and embarked on the dame adventures as the characters’. Hazlitt then
proceeds to cite some particular examples of such characters that have stayed with him – “the
story and adventures of Major Bath and Commodore Trunnion, of Trim and Uncle Toby, of Don
Quixote and Sancho and Dapple, of Gil Blas and Dame Lorenza Sephora, of Laura and the fair
Lucretia, whose lips open and shut like buds of roses.” These fictitious characters produced
the outlines of many nameless ideas in Hazlitt’s mind, and he felt as though he were colouring
these ideas with buoyant joy as he stood mesmerized by the pages that he read.
He wishes to recall those incidents of joy, so that they may fill him with a fresh vitality for life.
He says that these nuances of fancy embedded in the context of human experience in form of
such books is the only “true ideal” – “the heavenly tints of Fancy reflected in the bubbles that
float upon the spring-tide of human life.”
Oh! Memory! Shield me from the world’s poor strife
And give those scenes thine everlasting life!14
Hazlitt further says that the reader is now a party to his paradoxical secret of liking the old
books better than the new ones. He then talks about Thomas Chubb’s Tracts, a political
treatise about his views on free will and determination, which he was reading around the same
time and often thinks of going back to reading them. His works have a strong critical
component and thus, have a quality which is worth applauding. He also talks about his
inclination to dip into metaphysical studies, which he never really was able to enjoy reading.
Caught in the web of philosophical concepts like “fate, free-will, fore-knowledge absolute,” he
was able to arrive at some satisfactory conclusions despite finding the subject to not be to his
utmost interest. Unlike Marlowe’s Faustus, he doesn’t think that he would have been at a
complete loss of understanding had he never studied authors like Hartley, Hume and Berkeley.
John Locke’s “Essay on the Human Understanding” added neither to his pleasure nor his
literary gain. Hobbes, powerful yet far too factual, is someone he didn’t read until later.

13
A character from Joseph Andrews, also by Henry Fielding
14
From Coleridge’s tragic poetic drama, “Remorse.” He pleads to his memory to protect him from the struggles of the world
by remembering scenes from literature, which he wishes to etch permanently on his mind.
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He says that he read a few poets who didn’t quite agree with him because his ‘deficient
imagination’ couldn’t make up for what they wished to convey to him as the reader. He,
however, took a fancy to the French romances and philosophy that he eagerly lapped up.
Going back to the culinary analogy, he says that he has made quite some fine meals out of the
scenes of the New Eloise15; the ones he read and re-read with an inexpressible wonder each
time.
However, he was appalled to realise that he had lost almost all his taste for this work (except a
few parts) when he encountered it again post a few years. Mortified at this change, he tried to
invent excuses for the same – right from the smallness of the gilded editions that he had
brought to the editions smacking of the perfume of rose leaves. With dedicated seriousness, he
carried home and read the Dedication to the Social Contract by the same author, along with
some more of his works. He says he has spoken about Rousseau’s Confessions elsewhere too,
and he still maintains that recollecting them has a sweet and calming effect on him, “Their
beauties are not “scattered like stray-gifts o’er the earth,” but sown thick on the page, rich and
rare.”
Hazlitt wishes that he hadn’t read Emilius 16 with a faith as profound as he did. The work gave
him no opportunity to exercise his dislike for affectation and pretence. He ought to have
followed the model of Sir Fopling Flutter 17 if he wanted to deliberately try and find the negative
aspects of this work. Hazlitt admits that he has always belonged to the category or people who
are grounded and modest, to the extent of their virtues being overshadowed by their humility.
He then satirically comments these people would definitely be drawn to the character of Emile,
and this shall prove to be their biggest regret, because humility isn’t a virtue that the society
respects. He says further that this morose, dull and uninspiring humour has to be applauded
instead of been corrected – it’s supposed to be held up as an object worth imitating with
promises of simplicity, newness and superiority to all the prejudices that the world holds. Put
on a pedestal, Emilius serves as a decoy which dupes the readers into expecting an amiable,
magnanimous text, only to have them confront the reality. Possibly referring to the
controversial debates that Emilius got into, Hazlitt says that the notions of depending on one’s
true worth and preferring plain truth to ostentatious shows of artificiality seem to “hang like a
mill-stone round the neck of the imagination—“a load to sink a navy”. As they tug us close to
the truth, they become a hindrance, limiting the prospects of farfetched imagination.
Continuing in the same vein, he says that in order to be successful and renowned, a man
shouldn’t rely upon the resources and qualities that lie within him. Instead, he should always
look towards keeping up appearances. He must always be cloaked in “a halo of mystery” riding
in a carriage of opinions (meaning he must be strongly opinionated and inflexible) with his
overweening, arrogant attitude following him like a train trails behind a bride. His real merits
shouldn’t comfort him like a buff leather jacket or a snug fitting doublet and hose. He should
rather be surrounded by a solemn procession of prejudices, sprawling like the signs of the
zodiac. If he seems to be anything except what he truly is, he will be able to become anything
that he wants to be because he is deluding his true self.
Hazlitt clinches the satirical argument by commenting that the world is given to being amused
and willingly deceived by hollow, fake appearances. People living in a state of constant
hallucination are prone to forgiving everything except the stark, simple truth right before them
– the kind of truth that the character of Emilius exhibits. Realising that he has digressed quite
15
Epistolary novel by Jean-Jaques Rousseau.
16
A treatise on education by Rousseau
17
A restoration comedy by George Etherge, meant to expose the follies of society through satire and humor.
 216

a lot, Hazlitt concluded his thoughts on Emilius here and continues with his deliberation on
reading old books.
He says that books have lost their power to overwhelm him and that he is unable to display
the same interest in them that he earlier used to. He appreciates a good book but is not able to
feel them as closely as he used to. He knows that Marcian Colonna 18 is an exquisite book.
Reading John Keats’s Eve of St. Agnes makes him lament the loss of his youth. The wonderful
picture that Keats paints with his poetic genius, the images he invokes in his mind give wings
to Hazlitt’s imagination too. However, his experience with this canvas etched before him is not
the same as before. He knows the kind of feeling he could and might have felt on reading
something like this at one time, but he doesn’t feel that way anymore. Going back to the
parallel of a book being a culinary experiment, he says that the distinct, sumptuous flavour as
well as aroma of literature is lost to him while merely the bran and husk remain. If any one
were to ask him what he reads lately, his only answer would be that he reads mere words
which have lost all their meaning to him.
However, there was a time when words meant everything to him. Every word to him was as
beautiful as a flower, as precious as a pearl which dropped from the mouth of characters that
ranged from little peasant-girls to the great preacher in the Caledonian Chapel! It is as if
knowledge was a stream that tempted his thirsty self, from which he drank freely and
uninhibitedly without the fear of being mocked at, just like he drank from the river of life. This
means that books not only endowed him with knowledge and experience but also made his life
more joyful. He then quotes from the various texts which he had devoured to quench his thirst
for familiarity with the literature around the world. He talks about basking in the glorious
expressions of Goëthe’s Sorrows of Werter 19 and of Schiller’s Robbers - Giving [his] stock of
more to that which had too much” – adding his own experiences to what the books said as he
lived the scenes that they sketched before him. He became one with the books he read.
He read Coleridge’s sonnet to Schiller and agreed with every word. (Sonnet XV to Schiller) he
believes that it was when he started reading the poetry of William Wordsworth (the author of
the Lyrical Ballads) that he was prompted to delve deeper into the mysteries of poetry.
However, his ability to discriminate the high literature from the low, his love for various
characters of William Congreve like Valentine, Tattle or Miss Prue, his inclination towards
writers like Alexander Pope, Oliver Goldsmith and other novelists and comic writers was
always there much before he got to know and read Wordsworth.
Hazlitt then says that these poets and writers inspired him to inculcate the qualities that
probably even they didn’t have themselves. Hazlitt admits that he might be a little ill-equipped
as far as poetic diction and conception are concerned, but he knows his way around the life
and manners of a common man. Moulding the spirit of everyday life into words comes easily to
him; he doesn’t need to look at anyone for inspiration or plagiarism there. “He knows his cure
without a prompter,” he knows such studies inside out.
He says he is able to appreciate those observations and descriptions in poetry that correspond
to the everyday lives of people, and that may be looked down upon by those who have haughty
and pretentious tastes and don’t find such descriptions grand enough. Agreeing with Sir
18
An Italian tale with Three Dramatic Scenes by Barry Cornwall
19
The Sorrows of Young Werther is a loosely autobiographical epistolary novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German
Writer and statesman.
 217

Humphry Davy who called Shakespeare a metaphysician rather than a poet, Hazlitt says that
he understands that everything Shakespeare wrote, including some nonsense and his poetry,
had typicality about it and he understands that particular trait of his works now. He wishes to
have been introduced to the dramatic writers who were Shakespeare’s contemporaries,
because getting to know them revived his old passion for reading and his old delight in books
even though they were quite new to him. He says that he had read the Periodical Essayists a
long time ago; he liked the Tatler more than the Spectator. This was followed by him reading
The Rambler, the Adventurer, the World, and the Connoisseur. He didn’t develop any
particular liking for them, and has no desire to read them again.
He expresses his keenness to read Samuel Richardson, saying that he likes his longest novels
the most and would be more than fine to pick up any one of them , no matter where he is, and
read them from beginning to end again and again, till he was one with the broad spectrum of
the characters that these novels displayed - “till every word and syllable relating to the bright
Clarissa, the divine Clementina, the beautiful Pamela, “with every trick and line of their sweet
favour,” were once more “graven in my heart’s table.”
Hazlitt talks about his not very evident sympathy for Mackenzie’s Julia de Roubignè, especially
for his Man of Feeling which wasn’t out of this world but somehow, the connection that he
made with its characters was never broken once it was formed. He expresses his utmost
admiration for Edmund Spenser, Chaucer and Boccaccio.
Hazlitt remembers the time when he was able to get his hands on Milton’s Paradise Lost, and
Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution, both which he claims to still have. On looking at
them today, he can’t help but recollect the pleasure he had felt when he had returned home
with his “double prize. Even though that time is long gone, he anxiously wishes to preserve the
memories of those moments. He comments that the entire body of German Criticism started
against the character of Satan (which states that Satan is a personification of pure evil and
disgust) finds at appropriate response in Paradise Lost where Milton has drawn Satan not as
“a devil incarnate, but a fallen angel.” As the theory falls flat on its face, Hazlitt calls out for
ending this “monkish chant,” this prejudiced uproar for making Satan into a monster with
horns and a tail.
Remembering Burkes’ Reflections, Hazlitt says that he found it so endearing that he read it not
just himself but also to others. He says that understanding a rival is a form of praise while
admiring him adds to his credibility even more; he did at least one of these two things when it
came to Burke. Ever since he read anything written by Burke for the first time (which was an
extract from his Letter to a Noble Lord in a three-times a week paper, The St. James’s
Chronicle, in 1796), Hazlitt couldn’t help but infer and deduce that Burke’s eloquence and
style of pouring his heart and soul into his works was unmatchable. In front of him, all other
styles seemed to be dull and impudent.
Dr Samuel Johnson’s style was lofty, bordering on being didactic and pompous while was
Junius’s (who was one of Hazlitt’s favourite at that time) with all his brevity, coiled up into
nothing but contrasting points and well-trimmed sentences. Burke’s style was pronged
(carrying many implications) buoyant and distinct. He delivered plain things on a plain ground
but when it came to playfulness, there was no end to the twists and turns he created in his
works. Hazlitt was never impressed by the set of canons and principles that Burke promoted.
He says that he was significant in arresting the spread of these doctrines and still continues to
counter them but that doesn’t deter him from admiring the author. He wasn’t considered a
very staunch supporter of the opposite side either. Hazlitt thought that Burke had a tendency
to deliver fifty truths even if his conclusion wasn’t justified.
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He remembers Coleridge assuring him that Wordsworth’s “Essay on Marriage” was

incomparably superior. As he had not read any prose works of Wordsworth till that time, he
was unable to express his scepticism on the subject but it did serve as a portal of initiating
Hazlitt’s sceptical admiration. He further comments that he hasn’t been able to consider any
prose-writers greater than Burke - they either lay out of his course of study, or were beyond
his comprehension and now he is too old to recognize new genius of the time. The prominent
slots are taken; the tables of excellence are full. He says that now when he himself is an
accomplished essayist and there are writers who supersede Burke in talent, he still can’t
abandon his high regard for Burke. He then wonders what his level of admiration would have
been at the time when he was desperately trying to master the art of writing prose, but in vain.
He thinks of that time when he idolized Burke and marvelled at style with the yearning of a
dumb amateur; when his greatest ambition was to be able to convey his smallest idea to others
in words, and more than often was rendered a hopeless ambition. Hazlitt says that he was
always objective about measuring the excellence of others; a realisation of his own defects and
inabilities, and the long way he had to go before he could reach the point of perfection that
these other writers were at, only made him regard them with greater awe and affection.
Inching towards the conclusion, Hazlitt says that he has given the reader an account of most
of his early studies and favourite authors, some of whom he has since criticised broadly as
well. He neither cares nor knows whether the observations that he’s made so far are going to
survive him. However, he shall always look back with gratitude and pride at the works that he
has mentioned and the feelings that they have endowed him with ever since he started to make
sense of language. He feels that having got the opportunity to relish the intimacy with such
works and having been familiar with such great writers has made his life totally worth living.
He has not lived in vain.
There are a few authors whom he hasn’t read so far and yet, has had a great desire to
familiarize himself with. Among these is Lord Clarendon’s History of the Grand Rebellion that
he has heard literary connoisseurs speak highly of. He has also seen fine portraits of the
characters and his interest in the events that book talks about sparks his interest further. He
has always had a liking for well-penned characters, and Clarendon is said to have been a
master at that. He would also like to read Froissart’s Chronicles20, Hollinshed21 and Stowe22,
and Fuller’s Worthies23. He wishes to read Beaumont and Fletcher all through whenever he
gets the chance, since he has only read a dozen or fourteen of their fifty- two plays.
He also is keen on reading the speeches of Thucydides (the greatest of ancient Greek
historians), and the ones from the History of Florence by Francesco Guicciardini. He wants to

20
Froissart's Chronicles (or Chroniques) are a prose history of the Hundred Years' War written in the 14th century by Jean
Froissart.
21
Raphael Holinshed was an English chronicler; he wrote Holinshed's Chronicles, which is one of the major sources used by
William Shakespeare for a number of his plays.
22
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe was the author Uncle Tom's Cabin, which depicts the harsh conditions of enslaved African
Americans.
23
History of the Worthies of England written by Thomas Fuller
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get his hands on Don Quixote in the original, the Loves of Persiles and Sigismunda, and the
Galatea – all by Miguel de Cervantes. But he reserves them for another day. Hazlitt concludes
the essay by expressing a desire to read the last new novel by Sir Walter Scott, the author of
Waverley. He says that he would be more than glad to find that it to be the author’s best work.

Critical Analysis
For Hazlitt, the familiarity of old books extends to a whole another level, namely the history
shared by the book and the reader. Hazlitt writes rhapsodically of opening Tom Jones and
feeling like a child again. Books that he has read in his childhood take him back to the alleys
and corridors and orangery of his father’s home. No amount of adult scrutiny can match up to
this nostalgic exultation. Re-reading thus, according to Hazlitt, inspires introspection and self-
reflection through the workings of memory. That is how Hazlitt realises that his response to
books has changed over the years.
A critic and acquaintance of Wordsworth and Coleridge, Hazlitt was witnessing the poetic sea
change of the Romantic period first-hand. He was immersed in a contemporary literature scene
that must have been amongst the most thriving, exhilarating and inspiring in the history of
English literature. And yet even Hazlitt found himself abandoning the literary rumpus of his
day for the quiet meditation of an old book.
He talks about the writers he idolises, the ones he has wanted to read but not has been able to
and the ones that he doesn’t consider worth reading. Despite taking a rather extreme position
on reading new books and re-reading the old ones, Hazlitt is able to justify his position as a
reader. While once he used to read for adventure, he now reads for security, and it’s a
comfortable feeling to be able to return to something that holds no surprises and is
unchanging. Hazlitt is clear that even though there are some authors on his to-be-read list, he
re-reads to stubbornly avoid novelty and quite unapologetically so. Therefore, his refusal to
read something new may come across as conservative, but it is restful nevertheless, opposed to
the shock of the new.
His views about the authors that he likes are an insight into Hazlitt’s own personality as a
writer as well as an individual. While he makes a conspicuous display of his affection for the
simplicity and truthfulness of Rousseau’s Emile, he also comments on how he has always
admired the lack of superfluous display of pomp and how he considers himself to be rooted in
modesty.
His style throughout the essay is typically sharp, idiomatic and familiar. Hazlitt always
believed in propriety of words and phrases, and this essay is no exception. Even when he says
that he’s digressing while he talks about Rousseau’s Emilius, the reader knows that this
digression is but a comment on the ostentatious displays of untruth in the literature of the
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day. The arguments presented by him are refined and enthusiastic, which he puts forth with
conviction. He is keen to keep in his memory certain experiences that he had come across
books that he had read, plays which he had seen, pictures that he had admired but all this
with a dose of critical reason.
Hazlitt is one of the most subtle and acute of English critics, though, when contemporaries
came under review, he sometimes allowed himself to be unduly swayed by personal or political
feeling, from which he had himself often suffered at the hands of others. His chief principle of
criticism as avowed by himself was that “a genuine criticism should reflect the colour, the light
and shade, the soul and body of a work.”24

Self-Assessment Questions
1. Hazlitt divides contemporary writers into two categories – ___ and ___.
2. In a culinary parallel, Hazlitt finds a new book similar to a ____ while the old books are
tried recipes.
3. Hazlitt compares books to the wishing cap of ____
4. Hazlitt has high words of praise for Henry fielding’s comedy ___-in the essay; he says it
“broke his spell.”
5. He wishes to read Cervantes’ ____ in original.
6. Hazlitt comments that John Locke’s _____ added neither to his pleasure nor his literary
gain.
7. Hazlitt wishes that he hadn’t read Rousseau’s ____with a faith as profound as he did.
15.4 Summary
Through a detailed explanation of the essay, you must have been able to understand the main
ideas expressed by Hazlitt in this essay. A detailed glossary and appropriate footnotes must
have helped you understand the various references that the author has used in order to put
forth his arguments. A comprehensive critical analysis must have helped you in
comprehending the essay.
15.5 Glossary
1. Venture: Undertake
2. Pester: Trouble
3. Mail-coach copies: Freshly published and delivered by train
4. Black-letter: a kind of script called Gothic, also called old English
5. Contemporary: Current
6. New- fangled: New, latest
7. Hashes: Works on
24
From A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature by John W. Cousin, 1910.
 221

8. Rifaccimenti: a recasting or adaptation

9. Palate: taste
10. Insipid: dull
11. Vilest: unpleasant
12. Memoirs of Lady Vane... lecture on morality: Various characters and scenes
from Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones
13. Muff: A tube made of fur for warming the hands
14. Fain: willing to
15. Duodecimo : a size of book where each leaf is 1/12th the size of the printing
sheet
16. Raree-show: a small display viewed in a box, quite like a kaleidoscope
17. Menagerie: zoo
18. Vividness: clarity
19. Devour: read eagerly
20. Ecclesiastical: Related to Christian church and clergy
21. Mrs Radcliffe’s Romance of the Forest: a gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe
22. Sixpenny: costing six pence
23. Gil Blas: picaresque novel by Alain- René Lésage
24. Chubb’s Tracts: Thomas Chubb’s views on free will and determinism
25. Gusto: exhibiting strong emotion or passion
26. Polemical: involving strongly critical opinion
27. Pertinacity: conviction and stubbornness together
28. Briars: prickly shrubs
29. Mortified: embarrassed and shocked
30. Gilt: having gilded edges
31. Phlegmatic: morose
32. Mill- stone: a hindrance, a difficult load to carry
33. Equipage: carriage
34. Train: an extra length of fabric that extends from the back of a dress and
trails behind as one walks
35. Blazonry: brilliant decoration or display
36. Aroma: smell
37. Bran and husk: outer shells of a seed of grain
38. Schiller’s Robbers: Drama by German playwright Freidrich Schiller
39. Predilection: preference
40. Intus et in cute: Latin for (knowing) inside and out
41. Periodical essayists: The periodical essay first appeared during the 1700s. London
magazines such as The Spectator and the Tatler carried these short nonfiction essays,
which weren’t meant to preach, they were just light reading. They were often about
manners or morality, and they used a commonsense approach that readers found
appealing. Notable periodical essayists of the 18th century include Joseph Addison,
Richard Steele, Samuel Johnson, and Oliver Goldsmith.
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42. Straggling: spread in an untidy way

43. Farquhar: George. F. Farquhar was an Irish dramatist
44. Forked: multidimensional
45. Crested like the serpent: distinct
46. Circumgyrations: twists and turns
47. Volscians: an Italian Tribe
48. Contagion: Spread
49. Comprehension: understanding
15.6 References
 Baker, Herschel. William Hazlitt. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1962. Web. July 24, 2019.
 Bromwich, David. Hazlitt: The Mind of a Critic. Yale University Press, London: 1999.
 Chase, Stanley. P. “Hazlitt as a Critic of Art.” PMLA. Vol. 39, Issue. 1 (Mar., 1924),
pp. 179-202. Web. Aug.12, 2019.
 Hazlitt, William. “On Reading Old Books.” The Spirit of the Age. Vintage, UK: 2009.
 --- “On Gusto.” The Fight and Other Writings. Penguin Classics, London: 2000.
15.7 Further Readings
 Quennell, Peter. A History of English Literature. Ferndale Editions, London: 1981. Pp
380.
 Wardle, Ralph. M. Hazlitt. University of Nebraska Press, NE: 1971.
 Whelan, Maurice. In the Company of William Hazlitt: Thoughts for the Twenty-first
Century. London: Merlin Press, 2005.
 Wu, Duncan. William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2008.
15.8 Model Questions
1. How does Hazlitt describe the pleasures of re-reading old books?
2. Why does Hazlitt say that he has “more confidence in the dead than the living?” Do
you agree with this statement of his?
3. Critically examine Hazlitt as a critic in the essay “On Reading Old Books

Answers to Self-Assessment Questions

1. Friends and adversaries
2. Strange dish.
3. Fortunatus.
4. Tom Jones
5. Don Quixote
6. “Essay on the Human Understanding”
7. Emilius
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Lesson 16

HAZLITT’S ‘ON GUSTO’

Structure
16.0 Objectives
16.1 Introduction
16.2 Introduction to “On Gusto”
16.3 Summary and Critical Analysis
16.4 Summary
16.5 Glossary
16.6 References
16.7 Further Readings
16.8 Model Questions
16.0 Objectives
After reading this lesson, you will be able to:
 outline, comprehend and analyse the essay “On Gusto.”
 discuss Hazlitt’s prose style in the essay.
 critically analyse Hazlitt’s concept of ‘gusto’.
 discuss the role that ‘truth of intrinsic character’ plays in the formation of gusto
when it comes to art
16.1 Introduction
The lesson shall give you a complete summary, delineating the major concepts represented in
the essay. It shall also help you comprehend the examples and historical/ artistic references
that the author gives to reinforce his opinions.
16.2 Introduction to “On Gusto”
Hazlitt's “On Gusto " was first published in The Examiner on May 26th, 1816 and can be found
reproduced in The Round Table. As a writer on art, William Hazlitt has widely been recognised
(for better and for worse) as a transitional, even pivotal figure. In this essay, he expounds his
concept of ‘gusto’, a concept which long ago was recognised as representing for this writer ‘the
crowning quality of great art’. Through examples from art, primarily paintings, he explains the
term as an index of the imaginative intensity with which the artist endows his work.
Hazlitt means simply that this intensity results in the excitation of more senses than that to
which the primary appeal is made. Sensations of smell, of taste, and of hearing are mingled
with those of sight, and the complexity of these sensations intensifies our emotional reaction,
since more of our functions enter into it. The essay goes on to specify that the province of
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‘gusto’ includes not only things possessing expression – things capable of ‘natural signs’ – but
also ‘things without expression’, for instance ‘the natural appearances of objects, as mere
colour or form’
16.3 Summary and Critical Analysis
Hazlitt defines ‘gusto’ as the passion that defines an object. While it is comparatively easy to
explain it when we talk about expression (in that gusto refers to the highest degree of
expression), it becomes a bit tough to explain the concept when we talk about mere colour or
form of objects and don’t have any conspicuous form of expression to rely upon.
However, Hazlitt feels that in a way, there's nothing that can be said to be devoid of expression;
there's absolutely nothing that entirely lacks the power to associate itself with pleasure or
pain. From this experience of true feeling arises the truth of character and it is in the highest
degree of forming this truth of character (the maximum that a subject is capable of) that ‘gusto’
lies.
He finds a particular gusto, a certain passionate power in the way the Italian painter Titian
uses colour. His paintings are so life-like that bathed in the sensual delicacy of their flesh-
colouring, their bodies seem to feel and their heads seem to be buzzing with thoughts. The
entire work appears to be alive all over; it doesn’t just imitate the look and texture of the actual
flesh but rather the tingling tangibility that the flesh typically carries.
Hazlitt elucidates his point by giving the example of the female figures painted by Titian, whose
dainty limbs exude a voluptuous softness, which seems to be aware of the pleasure of those
who look at the figures. He says that any natural object would affect the senses and sensibility
of the observer in a particular way – a manner which would be distinct and divine both – and
this effect would be as much treasured by the heart as it would be preserved by the memory.
In the similar manner, the objects in the painting (which are simulations and not actually
natural) create the same impression on the beholder – total, absolute, untainted, carrying the
stamp of the truth of passion, glowing with a charming beauty and reflecting the pride of an
appreciating look.
A lot of painters take liberty with crafting their own colour of flesh in their paintings; Ruben’s
rosy flesh resembles the hue of flowers while Albano’s pale flesh looks like ivory. Titian’s flesh-
colouring is just like flesh and nothing else. It is as distinct in itself and as different from that
of the other painters as skin itself is from a red or a white cloth thrown over it (i.e. it’s not
diluted in effect). It is unadulterated and it looks like as though, through that flesh-coloured
canvas, we can see the blood circulating in the blue veins which appear in random order. Even
the rest of the experience that follows is marked by that particularly exciting feeling that the
body feels when the eyes set themselves on something titillating. This, to Hazlitt, is gusto – this
wholesome, unmitigated experience that involves all the senses.
On the other hand, Hazlitt finds Vandyke’s flesh colour to lack gusto despite the fact that it
manifests great truth and purity. What it lacks, however, is substantial internal character –
the living principal which makes it come alive to the beholder. It might be perfect with its
smooth surface, but it is definitely wanting in the warmth of an alive, moving body. It is
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painted with an indifferent, mechanical precision but without passion. He seems to have
painted it with his hand, not his heart and soul. The impression that it creates stays limited to
a short, admiring look from the eye, which slides before it reaches any deeper into the soul,
heart or mind. Unlike the “tones” and strokes of Titian’s brush and pencil that leave a lasting,
jolting impression in the mind of the observer, Vandyke’s effect is transient, short and
superficial. The spectator is unable to build a taste to appreciate or an appetite to want more of
the same. Thus, gusto in painting is when the effect of one sense has a domino effect of
exciting the other senses as well to make the entire experience very sensually encompassing.
Hazlitt then talks about Michelangelo, another artist that he finds to be loaded with gusto that
is demonstrated proudly in his works, which unequivocally thrust the power of passion upon
the eyes of their observers. The limbs of his figures convey an idea of their physical strength
and prowess along with a spark of intellectual dignity. They are strong, broad and
commanding, seemingly capable of executing anything that is desired and doing that with
utmost ease. Even the faces of his figures emanate the same conscious power and capacity.
The forms appear to be possessed with the thought of what they shall do, and the conviction
that they will be able to do it. Michelangelo’s style comes across as hard and masculine
throughout – in appearance as well as in spirit. It is contrary to Correggio’s style which is
effeminate.
Therefore, we can infer that while the gusto of Michelangelo is about an expression of the
energy of the will that doesn’t have the adequate sensibility, Correggio’s gusto lies in
expressing marvellous sensibility without the wilful energy. Correggio’s figures do not display
the physical excellence of a well- built stature, but the soulful spirit that shines through it in
all its sweetness and grace is overwhelming – it is pure, soft, charming and divine! The picture
of a mere hand painted by Correggio has enough intrinsic sentiment to set up an entire school
of history painters. Whenever we gaze at the hands that Correggio or Raphael paint on the
women in their paintings, we always wish to reach out and touch them.
Coming back to Titian Hazlitt comments on the extraordinary gusto that Titian flaunts in his
paintings through their form as well as colouring. Reminiscing about one of Titian’s works that
he saw a long time back in the Orleans Gallery of Acteon hunting, he recalls what a beautiful
autumnal look it has with its tones of brown! He gives vivid details to the readers – the sky was
as grey as the stones; the winds seemed to be humming as they passed through the rustling
leaves and the twang of the bows made of tangled canopies of wood reverberated throughout.
Hazlitt believes that this particular landscape is owned by the artist, Benjamin West 25 and he
shall be a better judge of whether Hazlitt’s description has been able to do justice to the
painting.
Hazlitt then proceeds to talk about the landscape background of the St. Peter Martyr, where he
says that Titian has imbued the character of the work with a certain romantic interest, where
every situation and aspect adds to the total effect of the scene. Hazlitt further talks about the
bold trunks of the tall trees of the forests, the plants trailing on the ground, the spire of a

25
“Mr. West” might also refer to John West, Benjamin West’s father. It is not clear in the text.
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church at a distance with the background of the mountains that seem to be coloured in blue
against the golden hue of the sky.
Hazlitt then goes on to talk about Rubens who displays a great deal of gusto but only in
painting the forms of Fauns and Satyrs. Rembrandt, on the other hand, has gusto in
everything which endows his work with a character and spirit that’s very palpable and carries
itself off to the observer effortlessly and inadvertently. He pays absolute attention to permeate
every aspect of his paintings with the most realistic detail possible. For example, a diamond
worn by a Burgomaster’s wife shall only be of the highest quality and the furs he paints shall
appear strong and warm enough to withstand the chilly, Russian winters.
Raphael’s gusto, Hazlitt says, lies only in expressing human form. The dry and poor style that
he exhibits in anything that’s not human can’t be missed by the eye and even when it comes to
painting people in his landscapes, he is not very good. His trees seem to be dried twigs of
grass, which are botanical specimens rather than a wholesome image. Hazlitt wonders why it
is so. Did Raphael never visit any other place beyond the churches and streets of Rome? Why
is his perception of landscapes and people so limited, narrow and pitiable? Did he never get to
have an encounter with nature close enough to enable him to imbibe the spirit of the
landscape which he could later imitate in his art? He couldn’t have been said to belong to the
society of the Greeks in Arcadia. In a note, Hazlitt himself has commented:
Raphael not only could not paint a landscape…He could not have painted the heads
or the figures, or even the dresses of the St. Peter Martyr. His figures have always an
in-door look, that is, a set, determined, voluntary, dramatic character, arising from
their own passions, or a watchfulness of those of others, and want that wild
uncertainty of expression, which is connected with the accidents of nature and the
changes of the elements. He has nothing romantic about him 26.
He then shifts to Claude Monet, the French impressionist painter, whose landscapes are
starved of any gusto despite their perfection. This lack may be difficult to explain because they
speak exactly that language which we can see with our eyes in nature – they are like a mirror,
or more so like a microscope amplifying the spirit of nature. They seem to exceed all other
landscapes which will ever be painted as far as finesse and excellence are concerned. However,
the drawback lies in his paintings concentrating only on one sense – the sense of sight. The
paintings interpret all possible visible expressions of the nature as seen by his eyes, but they
do not cater to the other senses. They do not distinguish the character of diverse objects via
the various senses.
Hence Monet seems to have concentrated more on his sense of sight to perceive the nature
that could feed his imagination but he was fairly inconsiderate towards the rest of his faculties,
which he didn’t out to any use while imbibing from nature. He just saw nature in all its glory
but he didn’t feel it. The trees, the rocks and other natural objects in his paintings are
enchanting and beautiful but they don’t move the spectators. To sum up, Monet’s landscapes
are unmatched in imitating nature, where all objects transform into an ethereal vision which
seems to rarefy or squeeze away all the other senses except that of sight.
26
From Romantic Critical essays, edited by David Bromwich
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Further, he talks about the Greek statues, which according to him have the ideal, spiritual and
beautiful forms that give them the power to supersede the effects of pain or passion and thus,
they end up being deified. Their gusto is therefore, quite unusual and remarkable because the
sense of their perfect form overwhelms the entire mind, hardly leaving a possibility for it to
linger over any other feeling.
Next, Hazlitt moves on to the writers. He says that the astounding variety of drama produced
by Shakespeare results in a loss of his gusto; it “takes from his gusto” which might be inferred
to be not as intense as it is discursive (flitting from one subject to another with ease).
Shakespeare’s stance on everything is quite playful and light; the only criticisms he indulges in
are slight and about matters which are trivial. Milton, on the other hand, displays great gusto
by taking firm stands on subjects, which he later exhausts with his sound reasoning. He
exhibits an old and unchanging attachment not only to the object that he imagines to describe,
but also to the words that he uses for that particular description.
Hazlitt finds pope, Dryden, Chaucer, Boccaccio and Rabelais to have great gusto. He also
makes a special mention of The Beggar’s Opera which he considers to be full of gusto. He even
goes a step further to say that if The Beggar’s Opera is considered lacking in gusto, then
possibly the very concepts regarding this complicated, delicate subject have been flawed from
the get –go because there can be no better example of gusto than The Beggar’s Opera.
Critical Analysis
In this essay, Hazlitt tries to talk about three inter-related kinds of gusto – gusto of the object,
the artist and the work of art. Confronted by a painting that evinces gusto, Hazlitt tries to give
its particular truth of character by giving the truth of his own feeling about the painting. The
transcription requires him to keep his eye on the work in order to keep its character – its
particular gusto – and his own feeling about the work as directly linked as possible. His
success in doing so is his own gusto just as the artist’s gusto is in his success in capturing the
object’s gusto.
When Hazlitt talks about Vandyke’s gusto, the sense must refer to the sense of the viewer, i.e.
gusto of the work of art is an effect generated by the painting, not a trait of the painter even
though it is a result of the painter’s own gusto or success in giving the truth of character of his
object.
Gusto isn’t a very helpful term in discussing Hazlitt’s literary criticism, because he uses the
term much more for painting rather than poetry. The examples developed are from painters –
Rubens, Albano, Vandyke, Michelangelo, Correggio, Raphael, Rembrandt and Claude Monet.
Only in the final paragraph does he mention examples of a properly literary gusto, those also a
few. He only quotes Milton at the end in these lines from Paradise Lost:
Or where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany waggons light.
Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss.
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When Hazlitt finds in art what he calls gusto, he has found evidence of a certain kind of mind -
the mind with a developed sympathetic imagination. Gusto is a sign of the greatest interest. It
works to recreate through art, pictorial or literary, substantial sings of a greater reality, a
reality that radiates interest in itself and for us; it’s the reality that artist sympathises with
imaginatively. Hazlitt’s startlingly contemporary concern with the involvement of the body with
its motor capacities and its perceptual skills, in the acts of painting and responding to painting
is clearly visible throughout the essay. His theory of the visual arts addressed ‘some of the
most fundamental problems in aesthetics’ in a way that now seem prophetic. Art criticism
broadly meant a writer’s attempt to give a prose account of the aesthetic values and affective
qualities of a work of visual art. Art criticism in this precise sense was a new genre that was
inaugurated by Hazlitt and Lamb. This essay serves to be an extension of this very genre. Tom
Nichols has emphasised the decisive importance of Hazlitt’s contribution to the critical
reception of Titian in Britain:
He pioneered a new historical phase in the understanding of colore, celebrating it as
conjoined to the on-going sensual life of the individual spectator. He was among the
first to ‘privatise’ Titian’s colorito, to emphasise its communicative and personalising
effects. His kind of intimate appreciation can be seen as a prototype for the
aesthetic, avant-garde and modernist-inflected accounts of Titian’s painting that
were to follow.27
The essay brings forth Hazlitt as an innovator in a manner at once exact and comprehensive,
especially as it focuses on those passages in which individual works of art or collections of
works are verbally represented. Hazlitt does not dispense with painters like Raphael and Monet
altogether but challenges while endorsing them. Words perform an indispensable task here in
both confirming the non-verbal status of the visual and enhancing its reception through
evocation of concerted affective and perceptual witness.
Hazlitt’s ‘gusto’ has commonly been glossed in terms of ‘intensity’ and of ‘synaesthesia’ 28.
‘Gusto was a critical term for Hazlitt to indicate a kind of full-bodied aesthetic experience, ripe
with sensual enjoyment’. ‘Gusto’ entails intensity and synaesthesia in every phase or aspect of
the objects’ phenomenology – perception, representation, reception and explication; it has been
called one of Hazlitt’s most interesting and elusive critical concepts.
Where does Hazlitt’s concept come from? The noun ‘gusto’ is of course a loan from the Italian
for ‘taste’ and covers many of the senses conveyed by its original, including those in which
‘gusto’ functions as a synonym for aesthetic discrimination and refinement. Those senses
occur in Italian from the mid-sixteenth century, becoming much more common by the mid-
seventeenth. The Oxford English Dictionary 29 gives the following definitions of ‘gusto’, with
usages for each dating from the early to mid-seventeenth century (with the exception of the
last, of which the earliest example is dated 1713):

27
Tom Nichols, ‘Hazlitt and Titian: Progress, Gusto and the (Dis)pleasure of Painting’, in Peter Humfrey (ed.), The Reception of
Titian in Britain: From Reynolds to Ruskin, Turnhout 2013, p.131.
28
A sensation that normally occurs in one sense modality occurs when another modality is stimulated
29
Oxford English Dictionary, original edition, Oxford 1884–1928.
 230

1. Individual or particular liking, relish, or fondness

2. Keen relish or enjoyment displayed in speech or action
3. Art. Style in which a work of art is executed; artistic style; occas. prevailing or
fashionable style in matters of taste. Often with qualification as great (= It. gran
gusto), high, noble
4. Aesthetic appreciation or perception.
5. Flavour or savour (of food, etc.).
To sum up, Hazlitt’s ‘gusto’ names that general property of objects, especially of works of visual
art, whose construal in speech entails the selection and representation of parts or aspects
(‘moments’) integral to their perceptual and aesthetic character and which determine their
‘look’ or unique manner of engaging the viewer.

Self-Assessment Questions
1. Gusto refers to the ____degree of expression.
2. From the experience of true feeling arises____ which is central to the origin of gusto.
3. Among the painters cited in the essay, Hazlitt finds ____ to display maximum gusto.
4. Hazlitt finds ____ flesh colour to lack gusto despite its great truth and purity.
5. Michelangelo’s style is ____throughout while Correggio’s style is ____
6. Hazlitt says that in literature, there can be no better example of gusto than ______

16.4 Summary
Through a comprehensive explanation of the essay, you must have been able to appreciate the
main ideas expressed by Hazlitt in this work. A detailed glossary and appropriate footnotes
must have helped you understand the various references from art and history that the author
has used in order to strengthen his arguments. An exhaustive critical analysis has been
provided to help you in understanding the essay on a profounder level.
16.5 Glossary
1. Titian: An Italian painter during the Renaissance, considered the most important
member of the 16th-century Venetian school.
2. Morbidezza: A sensual delicacy of flesh-colouring in painting, depicting extreme
softness and daintiness
3. Rubens: Sir Peter Paul Rubens was a Flemish (an ethnic German group) artist. He is
considered the most influential artist of Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens's highly
charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. He
was a major proponent of the baroque tradition. The Baroque is a highly ornate and
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often extravagant style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture and other
arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th until the mid-18th century.
4. Albano: Francesco Albani or Albano was an Italian Baroque painter.
5. Vandyke: Sir Anthony van Dyck (many variant spellings) was a Flemish Baroque
artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern
Netherlands and Italy.
6. Michelangelo: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni known best as
simply Michelangelo was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High
Renaissance.
7. Obtrude: Impose or force (something) on someone in an unwelcome or intrusive way.
8. Grandeur: Splendour and impressiveness, especially of appearance or style.
9. Correggio: The foremost painter of the Parma school of the High Italian Renaissance,
who was responsible for some of the most vigorous and sensuous works of the 16th
century.
10. Effeminate: The manifestation of those traits in a boy or man that are more often
associated with feminine nature, behaviour, mannerism, style; unmanly.
11. Raphael: Raphael was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His
work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of
the Neo-platonic ideal of human grandeur. Together with Michelangelo and Da Vinci,
he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period
12. Fauns and Satyrs: Put simply, a satyr is Greek and a faun is Roman. They both
describe a humanoid that is half human and half goat. The upper half is human while
the bottom half is goat. However, Wikipedia describes satyrs as more like horses
while fauns are more like goats, but they both have two legs.
13. Rembrandt: He was a Dutch draughtsman, painter and printmaker. An innovative
and prolific master in three media, he is generally considered one of the
greatest visual artists in the history of art and the most important in Dutch art
history.
14. Burgomaster: The mayor of a Dutch, Flemish, German, Austrian, or Swiss town.
15. Claude: Refers to Claude Monet. Monet was a French painter, a founder of
French Impressionist painting and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the
movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as
applied to plain landscape painting.
16. Abstractions: Something which exists only as an idea.
17. Cognizable: Perceptible; clearly identifiable.
18. Tangible: Anything that is perceptible by touch.
19. Deified: Worship or regard as a god.
20. Grapples with: To try hard to understand a difficult idea or to solve a difficult
problem, struggle with
21. “Or where Chineses... enormous bliss.”: Taken from Paradise Lost, III.438-39; V. 297.
22. Prior’s Tales: Reference to Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales
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23. Pope: Alexander Pope, one of the greatest English poets and the foremost poet the
early eighteenth century. He is best known for his satirical and discursive poetry.
24. Dryden: John Dryden
25. Boccaccio: Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch,
and an important Renaissance humanist.
26. Rabelais: A French Renaissance writer, physician, Renaissance humanist, monk
and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the
grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs
27. The Beggar’s Opera: A ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with
music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays
in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical
ballad opera to remain popular today.
16.6 References
 Baker, Herschel. William Hazlitt. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 1962. Web. July 24, 2019.
 Bromwich, David. Hazlitt: The Mind of a Critic. Yale University Press, London: 1999.
 Chase, Stanley. P. “Hazlitt as a Critic of Art.” PMLA. Vol. 39, Issue. 1 (Mar., 1924), pp.
179-202. Web. Aug.12, 2019.
 Hazlitt, William. “On Reading Old Books.” The Spirit of the Age. Vintage, UK: 2009.
 ---• “On Gusto.” The Fight and Other Writings. Penguin Classics, London: 2000.
16.7 Further Readings
 Quennell, Peter. A History of English Literature. Ferndale Editions, London: 1981. Pp
380.
 Tucker, Paul. “’Truth of Character from Truth of Feeling’: William Hazlitt, ‘Gusto’ and
the Linguistic History of Writing on Art.” Tate Papers, no.24, Autumn 2015.
https://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/24/truth-of-character-
from-truth-of-feeling-william-hazlitt-gusto-and-the-linguistic-history-of-writing-on-art.
Web. 29 August 2019.
 Wardle, Ralph. M. Hazlitt. University of Nebraska Press, NE: 1971.
 Whelan, Maurice. In the Company of William Hazlitt: Thoughts for the Twenty-first
Century. London: Merlin Press, 2005.
 Wu, Duncan. William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man. New York: Oxford University Press,
2008.
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Answers to Self-Assessment Questions

1. Highest
2. the truth of character
3. Titian
4. Vandyke’s
5. Hard and masculine, effeminate.
6. The Beggar’s Opera.

16.8 Model Questions

1. Critically analyse Hazlitt’s concept of ‘gusto’.
2. What examples does Hazlitt give in the essay to expound his concept of ‘gusto’?
3. What role does ‘truth of intrinsic character’ play in the formation of gusto when it comes
to art?

*****

Last updated July, 2024