Miller 1 Tess Miller ENGL 3234 December 11, 2013 Final Paper Romantic Lit Final A faint meow

echoes from beneath me and feel a soft tap at my foot that crescendos into a roar of meows and a dozen paws at my feet. Then suddenly we are on a train, the conductor whistles and announces our destination is Australia. Then my arm is tugged and the policeman says youre going to jail and he pushes me against the wall. But quickly someone grabs my hands freeing me. As we escape a monster begins chasing us. Then when we stop the cats crowd around my feet once again. These are the daily adventures I experience at Head Start in Giles County. The only way this is made possible is through the childrens flourishing imaginations. Their imaginations ignite my own imagination and together we enter an entirely new world. John Keats says I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Hearts affections and the truth of ImaginationWhat the imagination seize as Beauty must be truthwhether it existed before or not (Keats 965). A row of five chairs in the Head Start classroom quickly becomes a train when we sit on them. While this train did not exist before, it is very real to these children, this train is their truth. They find beauty and joy in trains so they bring it to life through imagination. As editor of the Norton Minimalist Anthology of British Literature, I have selected the following passage from John Keats letter to a close friend, Benjamin Bailey to characterize the Romantic eras values as a whole. This passage relates to main themes of many of the important Romantic writers works as well as real life situations such as the children of Head Start. The passage is as follows: I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Hearts affections and the truth of

Miller 2 ImaginationWhat the imagination seize as Beauty must be truthwhether it existed before or notfor I have the same Idea of all our Passions as of Love they are all in their sublime, creative of essential BeautyIn a Wordthe Imagination may be compared to Adams dreamhe awoke and found it truth. (Keats 965-966) Within the Romantic era many different writers had different ideas but one thread that weaves them all together is imagination. Almost every important writer in the Romantic period emphasizes the importance of imagination either explicitly or implicitly. In this passage Keats captures the spirit and truth of imagination so beautifully that I chose it as the passage to encompass all of Romantic literature as a whole. The main authors who embody this passage in their works are William Wordsworth, Samuel Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and John Keats himself. William Wordsworth explores imagination in a great deal of his poetry. In his The Prelude he mirrors Keats statement saying Imagination, which in truth is but another name for absolute power and clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And reason, in her most exalted mood (Wordsworth 401). In general, most people view imagination as the opposite of reason, the unnatural versus the natural. However, here Wordsworth explains that imagination is simply a greater form of reason. He describes imagination as reason in her most exalted mood to show that imagination is almost a heavenly power. Wordsworth felt that while a poet is a man speaking to men he also is endued with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive soul (Wordsworth 269). In this sense, Wordsworth believes that poets have gifts beyond the ordinary human. The way in which the poet can achieve a more lively sensibility, greater knowledge

Miller 3 of human nature and therefore have a more comprehensive soul is through their imagination, through their exalted reason. Samuel Coleridge also explicitly describes his ideas about imagination in his Biographia Literaria. Coleridge, in my opinion, was one of the most brilliant Romantic poets therefore shares very important insights on imagination. He describes imagination in the primary and secondary sense. He says The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception and as repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I am (Coleridge 491). Coleridge believes that while human senses allow people to see, hear, feel, smell and taste the world around them, the imagination allows people to truly perceive the world. Keats describes that he is sure that imagination must be truth and Coleridge echoes that here because it is the prime agent of all human perception therefore it reflects an individual truth based on ones perceptions. He shows his genius in the latter part of this statement showing how the infinite power of imagination exists in the finite mind. He describes the eternal act of creation because the imagination infinitely continues to create truth through the world it perceives. He continues saying The secondary I consider as an echo of the former, coexisting with the conscious will differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, dissipates, in order to recreate it struggles to idealize and to unify (Coleridge 491). The secondary imagination deals more with the human will rather than the human mind and more with creation rather than perception. The Romantics believed that while imagination lives in the human soul, it is loftier than reason and logic as Keats explains in his passage. Lord Byron was different from the other Romantic poets, contrasting Wordsworth and Coleridge especially. However, despite their

Miller 4 differences they all valued imagination. The current Norton Anthology says in Byrons introduction that although Byronism was largely fiction, produced by a collaboration between Byrons imagination and that of his public, the fiction was historically more important than the actual person (Byron 613). The most important part of Byron is the fiction that he created through his own imagination and the imagination of the public. This shows another juxtaposition about imagination in poetry. Not only does the poet use imagination to create poetry but the readers use imagination to interpret poetry. The fiction of Byronism became truth because it appeal more to the imagination than the actual man. The line that captures Byrons poetry from Manfred says we, half dust, half deity, alike unfit to sink or soar, with our mixd essence (Byron 646). Byron shows the paradox of the human that is half animal, being made of dust, and half deity, having a soul. Imagination makes the human like a deity, imagination makes one soar. The Romantics valued imagination as power beyond reason and logic but as truth itself. The power of the human mind has power over everything because it manipulates the way one sees the world. One looks on the world and processes what they see through their imagination. Wordsworth shows this in the Prelude while looking on Mount Snowdon. He says: the moon stood naked in the heavens at height/ immense above my head, and on the shore/ I found myself of a huge sea of mist,/ Which meek and silent rested at my feet./ A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved/ All over this still ocean, and beyond,/ Far, far beyond, the vapours shot themselves/ In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes,/ Into the sea, the real sea, that seemed/ to dwindle and give up its majesty,/ Usurped as far as sight could reach (Wordsworth 41-51) In actuality he sees the fog wrapped around the other mountains the tops of those mountains above the blanket of fog with the sea in the distance. However, in his minds eye, he sees an

Miller 5 ocean with scattered islands, and the real sea in the background. He says the sea, the real sea, seemed to dwindle and give up its majesty as if the image of the sea of mist that Wordsworths imagination sees has so much more beauty and power, and the image of the real sea cannot compare. While he looks upon nature his imagination manipulates nature creating a more beautiful and majestic image. Keats would say that the sea of mist is the true image rather than the actual sea because the sea of mist and the mountain-top islands is the image that the imagination seizes as beauty therefore must be truth. Coleridge also discusses the difference between fancy and imagination in terms of poetry in Biographia Literaria. Imagination is important in general but specifically in terms of poetry. While some may confuse fancy and imagination as synonymous, Coleridge differentiates that imagination holds more power than fancy. He explains good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its drapery, motion its life, and imagination the soul that is everywhere, and in each; and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole (Coleridge 496). Fancy simply embellishes poetry in order to make it more beautiful so Coleridge compares it to the drapery; whereas he compares imagination as the soul of poetry because it is the source of this poetry. Imagination works in two directions; one perceives the world through imagination and then the poet produces poetry through imagination. Keats does not only discuss the importance and truth of imagination in his letters but he also reflects it in his poetry. In his poem Ode on a Grecian Urn he says heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye sot pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeard, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone (Keats 930). He compares melodies that one perceives through the senses as a heard melody and melodies one perceives through imagination as an unheard melody. The melody perceived through imagination or the ditty with no tone is

Miller 6 sweeter because it has only the beauty of imagination not tainted with reality. He discusses in this poem that reality often disappoints because it cannot live up to the beauty in ones imagination. He ends the poem saying Beauty is truth, truth beautythat is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know (Keats 931). This beauty he discusses is the beauty that the imagination seizes as truth. This strong final statement indirectly shows that imagination is all yea need to know on earth. Imagination controls everything because it is how one perceives the world around them. Wordsworth also explores imagination through children. During the Romantic period, writers and thinkers often valued the thoughts of the child because they were closest to God, reflected human nature at its purest and displayed imagination at its highest degree. In his ode Intimations on Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood Wordsworth says The Child is Father of the Man (Wordsworth 337). The Romantics believed that humans are innately good but the world wears them down. The child has seen less of the world and has experienced less than the man, therefore understand human nature in its truest, most pure state. Wordsworth also shows that to a child, imagination is truth just as Keats says. In the poem We Are Seven the speaker of the poem repeatedly asks a simple Child (Wordsworth 278) how many brothers and sisters she has. Her response is Seven are we; And two of us at Conway dwell, And two are gone to sea. Two of us in the church-yard lie, My sister and my brother; And in the church-yard cottage, I dwell near them with my mother (Wordsworth 278). The speaker tries to explain to her that her two siblings in the church yard are dead, therefore there are only five children, not seven. However, this simple child persists that we are seven no matter what argument the speaker makes. The childs two deceased siblings are alive in her imagination and spirit, therefore they are seven.

Miller 7 This understanding of childrens imagination that Wordsworth explores, I found to be true in the children at Head Start. I was playing with some of the children with small animal figures and a girl handed me a tiger and said you be the doggy. I tried to explain to her that that was in fact a tiger, not a dog and she listened carefully but pointed to it and said doggy. In her mind, that tiger was a cute dog and nothing I said could convince her otherwise. What is alive and beautiful in the childrens imaginations is always truth and one cannot try to rationalize with them. This is not only true for children but for all people, children are simply more in touch with their imaginations, just as poets are, especially the Romantic poets. John Keats has the honor of being chosen as the passage to characterize Romantic literature. While Keats was the last of the Romantic poets and the youngest before his death he captured the spirit of Romantic literature. Perhaps because he was younger than the others, he was more in tune with his natural, pure self like a child. As Wordsworth would say he had a more comprehensive soul.