Appunti Inglese

In 1799 William and Dorothy settled in the Lake District. In the following years Wordsworth wrote

some of his best poems.

His reputation as a poet grew steadily. The last years of his life were marked by the growing

conservatism of his political views. He died in 1850.

One summer evening, he discovered a boat and he stole it and rowed out onto the Moonlit Lake. He

saw nature suddenly at its most powerful, its most inspiring and realized how pitifully small man was

by comparison.

→ Daffodils: criticized because people couldn't believe that someone with such a magical command of

words could write a poem for something as common as daffodils.

The Manifesto of English Romanticism

For Wordsworth poetry was a solitary act, originating not in the extraordinary but in the ordinary. He

belonged to the first generation of Romantic poets, which was characterised by the attempt to theorise

about poetry. While planning the Lyrical Ballads with Coleridge, they decided that he would deal with

man, nature and everyday things trying to make them interesting for the reader, while Coleridge

should write about the supernatural and mystery making them seem real.

Wordsworth's strongest objection to 18' -century poetry was its artificial, elevated language, which he

called 'poetic diction'. In his 'Preface’ he explained that the subject matter should deal with everyday

situations or incidents and with ordinary people. The language should be simple and the objects

called by their ordinary names. The reason for Wordsworth's choice lies in the fact that in humble rural

life man is nearer to his own purer passions. Therefore the poet is a man among men, writing about

what interests mankind.

The relationship between man and nature

Wordsworth shared Rousseau's faith in the goodness of nature as well as in the excellence of the

child. He thought that man could achieve that good through the cultivation of his senses and feelings.

He was interested in the relationship between the natural world and the human consciousness. His

poetry offers a detailed account of the complex interaction between man and nature, of the influences,

insights, emotions and sensations which arise from this contact.

When a natural object is described, the main focus of interest is the poet's response to that object.

Wordsworth believed that man and nature are inseparable; man exists not outside the natural world

but as an active participant in it. In his pantheistic view Wordsworth saw nature as something that

includes both inanimate and human nature: each is a part of the same whole. Nature is a source of

pleasure and joy, it comforts man in sorrow and teaches him how to love and to act in a moral way.

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads

It was written to the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads. The first edition was 1798 and the second

one in 1800; and it was written as an additional introduction to the second edition.

It became the manifesto of British Romanticism as it contains the philosophical bases of the Romantic

literary production.

In the first paragraph he tries to explain to us why he decided to write this Preface → he

wrote it because he wants to understand how much pleasure he can create by writing

poems about everyday experiences and using everyday language → he was strongly

criticized for this.

In the second paragraph he shows that he was really surprised to find out that actually a huger

number of people enjoy and appreciate his poems than he had expected, and so he decided to write

something about the theory upon his poems.

Creative process has 4 steps:

- chose the events (common/ordinary ones)

- describe them

imagine something behind the events (not an ordinary description) → colour them

- with imagination = reality transformed with language

- common language

Common life → people of the countryside should be taken into consideration → they have:

- a closer relation with nature

- live in a more natural way

language was a more suitable one because it was simple → they also refuse the

- idea that a poet should write poetry mechanically

Poetry → he focused on human feelings → spontaneous => distinction poetry-prose:

- prose was considered a lower genre because of its lack of figures of speech

- poetry = spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings

Poet:

- no ordinary man

- masters the language he uses

- able to create a similar emotion to the original one in his works

Vs the man of science → the second one is isolated in a world of facts and the first

- one sings a song that all human beings enjoy

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Life and works

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Devonshire in 1772. He received an excellent education in the

classics but he failed to graduate at Cambridge University. During the university years he was heavily

influenced by French revolutionary ideals, which made him an enthusiastic republican.

He travelled a lot during his life and he moved to Germany → here, “thanks” to his illness

and depression, he wrote his poems

Interested in the middle ages

One of the first to explore the human unconscious

In 1795 Coleridge met the poet William Wordsworth and in 1800 he settled in the Lake District. An

important collaboration between the two poets started and most of Coleridge's best poetry was written

in these years.

Coleridge had a very different experience of the lakes. Unlike his friend Wordsworth who found

happiness here, Coleridge was descending into a kind of private hell. He had long been an opium

addict and up here he found a new drug, a mixture of brandy and opium far stronger than anything

he'd had before, it gave him such appalling nightmares that he was actually afraid to go to sleep.

- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, his masterpiece, written in 1798; it is the first poem of the

collection Lyrical Ballads, which became the Manifesto of the English Romantic movement.

- Christabel, an unfinished poem set in the Middle Ages, about a young girl under a witch's

spell (description of a nightmare).

- Kubla Khan, written, probably under the influence of opium,. Coleridge described this dream-

like poem 'as a psychological curiosity (set in a magic environment).

In contrast to Wordsworth's preoccupation with subjects from ordinary life, his own task was to write

about extraordinary events in a credible way (marvelous, supernatural and extraordinary). He died in

1834.

He had a politica project: to start a community of immigrants in the USA, but it will be never realized

After his wife’s death, he falls in love with Wordsworth’s sister.

Supernatural is very present → he wanted to create a suspension of disbelief in the

reader = he wanted to describe unusual events in a creble way so that the readers can

consider them true

He was a very devoted christian, he was very religious despite his lifestyle.

He was not familiar with the setting he described, so the poem is the result of his imagination, of a

created process. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Plot and setting

The ballad The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is made up of seven parts and is set in the sea.

It’s a narrative poem.

We can see some captions that help the reader to better understand the contest

Plot

First part

An ancient Mariner stops one of three people on their way to a wedding celebration. He wants to go to

enjoy the wedding merriment, but the Ancient Mariner takes his hand to stop him and begins his story.

So the Wedding Guest is hypnotized by the Mariner’s glittering eye and can do nothing but sit on a

stone and listen to him (he acts like a 3 year old child). The Ancient Mariner explains that one day he

sailed on a ship full of seamen. They sailed until they reached the equator but, suddenly, the sounds

of the wedding interrupted him. While the bride enters the reception hall, the guest is obliged to

continue listening to the Ancient Mariner. As soon as the ship reached the equator, a terrible storm hit

and forced the ship southwards. Then the sailors are chased southwoards, in a land full of snow and

icebergs. An Albatross arrives, and the sailors say that it’s a sign of good luck. Soon after the ice

breaks apart, allowing the captain to go away. In the meantime, the Albatross followed the ship, ate

the food the sailors gave it, and played with them. At this point, the Wedding Guest notices that the

Ancient Mariner looks at once grave, and so asks him why. The Ancient Mariner responds that he shot

the Albatross with his crossbow (killing a friendly animal is irrational).

→ equator = sunny, hot; polar setting = ice, cold, scary sounds

Second part

The other sailors were angry with the Ancient Mariner for killing the Albatross, which they believed had

saved them from the icy world. Then the fog disappeared and the sun shone, and the sailors suddenly

changed their opinion. They think that the Albatross must have brought the mist, and praise the

Ancient Mariner for having killed it. The ship entered an uncharted part of the ocean, and the wind

disappeared. The ship could not move and the ocean became a terrifying place; in the water there

were "slimy" creatures. Some of the sailors dreamed that an evil spirit had followed them from the icy

world, and they all suffered from a thirst so terrible that they could not speak. To punish the Ancient

Mariner for his crime, the sailors hung the Albatross's dead carcass around his neck.

Third part

The sailors were trapped in their ship on the windless ocean for some time, and eventually became

delirious with thirst. One day, the Ancient Mariner noticed something approaching from the West. As it

moved closer, the sailors realized it was a ship, but no one could cry out because their throats were

dry. They thought they were going to be saved, but as the ship neared, they saw that it was a ghostly,

skeletal hull of a ship and that its crew included two figures: Death (wants the life of the mariners) and

Life-in-Death (wants the life of the Mariner). They began to throw dice, and the woman won, then she

whistled three times, causing the sun to sink to the horizon, the stars to instantly emerge. As the moon

rose, the sailors dropped dead one by one—all except the Mariner, whom each sailor cursed “with his

eye” before dying. The souls of the dead men leapt from their bodies and rushed by the Mariner.

Fourth part

The Wedding Guest proclaims that he fears the Ancient Mariner because he is unnaturally skinny and

possesses a "glittering eye." The Ancient Mariner assures him that he has not returned from the dead;

he is the only sailor who did not die on his ship, but he’s a living man. He’s alone, surrounded by lots

of corpses and his only living companions were the "slimy" creatures in the ocean. He tried to pray,

but couldn’t. For seven days and nights the Ancient Mariner remained alone on the ship and couldn’t

sleep. The dead sailors continued to curse him with their open eyes. Only the sight of beautiful water