By, in order of presenter:

Sean

Yuri

Puja

Susan

Wesley

Robin

William Wordsworth (April 7th, 1770 – April 23rd, 1850) Aged 80

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21st, 1772 – July 25th, 1834) Aged 61

Both lived in the Romantic Era, and helped launch the movement through their writings and works.

The Romantic Era took place in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, focusing on artistic, literary and intellectual movement.

Romanticism expressed visual arts, music and literature strongly.

Romanticism focused on Nature, and emphasized intuition, imagination and feeling.

Ludwig van Beethoven ( December 17th, 1770 – March 26th, 1827), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ( January 27th, 1756 – December 5th, 1691), & Joseph Haydn ( March 31st, 1732 – May 31st, 1809) were all present during the Romantic Era and were considered “The Three Romantic Composers.”

This era was considered the true age of Romanticism in music.

The 18th century was also considered as the Age of Enlightenment, where the power of reason was emphasized to rebuild society and advance knowledge.

George Washington crossed the Delaware on December 25th, 1776, which is an iconic event in the American Revolution.

Storming of the Bastille took place as well, July 14th, 1789, an iconic event in the French Revolution.

Even before meeting each other, both were familar with each other’s work. Coleridge detected signs of genius in Wordsworth’s work.

Coleridge and Wordsworth first met in Racedown, Dorsetshire in 1797.

Immediately became friends and collaborated in writings together and shared the same vision in creating a new type of poetry.

 In 1798 joint published “Lyrical Ballads”.However, due to different views, style of writing,

and personal issues, their friendship came to an end.

Preferred natural, common language.

 Emphasised on feeling and simplicity.

 Emotioned over abstract thought.

 Experience of natural beauty over urban life.

 Simply stated themes instead of elaborate symbols.

 Nature, common people, children, and imagination.

Wordsworth was the poet of nature, the purity of childhood, and memory.

 Coleridge became the poet of imagination, exploring the relationships between nature and the mind.

Their new style of writing changed the course of English poetry, replacing the elaborate classical forms with a new Romantic sensibility.

Influenced later writers such as John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron in England, and Emerson and Thoreau in America.

Historical Background on

William Wordsworth

Born 1770Age 8 Mother passes awayWilliam had 3 brothersWilliam was a moody boy He read an immense amount of books His father died when he was 13He went to St. Johns and CambridgeTravels with his good friend Robert JohnsMastered French Supporter of the French RevolutionHe fell in Love with Anette VallonHis guilt and Abandonment of his familyHis meeting with Samuel Coleridge. Married Mary Hutchinson 1843 Poet LaureateDied In 1850

 Info and Analysis of the text, "Lyrical

Ballads"

four versions publishedfirst was published in1798 anonymouslysecond published under Wordsworth's name

in 1800third in 1802 with enlarged prefacefinal in 1805negatively received by critics because of

uninteresting subjects but later praised for same thing

Wordsworth's intentions    -revolutionary view on what to represent    -interest in capturing how human mind responds through senses in nature    -use of common language

What makes a poet    -someone who is more sensitive and thoughtful than the average person

Emphasis on the Individual

Comparison:    -Past and present    -Speaker and Simon Lee    -Young and old

Theme contrasts with "Simon Lee"

preoccupation with death

contrast between speaker's perception of death and the cottage girl's

"To her fair works did Nature linkThe human soul that through me ran;And much it grieved my heart to thinkWhat man has made of man"

"The birds around me hopped and played,Their thoughts I cannot measure:-But the least motion which they made,It seemed a thrill of pleasure."

•Fascination with nature•contrasting diction emphasizes the emotions associated with nature and with civilization

Friend asks why William sits there alone wasting his time and where are his books

he claims it is not a waste of time because all the senses of the body are being utilized in a "wise passiveness" and things can be learned from nature as well.

support of social reform

emphasis on nature

"Let Nature be your teacher....Close up those barren leaves;Come forth, and bring with you a heartThat watches and receives.“

shows that Wordsworth is potentially in between this aspect of the Romantic movement and being educated solely by books

Symbols:

The Thorn - the woman's suffering

The beautiful moss hill - the happiness that left with the death of the baby

"Through a long absence, have not been to meAs is a landscape to a blind man's eye:But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the dinOf towns and cities, I have owed to themIn hours of weariness, sensations sweet,Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;And passing even into my purer mind,With tranquil restoration"

Fascination with Nature-how nature affected the speaker as time passed

 Historical Background on

Samuel Coleridge

Born in the country town of Ottery St. Mary in rural Devonshire, England

Was a "hippy“English poet, Romantic, literary critic,

philosopher, founder of the Romantic Movement in England, and a member of the Lake Poets

Best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, and his major prose work Biographia Literaria

Major influence via Emerson on American transcendentalism

His father, Reverend John Coleridge, was a well respected vicar of the parish and headmaster of Henry VIII's Free Grammar School at Ottery

John had three children with his first wife.Samuel was the youngest of the ten children

by John's second wife Anne BowdenAfter his father died, Samuel was sent to

Christ's Hospital at the age of 8 and would remain there throughout his childhood studying and writing poetry

From 1791-1794, Coleridge attended Jesus College, Cambridge

Enlisted in the Light Dragoons under the alias of Silas Tonkun Comberback perhaps because of debt or because of a girl he loved that had rejected him

Brothers arranged for his discharge a few months later under the reason of "insanity" and was readmitted into Jesus College although he would leave again and never receive a degree

Met Robert Southey in 1794 His radicalism eventually waned and took an 180

degree shift from radical to conservative in politicsMet Wordsworth at 23 years old in 1795 and judged

him at once to be "the best poet of the age“

After the joint publication of Lyrical Ballds, he spent a winter in Germany with Wordsworth and attended the University of Gottingen

Went back to England in 1800 with Wordsworth to the Lake District and setled at Greta Hall, Keswick to be near Wordsworth

Took laundanum (opium dissolved in alcohol) to ease the physical pains he suffered from an early age

Beset by various problems such as marital problems, tensions with Wordsworth, and opium dependency, this led to the composition of Dejection: An Ode

Took a break and went to the Mediterranean island of Malta in hopes of recovering but this instead completed his decline

Returned to 1806 a broken manA bitter quarrel in 1810 with Wordsworth marked

the nadir of his life and expectationsFrom 1808-1819, gave public lectures in London

along with literary and philosophical topicsWrote for newspapers while single handedly wrote,

published, and distributed The Friend, a journal that lasted for ten years

Wrote a tragedy, Remorse, that had a twenty successful performances at the Drury Lane theater

1816, took up residence in Highgate, northern suburb of London, under the supervision of physician James Gillman who managed to control his opium consumption but not elminate

The next three years would be a sustained literary period for Coleridge published Biographia Literaria Zapolya (drama), a book consisting of three essays in The Friend (revised and greatly enlarged), two collections of poems, and several treatises on philosophical and religious subjects

Established a philosophical basis for the Trinitarian theology Spent the remaining years of his life with Dr. and Mrs. Gillman His rooms at Highgate became a center for friends, the

London literati, and for a steady stream of pilgrims from England and America

Even in his decline, he never lost the incantatory power that Hazlitt immortalized in My First Acquaintence with Poets

Died on the 25th of July, 1834 (age 61) in Highgate, England Friends express an incomparable intellect vanished from the

world when he died Coleridge's influence is strongly evident in the nineteenth-

century English and America

 Info and Analysis of the text, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

The story begins very suddenly when the Mariner stops a man who is heading to a wedding

The man asks why he has been stopped, to which the Mariner only begins his story

The man tries to brush him off but the mariner prevents him and tells his tale

The Mariner recites a story of how he and his shipmates were blown off course and sent south to the

AntarticThey find a south wind to blow them north by

following an albatross; a bird that is a symbol for good fortune

The Mariner shoots and kills the bird, angering the spirits

The spirits drive them far north into uncharted waters, angered further by the crews acceptance of the crime

Death takes the souls of the crew while “Life-in-Death” takes the soul of the Mariner

The mariner suffers the stares of his dead crewmates for seven days until angelic spirits raise them to sail the ship home

Once home the Mariner is compared to rising from the dead, being the devil, and is condemned to walk the earth and recite his tale

“He holds him with his skinny hand, -‘there was a ship,’ quoth he. –‘Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!’ –Eftsoons[at once] his hand dropt he. –he holds him with his glittering eye- -the wedding-guest stood still, -and listens like a three years’ child: -the Mariner hath his will.”

“At length did cross an albatross, -Thorough the fog it came; -as if it had a christian soul, -We hailed it in God’s name.”

“Her lips were red, her looks were free, -Her locks were yellow as gold: -Her skin was as white as leprosy, -The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she, -Who thicks man’s blood with cold. –the naked hulk alongside came, -And the twain were casting dice; -‘the game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!’ –Quoth she, and whistled thrice.”

“ ‘I fear thee Mariner! –I fear thy skinny hand! –And thou art long, and lank, and brown, -As is the ribbed sea- sand. –I fear thee and thy Glittering eye, -And thy skinny hand, so brown’- -Fear not, fear not thou wedding-guest! –This body dropt not down.”

“ ‘I fear thee mariner!’ –Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest! -’Twas not the souls that fled in pain, -Which to their [corpses] came again, -But a troop of spirits blest:”

“ ‘Is it he?’ quoth one, ‘Is this the man? –By him who died on cross, -With his cruel bow he laid full low – The harmless Albatross.”

“ I moved my lips-the Pilot shrieked –And fell down in a fit; -The holy Hermit raised his eyes, -And prayed where did he sit. –I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy, -Who now doth crazy go, -Laughed loud and long, and all the while, -his eyes went to and fro. –‘Ha! ha!’ quoth he, ‘full plain I see, - The Devil Knows how to row.’ ”

THE END