ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -There is a rather subtle but important difference in the poetry of these two iconic poets. Coleridge portrayed supernatural elements in nature as a naturally occurring part of the human experience. Wordsworth, on the other hand, tried to show what was natural in the world as strangely supernatural.

Detailed explanation-2: -Wordsworth declares that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. Coleridge opposes and objects it. He says that Wordsworth is in this respect on the wrong track. He believes that poetry is the product of powerful emotions and imagination.

Detailed explanation-3: -Wordsworth had great hopes for the Revolution, and he believed that once a republic was firmly in power in France, he and his contemporaries “should see the people having a strong hand/ In framing their own laws; whence betters day; To all mankind” (Wordsworth, Book IX, lines 517-18).

Detailed explanation-4: -Wordsworth in his preface believes that a real language that can communicate to the low, common or rustic people should be the language of poetry while Coleridge admonishes that there is no ‘real’ language as language differs based on education, culture, belief, etc, but that a ‘lingua communise’ should be used.