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It is a text of literary criticism. It looks
like a biography, because it deals also with Coleridge’s life. |
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The extract is divided in four points: |
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What is poetry |
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What are the contents of Lyrical Ballads |
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What language should be used |
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Who is the poet |
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Poetry is a literature with two cardinal points: |
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It has the power of exciting the reader
following the “truth of nature” |
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It has “the power of giving the interest of
novelty by the modifyng colours of imagination” |
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In Lyrical Ballads Wordsworth and Coleridge had
two roles: |
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Wordsworth’s poems dealt with ordinary things presented as if
they were unusual |
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Coleridge’s poems dealt with supernatural things presented as if they
were natural |
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The language in Coleridge’s poems had to give
the reader sufficient truth “to procure a willing suspension of disbelief,
which constitutes poetic faith” |
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Wordsworth had to give the charm of novelty to
things of everyday to awake the mind’s attention to the letargy of custom,
consequence of the “film of familiarity”. |
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The ideal poet is he who brings the whole soul
of man into actvity. |
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The poet has a “magical power” which blends
faculties of man with the soul, that is the Imagination. |
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It can reveal a balance of oposite things, like
sameness and difference, general and concrete, novelty and familiarity. |
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