Wordsworth and Coleridge on Imagination

Wordsworth Wordsworth and Coleridge on Imaginaon

Kathleen M. Lynch, in her her paper Wordsworth’ Wordsworth’ss Imaginaon: Three Crical Approaches and The rel!de, says, "Imaginaon is an idea that #omanc poets s!$stanally s!$stanally reinterpret. The imaginaon is not a simple concept, and it is more than a mo% in #omanc poems." In this essay, essay, I intend to disc!ss Wordsworth&s Wordsworth&s and Coleridge&s idea o% Imaginaon. Wordsworth Wordsworth deals with imaginaon in his re%ace to the '(') edion o% the Lyrical *allads. There he draws a disncon $etween +ancy and Imaginaon. Wordsworth Wordsworth says that Imaginaon, "Is $!t another name %or a$sol!te powerAnd clearest insight, amplit!de o% mind,And #eason in her most e-alted mood." e goes as %ar as relegang reason to an in%erior posion. e considers Imaginaon to $e that %ac!lty which trans%orms sense percepons and ma/es the poet conscio!s o% h!man immortality, immortality, and his /inship with the eternal. Wordsworth Wordsworth p!rports that the poet is a man who thin/s long and deeply, and so he can treat things which are a$sent as i% they were present. In other words, the poet contemplates contemplates in tran0!ility the emoons which he has e-perienced in the past and thro!gh imaginaon can 1is!ali2e the o$3ects which ga1e rise to those emoons inially. Wordsworth Wordsworth opposes the 4associaonist’ 4associaonist’ theories o% 5a1id artley. artley and other associaonists associaonists $elie1ed that the h!man mind recei1es impressions %rom the e-ternal world, which are therein associated together to %orm images. In this way, way, the mind merely re6ects the e-ternal world. *!t according to Wordsworth, Wordsworth, the mind does not merely re6ect passi1ely, passi1ely, it ac1ely creates. The poet does not only present 7image o% men and nat!re8 $!t he also shapes, modi9es and trans9g!res that image $y the power o% his imaginaon. Th!s imaginaon is crea1e it is a shaping or 4plasc’ power. power. The poet is not a mere mechanical reprod!cer o% o!tward reality, reality, $!t a specially gi;ed indi1id!al, who, li/e