This document compares the poetic theories of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It discusses their views on what defines a poet and the poetic process. While Wordsworth believed poets should use simple, common language drawn from everyday life, Coleridge argued language is too individualized and poets need a vast vocabulary. Overall their partnership was influential for English Romantic poetry, though Coleridge's poetic talents declined where Wordsworth's endured longer.

1. M.K.BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
Name : Maru Janak J
Roll no : 26
Enrollment no : PG 15101026
Paper no : 3 (Literary theory and criticism)
Topic : Wordsworth&Coleridge Poetic
Comparison
Submitted To :M.K Bhavnagar University
Department of English

2. Introduction
William WordsworthSamuel Taylor
Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
was an English poet,
Literary critic and
Philosopher.
Born : October 21,1772,
Ottery St mary,United
Kingdom
Died : July 25, 1834,
Highgate, United
Kingdom
William Wordsworth
was a Major English
Romantic Poet.
Born : April 7, 1770,
Cocker mouth,
United Kingdom
Died : April 23, 1850,
Cumberland, United
Kingdom.

3. What is a Poet :
”Is a man speaking to men “
Knows a lot –”Greater knowledge of human
nature “
Is tuned in to emotions-his own and Others: 'A
lively sensibility ‘
Has a good memory and can imagine distant
things as if they are present.
And has “greater promptness to think feel without
Immediate external existent”.

4. The Poetic Process
SENSORY
EXPERIEN
CE
READE
R
EMOTIO
N

5. Samuel Coleridge :
What is poet ?
 ‘No man was ever yet a great poet, without at
the something being a profound philosopher’.
He valued scientific thinking as a branch of
philosophy. According to him ; if a person is a
poet, he should also be a philosopher otherwise
he is not poet.
The poet must be Educated person who
possess poetic genious.

6. William Wordsworth
What is the Poet ?
“He is a man speaking to
men: a man ,Endued with
more lively sensible who has
a greater knowledge of
human nature, and a more
comprehensive soul, than are
supposed to be common
among mankind”.

7. Coleridge Vs Wordsworth
Coleridge’s objection to Wordsworth’s use of term ‘Real
language of men.’’
According to wordsworth ; ‘ Language really by common man’
and ‘The corcern of poetry should be simple, rustic and
common life.’ But, for Coleridge ; such a generalization cannot
exist, for men are individual by nature.
He thought that lowering diction and content simply made it,
so that the poet had a smaller vocabularly of both words and
concepts to drew from.
Coleridge also combines his theoretical ideas in his poetry.
He abondans Wordsworth’s notion of poetry for the comman
man and uses loftly language, poetic diction and subject matter,
while he still holds a reverence for nature in herent to romantic
literature, his poet are not exclusively based around the natural.

8. Conclusion:
In certain respect it was Coleridge
who had a better flowering.
Coleridge soon came to an end
Wordsworth could not stop the
decline in Coleridge’s poetic power,
but one can say that their contribution
to English was a landmark for the
Romance in English Poetic.