Throughout romantic poetry, two types of imagination were formed: first generation and second generation. During the first generation poets described imagination as the connection with God/nature. This generation bridges the gap to reality. They believed that what is within comes from the connections made with God/nature. However, throughout the second generation poets described imagination as the power of reality. They believe they can reimagine the world, and that the human mind is what created the structure of the universe. So, therefore, both generations have different aspects of the real meaning of imagination. Samuel Coleridge, a first generation romantic poet, wrote many poems that used the sense of imagination. According to Coleridge, “Imagination is the primary imagination that a person holds to as the living power of all human perceptions, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I am” (p.491). The infinite I am is God, which is connected through our imagination of the past, present, and future. Coleridge wrote the poem
Also he believes, Imagination comes from within the mind. Wordsworth describes that the cruelty people see is not what we saw as a small child, it is what we see when we are older. As a child, we see a princess movie we either want to be a princess (girls), or a knight (boys). “Shaped by himself with newly-learned art/ a wedding or a festival” (92-93). The common path of our lives comes between our happiness and us; as a child we do not feel pain and/or hopelessness. Also, he describes that human beings are born connected to God and Nature, but when humans grow up they lose this connection because they began to believe the information they stored within. This started the beginning of second generation because human thoughts are seen as the secret strength of forming
What makes a person who they are is a difficult dilemma. Mark Twain's novel, "Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins" is a critical analysis of how nature and nurture can cultivate emotions and free will, which in turn affects the life of individuals. "Twain's faltering sense of direction began about slavery, moral decay, and deceptive realities (Kaplan 314). The debate of `nature versus nurture' has been one of the most intriguing scientific and cultural issues for most of the twentieth century, in determining the behavioral aspects of human beings. The changes in environment, society, education, political influences, family values and morals and other external influences, combined with physical genes determines how mankind will evolve into adulthood. Both nature and nurture, in combination with emotions and free will, control the behavior of human beings and determines who we are.
...here are similar aspects to each writer's experience. Engaging the imagination, Ramond, Wordsworth and Shelley have experienced a kind of unity; conscious of the self as the soul they are simultaneously aware of 'freedoms of other men'. I suggested in the introduction that the imagination is a transition place wherein words often fail but the experience is intensified, even understood by the traveler. For all three writers the nature of the imagination has, amazingly, been communicable. Ramond and Wordsworth are able to come to an articulate conclusion about the effects imagination has on their perceptions of nature. Shelley, however, remains skeptical about the power of the imaginative process. Nonetheless, Shelley's experience is as real, as intense as that of Ramond and Wordsworth.
William Wordsworth’s view on imagination can easily be seen in the two poems Expostulation & Reply and The Tables Turned. In these two short poems Wordsworth gives respect to the sciences; he does not look down on them. However, he does argue that ignoring nature, and by extension, imagination, would be to ignore part of what it means to be human. Another poem, I wandered lonely as a cloud, shows Wordsworth’s appreciation for imagination, as he reflects on the joy of being able to look inward and see the beauty of nature as he sees it, not as science does.
Imagination allows for one to explore deeper into their faith than what would be possible in the physical world. Brueggemann describes imagination in faith as inevitable because it is bound to happen when trying to understand that of which is beyond physical means; also when one relates the stories of an ancient world to present day circumstances.
Growing up in different generations, our actuality was shaped differently by society. This also gives us insight about how each generation changes so dramatically and how society will shape the new generations. For example, it showed us that her being in poverty was her “private trouble” but since almost her whole town was in poverty, she realized it and therefore it became a “public issue”. The times are always changing because people are starting to see things differently and they want what’s best for each other and the society. What we need is a quality of mind that will help us see what’s happening in the outside world and possibly
Classicist and Romanticists also differed on their approches towards reason and imagination. Classicism attached much more importance to reason than imagination because imagination could not be explained by their laws. To them, “;the imagination, though essential to literature, had to be restrained by reason and common sense.”; (text, 119) The Romanticists, however, emphasized that reason was not the only path to truth. “;Instead, Romantic writers emphasized intuition, that inner perception of truth which is independent of reason.”; (text, 122) To the Romantic writers, imagination was ultimately superior to reason.
Poetry can serve as cautionary tales, a declaration of love and many other types of expression. Poems can discuss several themes from love and life to death and religion; however two poems with the same themes can have two different messages. Thomas Grey’s “Elegy Written in a Church Courtyard” and “Beowulf” author unknown, express themes such as death and the value of life; however their use of figurative language and choice of form convey two different messages. Figurative language can deepen the meaning of a message, while form can give the reader a hint about the poem’s theme.
Mileur, J. 1982. Coleridge and the Art of Immanence. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
The choice of words of the author also contributes to the development of the theme. For example, the use of words like "drafty," "half-heartedly," and "half-imagined" give the reader the idea of how faintly the dilemma was perceived and understood by the children, thus adding to the idea that the children cannot understand the burden the speaker has upon herself. In addition, referring to a Rembrandt as just a "picture" and to the woman as "old age," we can see that these two symbols, which are very important to the speaker and to the poem, are considered trivial by the children, thus contributing to the concept that the children cannot feel what the speaker is feeling.
While Coleridge describes the process of creating Romantic poetry and encourages poets to use the combination of nature and imagination in this process, Keats is more focused on reality and is well aware of the limitations of the Grecian urn. With the poets’ admiration of nature present in both poems …… to be completed.
In two works by Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, both works regard the imagination as vitally important. In the Ancient Mariner, the imagination (or rather, the lack of it) condemns the Mariner to a kind of hell, with the fiends of sterility, solitude, and loneliness: “’God save thee, Ancient Mariner, from the fiends that plague thee thus! Why look’st thou so?’ ‘With my crossbow I shot the Albatross’”. In Kubla Khan, the imagination of an external being, the narrator that Coleridge created, the ideal critic, can create a masterpiece that far outstrips the meager piece of work that even the emperor of a huge, rich civilization can produce: “I would build that dome in air, a sunny dome! Those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, and all should cry, Beware! Beware!” In Kubla Khan, the imagination can even make people fear an otherwise inconsequential event, sequence, or organism.
In this essay, I aim to discuss the issue whether imagination is more important than knowledge. “For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there will ever be to know and understand” (Albert Einstein).
Wordsworth is deeply involved with the complexities of nature and human reaction to it. To Wordsworth nature is the revelation of god through viewing everything that is harmonious or beautiful in nature. Man’s true character is then formed and developed through participation in this balance. Wordsworth had the view that people are at their best when they are closest to nature. Being close creates harmony and order. He thought that the people of his time were getting away from that.
It is obvious that through this perception Wordsworth is generally speaking of past experiences. Wordsworth believed that nature played a key role in spiritual understanding and stressed the role of memory in capturing the experiences of childhood.
Coleridge successfully illustrates the qualities of imagination in his poem, Kubla Khan, through the sound of words, the creative content and his ability to create and recreate. Coleridge turns the words of the poem into a system of symbols that are suspended in the reader’s mind. Coleridge uses creative powers to establish the infinite I AM, a quality of the primary imagination. Coleridge mirrors his primary and secondary imagination in the poem by taking apart and recreating images. The qualities of imagination discussed in the poem exist independently but also work together to create an imaginative world. It is important to understand how the poem works to achieve these qualities, but also how the poem works to bring the reader back to reality. The powers and qualities of imagination are present in Kubla Khan and it is through Coleridge’s extraordinary writing that the reader is able to experience an imaginative world, in which we alternate between reality and imagination.