Critical Quotes Flashcards
“Mind and nature, that is,
are united in their ability to ‘mould,’ ‘abstract’ and ‘combine’ the outward face of things into images ‘ awful and sublime.”
Macaulay criticises the romantics for
their ‘old raptures about mountains and cataracts’ however what seems to enrapture WW’s mind is not only the beauty of nature, but the haunting spirit that is inhabited within it.
Gill
“Wordsworth understood how it is through sights, sounds and sensations (not through abstract ideas) that the deep patterning of consciousness is established”
Gill
“[His] narrative in ‘Tintern Abbey’ tells the story of a self constructed out of sensations which change through association from being the passive building blocks of memory into portentously energized players in transformative self-consciousness”
“(the poet) ‘considers man
and nature essentially adapted to each other” P.H Parry
‘imagination is a subjective term:
It deals with objects not as they are, but as they appear to the mind of the poet.’ P.H Parry
Religion
Schelling’s views on the oneness with nature ‘Poured from the source of things and the same as the source, the human soul has a co-knowledge of creation’- Schelling
Form
Why did Wordsworth and Coleridge chose to write in a ‘simple’ style of ‘common people’?
‘being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions.’ W. Blackwood, 1829
‘childhood experiences which he valued so highly
as the means by which the life of the senses entered and informed the life of the spirit.’ Graham, W
‘never an
enemy but always a guide’ Geoffrey Hartman
“But Wordsworth saw in nature not merely the source of
‘moods of calmness’ but equally a source of emotional disturbance; and it was the interaction of the two, which led to genius and the stimulation, and growth of the poetic imagination.”
‘That passiveness is necessary to free the mind
from its superficial drives towards rational comprehension. Without that initial passiveness before nature, the mind is not wed; it seduces and rapes.’
“where wordsworth recounts incidents which were to him meaningful and important
we can see that they are nearly always those in which his mind actively and creatively collaborates with what he is seeing or doing.
“The first two books of The Prelude are studded with
such moments - skating, boating, climbing, snaring, riding…he found in them the prime source of his poetic vigour.
“His true greatness is seen best in contrast
with the poetic barrenness out of which he suddenly, amazingly appeared.”
