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COLERIDGE ON WORDSWORTH'S PREFACE TO 'LYRICAL BALLADS' Author(s): CHRISTINE WINBERG Source: Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, No. 62 (May 1984), pp. 29-43 Published by: Berghahn Books in association with the Faculty of Humanities, Development and Social Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41791382 . Accessed: 02/10/2013 12:06

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COLERIDGE ON WORDSWORTH'S PREFACE TO 'LYRICAL BALLADS'

by CHRISTINE WINBERG

There is a tradition in Wordsworthian criticism which has been handed down from Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, Leslie Stephen, and Irving Babbitt; and which persists in the contemporary critical writings of Herbert Read, Helen Danby, W.J.B. Owen, and' Stephen Prickett. This tradition has it that Wordsworth exalts emotion at the expense of intellect,1 instinct in place of thought,2 and spontaneity in place of morality.3 The tradition holds that Wordsworth's critical writings are largely nonsensical; and where they do make sense they are derived from Coleridge.4 Critics in this tradition are also convinced that Wordsworth's theories and his practice have, happily, very little in common, and endorse Coleridge's view that:

In short ... his only disease is the being out of his element; like the swan, that, having amused himself, for a while, with crushing the weeds on the river's bank, soon returns to his own majestic movements on its reflecting and sustaining surface.5

The transformation of the ungainly waddlings of the swan among the weeds to the grandeur of its own motion on the water, is Coleridge's image for the contrast between Wordsworth's critical theory and his best poetry.

It is my aim in this paper to take issue with what I believe is an erroneoiis tradition. Wordsworth's critical writings are incidental and fairly random, but nevertheless partake of the mainstream of critical thought and are central to the understanding of his poetry. I believe that much of Coleridge's Wordsworthian criticism which gave rise to the erroneous tradition, is unwarranted; and, in fact, it is my contention that the literary theories of both men have much in common.

Coleridge's succinct criticisms of Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction, for example, have often been noted; but their basic ideas on poetic language stem from a common concern. Both saw the neo- classical tendency to adhere to 'rules' as a negation of the creative impulse and, in essence, their aims are the same: to infuse new life into the language of poetry which had become dulled by custom and overuse.

Coleridge praises Wordsworth's 'reformation in our poetic diction',6 but goes on to take issue with several aspects of Wordsworth's theory. His first objection is that poetic diction cannot be the monopoly of the rural classes, and Wordsworth's diction is 'by no means taken from low or rustic life in the common

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30 THEORIA

acceptation (my italics) ofthose words'.7 As this is obviously true, it is surprising that Coleridge does not probe beyond the 'common acceptation', for he makes little attempt to understand the significance of the rustic symbol - even on so simple a level as the 'permanence' of their occupations and interests which Wordsworth hopes will impart a similar appeal to his poetry.8 As Abrams points out, anyone who tries to show that Wordsworth does not use rustic diction or syntax has largely missed the point. The similarity between rustic diction and Wordsworth's poetry is that both forms of discourse are instances of language really spoken by men under the stress of genuine feeling.9

Coleridge's repeated objections to rustics and their speech convey the impression that the entire Preface to the Lyrical Ballads is peppered with allusions to the use of rustic diction, which it is not. It is confined to a single paragraph,'0 and after this initial mention 'the language of men' is substituted. Owen points out in his comparison between the Prefaces of 1800 and 1802,

11 and the differences in the poetic subjects to which these Prefaces refer, that rustic diction specifically applies to the narrative and dramatic poems of the original 1798 Lyrical Ballads ; while 'the language of men' is for general use, indicating Wordsworth's departure from the original rustic experiment.12

Coleridge implies that the speech of rustics and 'the language of men' are one and the same when he objects to this sentence, which he attributes to Wordsworth:

The language of these men (i.e. men in low and rustic life) I propose myself to imitate and, as far as possible, to adopt the very language of men'.13

This is a misquotation made by combining two separate ideas which are some one hundred lines apart. This is what Wordsworth actually said:

The language, too, of these men has been adopted (purified indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) ... 14

(1198-100) My purpose was to imitate and, as far as possible, to adopt the very language of men; and assuredly such personifications do not make up any natural or regular part of languages. 15

(11201-4)

I have included the latter part of the second quotation to show that 'the very language of men' has nothing to do with rustic diction. While 'the very language of men' may not be a satisfactory term for Wordsworth's diction (it should be remembered that it 'imitated', in

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PREFACE TO LYRICAL BALLADS' 31

the technical sense) it is understandable in the light of the overwrought quality of much late Augustan poetry.

So too the term 'prose' seems to Wordsworth to be a convenient term for describing a style which is free from all the traditional poetic encumbrances. He obviously did not mean it literally , as Coleridge implies. Coleridge insists on seeing 'prose* as a term for writing which is matter-of-fact and unmetaphorical, and takes no notice of Wordsworth's insistence that the sort of prose he means must not be matter-of-fact and must be 4alive with figures and metaphors'.

Wordsworth has an intense dislike of the conventionally 'poetic', of Gray and Collins's arbitrary inversion of natural word order, of Johnson's bombastic Latinisms, and of Erasmus Darwin who combined both. Wordsworth's pet hate is a particular variety of stereotyped personification which involves inappropriate periphrasis. (He allows himself to personify natural phenomena in a more natural way). But Coleridge refuses to see words like 'rustic' and 'prose' as a reaction to Augustan excesses. Instead he seizes upon these words, and in his eagerness to show that they are not the stuff of poetry, he loses touch with the spirit behind Wordsworth's innovations.

Coleridge argues that the principle of a 4 selection of the real

language of men' is an insufficient one for the process of poetic creation. This is because, in the first place, the poet must have 'previous possession' of the language from which the selection is to be made - and the language he possesses will not be that of the rustic; and secondly, there are no known 'rules' that might be applied to this selective process.16 Coleridge again equates the 'language of men' with rustic speech, which is a basic problem in this and other arguments. However, conceding Coleridge his point, he is surely wrong in holding that rustic speech has no virtues of its own, and he is still more perverse in his opinion that it is impossible to select from a dialect without destroying its peculiarity. Hazlitt points out that if Coleridge's contention were true it would be impossible for any style of writing to retain its distinctive quality.17 Coleridge's introduction of 'rules' is quite out of character; Wordsworth has an imaginative, not a mechanical process of selection in mind.

In an expressive theory of poetry, poetic diction is bound to play a significant part. The conventions in the Gray sonnet which Wordsworth discusses, like:

And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire:

are rejected because their conventional nature entails an avoidance of direct feeling and perception. They represent a set of conventions that have been handed down from one generation of poets to

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32 THEORIA

another. They are a negation of 'the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings'. The language of the italicised lines is no less metaphorical, for example:

My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;

but by avoiding stock epithets and using his own diction to describe his emotions, the poet achieves an immediacy and sincerity which is lacking in the unitalicised lines.

Coleridge argues that the italicised lines are different from prose, and Wordsworth acknowledges this difference when he says that 'by the foregoing quotation it has been shown that the language of Prose may yet be well adapted (my italics) to Poetry . . .'18 Coleridge seems to have forgotten that he subtitled The Nightingale 'a conversational poem'. Coleridge, in his objections to Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction, is at his most literal. In a discussion of The Last of The Flock and The Thorn , he admits that the words are 'current in all ranks of life' - but, he asks, is this the order in which a rustic would have used them? Nowhere in the Preface does Wordsworth state that he is content to limit himself to a rustic vocabulary and syntactical arrangement. His aim is to revivify poetic language, not to contribute to its stultification. In the midst of all this hairsplitting, Coleridge has completely lost touch with the spirit behind Wordsworth's innovations.

Coleridge suggests, correctly, that Wordsworth's use of the word 'real' is a reaction to the 'gaudy affectation'19 of current poetic styles, and that Wordsworth has, in consequence, chosen a style as remote as possible from the 'false and showy splendour which he wished to explode'. 20Wordsworth, he states, is not the first poet to opt for simplicity of style: the German poets Garve and Geliert have done so before him. Their style is:

just as one would wish to talk, and yet dignified, attractive, and interesting; and all the time perfectly correct as to the measures of the syllables and the rhyme.21

Coleridge's description of the German poets approximates Wordsworth's description of 'similitude in dissimilitude':

Now the music of harmonious metrical language ... an indistinct perception perpetually renewed of language closely resembling that of real life, and yet, in the circumstance of metre, differing from it so widely - all these imperceptibly make up a complex feeling of delight . . .22

Coleridge accepts his description of the German poets as a valid statement of what nineteenth-century poetry should be, but fails to see the similarity between this and Wordsworth's argument.

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PREFACE TO 'LYRICAL BALLADS' 33

Coleridge goes on to suggest that there are even earlier poets who opted for a 'simple style'. Spenser's Faery Queen has passages of extreme simplicity and beauty, showing an integrity of 'thought, image, passion, and metre'. Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide might give the impression of being natural and unstudied, yet displays an interdependence of meaning and poetry. And Herbert is 'master of a species of wit where scholar and poet supplies the material, but the perfect well-bred gentleman the expression and argument'.23 Coleridge's championing of these poets is notable for, with the exception of Spenser, they were not generally recognised. His choice of poets is significant for all are, in their own ways, champions of the 'real language of men'.

What Coleridge has done is to substitute 'the simple style' for Wordsworth's 'the real language of men' - and although Coleridge's term may be preferable because it is less ambiguous, Wordsworth and Coleridge are really saying the same thing. This gives rise to several misconceptions in the Biographia , without Coleridge appearing to realize it.

Coleridge's criticism of Wordsworth's theory of metre centres on the word 'superadded', which is an unfortunate choice of word to describe something which is, in Coleridgean terminology, 'organic'. Coleridge states:

nothing can permanently please which does not contain in itself the reason why it is so . . . if metre be superadded to poetry then all the otherparts must be made consonant with it.24

The problem is that Coleridge implies that this is all that Wordsworth ever said about metre, and this is a mis-statement.

Metre, according to Coleridge, exists 'to check the workings of passion'.25 Metrical composition differs from prose in that it expresses a higher state of excitement, and also because this excitement is controlled by artificial means. Coleridge here raises a central concern of expressive theories: to what extent can poetry be 'the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings'? If Coleridge is suggesting that metre alone is a sufficient controlling agent, then I do not think that he is correct. What Wordsworth says of 'recollection in tranquillity' by a poet who has thought 'long and deeply' is more relevant to the problem of control. Collingwood's distinction between the 'betrayal of emotion' and the 'expression of emotion* is a useful discrimination in this context.26 The poet's own understanding of his emotions is of far greater importance as a 'check on the workings of passion' than mere metre.

Coleridge goes on to make some rather uninteresting points about the various effects (serious, humorous, etc) of metre. By contrast, Wordsworth's theory of metre gives rise to a profound enquiry into the nature of metre and its many diverse effects.

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34 THEORIA

Wordsworth conceives of metre as an element of regularity in the midst of the abnormal excitement of poetic creation. Its regularity, which can be imagined as a positive sign (as in mathematics) is able to 'cancell out' the negative sign given to overly painful or intense feelings. Any disruption of the regularity of the metre has the immediate effect of intensifying the passion, before it surrenders to the control of the usual metre. Slight changes in the metrical scheme can thus lift 'naked and low pitched words' to a higher emotional level. Metre has a 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'.27 This idea has a parallel in Aristotle's concept of catharsis where the aesthetic element in tragedy, through the metaphor of the stage, tempers or changes the feelings of the audience. As an example of this power of metre, Wordsworth's suggests that the pathetic parts of Shakespeare are more bearable than those of Richardson; and that even the artless metre of the old ballads has the effect of moderating the pathos of their tragic narratives. Related to this point is Wordsworth's idea of 'similitude in dissimilitude' and vice versa.28

Wordsworth provides us with a profound analysis of the operation of metre and its many diverse effects and the problems of metrical composition, presented by a working poet. Coleridge, although he does not discuss the whole of Wordsworth's theory, confining himself to the idea of the 'superaddition' of metre, does seem to acknowledge the importance of Wordsworth's discussion, for he states:

The discussion on the powers of metre in the Preface is highly ingenious and touches at all points on truth.29

He then goes on to make an extraordinary pronouncement :

But I cannot find any statement of its powers considered abstractly and separately. On the contrary, Mr Wordsworth seems always to estimate metre by the power which it exerts during (and I think, in consequence of) its combination with other elements of poetry.30

Has Coleridge not been hammering this exact point, that metre is an integral part of the unified elements which make up poetry? The whole point of his argument has been that metre cannot be 'superadded' to poetry as it is an organic part of poetry - how then can its powers be considered 'abstractly and separately'? Coleridge seems at times to be quite perverse, criticising Wordsworth even when he does not really agree with his own criticism, and this suggests that his Wordsworthian criticism in the Biographia is not quite free of personal animus.

For Coleridge, poetic creation is the fullest activity of the human mind, so it is not surprising that he should take issue with

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PREFACE TO 'LYRICAL BALLADS' 35

Wordsworth's assertion that 'all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions'. Of course, neither Wordsworth nor Coleridge would deny the co-presence of both intellectual and emotional elements. For Coleridge art is an intellectual activity and the 'property of passion is not to create but to set in increased activity';31 while for Wordsworth the intellectual activity of the poet who has thought 'long and deeply'32 is a check on the 'overflow of powerful emotions'. Wordsworth is not foolish enough to suggest that emotion alone creates poetry, as Coleridge apparently thought.

Coleridge concedes that emotion plays an important role in prompting an author to write, but what happens once he has received the initial impetus from his feelings? Does he now forget these feelings and concentrate on the aesthetic task of writing the poem? Or does he, as Collingwood suggests, carry the emotion with him throughout the creation of the poem, seeking to become fully conscious of it, to understand it, and to clarify it so that others may understand it too? The problem is one of control, and Coleridge implies this control when he talks of a 'more than usual state of emotion with more than usual order';33 Wordsworth also, in the 'recollection in tranquillity' section speaks of the emotion being 'contemplated', presumably a mental process, and also of the emotion being 'voluntarily' described.34

Wordsworth's theory of control has an interesting development. Although the 'spontaneous overflow . . .' is an incomplete account of poetic creation (as Wordsworth himself acknowledges in introducing the 'recollected in tranquillity' qualification), it raises the issue of sincerity. F.R. Leavis suggests that poetry which aims to convey a poet's emotions should be judged by the criterion of sincerity.35 A lack of organized expression does not indicate sincerity; on the contrary, a poet who, for example, professes to be expressing grief but who in fact wallows in that emotion, is really enjoying his grief and is therefore quite insincere in his expression. On the other hand, the poet who has come to terms with his grief, is the poet who can express it accurately, and therefore sincerely.36

Both Wordsworth and Coleridge believe that creation of poetry has its origins in the emotional and intellectual qualities of the poet, and they therefore find it impossible to define poetry before asking the question: 'what is a poet'? But while this is a basic similarity, there are substantial differences which are best demonstrated by a comparison of the relevant passages. Wordsworth's reply to the question 'What is a Poet?' is that:

He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true, endowed with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with his own

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36 THEORIA

passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar passions and volitions in the goings-on of the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them. To these qualities he has added a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present; an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which indeed far from being the same as those produced by real events, yet (especially in those parts of the general sympathy which are pleasing and delightful) do more nearly resemble the passions produced by real events, than anything which, from the motions of their own minds merely, other men are accustomed to feel in themselves: -whence, and from practice, he has acquired a greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks and feels, and especially those thoughts and feelings which, by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in him without immediate external excitement.37

Coleridge's definition follows:

What is poetry? It is so nearly the same question with, what is a poet? that the answer to the one is involved in the solution of the other. For it is a distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself, which sustains and modifies the images, thoughts and emotions of the poet's own mind. The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other, according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity that blends and (as it were) fuses, each to each, by that synthetic and magical power to which we have exclusively appropriated the name of imagination. This power, first put into action by the will and understanding and retained under their irremissive, though gentle and unnoticed controul ( Iaxis effertur habenis) reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness with difference; of the general with the concrete; the idea, with the image; the individual with the representative; the sense of novelty and freshness with old and familiar objects; a more than usual state of emotion, with more than usual order; judgement ever awake and steady self-possession, with enthusiasm and feeling profound and vehement; while it blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature; the manner to the matter; and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry.38

In these two passages there will be found about three areas of similarity. The first concerns the nature of the poet and his genius. Wordsworth begins with the humble proposition that the poet is 'a man speaking to men', but this view is immediately qualified. The poet is 'endowed with more lively sensibility', he possesses a 'comprehensive soul', is knowledgeable about human nature and, on an even grander scale, he is in touch with cosmic forces, perceiving their patterns in himself and able to recreate them in his

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PREFACE TO 'LYRICAL BALLADS' 37

poetry. Wordsworth therefore implies that the poet is simultaneously a member of common humanity and the supreme representative of mankind. Coleridge's definition of 'poetic genius' which brings 'the whole soul of man into activity', implies a similar identification with common humanity as well as a fuller manifestation of that humanity.

Coleridge emphasises the wholeness of the poet's activity, its emotional and intellectual aspects in bringing 'the whole soul of man into activity', and the imagination is the prime reconciler between the parts which have been made active. This is, of course, consistent with Coleridge's theory of the imagination. What is surprising is the emphasis that Wordsworth too places on imagination, although Coleridge would call it 'fancy' rather than the 'esemplastic imagination'. Wordsworth states that the poet has the peculiar quality of being 'affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present . . .' This was written by Wordsworth some fifteen years before the Biographia Literaria , so that it is hardly surprising that Wordsworth should, in the absence of a comprehensive theory of the imagination, rely on Dr Johnson's dictionary definition, which is:

Imagination : Fancy; the power of forming ideal pictures; the power of representing things absent to oneself or others.

Thus the latter part of Wordsworth's definition has to do with the 'power of forming ideal pictures', and the former with the 'power of representing things absent to oneself or others'. Wordsworth's statement is primitive when compared with the detail of Coleridge's theory, but is quite consistent with it.

The distinction between physical and imaginative reality is a necessary part of any theory of art, but neither Coleridge nor Wordsworth conceive of the imagination as pure fantasy, nor as a mere pleasure-giving faculty; but rather they see the imagination having a function in the discovery of truth. This has to do with the third point of similarity in the two passages: the poet's control which, it is agreed, is a necessary part of poetic creation. Wordsworth states that the poet has a 'power in expressing what he thinks and feels . . . without immediate external excitement'. Thus for Wordsworth one element of control is to be found within the poet himself, in his ability to understand and to organize his feelings for their expression in poetry. Coleridge believes that control is derived from external as well as internal sources. The poet's imagination, 'while it blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature' - so 'nature', or physical reality, becomes the second element of control, ensuring that the poet, even when indulging in fantasy, will always keep a firm grasp on truth.

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38 THEORIA

Wordsworth also attempts to provide this sort of mimetic control. Immediately following the passage under discussion, Wordsworth states:

But whatever portion of this faculty we may suppose even the greatest Poet to possess, there cannot be a doubt that the language which it will suggest to him, must often, in liveliness and truth, fall short of that which is uttered by men in real life, under the actual pressure of those passions, certain shadows of which the Poet thus produces, or feels to be produced, in himself.39

Wordsworth is trying to suggest a truth standard which is, in some sense, similar to Coleridge's assertion that art is subordinate to nature. But Wordsworth has not said it very well, confusing the truth standard with the matter of poetic diction. Poetic diction is not unrelated to external reality, but Wordsworth has rather introduced the matter out of context and in a statement that will not bear examination.

Both Wordsworth and Coleridge believe that poetry establishes its importance by dealing with the truth. For Wordsworth nothing is so trivial or commonplace that it cannot be a stimulus for the mind, although poetry always deals with 'Important Subjects'. Coleridge is, however, reluctant to include the commonplace in the realm of poetry. Misquoting Aristotle, he asserts that 'poetry as poetry is essentially ideal', 'an involution of the universal in the individual'.40 Certain of Wordsworth's poems, he suggests, meet these requirements: The Brothers and Michael , for example. But other poems do not, in particular those poems which deal with exclusively rustic interests and occupations. This is because the farmer's interests are with farming and facts, while the poet must seek to discover and express connections between things, from which some general law is deductible. It is, of course Wordsworth's aim to go beyond farming and facts and to demonstrate the indwelling law'. He does not, of course, always succeed but often does; and Coleridge is usually unstinting in his praise of Wordsworth's moral insights.

Coleridge concentrates, in his criticism, on 'objective' criteria, criteria intrinsic to the work itself; but because organic compositions are subject to the laws of nature and of experience, they must also express principles of moral value. For Coleridge, Shakespeare's moral greatness is inseparable from the dramatic text and he believes that Wordsworth is, like Shakespeare, a 'philosopher poet' and awaits with anticipation the publication of Wordsworth's 'great philosophical poem', The Recluse (which was not completed and which did not live up to Coleridge's expectations). When Wordsworth reaches heights of moral grandeur in his poetry, Coleridge is ecstatic:

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PREFACE TO LYRICAL BALLADS' 39

It was the union of deep feeling with profound thought; the fine balance of truth in observing, with the imaginative faculty in modifying the objects observed; and above all the original gift of spreading the tone, the atmosphere , and with it the depth and height of the ideal world around forms, incidents and situations of which, for the common view, custom had bedimmed all the lustre, had dried up the sparkle and the dew drops.41

Coleridge believes that Wordsworth's preoccupation with rustics and his later preoccupation with himself represents a threat to his moral integrity. He deplores Wordsworth's departure into an expressive poetic mode because he feels that this must necessarily interfere with his moral judgement:

I am startled by instances of self-involution in Wordsworth . . . and I trembled lest a film should arise, and thicken on his moral eye.42

A poet who is trying to understand and express his own feelings is not being self-indulgent - if he is, he will not produce very good poetry. On the contrary, moral judgement is of primary importance to an expressive theory of poetry. It must also be noted that Wordsworth is never entirely expressive, for one of his main concerns is the effect of his poetry upon his reader who, he hopes, will be in some degree enlightened and whose 'affections' will be strengthened and purified.43

Coleridge's assessment of Wordsworth's Preface is summed up in his remarks about the 1815 edition of Wordsworth's poems. 'Mr Wordsworth', he notes, 'has . . . degraded this prefatory disquisition to the end of his second volume, to be read or not at the reader's choice'.44 Happily, Coleridge says, Wordsworth's theories were not allowed to interfere with his practice:

And I reflect with delight how little a mere theory, though one of his own workmanship, interferes with the processes of genuine imagination in a man of true poetic genius who possesses, as Mr Wordsworth, if ever man did, most assuredly does possess,

'The vision and the faculty divine'.45

In fact, most of the original Lyrical Ballads do reflect Wordsworth's theory. They describe incidents from ordinary life, written in a natural language; the colouring of the imagination is thrown over these everyday incidents so that unusual aspects are isolated; the primary laws of human nature are traced; the significance of the memories of childhood are shown; all men are seen to have, essentially, similar habits of mind; and the use of artificiality for its own sake is studiously avoided. Wordsworth's later poems are no longer 'lyrical ballads' and the Preface, though it is not without relevance to most of Wordsworth's poetry, cannot in fairness be used to criticise late poems.

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40 THEORIA

The original Lyrical Ballads are notable as an experiment in dramatic technique.46 Unlike the later 'egotistical sublime' style, Wordsworth has in these poems suppressed his personality and has attempted to enter the consciousness of the persons described. Coleridge, in a previous chapter,47 had admitted this much. He remarked that in The Thorn Wordsworth became 'dull and garrulous', in The Idiot Boy he became idiotic, and in The Sailor s Mother ht adopted perfectly rustic speech. Now, in order to suit his present argument, Coleridge quotes from the second edition and later poems (when the experiment is over and a new poetic is emerging, one that has to do with Wordsworth's interest in himself) and even quotes from poems that are not 'lyrical ballads'. The poems that Coleridge quotes from are: The Rainbow (1802), Lucy Gray (1800), Idle Shepherd Boys (1800), The Blind Highland Boy (1807), Ruth (1800), There was a Boy (1800), Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle (1807), Joanna (1800), and The Excursion (1815). Not one of the poems, which are quoted to illustrate the distinctiveness of Wordsworth's style rather than the subjugation of his personal style in favour of the rustic idiom, is an original 'lyrical ballad'.

Coleridge argues that Wordsworth uses polysyllabic words which are not used in ordinary conversation, and moreover, Wordsworth does heighten his diction.48 Coleridge mentions, for example, 'concourse wild' in There was a Boy. Other examples include: 'The thrush is busy in the wood' (a description of a bird singing); 'Both earth and sky keep jubilee' (a beautiful May day); 'That uncertain heaven received into the bosombf the steady lake' (the reflection of sky in a lake). In short, Coleridge concludes:

were there excluded from Mr Wordsworth's poetic compositions all that a literal (my italics) adherence to the theory of his preface would exclude, two-thirds at least of the marked beauties of his poetry must be erased.49

Writing to R.P. Gillies, Wordsworth remarks that when discussing poetic style 'the word "artificially" begs the question'50 for quite obviously, a poem is an artefact. Wordsworth's objection is to conventional poeticisms, to artificiality for its own sake as inorganic ornament. The descriptions quoted by Coleridge are not incompatible with Wordsworth's theory. Nowhere in the Preface does Wordsworth state that the language of poetry must be unmetaphorical. On the contrary, he insists that it be 'alive with figures and metaphors'. The words themselves of the descriptions above: 'busy', 'jubilee', 'uncertain', 'heaven', 'bosom', 'steady', etc. are, unlike 'reddening Phoebus', not a specialized language of poets, they are current in everyday usage, and Wordsworth has demonstrated their abundant suitability for poetic use.

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PREFACE TO 'LYRICAL BALLADS' 41

Coleridge's criticism of Wordsworth's diction would have been more to the point if he had looked at the way in which the poetry itself works, why it seems so simple yet proves to be so complex. Wordsworth's diction which, if seen in isolation, often seems too elevated is, in context, a perfect mode for the way in which his poetry interchanges literal and figurative planes of meaning.

The main points of Coleridge's criticism of Wordsworth's poetic theory can be briefly summarized. Coleridge does not believe that rustics have the monopoly of 'the real language of men'. He objects to Wordsworth's assertion that metre is 'superadded' to prose in the creation of poetry. He objects to Wordsworth's belief that 'all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings'. He takes issue with Wordsworth's theory of poetic diction, claiming that poetic diction is necessarily a heightened form of language, and not 'lingua communis'. Furthermore, a poet is not 'a man speaking to men', but an imaginative and intellectual genius. Finally, Coleridge suggests that Wordsworth does not follow his own theory in the creation of his poetry.

Most of these objections are irrelevant because, as I have pointed out, Coleridge has either misunderstood Wordsworth's point, or has ignored the context. One of the most distressing things about Coleridge's Wordsworthian criticism in the Biographia is Coleridge's extreme literal-mindedness. He is content to reduce Wordsworth's arguments to their bare logical bones, without taking into account the spirit in which the argument is advanced. Coleridge does not attempt to understand what Wordsworth means by an apparent overstatement, instead he is over-ready to remove words and phrases, especially the more controversial ones, from their contexts and thus to criticise them on unfair grounds. Coleridge also ignores the numerous qualifications that Wordsworth gives to nearly every statement he makes, and the resulting complexity that this lends to many of his arguments. We do not see Coleridge arguing at a higher level, say, about some of the consequences of Wordsworth's expressive theory, but always at the most superficial level of sense and nonsense.

Although Coleridge admits that the Preface was a 'half-child of (his) own brain', the overriding impression conveyed by the Biographia is that Coleridge would like to disown any part he may have played in its conception. He makes repeated attempts to point out Wordsworth's foolishness and naivety. But the Lyrical Ballads , including its Preface, is the product of the collaboration between both Wordsworth and Coleridge. George Whalley, in his essay 'The Integrity of the Biographia Literaria ' points out that the integral structure of the Biographia is centred, not on Coleridge's own work, but on Wordsworth's; and the central paradox of the Biographia is that the account of Coleridge's literary development

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42 THEORIA

should be centred on Wordsworth's work51 - which surely indicates the complementary nature of their ideas:

In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical Ballads ; in which 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 inner 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, that 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 from the lethargy of custom and directing it to the loveliness and wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solitude, we have eyes yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand.56

This poetic manifesto is a succinct statement of those basic ideas on which both Wordsworth and Coleridge are in agreement: the emphasis on the supernatural (the realm beyond the world of Newton and Locke), the idea that perception is an active rather than (as Godwin and Hartley would have it) a passive process - which is an affirmation of the power attributed to the imagination. Wordsworth endeavours to lay bare the unusualness of the usual, and Coleridge, conversely, the usual in the unusual. In either case the end is the same: to reveal the hidden wonderous vitality of the world which has been obscured from us by deadening custom and dulled by mechanical theories. These fundamental ideals are never disputed by either Wordsworth or Coleridge.

University of Cape Town.

NOTES 1. S.T. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria: or Biographical Sketches of My Literary

Life and Opinions , G. Watson (ed), (London: Dent, 1977), p. 199. Hereafter referred toasB.L.

2. Miriam Allott (ed), Matthew Arnold: Selected Poems and Prose, (London: Dent, 1978), p. 236.

3. Irving Babbit, Rousseau and Romanticism , (Boston: Bell, 1919), p. 155. 4. Herbert Read, Wordsworth: The Clark Lectures , 1929-1930 , (London: Cape, 1930), p. 196.

5. B.L., p. 247. 6. Ibid., d. 188. 7. Ibid., p. 190. 8. D.J. Énright and Ernst De Chickera (eds), English Critical Texts , (Cape Town: O.U.P. , 1979), p. 162. This contains the text of the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads , hereafter referred to as L. B. 9. M.H. Abrams, The Mirror and The Lamp: Romantic Theory and The Critical Tradition , (London: O.U.P. , 1980), p. 110. 10. L.B., p. 164. 11. See W.J.B. Owen and Jane Worthington Smyser (eds), The Prose Works of William Wordsworth , (Oxford: Clarendon, 1974), I, pp. 118-131.

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PREFACE TO 'LYRICAL BALLADS' 43

12. W.J.B. Owen, Wordsworth as Critic , (Toronto: T.U.P., 1969), pp. 110-112. 13. B.L., p. 198. 14. L.B., p. 164. 15. Ibid.. d. 167. 16. B.L. d. 201. 17. Quoted in H.W. Garrod, Wordsworth : Lectures and Essays , (Oxford:

Clarendon, 1963), pp. 163-164. 18. L.B., p. 169. 19. B.L., p. 222. Coleridge's phrase is reminiscent of Wordsworth's 'gaudiness and inane phraseology'. 20. Ibid., d. 223. 21. Ibid., p. 223. 22. L.B., p. 180. 23. B.L.,p. 228. 24. Ibid.. d. 173. 25. Ibid., p. 206. 26. R.G. Collinewood, The Principles of Art, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1938), d. 121. 27. L.B.,pp. 178-9. 28. Ibid., p. 180. 29. 5.L., p. 207. 30. Ibid., p. 207. 31. Ibid., p. 199. 32. L.B., p. 165. 33. £.L.,p. 174. 34. L.5., D.171. 35. F.R. Leavis, 'Reality and Sincerity', in A Selection From 'Scrutiny', (Cambridge:

C.U.P., 1968), I, p. 252. 36. Ibid., p. 253. 37. L.B., p. 171. 38. B. L., pp. 173-174. 39. L.S., p. 172. 40. B.L.,p. 192. 41. Ibid., DD. 48-49. 42. E. L. Griggs (ed), Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, (Oxford:

Clarendon, 1962), II, 1013. 43. L.B.yp. 166. 44. B.L., p. 170. 45. Ibid., p. 202. 46. See S.M. Parrish, 'Dramatic Technique in the Lyrical Ballads', ( PMLA , lxxiv,

959), pp. 85-97. 47. B.L. , pp. 192-194. 48. Ibid., p. 233. 49. Ibid., p. 236. 50. E. de Selincourt (ed) The Letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth: The Middle Years, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939), II, 555. 51. George Whalley, Essays and Studies, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,

1953), p. 153. 52. B.L. , pp. 168-169.

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