Just some thoughts
English writers of the romantic period have been influenced by French and German writers and philosophers. They have shared common ideas and often we can find common themes in their literature. After a class on Thursday I decided to find out the central idea E. Kant‘s philosophy and his influence on English writers of the romantic period. Kant’s famous transcendental idealism and empirical realism ideas are:
Reason itself is structured with forms of experience and categories that give a phenomenal and logical structure to any possible object of empirical experience. These categories cannot be circumvented to get at a mind-independent world, but they are necessary for experience of spatio-temporal objects with their causal behavior and logical properties.
I have read “from the Preface from the Lyrical Ballads” by William Wordsworth. I believe that his “Preface” is like an instruction manual for his poetry to the future readers. To be able to understand his poetry we should understand his philosophical ideas and also consider historical events of the romantic period. We can find influence of Kant’s philosophy in his work. Wordsworth wrote:” I might be suspected of having been principally influenced by the selfish and foolish hope of reasoning him (the Reader) into an approbation of these particular Poems…” I think what he meant is that the interpretation of his poetry is possible through the experience of it.
Throughout the “Preface” the ideas of innovation, imagination and excitement are constantly repeated. For Wordsworth poet is a man “who has a greater knowledge of human nature.” I have got an impression that a poet for Wordsworth is not an ordinary man, it is a man who is able to see and hear what nobody else can and a poet’s mind is able to overrule any rules of society and come up with something extraordinary in an unusual way. For Wordsworth, poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
Wordsworth’s “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey” reminds me of Blake’s songs of Innocence and Experience (Lamb and Tiger).Nature is very important for the writer as well is spiritual connection with it. Perception of nature from the point of view of an adult, an experienced man, but it is clear from the poem that he is familiar with a landscape. Nostalgia and memories of life inspire the author.
Overall I think that the writer's WORDS really WORTH a lot.:)