English Literature / Unit 19 ENL 1804 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Wordsworth and Coleridge: The Romantic Theory
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The idea
Wordsworth's Preface defined poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" taking its origin "from emotion recollected in tranquillity," in the language really used by men. Coleridge's Biographia set imagination above fancy and named "that willing suspension of disbelief."
In practice
Feeling recollected; imagination over fancy.
Where people slip
Do not swap Preface and Biographia.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- Nothing yet depends on this.
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