How was the writing style of Wordsworth different from Coleridge?


Both, Wordsworth and Coleridge were famous poets of their time, but both received praise for their own distinct writing styles.

Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a popular name among Romantic poets who were influenced by the French Revolution. He was a leader of the British Romantic movement and was born on October 21, 1772, in Devonshire, England.

Features of Coleridge’s Poetry

  • Treatment of the Supernatural: He treats the supernatural in such a manner that it becomes convincing and at the same time, in some sense, a criticism of life.

  • Suspension of Disbelief: The way in which Coleridge has achieved the willing suspension of disbelief has been even explained beautifully in the book The Romantic Imagination by Bowra.

  • Satisfying Writing Style: The poems of his are not phantasmagoria of unconnected events but a coherent whole by exploiting our acquaintance with dreams and has in its own right as something intelligible and satisfying.

  • Realism: He exercises an imaginative realism.

  • Medievalism present: Medievalism is present everywhere in Coleridge's poetry. The whole of Rime of Ancient Mariner is wrought with the color and glamour of Middle Ages.

Wordsworth

Wordsworth was born in Cockermouth, Cumbria, England on April 7, 1770.

Features of Wordsworth’s Poetry

  • Emotions At A Priority: Apart from showing us the role of Nature in the growth of the individual, he related his experiences to bring out the change in perceptions based on emotions.

  • Nature was his guide, friend, philosopher, nurse, playmate, mother and what not! She was both beautiful and stern, fearful and sublime, inspirational and also intimidating.

  • Optimism In Poems: There is also a sense of hope in the form of philosophical optimism that the poems of Wordsworth offer.

  • Romanticism: Innocence and simplicity are suggested by the Romantic idea of going back to one's childhood and by arriving at an essential attribute viz. The "Vital Soul".

  • Pantheism: It is the belief that all reality is identical with divinity, or that everything composes god.

Thus although both of them belonged to the same Romantic Age, they had different writing styles.

Updated on: 30-Jul-2019

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