LITERARY CRITICISM

1
LITERARY CRITICISM

• Preface to Lyrical Ballads,
• Bioagraphia Literaria,
• Defence of Poetry

2
Wordsworths view of poetry

• Wordsworth deals with situations and incidents
  from common life
• He describes ordinary things as if they were
  unusual
• Coleridge makes supernatural events real with the
  use of imagination
• This happens through the suspension of
  disbelief.

3
Poetic form

• Poetry is seen as the spontaneous and genuine
  expression of the poets subjective emotion.
• The Solitary Reaper, Daffodils and She Dwelt
  Among the Untrodden Ways (by W.Worthword)
• The ballad is rediscovered and looked at as the
  best form poetry to deal with the supernatural
  and the unknown.
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (by
  S.T.Coleridge)

4
Purpose of poetry

• It expresses the poets emotions and it reveals
  the inner reality of things lying behind their
  outer appearance.
• How?
• Through the power of imagination which colours
  and interprets events.

5
The language of poetry

• In Wordsworths poems the language seems simple
  because he uses words from rural life, and humble
  characters. However, his poems have a strong
  symbolic meaning.
• On the contrary Coleridge uses archaic terms and
  exotic settings and characters to create a
  supernatural and symbolic atmosphere in his
  poems.

6
Themes

• Nature because it is helpful to look inside the
  self.
• Memory because it relives the emotions
  experienced in the past.

7
A Defence of Poetry, 1821

• the mind in creation is as a fading coal,
  which some invisible influence,like an incostant
  wind,awakes to transitory brightness this power
  arises grom whitin(Shelley)
• The poet considers himself an independent
  creative genius.

8
Poetic form

• The most important form of poetry is the ode
• We can quote
• Ode to the West Wind (by P.B.Shelly)

9
Purpose of poetry

• Express the poets emotion
• Make immortal all that is best and most
  beautiful in the world.
• Record the best and happiest moments of the mind.

10
The language of poetry

• The language is highly figurative and it is
  caracterized by a strong pathos, invocations and
  mythological references.

11
Themes

• nature as a symbol of political ideas or
  philosopical issues.