Abstract

This research paper is about the Romantic Imagination. It explores the differences between two groups of the Romantic poets who think of this phenomenon somehow in different ways. One group, represented by Coleridge and Blake, suggests that imagination is a divine power which is detached from nature. The other group, represented by Wordsworth and Keats, suggests the opposite in which imagination is a human power which is attached to nature In his study, the researcher depended heavily on the extensive reading on the subject matter, such as The Romantic Imagination for Bowra (1950). Besides, he browsed through several electronic sites. Finally, by comparing the two ideologies of the Romantic poets concerning imagination, and also by careful reading of the subject, the researcher found out that all the Romantic poets agree on the importance of imagination as a creative power, but at the same time they disagree somehow on the source of imagination and its relation to nature .

Introduction

Romanticism is a movement that came into being as a revolution against tradition, costumes, limitation and imitation. It also gives a great importance to the individuals, what they feel, and what they believe and think. In addition to this , imagination, according to them, is the most important element among their basic principles in which they agree to define it as "a creative power by which they can reveal the mysteries of the invisible world". They believe that this can be achieved by looking deep into the visible world. Depending on that, they claim that their imagination has an extremely strong relation to truth and reality. On this Hill (1977) writes: Romantics wished to penetrate to an abiding reality, to explore its mysteries, and by this to understand more clearly what life means and what it is worth. They were convinced that though visible things are the instruments by which we find this reality, they are not everything and have indeed little significance unless they are related to some embracing and sustaining power. The Romantics were able to create world of their own, but they also succeeded in convincing others that these worlds are not merely dreams, but they are connected with truth and reality which are not known or clear for ordinary people, but they are clear to those who have personal insights which are, therefore, connected with the poets' imagination. This claim is completely opposite to that of those who say that creation of imagination has a little to do with actual life and provides no more than an agreeable escape from it. All romantic poets agree on the importance of imagination as a creative power which discovers the ultimate truths and the unseen world. Hill also provides that : The Romantics define imagination as "a truly creative faculty, rather than simply rearranging materials fed to it by the senses and the memory. Imagination is a shaping and ordering power, a modifying force which colors objects of sense with the mind's own
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light". In spite of this, not all Romantics define imagination in the same way. Their definitions of imagination almost consist of two parts. One of them talks about the role of imagination as a creative power, whereas the other talks about the source of imagination and where it comes from. The main difference between them is found in the second part of their definitions. Some of the Romantics give an extreme role for the external world which is as they describe it a lively and vivid world to which imagination must be conformed. The proponents of this point of view are Wordsworth and Keats who believe that nature is the source of inspiration. On the other side, some Romantics talk of the external world with less importance as if it is a dead world, which would be created and shaped by imagination. The advocates of this point of view are Coleridge and Blake who believe that imagination is a divine vision which creates reality. Besides, they believe that there will be a time when nature will disappear and the spirit would be free to create without it.

Coleridge and Blake's imagination

Coleridge is the one of the most influential figures among the romantic poets. His poems have been accounted as the most striking pieces of art up till now. Coleridge and Blake share the idea that imagination is a creative power that comes from the unconscious mind. In spite of this, Coleridge is less extremist than Blake in that he is hesitant with respect to the role of the external world in creating imagination. But his hesitation disappears when his imagination is at work. Shawcross (1907) argues that : Coleridge does not go so far as Blake in the claims which he makes for the imagination. He is still a little hampered by the presence of an external world and feels that in some way he must conform to it. But when his creative genius is at work, it brushes these hesitations aside and fashions reality from a shapeless, undifferentiated 'given'. In the end he believes that the meaning is found for existence through exercise of creative activity which is a kin to that of God.
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Coleridge believes that there are great powers behind this universe which cannot be fully understood, so his literary works were more mysterious than those of any other Romantic. Therefore, he defines imagination as "the primary imagination I hold to be the living power and the prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the final mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite IAM": Samuel Taylor Coleridge divides imagination into two parts: the primary and the secondary imagination as "the living power and the prime agent". Prime imagination is attributed divine equality, namely the creation of the self, the "IAM". However, because it is not subject to the human will, the poet has no control over the primary imagination. It is intrinsic quality of poet that makes him or her a creator; harking back to Wordsworth, the primary imagination can be linked to poetic genius. The secondary imagination is an echo of the primary. It is like the former in every way except that it is restricted in some capacity. It co-exists with the conscious will, but because of this, the secondary imagination does not have the unlimited power to create. It struggles to attain the ideal of perfection. (http://www.notes on Samuel Taylor coleridge.edu.com) Despite of this analysis of Coleridge's definition of imagination, Bowra (1950) argues that "Coleridge does not speak of imagination as Blake does, but his conclusion is not very different from his". He also says: It is true that he regards poetry as a product of the secondary imagination, but since this differs only in degree from the primary, it remains clear that for Coleridge the imagination is of first importance because it partakes of the creation activity of God. The same writer believes that "the external world or nature for Coleridge is not so active in the process of imagination. It is dead and fixed. It also gets its shape from imagination". He also writes in his work Coleridge's Fancy and Imagination, "What really counted with him was his own deep trust in the imagination as something which gives shape to life". Bowra also adds: At times he seems to be still too aware of the sensationalist philosophy of his youth. From it he inherits a conception of a world of facts, an inanimate cold world, in which 'objects' as objects, are essentially fixed and dead. But as a poet he transcended this idea,
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or turned it to an unexpected conclusion. Just because the external world is like this, the poet's task is to transform it by the imagination. Just as accidents of light and shade maybe brought to life by imagination. Like Coleridge, Blake has the same idea that imagination is a divine vision and activity. Some say that he is more extremist in his assumption than Coleridge. Bowra (1950) writes : Of all the romantics, Blake is the most rigorous in his conception of imagination. He could confidently say, "One power alone makes a poet's imagination, the divine vision, because for him the imagination creates reality, and this reality is the divine activity of the self in its unimpeded energy. His attention is turned towards an ideal, spiritual world, which with all other selves who obey the imagination he helps to build". Although Blake had a keen eye for the visible world, he was interested much with the invisible world, and considered the former as unimportant, and even it has nothing to do with the creation of imagination. Bowra (1950) argues that : Blake is the one who held that imagination operates with given materials, which is nature, but Blake believed that a time would come when nature will disappear and the spirit be free to create without it. Bowra also adds : Through visible things Blake reached that transcendent state which he called eternity and felt free to create a new and living world. He was not a mystic striving darkly and laboriously towards God, but a visionary who could say of himself I am in God's presence night and day, And He never turns his face away .
(Blake, Fragment; in poetry and prose, p.128)

Blake has the same idea with Coleridge that the visible world alone has no significant meaning, but it becomes meaningful through imagination:

Blake believed that the outside, sensory world has no inherent meaning, but becomes meaningful through the contribution of the human imagination, thus this stance that reality is a construction of the humans mind. Humans bring meaning to nature in the form of imaginative thought. However, Blake recognized the limitations that humans often place on themselves, limitations that are inflicted by the human mind; self imposed social and intellectual restrictions deprive humans of experiencing nature and the true human spirit.
(http ://www.blake+imagination&bt

ng )

Blake was obsessed with the idea that imagination is divine, infinite and external. He also tried to distinguish between what is permanent and what is temporary: The following quotation shows how Blake returned to and elaborated his earlier doctrine of the divine image and poetic genius, "The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of vegetated, i.e. mortal, body. This world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation, or vegetation, is finite and temporal. There exists in that external world the eternal realities of everything which we see reflected in this vegetable class of nature. All things are comprehended in the divine body of the savior, the true vine of eternity, the human imagination".
(http//www.bartleby.com/221/0915html)

Michelle Smith (2001) also writes," Blake identified the imagination as ' nothing less than God as He operates in the soul. It follows that any act of creation is divine and that in the imagination man's spiritual nature is finally and fully realized". The only role that Blake attributed to nature is that it gives hints to people to know the reality of the unseen world, and this can be only done by imagination. Bowra (1950) argues that: Blake's true home was in vision, in what he saw when he gave full liberty to his creative imagination and transformed sense-data through it. For him the imagination uncovers the reality masked by
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visible things. The familiar world gives hint which must be taken and pursued and developed To see a world in a Grain of sand And a Heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.
(Blake, Auguries of the innocence; in poetry and prose, p.118)

Wordsworth's Imagination

Although Coleridge's and Blake's perspective about imagination is quite of the unconscious mind, Wordsworth and Keats have different points of view. They share the idea that nature is as important as imagination. However, Keats is easier to deal with than Wordsworth. This is so, not only because Keats has less to say about imagination than Wordsworth, but also because their views and theories about imagination have attracted less critical attacks. To begin with, Wordsworth is a little bit confusing, since sometimes he talks about imagination as a power which is controlled by the conscious mind, and at other times, he suggests that it is beyond the control of individuals. MacMillan (1982) provides: At times he makes imagination purely subjective, an imposition of the human mind on real world. At other times, he makes it an illumination beyond the control of the conscious mind and even beyond the individual soul. But most frequently, he takes an inbetween position which favors the idea of collaboration, an ennobling interchange of action from within and from without. In spite of this confusion, Wordsworth strongly believes that imagination is not only of the unconscious mind, but it is also related to a personal insight. Bowra (1950) thinks that:

Wordsworth was fully aware that mere creation is not enough, that it must be accompanied by a special insight. So, he explains that imagination Is but another name for absolute power And clearest insight, amplitude of mind And Reason in her most exalted mood. (Ibid, xiv ,190-2). Wordsworth did not go so far as the other Romantics in relating reason to an inferior position. He preferred to give a new dignity to the word, and to insist that inspired insight is itself rational. In addition to the source of imagination, according to Wordsworth, the relationship between nature and imagination is also discussed. While nature is absent, negative and dead according to Coleridge, it is present, active, positive and alive according to Wordsworth. He considers it as the source of inspiration. On this, Jen Kuo (www.lib.ndhu.edu.com) writes that "To Wordsworth what he gets from nature is the spiritual nourishment, the inspiration of his imagination. Jen Kuo also adds that "The presence of nature, according to Wordsworth, mysteriously fills the surface of the universal earth with symbols and feelings and therefore, makes the earth abundant like a sea." Wordsworth is infatuated with nature to the extent that he gives it a soul like that of a human being, and this soul interacts with that of man. Bowra (1950) thinks that "Wordsworth believed that he helped to bring the soul of nature closer to man.". Bowra also adds: For Wordsworth imagination must be subservient to the external world because that world is not dead but living and has its own soul, which is at least in the life that we know, distinct from the soul of man. Man's task is to enter into communion with this soul, and he can hardly avoid doing so since from birth onward his life is continuously shaped by nature, which penetrates his being and influences his thoughts. Jen Kuo agrees with Bowra that "Nature to Wordsworth is not only the external objects, but sometimes interacts with his inward mind, his soul. Wordsworth's perspective of nature and imagination is not quite stable. However, his point view comes to be settled again for the advantage of nature. Jen Kuo argues that:
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Through most of Wordsworth's poems on nature and mind, we see the conflict, instead of harmony and marriage between the two. One part of him says leave nature and cleave to imagination. The other part fearing that imagination could not be cleaved, indeed, that it would take him beyond human heartedness even out of this world, answered cleave to nature and leave vision romance, those errors of childhood of poetry. (Wordsworth's imagination). Again, Bowra (1950) digresses about this relation stating that: Nature was the source of Wordsworth's inspiration and he could not deny to it an existence, at least as powerful as man's. But since nature lifted him out of herself, he sought for a higher state in which its soul and the soul of man should be united in a single harmony. Sometimes, he felt that this happened and that through vision he attained an understanding of the oneness of things.

Keats's Imagination

Like all Romantic poets, and Wordsworth in particular, Keats believes in imagination as a great power which creates absolute reality through visible things. Besides imagination, he attributes a great role for the beauty of visible things in creating this reality. On this Bowra (1950) writes "Through the imagination Keats sought an absolute reality to which a door was opened by his appreciation of beauty through the senses." Keats took the beauty of visible things as a tool through which he measured the level of imagination he reached. Bowra says about this " Through beauty he felt that he came into the presence of the ultimately real. The more intensely a beautiful object affected him, the more convinced he was that he passed beyond it to something else".

Thorpe (1926) agrees with Bowra by stating that: The beauty of visible things carried Keats into ecstasy and this was the goal of his desires since it explained the extraordinary hold which objects of senses had on him and justified his wish to pass beyond them to something permanent and universal. Unlike Blake, who has no passion towards the visible world and sometimes considers it with no importance, in contrast to imagination, Keats is more passionate about nature and gives it more importance. Bowra (1950) argues that "Keats had more passionate love for visible world than Blake and has often been treated as a man who lived for sensuous impression". Bowra also presents some differences and similarities between the two poets and says : While Blake's imagination is active, Keats suggests that his is largely passive and that his need is to feel the 'chief intensity'. But he is closer to Blake in the claim that he makes for the imagination as something absorbing and exalting which opens the way to an unseen spiritual order. Like Wordsworth, Keats believes that the creation of imagination is not only enough, but he also believes that the intuitive insight is necessary. Thorpe (1926) thinks that: Keats and Boilea agreed on one essential: each knows that nothing is more dangerous for a poet than to write with imagination only; Boilea believed that in this firmly, and Keats, at least after 1818, came to know that the highest poetry could not be written in this way. But Keats took the more balanced view. Where Boilea would make imagination subordinate, Keats would have imagination and intellect work together like twin sisters except that imagination should have the stronger, cleaner access and the deeper more accurate visual power, and so should be the authority in case of dispute. In fact, Keats refused to trust the intellectual sister's vision at all until it had appealed to the imagination twin to corroborate her judgment I can never be sure of a truth except by a clear conception of its beauty. On the other hand, he will even discredit or ignore the intellect if the imagination penetration vision has pierced through some misty haze and caught gleams that her slower sister's exe can not detect: What the imagination seizes as beauty must be the truth.

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Conclusion

Imagination for the romantic poets is something sacred and valuable which gives meaning to many meaningless objects. All Romantics agree that their task is to find through imagination some divine order which explains the visible world and accounts not only for the existence of visible things but for the effect which they have on people. For them this reality could not be but spiritual, since they trust insight rather than logic and inspired soul rather than reason. Although imagination is highlighted by all the romantic poets as an important power, it is viewed by them in different ways. Some of them attribute it to divinity or the unconsciousness, whereas others attribute it to the personal insight and consciousness. Besides imagination, nature is investigated with its relation to imagination. Some of the Romantics consider it absent and does not contribute in the process of imagination, whereas others describe it as an active agent which has a soul such as that of human beings. Finally, imagination is a controversial subject since there has been no final and complete explanation of this phenomenon. Despite of this, the romantic poets have paved the way for us and for the coming generations to think of imagination in a way which is different from that of old ages.

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References A) Books: 1) Bowra, C.M. (1950). The Romantic Imagination. London. Oxford University Press. 2) Hill, John.(1977). The Romantic Imagination. Hound Mills, Basingstok , Hampshire RG212X5 and London: The Macmillan Press. 3) Shawcross, John.(1907). Introduction to his edition of Biographia Literaria by S.T .Coleridge, 2vols. Oxford University. 4) Thorpe , Clarence. (1926). The Mind of John Keats. New York: Russell. B) Electronic resources: 1) http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/dmiell/tinternrew/smith.html 2) http://www.l.b.ndhu.edu.tw/libhtm/serics/200507/7-187-222.pdf 3) http://www.google.com/search?hi=ar89=blake+imagination&btng 4) http://www.bartelby.com/221/0915.html)1.blake 5) http://www.sjsu.edu/facukty/herris/studentproject/laset/biogrnotes,h tml 6) http://www.google.com/search? hl=art89=wordsworth+imagination=btug

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An-Najah National University Faculty of Arts Department of English The Romantic Imagination Between Coleridge , Blake , Wordsworth and Keats Submitted by : Ayman Ghassan mlitat (10407064) Supervisor : Dr . Odeh Odeh In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the B.A. Degree in English Second Semester 2008/2009
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