Coleridge and Wordsworth

jimmoyer

jimmoyer
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Remember the RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER or TINTERN ABBEY ?

Remember Coleridge ? Remember Wordsworth ?

Coleridge was a laudanum socialist wacko who coined the term Pantisocracy, meaning power for all.
And this society was to live in the Quaker banks of the Susquehanna. William Penn tantalized the romantics for this peaceful colony who couldn't defend its borders in the French and Indian War.

Coleridge also coined the term "psychosomatic" since his mind and body was a nutcase, although quite a talker who inspired many of the greats of his day.

So...
Coleridge had convinced Wordsworth to join him in creating a book of poetry stating that the failures of democracy and socialism cannot compete with the real solution poets offer: an attitude of thinking.

Thus 1798 Lyrical Ballads, wasn't just the greatest poems English professors inflict on students today, but rather an antidote to the failures of political systems and philosophy.
 

Kreskin

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I remember reading Ancient Mariner during high school. I tried reading it again at about age 30. It seemed like a completely different story the second time around. Must've been the high school hooch.
 

jimmoyer

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If there's any shared culture other than math, it would be Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Americans and other former English possessions having their children read English Lit authors.

All got hit with Coleridge and Wordsworth at least in one English class around the old empire where the sun never set.

But I never knew that those 2 were up to utopian thinking rather than only just poetry.

"...the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies."
was an observation made by Wordsworth in collaboration with Coleridge who thought their answer of the poet is better than the answer of a politician.
 

TomG

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Oct 27, 2006
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Bear with me, I’m indulging myself. I quote from the Rime sometimes as an illustration of the material that remains in western culture that might support a more cooperative and conserver society than has been wrought by our modern ‘petal to the metal winning is everything’ rendering of the classical liberal philosophies of Coleridge’s time.

I didn’t know that Coleridge wrote a utopia, but it doesn’t surprise me. His was the time of a hippy-like counter-culture movement. Then as in modern times young people sought identities in nature and sought to isolate themselves in wilderness communes. After all, it was the time of dusk for absolute European Monarchies and of the dawn of the new dream. The dream was of applied democracy.

It was an exciting energetic time where we cast off domination of the medieval chains of being and became individuals with rights to be treated in dignity and respect by those we elect to govern us. It was a dream where we as individuals became at one with our governance, where we, the individual, became the raison d’être for the state. It was a good time for poets and for writing utopias. It was a good time for Coleridge whose fragile personality was driven by restless energy, by imagination driven by emotion, driven by structure that forever threatened to fall into chaos.

It was a time that gave us a field of Athenry, where small birds flew free, where we had dreams, and our love was on the wing. It was a dream of the natural individual and natural governance: the dream that was before it became so lonely round the fields of Athenry. The dream evapourated into the emptiness of the debased abstract philosophies and gave us the apology of human nature and globalization as the raison d’être for l’etat. The apologies that forged new chains of being for us to replace the Medieval ones that ensured riches for few and poverty grinding servitude for many. L’raison where few prosper and many pay, and pay dearly.

The Fields of Athenry is a song that tells a story of the Irish famine as wrought by a government of the people a little more than 50 years after Coleridge wrote his utopia. From dream to nightmare in 50 years; and in modern times, do we live the dream or the nightmare? Or, do we simply wait for new dreams, for new loves, for new wings, for company rather than loneliness within crowds? The story and song are easy to find on the web.

Most of Coleridge’s work was written in the few years before 1799 when he saw the immense flock of Starlings that gave him an image that haunted the rest of his life, and shattered his fragile interplay between imagination and emotion. A flock, probably much smaller than Coleridge’s flock, can be seen at: http://www.nypost.com/news/2006photos/photo78.jpg

The image has been described as one of restless energy, of every changing structure and form, of a vaguely menacing structure that threatens chaos. It might be a strong personality but without a fixed identity. It is an image where collective individuals seem to transcend their individuality to become an entity in its own right, an entity that has no fixed identity. It is an image where the transcendental produces consequences for the collective individuals that create it, but where the transcendental cannot experience its own consequences. The flock is an image, it does not actually exist. It doesn’t actually live. It cannot experience.

How very much like our modern governments of the people the image of a flock of starlings might be. The state is an image, it does not actually live, have understanding or moral or ethical sensibilities; it cannot actually be found or located. The state is a strong personality without an identity; always vaguely menacing in its threat to descend into chaos. Perhaps Coleridge when his imagination was intact saw a glimpse of the nightmare the utopian dreams of his time would become. The image shattered his life.

And what of our lives? Do we place them in the dreams of strong personalities with no identities of their own? Do we give our lives to that which lacks its own? Do we become a state that waits for a reason? Do we place our lives in the care of aged dreams that have seen too many mornings, in the vaults of the caretakers of abstract philosophies that never had their own lives? The state cannot experience and cannot love, yet it forges our chains and claims virtue in doing so. Do we live the dream where we find that Low lie the fields of Athenry, where small birds once flew free, where we had dreams and our love was on the wing. It’s so lonely round the fields of Athenry. I’ll trust life and take my truths from poetry; it’s a reason to live and to dream.
 
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jimmoyer

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I’ll trust life and take my truths from poetry; it’s a reason to live and to dream.
-----------------------------TomG-----------------------------------------------------------

That last line is only a "smidgen" of a really great post of yours, TomG.

It is exactly the reason for the book Lyrical Ballads published in 1798 that contained the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Khubla Khan by Coleridge and his friend Wordsworth in which the great Tintern Abbey is also included.

That book of poetry was to be an answer to all the political systems and political theories of the day.

The answer was poetry and sublime nature.

As opposed to the Old Testament view that saw Nature as terroristic and awesome as the scary God who created it all.


The following paragraph of TomG's description of a flock of birds of Athenry reminds me of a description of nano technology as also decribed by Micheal Crighton in his book on nanotechnology titled PREY:

The image has been described as one of restless energy, of every changing structure and form, of a vaguely menacing structure that threatens chaos. It might be a strong personality but without a fixed identity. It is an image where collective individuals seem to transcend their individuality to become an entity in its own right, an entity that has no fixed identity. It is an image where the transcendental produces consequences for the collective individuals that create it, but where the transcendental cannot experience its own consequences. The flock is an image, it does not actually exist. It doesn’t actually live. It cannot experience.

How very much like our modern governments of the people the image of a flock of starlings might be. The state is an image, it does not actually live, have understanding or moral or ethical sensibilities; it cannot actually be found or located. The state is a strong personality without an identity; always vaguely menacing in its threat to descend into chaos. Perhaps Coleridge when his imagination was intact saw a glimpse of the nightmare the utopian dreams of his time would become. The image shattered his life.
 

Curiosity

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Jul 30, 2005
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Tom and Jim

Excellent exchange sirs.... I salute you both for the subject matter and the knowledge shared...

If my school classes had been nearly as interesting as you two - I may have learned a thing or two.
 

TomG

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Oct 27, 2006
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Thanks. Maybe it’s worthwhile to try and untangle my ’too clever by half’ writing.
The Fields of Athenry is an Irish folk-song that tells a story of the potato famine where over an million starved to death while food paid as rent remained in warehouses and was shipped to England. The song tells of the perhaps intentionally inadequate relief effort by the English government (hard Indian seed corn was shipped from America but couldn’t be milled into flour and was not distributed). Some of the corn was stolen; the perpetrators were arrested and sent to the Botany Bay penal colony in Australia. Their families continued to starve.

I can’t come up with citations: However, the English civil servant in charge of relief supposedly justified the effort on the basis of beliefs that the famine was a natural unavoidable mechanism described by Malthus for reducing excess population. And, distributing surplus food then in England to Ireland would not be desirable since it would interfere with the free market.

That is the background for my comment ‘from dream to nightmare in 50 years.’ I juxtaposed The fields of Athenry, with Coleridge and the Rime because of the Rime’s poetic truth that our hubris can deliver us to the Mariner’s Curse of ‘awaking on the morrow a sadder but wiser man’ and also because of Coleridge’s fabled encounter with the flock of starlings. I used the image of a flock as symbolic of the nation-state—something which lacks its own existence and experience and has a strong personality but without a fixed identity. As I suppose is obvious, all elements involve birds, and birds are often used as symbols for the many hopeful things found in our dreams and philosophies—if not realized in the world.

Today The Fields of Athenry is often sung by Irish supports before national team football matches. I sometimes recite the lyrics when I am alone, and seldom without experiencing a catch in my throat. My ancestry includes a different instance of official policies of extermination by starvation that also were rationalized by abstract philosophies and utopian dreams. I understand the song very well, as would the descendents of any people whose ancestors were starved to death by official policy. The story and lyrics of The Fields of Athenry can be found below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fields_of_Athenry

http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/IrelandGenWeb/2007-04/1176526157

I am currently reading Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago (3 decades late). The three huge volumes also tell of official starvation by the state and of abstract philosophies and utopian dreams. I know that we are doing much the same today. Today’s philosophies and dreams are only slight variations from what they always are. People die as consequences of the dreams, the same as they always have. And life goes on, the same as it always was, the same as it always was. And as Willie Nelson sings, ‘see that sparrow flying though cloud searching for a spot of sun, and so am I…I live one day at a time and dream one dream at a time.’

But I need our poetry and songs to ensure that my dreams are truly my dreams and my experience is my experience. If I take the dreams of nation for my own and the nightly news for my own experience then I become as a flock of starlings: without an existence of my own, capable of casting a shadow on the ground but incapable of experience or judgment. I become an undefined member of a nation dream; the dream of a strong personality without a fixed identity. I then dream the dreams of what ever is given me and become incapable of understanding or accepting responsibility for the consequences of dreams and abstract philosophies. A nation of such people truly would cast a shadow across the land. The consequences of dreams and philosophies are often told of in our songs and poetry.
 
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jimmoyer

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But I need our poetry and songs to ensure that my dreams are truly my dreams and my experience is my experience. If I take the dreams of nation for my own and the nightly news for my own experience then I become as a flock of starlings: without an existence of my own, capable of casting a shadow on the ground but incapable of experience or judgment. I become an undefined member of a nation dream; the dream of a strong personality without a fixed identity. I then dream the dreams of what ever is given me and become incapable of understanding or accepting responsibility for the consequences of dreams and abstract philosophies. A nation of such people truly would cast a shadow across the land. The consequences of dreams and philosophies are often told of in our songs and poetry.
-------------------------------TomG---------------------------------------------------------------

Absolutely a keen observation.

Another twist to add to TomG's above observation:

I wonder that George Orwell had prophesied the mind control right but got his source wrong. The source of mind control would not be government but rather we, ourselves the people consenting to be the audience of mass media, consenting and wanting to know where others are at all times when we want to know it for convenience sake.
 

Blackleaf

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Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire.





 

tamarin

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Rime's a poor choice for Coleridge's genius. Read 'Frost at Midnight.' He was a much more influential thinker than he was a poet. As for Wordswords, he reached his peak with 'Intimations of Immortality.' Certainly, one of the best ten poems in the English language.
 

jimmoyer

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[SIZE=+3]what words of ours will last ?[/SIZE] [SIZE=+3]Coleridge's poem:[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+3]T[/SIZE]he Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud--and hark, again ! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings : save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed ! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village ! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams ! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not ;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought. But O ! how oft,

How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger ! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come !
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams !
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye
Fixed with mock study on my swimming book :
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike !
Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the intersperséd vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought !
My babe so beautiful ! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes ! For I was reared
In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe ! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags : so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher ! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw ; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
 

tamarin

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Jim, I loved that one when I first read it and still love it now. Thank you! Rime has its moments but it doesn't burn bright enough for me. The Romantic Period was a time of collective genius in English writing. My favourite remains John Keats. Marvellous work and the guy is dead at 26. Some of his odes are incomparable. My favourite remains Ode on Melancholy but the critics will likely choose another. I've always stressed the secret of great poetry is power. When a great poem is read aloud by a great reader you can feel it. The experience is electric.
 

TomG

Electoral Member
Oct 27, 2006
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I returned just the day-before-yesterday from my second recent solo canoe trip. I am not yet entirely back to a world bounded by words. I hope this thread continues, and perhaps I’ll be able to contribute something that I’ll be happy with later. I did download the poems mentioned that I had not already read. I do find myself in their words, and so I will read them again. I find myself in my trips too. I seldom travel far from where I call home.
 

jimmoyer

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"...the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies."
was an observation made by Wordsworth in collaboration with Coleridge who thought their answer of the poet is better than the answer of a politician.

Isn't that obervation in the late 1700s provoking ? What of the populations in cities today compared to that ?

Puzzling over that sentence for a moment or two I want to prosaicly list it's different parts:

1. increasing accumulation of men in cities: different life style, therefore different thinking than those living in rural areas and therefore always different politics, which I believe is the biggest fault line in politics anywhere in any nation around the globe.

2. uniformity of occupations: in that day to Dickens day yes, but today it may even still apply as we are in the same economic system that drives behavior daily,

3. craving for extraordinary incident: Now there's an interesting observation, first noted by the Great classical Greek playwrights and Aristotle noting a need for "spectacle."

4. rapid communication hourly gratifies: Have we realized how much our lives have changed from the past? The slow boring past of an afternoon? Historical amnesia is built in from generation to generation.

---------------------------------------------

And now, something completely different ! A man with 3 buttocks !!!

Herewith that last blazing stanza:

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.



Autumn of 1797 or (more likely) spring of 1798, published
for Coleridge
1816, 1828, 1829, 1834
 
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tamarin

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Jim, it is a period rich in genius. And don't forget Byron and Shelley. Lesser lights in my view but still stars to many. And jumping ahead a bit, our own, the incomparable later Romantic, Archibald Lampman. He has many poems to his credit that belong in our classrooms yet today.
 

jimmoyer

jimmoyer
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I recall vaguely that Lord Byron was a heluva swimmer and swam the lenght of the Bosporus.
I know others have done far greater distances, but his physicality was interesting.
And he was around that area of the Greeks fighting for independence that gained the imagination of the west trained upon the classical past looking at horror of the Ottomans, paintings by Delacroix etc,,,


I swim laps everyday, a little over a mile, 33 lenghts of a 50meter pool takes about 25 minutes, so some swimming lore grabs me occassionally.