Coleridge and Wordsworth
The Poetry of Growth

Originally published in 1980, this is a study of the 'romanticism' of Coleridge and Wordsworth.

Stephen Prickett (Author)

9780521298094, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 3 April 1980

224 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.3 cm, 0.29 kg

Originally published in 1980, this is a study of the 'romanticism' of Coleridge and Wordsworth. Their concern with creativity, and the conditions that helped or hindered their own artistic development, produced a new concept of mental growth - a 'modern' view of the mind as organic, active, and unifying. In particular, we see how their aesthetics evolved from a personal and intuitional need to reaffirm 'value' in their own lives. Their discovery of the fundamental ambiguity of such intuition is discussed in relation to some ideas of Empson, Gombrich, and Ehrenzweig. As well as an essay in criticism, this is a contribution to the history of ideas, drawing together points in the background of philosophical and psychological theory from Hartley and Wesley to John Stuart Mill. Since many of our ideas about imagination, symbolism, and creativity are ultimately derived from Coleridge and Wordsworth, this is a book for students of romantic and modern literature.

Acknowledgements
Introduction: the rainbow and the imagination
1. 'An image with a glory round its head'
2. Mechanism versus organism
3. Imagination: the active mind
4. Unity and creativity
5. Memory and perception
6. Wordsworth and Coleridge: a romanticism
7. Symbol and growth
Concise bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC]