Differences between the first and second generation:

The first generation of romantic poets theorized about poetry and they thought that poems
had to be written in a simple language. They criticized many social conventions and saw
society as an evil force. They supported the ideals of freedom and equality of the French
Revolution, however, they adopted a conservative view in the last part of their life.
ensations were e!alted, especially in "ordsworth poems. They had a pantheistic view of
nature.
The poets of the second generation returned to more comple! versifications. They felt
isolated by their society and they all died very young and away from home. Their attitude was
very critical and their disillusionment is e!pressed in the clash between the ideal and the real.
#i$e the first generation, they gave great importance to sensations and were very interested in
the natural environment.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
amuel Taylor %oleridge was the founder of the Romantic movement with "illiam
"ordsworth: they wrote together the #yrical &allads, which are the symbol of the Romantic
period. Reported to "ordsworth, %oleridge has a different style and his attention falls to
different particulars: he tries to e!trapolate the metaphysical points of all the things he sees
and lives with and to ma$e the reader living good emotions than$s to the imagination that
ma$es the author create strange and supernatural situations. The atmospheres that we can
read in %oleridge are far away from the everyday reality: for e!ample there are horrible and
mysterious, but also fantastic and splendid and all this gives a dramatic characteristic and a
sense of invisible presences. This is typically of the romantic sensitiveness, but %oleridge is
able to go deep into it: he thin$s that we all have inside us a receding and elusive mystery and
a powerful and both horrid and ambiguous and that we find them in everyone and in every
life.
'fter the enthusiasm and the impetus of the French Revolution, in %oleridge every disillusion
turns itself over in a philosophical( metaphysical restlessness.
)e says that there*s a big difference between his poetical( theories and "ordsworth*s ones: in
particular he*s convinced that his friend allows too much to the palpability of things. 's a
matter of fact, %oleridge goes over the Romanticism and operates a rigorous distinction
between fantasy and imagination, using this one to give a dynamic to his poetry and to
dissolve and re( create things+ its power lead the variety shattered of the reality to the
sharpness unifying of the poetic words. &ut %oleridge also thin$s that things are symbols
revealing of mysterious and elusive essences of the multivalent reality and this ma$es the
typical sense of ,magic, of indefinite and unfinished.
Wordsworth and Coleridge
"ordsworth and %oleridge are the two most important poets of the first -nglish romantic
period.
They wor$ed together to create the collection .Lyrical Ballads/, and they have some different
point of view about poetry, nature and imagination.
0magination:
"ordsworth believes that imagination is used to enrich simple ideas in tranquillity. 1en has
this faculties before the birth and they lost it growing up+
%oleridge divides it into primary and secondary, and it is the capacity of perceive the world
around us 2common to all people3 and then the capacity of order those memories and enrich
them with supernatural.
4ature:
"ordsworth feels nature as full of life, as it would be a part of us, in order to a 5antheistic
vision+ nature is opposed to town, it is a source of feelings and it is pervaded by an active
force+
%oleridge, instead, sees the nature as the 6ne #ife 2a divine power3, and all his description of
landscapes or natural elements, are endowed with a deeper symbolic meaning.
5oetry:
"ordsworth says the poetry is a spontaneous e!pression of feelings+ it is .emotion
recollected in tranquillity/. The poet ta$es inspiration from rustic life, and then, he combines
the memory of those emotions, with the use of imagination.
%oleridge believes that poetry is a product of unconscious and it creates a $ind of ecstasy,
reproduced with the use of memory and the adding of supernatural elements.