keats notes

8/12/2019 Keats Notes

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Keats' concept of beauty

Keats was considerably influenced by Spenser and was, like Spenser, a passionate lover ofbeauty in all its forms and manifestations. The passion of beauty constitutes his aestheticism.

Beauty was his pole star, beauty in nature, in woman and in art.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

He writes and identifies beauty with truth. Of all the contemporary poets Keats is one of the most

inevitably associated with the love of beauty. He was the most passionate lover of the world asthe career of beautiful images and of many imaginative associations of an object or word with a

heightened emotional appeal. Poetry, according to Keats, should be the incarnation of beauty, not

a medium for the expression of religious or social philosophy. He hated didacticism in poetry.

We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us.

He believed that poetry should be unobtrusive. The poet, according to him, is a creator and anartist, not a teacher or a prophet. In a letter to his brother he wrote:

With a great poet, the sense of beauty overcomes every other consideration.

He even disapproved Shelley for subordinating the true end of poetry to the object of social

reform. He dedicated his brief life to the expression of beauty as he said:

I have loved the principle of beauty in all things.

For Keats the world of beauty was an escape from the dreary and painful life or experience. He

escaped from the political and social problems of the world into the realm of imagination. UnlikeWordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Shelley, he remained untouched by revolutionary theories for

the regression of mankind. His later poems such as Ode to a Nightingale and Hyperion show

an increasing interest in human problems and humanity and if he had lived he would haveestablished a closer contact with reality. He may overall be termed as a poet of escape. With him

poetry existed not as an instrument of social revolt nor of philosophical doctrine but for the

expression of beauty. He aimed at expressing beauty for its own sake.

Keats did not like only those things that are beautiful according to the recognized standards. He

had deep insight to see beauty even in those things that are not thought beautiful by ordinary

people. He looked at autumn and says that even autumn has beauty and charm:

Where are the song of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue.

In Keats, we have a remarkable contrast both with Byron on the one side and with Shelley on theother. Keats was neither rebel nor utopian dreamer. Endowed with a purely artistic nature, he


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took up in regard to all the movements and conflicts of his time, a position of almost complete

detacher. He knew nothing of Byrons stormy spirit of hostility of the existing order of things

and he had no sympathy with Shelleys humanitarian and passion for reforming the world. Thefamous opening line of Endymion, A thing of beauty is a joy forever strikes the keynote of

his work. As the modern world seemed to him to be hard, cold and prosaic, he habitually sought

an imaginative escape from it. He loved nature just for its own sake and for the glory andloveliness which he found in it, and no modern poet has ever been nearer than he was to thesimple poetry for earth but there was nothing mystical in love and nature was never fraught for

him, as for Wordsworth and Shelley, with spiritual message and meanings.

Keats was not only the last but also the most perfect of the Romantics while Scott was merely

telling stories, and Wordsworth reforming poetry or upholding the moral law, and Shelley

advocating the impossible reforms and Byron voicing his own egoism and the political measure.

Worshipping beauty like a devotee, perfectly content to write what was in his own heart or toreflect some splendour of the natural world as he saw or dreamed it to be, he had the noble idea

that poetry exists for its own sake and suffers loss by being devoted to philosophy or politics.

Disinterested love of beauty is one of the qualities that made Keats great and that distinguished

him from his great contemporaries. He grasped the essential oneness of beauty and truth. His

creed did not mean beauty of form alone. His ideal was the Greek ideal of beauty inward and

outward, the perfect soul of verse and the perfect form. Precisely because he held this ideal, hewas free from the wish to preach.

Keats early sonnets are largely concerned with poets, pictures, sculpturesor the rural solitude inwhich a poet might nurse his fancy. His great odes have for their subjects a storied Grecian Urn;

a nightingale; the goddess Psyche, mistress of Cupid; the melancholy and indolence of a poet;

and the season of autumn, to which he turns from the songs of spring. What he asked of poesy, of

wine, or of nightingales song was to help him:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget,

What thou amongst the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever and the fret,

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan.

I Stood Tiptoe Upon a Little Hill and Sleep and Poetry the theme of both these poems is

that lovely things in nature suggest lovely tales to the poet, and great aim of poet is to be a friend

to soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man. Perhaps Keats would have said that he

attempted his nobler life of poetry in poems like Lamia and Hyperion but it is very doubtfulwhether he believed that he had done justice to this elevated type of poetic creation.

Keats love of beauty is not Platonic in nature. He loves physical objects and takes interest in

human body. He does not become obscene but his love of beauty gives us very attractive andsuggestive picture of women:

Yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillowd upon my fair loves ripening breast,


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To feel forever its soft fall and swell,

Awake forever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender taken breath,

And so live ever.

Religion for him took definite shape in the adoration of the beautiful, an adoration which hedeveloped into a doctrine. Beauty is the supreme truth. It is imagination that discovers beauty.This idealism, assumes a note of mysticism. One can see a sustained allegory in Endymion and

certain passages are most surely possessed of a symbolical value. Sidney Colvin says:

It was not Keats aim merely to create a paradise of art and beauty discovered from the

cares and interests of the world. He did aim at the creation and revelation of beauty, but of

beauty whatever its element existed. His concept of poetry covered the whole range of life

and imagination.

As he did not live long enough, he was not able to fully illustrate the vast range of his conception

of beauty. Fate did not give him time enough to fully unlock the mysteries of the heart and toilluminate and put in proper perspective the great struggles and problems of human life.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty

Truth sometimes means reality, while reality is usually not beautiful at all.Reality can be disappointing or cruel or ugly. By choosing beauty to believe

in as the total truth, we can surpass the ugly part of reality the same waywe surpass the fear of death by believing in God. From here, we can even

understand the poet's eagerness to make the living as happy as possible in

stanza 3, by repeating 6 times "happy". He is rather decided to see beauty,which is connected with happiness and away from sorrow. He has made up

his mind to choose beauty as his only truth at that time (or even earlier). Itis why he uses the urn's tone to make his statement, as if the urn, a steady

and still ancient thing, is saying that "why do not you believe in me?This is all you need to know on earth."

If the "Ode to a Nightingale"portrays Keats's speaker's engagement with

the fluid expressiveness of music, the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" portrays his

attempt to engage with the static immobility of sculpture. The Grecian urn,passed down through countless centuries to the time of the speaker's

viewing, exists outside of time in the human sense--it does not age, it doesnot die, and indeed it is alien to all such concepts. In the speaker's

meditation, this creates an intriguing paradox for the human figures carvedinto the side of the urn: They are free from time, but they are

simultaneously frozen in time. They do not have to confront aging and death(their love is "for ever young"), but neither can they have experience (the


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youth can never kiss the maiden; the figures in the procession can never

return to their homes).

The speaker attempts three times to engage with scenes carved into the

urn; each time he asks different questions of it. In the first stanza, he

examines the picture of the "mad pursuit" and wonders what actual storylies behind the picture: "What men or gods are these? What maidensloth?"Of course, the urn can never tell him the whos, whats, whens, and

wheres of the stories it depicts, and the speaker is forced to abandon thisline of questioning.

In the second and third stanzas, he examines the picture of the piper playingto his lover beneath the trees. Here, the speaker tries to imagine what the

experience of the figures on the urn must be like; he tries to identify withthem. He is tempted by their escape from temporality and attracted to the

eternal newness of the piper's unheard song and the eternally unchangingbeauty of his lover. He thinks that their love is "far above" all transient

human passion, which, in its sexual expression, inevitably leads to an

abatement of intensity--when passion is satisfied, all that remains is awearied physicality: a sorrowful heart, a "burning forehead," and a

"parching tongue." His recollection of these conditions seems to remindthe speaker that he is inescapably subject to them, and he abandons hisattempt to identify with the figures on the urn.

In the fourth stanza, the speaker attempts to think about the figures on the

urn as though they were experiencing human time, imagining that their

procession has an origin (the "little town") and a destination (the "greenaltar"). But all he can think is that the town will forever be deserted: If thesepeople have left their origin, they will never return to it. In this sense he

confronts head-on the limits of static art; if it is impossible to learn from theurn the whos and wheres of the "real story"in the first stanza, it is

impossible ever to know the origin and the destination of the figures on theurn in the fourth.

It is true that the speaker shows a certain kind of progress in his successive

attempts to engage with the urn. His idle curiosity in the first attempt gives

way to a more deeply felt identification in the second, and in the third, thespeaker leaves his own concerns behind and thinks of the processionalpurely on its own terms, thinking of the "little town"with a real and

generous feeling. But each attempt ultimately ends in failure. The thirdattempt fails simply because there is nothing more to say--once the speaker

confronts the silence and eternal emptiness of the little town, he hasreached the limit of static art; on this subject, at least, there is nothing more

the urn can tell him.


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In the final stanza, the speaker presents the conclusions drawn from his

three attempts to engage with the urn. He is overwhelmed by its existenceoutside of temporal change, with its ability to "tease"him "out of thought

/ As doth eternity."If human life is a succession of "hungry generations,"

as the speaker suggests in "Nightingale," the urn is a separate and self-contained world. It can be a "friend to man," as the speaker says, but itcannot be mortal; the kind of aesthetic connection the speaker experiences

with the urn is ultimately insufficient to human life.

The final two lines, in which the speaker imagines the urn speaking its

message to mankind--"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," have provedamong the most difficult to interpret in the Keats canon. After the urn utters

the enigmatic phrase "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"no one can say forsure who "speaks"the conclusion, "that is all / Ye know on earth, and

all ye need to know."It could be the speaker addressing the urn, and itcould be the urn addressing mankind. If it is the speaker addressing the urn,

then it would seem to indicate his awareness of its limitations: The urn may

not need to know anything beyond the equation of beauty and truth, but thecomplications of human life make it impossible for such a simple and self-

contained phrase to express sufficiently anything about necessary humanknowledge. If it is the urn addressing mankind, then the phrase has ratherthe weight of an important lesson, as though beyond all the complications ofhuman life, all human beings need to know on earth is that beauty and truth

are one and the same. It is largely a matter of personal interpretation whichreading to accept.

Aristotle's plot

Aristotle devotes great attention to the nature, structure and basic elements of the ideal tragic

plot. Tragedy is the depiction of action consisting of incidents and events. Plot is the

arrangement of these incident and events. It contains the kernel of the action. Aristotle says thatplot is the first principle, the soul of tragedy. He lists six formative elements of a tragedyPlot,

character, thought, melody, diction, spectacle and gives the first place to plot.

The Greek word for poet means a maker, and the poet is a maker, not because he makes

verses but he makes plots. Aristotle differentiates between story and plot. The poet need notmake his story. Stories from history, mythology, or legend are to be preferred, for they are

familiar and understandable. Having chosen or invented the story, it must be put to artistic


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selection and order. The incidents chosen must be serious, and not trivial, as tragedy is an

imitation of a serious action that arouse pity and fear.

Aristotle says that the tragic plot must be a complete whole. It must have a beginning, a middle

and an end. It must have a beginning, i.e. it must not flow out of some prior situation. The

beginning must be clear and intelligible. It must notprovoke to ask why and how. A middle isconsequent upon a situation gone before. The middle is followed logically by the end. And end isconsequent upon a given situation, but is not followed by any further incident. Thus artistic

wholeness implies logical link-up of the various incidents, events and situations that form the

plot.

The plot must have a certain magnitude or length. Magnitude here means size. It should be

neither too small nor too large. It should be long enough to allow the process of change from

happiness to misery but not too long to be forgotten before the end. If it is too small, its differentparts will not be clearly distinguishable from each other. Magnitude also implies order and

proportion and they depend upon the magnitude. The different parts must be properly related to

each other and to the whole. Thus magnitude implies that the plot must have order, logicsymmetry and perspicuity.

Aristotle considers the tragic plot to be an organic whole, and also having organic unity in its

action. An action is a change from happiness to misery or vice versa and tragedy must depict onesuch action. The incidents impart variety and unity results by arranging the incidents so that they

all tend to the same catastrophe. There might be episodes for they impart variety and lengthen

the plot but they must be properly combined with the main action following each otherinevitably. It must not be possible to remove or to invert them without injuring the plot.

Otherwise, episodic plots are the worst of all.

'Organic unity' cannot be provided only by the presence of the tragic hero, for many incidents inheros life cannot be brought into relation with the rest. So there should be proper shifting and

ordering of material.

Aristotle joins organic unity of plot with probability and necessity. The plot is not tied to what

has actually happened but it deals with what may probably or necessarily happen. Probability

and necessity imply that there should be no unrelated events and incidents. Words and actionsmust be in character. Thus probability and necessity imply unity and order and are vital for

artistic unity and wholeness.

'Probability' implies that the tragic action must be convincing. If the poet deals with somethingimprobable, he must make it convincing and credible. He dramatist must procure, willing

suspension of disbelief. Thus a convincing impossibility is to be preferred to an unconvincing

possibility.

Aristotle rules out plurality of action. He emphasizes the Unity of Action but has little to say

about the Unity of Time and the Unity of Place. About the Unity of Time he merely says that

tragedy should confine itself to a single revolution of the sun. As regards the Unity of Place,Aristotle said that epic can narrate a number of actions going on all together in different parts,


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while in a drama simultaneous actions cannot be represented, for the stage is one part and not

several parts or places.

Tragedy is an imitation of a serious action which arouses pity and fear. Serious means

important, weighty. The plot of a tragedy essentially deals with great moral issues. Tragedy is a

tale of suffering with an unhappy ending. This means that the plot of a tragedy must be a fatalone. Aristotle rules out fortunate plots for tragedy, for such plot does not arouse tragic emotions.A tragic plot must show the hero passing from happiness to misery and not from misery to

happiness. The suffering of the hero may be caused by an enemy or a stranger but it would be

most piteous when it is by chance caused by friends and relatives who are his well-wishers.

According to Aristotle, Tragic plots may be of three kinds, (a) Simple, (b) Complex and (c) Plots

based on or depicting incidents of suffering. A Simple plot is without any Peripety and

Anagnorisis but the action moves forward uniformly without any violent or sudden change.Aristotle prefers Complex plots. It must have Peripeteia, i.e. reversal of intention and

Anagnorisis, i.e. recognition of truth. While Peripeteia is ignorance of truth, Anagnorisis is the

insight of truth forced upon the hero by some signs or chance or by the logic events. In ideal plotAnagnorisis follows or coincides with Peripeteia.

'Recognition' in the sense is closely akin to reversal. Recognition and reversal can be caused by

separate incidents. Often it is difficult to separate the two. Complex plots are the best, forrecognition and reversal add the element of surprise and the pitiable and fearful incidents are

made more so by the shock of surprise.

As regards the third kind of plot, Aristotle rates it very low. It derives its effect from the

depiction of torture, murder, maiming, death etc. and tragic effect must be created naturally and

not with artificial and theatrical aids. Such plots indicate a deficiency in the art of the poet.

In making plots, the poets should make their denouements, effective and successful. Unraveling

of the plot should be done naturally and logically, and not by arbitrary devices, like chance or

supernatural devices. Aristotle does not consider Poetic Justice necessary for Tragedy. He rulesout plots with a double end i.e. plots in which there is happiness for one, and misery for others.

Such plots weaken the tragic effect. It is more proper to Comedy. Thus Aristotle is against Tragi-

comedy.

Aristotle's concept of tragedy

The Poetics is chiefly about Tragedy which is regarded as the highest poetic form.

Abercrombie says:

But the theory of Tragedy is worked out with such insight and comprehensions and it

becomes the type of the theory of literature.

Aristotle reveals that imitation is the common basis of all the fine arts which differ from eachother in their medium of imitation, objects of imitation and manner of imitation. Poetry differs

from music in its medium of imitation. Epic poetry and dramatic poetry differs on the basis of


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Aristotle lays great emphasis on the probability and necessity of the action of a tragedy. It

implies that there should be no unrelated events and incidents. They must follow each other

inevitably. No incident or character should be superfluous. The events introduced must beprobable under the circumstances.

By various embellishments in various parts, Aristotle means verse and song. Tragedy imitatesthrough verse in the dialogue and through song in the Choric parts. Verse and song beautify andgive pleasure. But Aristotle does not regard them as essential for the success of a tragedy.

Aristotle points out that the function of tragedy is to present scenes of fear and pity and to bringabout a Catharsis of these emotions. It would be suffice to say that by Catharsis of pity and fear,

he means their restoration to the right proportions, to the desirable golden means.

Aristotle lists six formative or constituent parts of Tragedy; Plot, character, diction, thought,spectacle and song. Two of these parts relate to the medium of imitation, one to the manner of

imitation, and three to the object of imitation. Song is to be found in the Choric parts of a

tragedy. The Spectacle has more to do with stagecraft than with the writing of poetry.

'Thought' is the power of saying what can be said, or what is suitable to the occasion. It is the

language which gives us the thoughts and feeling of various characters. The language of Tragedy

must be unusually expressive. The Language of Tragedy must be clear, and it must not bemean. It must be grand and elevated with familiar and current words. Rare and unfamiliar

words must be set in wisely to impart elevation.

Aristotle stresses four essential qualities for characterization. First, the characters must be good,

but not perfect. Wicked characters may be introduced if required by the plot. Secondly, they

must be appropriate. They must have the traits of the profession or class to which they belong.

Thirdly, they must have likeness. By likeness he means that the characters must be life-like.Fourthly, they must have consistency in development. There should be no sudden and strange

change in character.

Aristotle lays down that an ideal tragic hero should not be perfectly good or utterly bad. He is a

man of ordinary weakness and virtues, like us, leaning more to the side of good than of evil,

occupying a position of eminence, and falling into ruin from that eminence, not because of anydeliberate sin, but because of some error of judgment of his part, bringing about a Catharsis of

the emotion of pity and fear.

The plot should arouse the emotions of pity and fear which is the function of tragedy. A tragicplot must avoid showing (a) a perfectly good man passing from happiness to misery (b) a bad

man rising from misery to happiness (c) an extremely bad man falling from happiness to misery.

While comparing the importance of Plot and Character, Aristotle is quite definite that Plot ismore important than Character. He goes to the extent of saying that there can be a tragedy

without character but none without plot.

Aristotle emphasizes only one of the three unities, the Unity of Action; he is against plurality of


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action as it weakens the tragic effect. There might be numerous incidents but they must be

related with each other, and they must all be conducive to one effect. As regards the Unity of

Time, Aristotle only once mentions it in relation to dramatic Action. Comparing the epic and theTragedy, he writes:

Tragedy tries, as far as possible, to live within a single revolution of the sun, or onlyslightly to exceed it, whereas the epic observes no limits in its time of action.

According to Aristotle, the end of poetry is to give pleasure, and tragedy has its own pleasure

beside. Proper aesthetic pleasure can be possible only when the requirements of morality aresatisfied. Verse and rhyme enhance the pleasure of poetry. Peripeteia and Anagnorisis heighten

the seductive power of the action. Pure pleasure results from the exercise of our emotions and

thoughts on the tragic action.

Such are the main features of Aristotle's theory of Tragedy. Aristotle knew only Greek Tragedy.

His conclusions are based entirely on the drama with which he was familiar and often his views

are not of universal application. His view might have been challenged but their history is thehistory of Tragedy.

Aristotle's theory of imitation

Aristotle did not invent the term imitation. Plato was the first to use the word in relation with

poetry, but Aristotle breathed into it a new definite meaning. So poetic imitation is no longerconsidered mimicry, but is regarded as an act of imaginative creation by which the poet, drawing

his material from the phenomenal world, makes something new out of it.

In Aristotle's view, principle of imitation unites poetry with other fine arts and is the commonbasis of all the fine arts. It thus differentiates the fine arts from the other category of arts. While

Plato equated poetry with painting, Aristotle equates it with music. It is no longer a servile

depiction of the appearance of things, but it becomes a representation of the passions andemotions of men which are also imitated by music. Thus Aristotle by his theory enlarged the

scope of imitation. The poet imitates not the surface of things but the reality embedded within. In

the very first chapter of the Poetic, Aristotle says:

Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, as also the music of the

flute and the lyre in most of their forms, are in their general conception modes of imitation.

They differ however, from one another in three respectstheir medium, the objects and

the manner or mode of imitation, being in each case distinct.

The medium of the poet and the painter are different. One imitates through form and colour, and

the other through language, rhythm and harmony. The musician imitates through rhythm andharmony. Thus, poetry is more akin to music. Further, the manner of a poet may be purely

narrative, as in the Epic, or depiction through action, as in drama. Even dramatic poetry is

differentiated into tragedy and comedy accordingly as it imitates man as better or worse.

Aristotle says that the objects of poetic imitation are men in action. The poet represents men as


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worse than they are. He can represent men better than in real life based on material supplied by

history and legend rather than by any living figure. The poet selects and orders his material and

recreates reality. He brings order out of Chaos. The irrational or accidental is removed andattention is focused on the lasting and the significant. Thus he gives a truth of an ideal kind. His

mind is not tied to reality:

It is not the function of the poet to relate what has happened but what may happen

according to the laws of probability or necessity.

History tells us what actually happened; poetry what may happen. Poetry tends to express theuniversal, history the particular. In this way, he exhibits the superiority of poetry over history.

The poet freed from the tyranny of facts, takes a larger or general view of things, represents the

universal in the particular and so shares the philosophers quest for ultimate truth. He thus

equates poetry with philosophy and shows that both are means to a higher truth. By the worduniversal Aristotle signifies:

How a person of a certain nature or type will, on a particular occasion, speak or act,according to the law of probability or necessity.

The poet constantly rises from the particular to the general. He studies the particular and devises

principles of general application. He exceeds the limits of life without violating the essentiallaws of human nature.

Elsewhere Aristotle says, Art imitates Nature. By Nature he does not mean the outer world ofcreated things but the creative force, the productive principle of the universe. Art reproduce

mainly an inward process, a physical energy working outwards, deeds, incidents, situation, being

included under it so far as these spring from an inward, act of will, or draw some activity of

thought or feeling. He renders men, as they ought to be.

The poet imitates the creative process of nature, but the objects are men in action. Now the

action may be external or internal. It may be the action within the soul caused by allthatbefalls a man. Thus, he brings human experiences, emotions and passions within the scope of

poetic imitation. According to Aristotle's theory, moral qualities, characteristics, the permanent

temper of the mind, the temporary emotions and feelings, are all action and so objects of poeticimitation.

Poetry may imitate men as better or worse than they are in real life or imitate as they really are.

Tragedy and epic represent men on a heroic scale, better than they are, and comedy representsmen of a lower type, worse than they are. Aristotle does not discuss the third possibility. It means

that poetry does not aim at photographic realism. In this connection R. A. Scott-James points out

that:

Aristotle knew nothing of the realistic or fleshy school of fictionthe school of Zola

or of Gissing.

Abercrombie, in contrast, defends Aristotle for not discussing the third variant. He says:


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It is just possible to imagine life exactly as it is, but the exciting thing is to imagine life as it

might be, and it is then that imagination becomes an impulse capable of inspiring poetry.

Aristotle by his theory of imitation answers the charge of Plato that poetry is an imitation of

shadow of shadows, thrice removed from truth, and that the poet beguiles us with lies. Platocondemned poetry that in the very nature of things poets have no idea of truth. The phenomenalworld is not the reality but a copy of the reality in the mind of the Supreme. The poet imitates the

objects and phenomena of the world, which are shadowy and unreal. Poetry is, therefore, the

mother of lies.

Aristotle, on the contrary, tells us that art imitates not the mere shows of things, but the ideal

reality embodied in very object of the world. The process of nature is a creative process;

everywhere in nature there is a ceaseless and upward progress in everything, and the poetimitates this upward movement of nature. Art reproduces the original not as it is, but as it

appears to the senses. Art moves in a world of images, and reproduces the external, according to

the idea or image in his mind. Thus the poet does not copy the external world, but createsaccording to his idea of it. Thus even an ugly object well -imitated becomes a source of

pleasure. We are told in The Poetics:

Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when

reproduced with minute fidelity; such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and dead

bodies.

The real and the ideal from Aristotle's point of view are not opposites; the ideal is the real, shorn

of chance and accident, a purified form of reality. And it is this higher reality which is the

object of poetic imitation. Idealization is achieved by divesting the real of all that is accidental,

transient and particular. Poetry thus imitates the ideal and the universal; it is an idealizedrepresentation of character, emotion, actionunder forms manifest in sense. Poetic truth,

therefore, is higher than historical truth. Poetry is more philosophical, more conducive to

understanding than Philosophy itself.

Thus Aristotle successfully and finally refuted the charge of Plato and provided a defence of

poetry which has ever since been used by lovers of poetry in justification of their Muse. Hebreathed new life and soul into the concept of poetic imitation and showed that it is, in reality, a

creative process.

Aristotle's concept of ideal tragic hero: Hamartia

No passage in The Poetics with the exception of the Catharsis phrase has attracted so much

critical attention as his ideal of the tragic hero.

The function of a tragedy is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear and Aristotle deduces the

qualities of his hero from this function. He should be good, but not perfect, for the fall of aperfect man from happiness into misery, would be unfair and repellent and will not arouse pity.

Similarly, an utterly wicked person passing from happiness to misery may satisfy our moral


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sense, but will lack proper tragic qualities. His fall will be well-deserved and according to

justice. Itexcites neither pity nor fear. Thus entirely good and utterly wicked persons are not

suitable to be tragic heroes.

Similarly, according to Aristotelian law, a saint would be unsuitable as a tragic hero. He is on the

side of the moral order and hence his fall shocks and repels. Besides, his martyrdom is a spiritualvictory which drowns the feeling of pity. Drama, on the other hand, requires for its effectivenessa militant and combative hero. It would be important to remember that Aristotles conclusions

are based on the Greek drama and he is lying down the qualifications of an ideal tragic hero. He

is here discussing what is the very best and not what is good. Overall, his views are justified, forit requires the genius of a Shakespeare to arouse sympathy for an utter villain, and saints as

successful tragic heroes have been extremely rare.

Having rejected perfection as well as utter depravity and villainy, Aristotle points out that:

The ideal tragic hero must be an intermediate kind of person, a man not pre-eminently

virtuous and just, whose misfortune, however, is brought upon him not by vice ordepravity but by some error of judgment.

The ideal tragic hero is a man who stands midway between the two extremes. He is not

eminently good or just, though he inclines to the side of goodness. He is like us, but raised abovethe ordinary level by a deeper vein of feeling or heightened powers of intellect or will. He is

idealized, but still he has so much of common humanity as to enlist our interest and sympathy.

The tragic hero is not evil or vicious, but he is also not perfect and his disaster is brought upon

him by his own fault. The Greek word used here is Hamartia meaning missing the mark. He

falls not because of the act of outside agency or evil but because of Hamartia or miscalculation

on his part. Hamartia is not a moral failing and it is unfortunate that it was translated as tragicflaw by Bradley. Aristotle himself distinguishes Hamartia from moral failing. He means by it

some error or judgment. He writes that the cause of the heros fall must lie not in depravity, but

in some error or Hamartia on his part. He does not assert or deny anything about the connectionof Hamartia with heros moral failings.

It may be accompanied by moral imperfection, but it is not itself a moral imperfection,

and in the purest tragic situation the suffering hero is not morally to blame.

Thus Hamartia is an error or miscalculation, but the error may arise from any of the three ways:

It may arise from ignorance of some fact or circumstance, or secondly, it may arise from hastyor careless view of the special case, or thirdly, it may be an error voluntary, but not deliberate, as

acts committed in anger. Else and Martian Ostwald interpret Hamartia and say that the hero has a

tendency to err created by lack of knowledge and he may commit a series of errors. This

tendency to err characterizes the hero from the beginning and at the crisis of the play it iscomplemented by the recognition scene, which is a sudden change from ignorance to

knowledge.

In fact, Hamartia is a word with various shades of meaning and has been interpreted by different


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critics. Still, all serious modern Aristotelian scholarship agreed that Hamartia is not moral

imperfection. It is an error of judgment, whether arising from ignorance of some material

circumstance or from rashness of temper or from some passion. It may even be a character, forthe hero may have a tendency to commit errors of judgment and may commit series of errors.

This last conclusion is borne out by the play Oedipus Tyrannus to which Aristotle refers time and

again and which may be taken to be his ideal. In this play, heros life is a chain or errors, themost fatal of all being his marriage with his mother. If King Oedipus is Aristotles ideal hero, wecan say with Butcher that:

His conception of Hamartia includes all the three meanings mentioned above, which in

English cannot be covered by a single term.

Hamartia is an error, or a series of errors, whether morally culpable or not, committed by an

otherwise noble person, and these errors derive him to his doom. The tragic irony lies in the factthat hero may err mistakenly without any evil intention, yet he is doomed no less than immorals

who sin consciously. He has Hamartia and as a result his very virtues hurry him to his ruin. Says

Butcher:

Othello in the modern drama, Oedipus in the ancient, are the two most conspicuous

examples of ruin wrought by character, noble indeed, but not without defects, acting in the

dark and, as it seemed, for the best.

Aristotle lays down another qualification for the tragic hero. He must be, of the number of those

in the enjoyment of great reputation and prosperity. He must be a well-reputed individualoccupying a position of lofty eminence in society. This is so because Greed tragedy, with which

alone Aristotle was familiar, was written about a few distinguished royal families. Aristotle

considers eminence as essential for the tragic hero. But Modern drama demonstrates that the

meanest individual can also serve as a tragic hero, and that tragedies of Sophoclean grandeur canbe enacted even in remote country solitudes.

However, Aristotles dictum is quite justified on the principle that, higher the state, the greaterthe fall that follows, or because heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes, while the

death of a beggar passes unnoticed. But it should be remembered that Aristotle nowhere says that

the hero should be a king or at least royally descended. They were the Renaissance critics whodistorted Aristotle and made the qualification more rigid and narrow.

Aristotle's concept of catharsis

Aristotle writes that the function of tragedy is to arouse the emotions of pity and fear, and toaffect the Katharsis of these emotions. Aristotle has used the term Katharsis only once, but no

phrase has been handled so frequently by critics, and poets. Aristotle has not explained whatexactly he meant by the word, nor do we get any help from the Poetics. For this reason, help and

guidance has to be taken from his other works. Further, Katharsis has three meaning. It means

purgation, purification, and clarification, and each critic has used the word in one or theother senses. All agree that Tragedy arouses fear and pity, but there are sharp differences as to

the process, the way by which the rousing of these emotions gives pleasure.


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Katharsis has been taken as a medical metaphor, purgation, denoting a pathological effect on

the soul similar to the effect of medicine on the body. This view is borne out by a passage in thePolitics where Aristotle refers to religious frenzy being cured by certain tunes which excite

religious frenzy. In Tragedy:

pity and fear, artificially stirred the latent pity and fear which we bring with us from

real life.

In the Neo-Classical era, Catharsis was taken to be an allopathic treatment with the unlike curingunlike. The arousing of pity and fear was supposed to bring about the purgation or evacuation

of other emotions, like anger, pride etc. As Thomas Taylor holds:

We learn from the terrible fates of evil men to avoid the vices they manifest.

F. L. Lucas rejects the idea that Katharsis is a medical metaphor, and says that:

The theatre is not a hospital.

Both Lucas and Herbert Reed regard it as a kind of safety valve. Pity and fear are aroused, we

give free play to these emotions which is followed by emotional relief. I. A. Richards approachto the process is also psychological. Fear is the impulse to withdraw and pity is the impulse to

approach. Both these impulses are harmonized and blended in tragedy and this balance brings

relief and repose.

The ethical interpretation is that the tragic process is a kind of lustration of the soul, an inner

illumination resulting in a more balanced attitude to life and its suffering. Thus John Gassner

says that a clear understanding of what was involved in the struggle, of cause and effect, ajudgment on what we have witnessed, can result in a state of mental equilibrium and rest, and

can ensure complete aesthetic pleasure. Tragedy makes us realize that divine law operates in the

universe, shaping everything for the best.

During the Renaissance, another set of critics suggested that Tragedy helped to harden or

temper the emotions. Spectators are hardened to the pitiable and fearful events of life bywitnessing them in tragedies.

Humphrey House rejects the idea of purgation and forcefully advocates the purification

theory which involves moral instruction and learning. It is a kind of moral conditioning. Hepoints out that, purgation means cleansing.

According to the purification theory, Katharsis implies that our emotions are purified of excess

and defect, are reduced to intermediate state, trained and directed towards the right objects at theright time. The spectator learns the proper use of pity, fear and similar emotions by witnessing

tragedy. Butcher writes:

The tragic Katharsis involves not only the idea of emotional relief, but the further idea of


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purifying the emotions so relieved.

The basic defect of purgation theory and purification theory is that they are too muchoccupied with the psychology of the audience. Aristotle was writing a treatise not on psychology

but on the art of poetry. He relates Catharsis not to the emotions of the spectators but to the

incidents which form the plot of the tragedy. And the result is the clarification theory.

The paradox of pleasure being aroused by the ugly and the repellent is also the paradox involved

in tragedy. Tragic incidents are pitiable and fearful.

They include horrible events as a man blinding himself, a wife murdering her husband or amother slaying her children and instead of repelling us produce pleasure. Aristotle clearly tells us

that we should not seek for every pleasure from tragedy, but only the pleasure proper to it.

Catharsis refers to the tragic variety of pleasure. The Catharsis clause is thus a definition of the

function of tragedy, and not of its emotional effects on the audience.

Imitation does not produce pleasure in general, but only the pleasure that comes from learning,

and so also the peculiar pleasure of tragedy. Learning comes from discovering the relationbetween the action and the universal elements embodied in it. The poet might take his material

from history or tradition, but he selects and orders it in terms of probability and necessity, and

represents what, might be. He rises from the particular to the general and so is more universal

and more philosophical. The events are presented free of chance and accidents which obscuretheir real meaning. Tragedy enhances understanding and leaves the spectator face to face with

the universal law.

Thus according to this interpretation, Catharsis means clarification of the essential and

universal significance of the incidents depicted, leading to an enhanced understanding of the

universal law which governs human life and destiny, and such an understating leads to pleasure

of tragedy. In this view, Catharsis is neither a medical, nor a religious or moral term, but anintellectual term. The term refers to the incidents depicted in the tragedy and the way in which

the poet reveals their universal significance.

The clarification theory has many merits. Firstly, it is a technique of the tragedy and not to the

psychology of the audience. Secondly, the theory is based on what Aristotle says in the Poetics,

and needs no help and support of what Aristotle has said in Politics and Ethics. Thirdly, it relatesCatharsis both to the theory of imitation and to the discussion of probability and necessity.

Fourthly, the theory is perfectly in accord with current aesthetic theories.

According to Aristotle the basic tragic emotions are pity and fear and are painful. If tragedy is togive pleasure, the pity and fear must somehow be eliminated. Fear is aroused when we see

someone suffering and think that similar fate might befall us. Pity is a feeling of pain caused by

the sight of underserved suffering of others. The spectator sees that it is the tragic error or

Hamartia of the hero which results in suffering and so he learns something about the universalrelation between character and destiny.

To conclude, Aristotle's conception of Catharsis is mainly intellectual. It is neither didactic northeoretical, though it may have a residual theological element. Aristotle's Catharsis is not a moral


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doctrine requiring the tragic poet to show that bad men come to bad ends, nor a kind of

theological relief arising from discovery that Gods laws operate invisibly to make all things

work out for the best.

William Wordsworth: Poet of nature

William Wordsworth was born in 1770 in Cockermouth, on the northern edge of Englands Lake

District. Educated at a school near Esthwaite Lake, he was often free to wander the countryside,

exploring the woods and valleys which would shape his poetry in the years to come.Wordsworths writing frequently centers around nature and the rural landscape, and often

features recollections of childhood experiences in nature which are contrasted by the poets older

voice and experiences.

In 1798, Wordsworth published Lyrical Ballads with his friend and fellow poet Samuel Taylor

Coleridge. This collection featured poems which Wordsworth wrote as celebrations of the rural

landscape, and were written in simple language in an effort to capture to voice of the common

people.

Low and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition, the essential passions of the

heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and speak aplainer and more emphatic language;because the manners of rural life germinate from those

elementary feelings; and, from the necessary character of rural occupations, are more easily

comprehended; and are more durable; and lastly, because in that condition the passions of menare incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.

Similarly, Wordsworth believed that rural inhabitants hourly communicate with the best objects

from which the best part of language is derived, which is why he sought to write in the languageof the rural landscape. This idealization of the rural landscape is common in Wordsworths

lyrical ballads, often presenting Nature as a teacher, a comfort, and an inspiration.

One example of Nature teaching the young Wordsworth is found in Nutting, a poem in which

Wordsworth recalls a childhood memory of a day spent wandering through the woods in search

of hazelnuts:

in the eagerness of boyish hope,

I left our cottage-threshold, sallying forth

With a huge wallet oer my shoulder slung,

A nutting-crook in hand; and turned my steps

Towrd some far-distant wood.

The poem describes how the young Wordsworth comes across a grove of hazels which appear

Unvisited, where not a broken bough

Drooped with its withered leaves, ungracious sign

Of devastation; but the hazels rose

Tall and erect, with tempting clusters hung


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A virgin scene!

This quiet and untouched grove affords him several moments of peace, and he experiences

A temper known to those, who, after long

And weary expectation, have been blestWith sudden happiness beyond all hope.

However, despite the tranquility of the scene, and after resting quietly and contemplating the

murmuring brook and mossy stones, the boy rose up,

And dragged to earth both branch and bough, with crash

And merciless ravage: and the shady nook

Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower,

Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up

Their quiet being: and, unless I now

Confound my present feelings with the past,Ere from the mutilated bower I turned

Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings,

I felt a sense of pain when I beheld

The silent trees, and saw the intruding sky

Then, dearest Maiden, move along these shades

In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand

Touchfor there is a spirit in the woods.

Here, Nature gives willingly to the intruder both a sense of happiness and calm, and the physical

gift of hazelnuts, responding to his violence with stillness. The recognition of these gifts teaches

the young boy to respect the silence and dignity of nature, and prompts the poet, uponrecollection, to teach others of the gentle spirit of Nature.

Also included in Lyrical Ballads is She dwelt among the untrodden ways, a poem whichillustrates the beauty Wordsworth sees in the isolation and uniqueness of nature and the rural

landscape. Here, Wordsworth describes the loss of Lucy, a maiden referred to in many of the

lyrical ballads.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

Beside the springs of Dove,

A Maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!

-Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,


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The difference to me!

The presence of a single star in the sky makes that star more beautiful because it is alone, just asLucy is made more beautiful and more vital to the poet by her isolation. Similarly, a half

hidden violet is magical and unique where a fully revealed flower, appreciated by all, would

lose its brightness and beauty from too much exposure. For these reasons, the girl, and byassociation the rural landscape, is made more precious to the poet.

In the preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth writes that rural inhabitants are less under the

influence of social vanity due to their isolation, a feature which makes them better able toconvey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions, [in] a more

philosophical language than that which is frequently substituted for it by poets. This statement

also illustrates the value Wordsworth attached to the rural landscape and which is expressed in

She dwelt among the untrodden ways.

In 1798, Wordsworth went on a tour with his sister that brought them to the Wye valley and the

ruins of Tintern Abbey. Wordsworth had visited the area in 1793, but found that the presentlandscape was different from the landscape of his memories. While traveling from the abbey to

Bristol, a poem came into Wordsworths mind which he wrote down upon his arrival in Bristol,

but not a line of it was altered. This mediation on the landscape and its impact on the poets

life was included in Lyrical Ballads as Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey,commonly referred to simply as Tintern Abbey.

Tintern Abbey begins with the recognition of the passage of time.

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of a more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

This image of the landscape is one of wilderness and isolation, the only sound is that of the

rivers soft inland murmur, and the cliffs unite this quiet land with the more quiet sky.

However, Wordsworth was in fact gazing upon a rural landscape, and this description of what he

saw illustrates Wordsworths view of the rural as part of a wild nature. This is clarified as thepoet continues his portrait:

Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem


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Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermits cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.

The cottages and farms are part of the landscape and do not alter its nature. The homes are

green to the very door. There is no loss to the woods by their presence, and their smoke sentup in silence has noimpact on the stillness of the scene. Similarly, the cottages are compared toa hermits cave or a vagrant dwelling in the houseless woods further emphasizing the quiet

solitude of the rural landscape and its incorporation into nature. The cottages do not diminish the

wild of the landscape; they are united with it.

In the second stanza, Wordsworth describes how the memory of this scene has influenced his

life.

These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind mans eye:But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration: - feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good mans life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love.

Memories of nature have not only restored the poet in moments of weariness, but may be

responsible for leading him to acts of kindness and of love. Wordsworth also describes hownature has given him another gift:

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened: - that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on, -

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.


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In other words, these images of nature and the rural landscape have inspired within the poet the

stillness necessary to meditate on life, to see into the life of things and by association, to writepoetry. Nature has given Wordsworth a reason to write, and quite possibly, a reason to live. As

his meditations continue, he realizes that

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years.

This realization leads the poet to consider how his response to nature has changed with time, and

he writes that in the past,

...like a rose

I bounded oer the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,Wherever nature led: more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved.

However, the passions of youth have faded,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompense. For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue.

With the loss of his youthful fits of aching joys and dizzy raptures the poet has learned from

nature, and once again he presents nature as a teacher, a comfort, and an inspiration, as it grants

him a deeper understanding of human life. Nature has often been presented as still and silent, and

here the music of humanity is still [and] sad, and the poet is subdued. The parallel images ofhumanity and of nature once again illustrate Wordsworths view of humans as part of nature.

This idea is continued as the poet describes how he has been inspired by nature:

... I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,


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And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things.

In his survey of wide and breathless spaces, the light of setting suns, the round ocean and theliving air, and the blue sky Wordsworth includes the mind of man. For Wordsworth, the mind

of man is both natural and beautiful. In the preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth describes

poetry as an acknowledgment of the beauty of the universe and a homage paid to the nativeand naked dignity of man, an idea which is clearly expressed in Tintern Abbey.

The power of nature to inspire is expanded to describe how the poets perception of nature has

formed the core of his being:

Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods,And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye, and ear, - both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

In nature and the language of the sense,

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.

Finally, the poet turns to address his sister, and to express to her how Nature will protect them,

... for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall eer prevail against us, or disturb

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

Is full of blessings.

Clearly, nature has played an integral role in the development of Wordsworths mind and poetry.

In the preface to Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth writes that poetry is the image of man and

nature. Not only Wordsworths poetry, but the rural landscape itself could be described as animage of man and nature. The link between man and nature, and Natures ability to teach us of

ourselves, as was illustrated in both Nutting and Tintern Abbey, are a common theme in

Wordsworths writing. As Wordsworth captures the wisdom of Nature, he too becomes a


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teacher, and as our treatment of nature too often resembles the child-poets destruction of the

hazel grove, it is clear that we still have much to learn.

Wordsworth's themes of poetry

The poetry of the Pseudo classical school was very artificial and unnatural. It was extremelimited in its themes. It was confined exclusively to the city of London, and in that City to the

artificial and unnatural life of the fashionable lords and ladies. It did not care for the beauties of

Nature or for the humble humanityfarmers, shepherds, wood-cutters, etc.which lives itssimple life in the lap of nature. Wordsworth reacted sharply and sought to increase the range of

English poetry by taking his themes from humble and rustic life. Himself living in the lap of

nature, he was well-familiar with the life of these humble people, and he has rendered it in his

poetry, realistically and accurately.

There are various reasons why Wordsworth preferred incidents and situations from humble

life, as the themes of this poetry.

For one thing, in this way he could enlarge the scope and range of poetry and make a whiff of

fresh air to blow through the suffocating atmosphere of contemporary poetry.

Secondly, he knew this life intimately, was in sympathy with it, and so could render it accurately

and feelingly.

Thirdly, he believed that a poet is essentially a man speaking to man. Since he is a man, and he

has to appeal to the heart and mind of man, he must study human nature, and try to understand,

the primary laws of our nature. Now these primary instincts and impulses which govern human

conduct can best be understood by studying the simplest and most elementary forms of life. Hechose rustic and humble life, because the village farmers, leach-gatherers, even idiots, represent

human life reduced to its simplest. It is for this reason also that he glorified the child and stressed

the value of childhood memories and experiences. In such simple forms of life, behaviour isinstinctive and manners are natural and uninhibited. Feelings and passions are expressed without

any reserve and human conduct is guided and controlled, not by artificial social codes, as in more

sophisticated city societies, but by instincts and impulses. In humble and rustic conditions of life,man is more natural, and so a proper subject of study for a poet who must write on man, on

nature and on human life. He did not think city life to be a proper subject o poetry, because

there the fundamental passions of the human heart are not expressed freely and forcefully but are

inhibited by social codes and considerations of public opinion.

Fourthly, in rustic and humble life, the fundamental passion of the human heart can be easilystudied. From a study and understanding of these elementary feelings the poet can proceed to

study, the primary laws of our nature. In other words, through a process of contemplation andreflection, the poet can derive certain universal principles of human conduct which are not true

only of individuals or of particular places but are universal and general in their application.

Feelings and passions of humble humanity are not peculiar to them but are common to allmankind. They will last as long as human nature lasts, and are not subject to fluctuations from

age to age and society to society. They are universal; they are permanent, as contrasted with


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those of socially inhibited societal man. Universal significance of human experience and human

emotion can be studies only through life reduced to it simplest and, we may add, most

unfortunate levels.

Fifthly, he preferred rustic and humble life because in that condition, the passions of men are

incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature. They live in the midst of thegrandeur and beauty of nature, and as Plato much earlier has taught us, they must absorb some ofthat beauty and grandeur. In one of his own Lucy poems, Wordsworth refers to the education of

nature and, the vital feelings, which nature confers on those who live in her. Their emotions

are noble and permanent because their souls have been moulded by the beautiful and permanentforms of nature.

Wordsworth has been criticized for thus limiting the scope of poetry in humble and rustic life. It

has been said that upper class life is as suitable for poetic treatment as humble life. In this way,Wordsworth excluded from poetic treatment a wide range of complex human emotions which are

experienced only in more sophisticated societies. However, Wordsworth's views are to be judged

in the historical context. As resulting from his desire to extend the domain of poetry, conquernew territories for it, and thus to correct the contemporary predilection for upper class life to

the exclusion of humble and rustic life.

keats notes

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