Poetry According to William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Poetry, according to William Wordsworth, is a spontaneous flow of inner feelings and thoughts. In the preface of the lyrical ballads he wrote his concept of poetry. In the preface Wordsworth wrote that he was going to deal with low and rustic life, as a man speaking to men, wanting to be understood by the other people. Coleridge, on the other way, was thinking about producing poetry by using the power of giving the interest of novelty by modifying colors of imaginations. Rediscovery of middle ages, supernatural, importance of the sublime are respected by Coleridge using imaginary scenery in his works.

Wordsworth wanted to use humble, things and people of every day. Coleridge wanted to use imagination, to detach himself and his readers to the reality.

Wordsworth and Coleridge are poets of the Lake District, their phisycal vicinity allowed them to work together, and in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria’s excerpt from Chapter 14 we find the different considerations on poetry by both the poets.

Coleridge wanted to use his inward eye to amaze the reader, instead Wordsworth wanted to make daily themes and people as sublime as supernatural phenomena, to open eyes that do not see, ears that hear not, hearts that neither feel nor understand.