Buy essay on How the children are presented in the poems of William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge

Romanism is a phenomenon of European culture of the 18th-19th centuries that stimulated writers to scientific and technological progress, the ideological and artistic trend in European and American culture. This period is characterized by self-assertion of spiritual and creative life of people, the image of strong passions and strong character, spirituality and healing nature.
English romanticism is conventionally divided into three generations. The first phase of English Romanticism (90-s of 18th century) is fully represented by so-called Lake School. The term appeared in 1800 when in one of the British literary magazines Wordsworth was declared the head of Lake School, and in 1802 Coleridge was named its member also. The life and work of these poets associated with the lake edge, the northern counties of England, where there are many lakes. Poets-Lakists beautifully described this province in their poems. In the works of Wordsworth, who was born in the Lake District, forever imprinted some scenic views Kemberlenda – Derwent River, Red Lake Helveline, yellow daffodils on the shores of Lake Alsuoter, winter evening on the lake Estueyt. A lot of poets and writers of those period used children to express their ideas, show the maturity and wisdom of kids and express their opinion about childhood. The main two representatives of the older generation are Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge is English Romantic poet, critic and philosopher, an outstanding representative of the “Lake School”.
During Coleridge’s life his importance as a philosopher and teacher overshadowed all other features of his talent, but posterity sees him primarily as a poet and writer. His “Lyrical ballads”, containing all his best poems were conceived with Coleridge Wordsworth during their youthful wanderings in the mountains, they dreamed together about the revival of English poetry.
Wordsworth chose for himself a simple area, he described everyday lives, the most ordinary events of the rural and urban life, but Coleridge, by contrast, chose the area of events and characters of fiction, or at least the romantic genre, telling about human interest and semblance of reality, which won an instinctive distrust and captivates readers.
This gradual transition from reality to pure fantasy is a basic method of Coleridge, magically acting “Ancient Mariner”, where the ordinary incidents of sea journey are gradually transformed into a wonderful area, where the natural and the supernatural merge are transformed into an indivisible whole.
All of Coleridge’s ballads have the same nature of fantasy, formed of national traditions, and all his poetry is imbued with characteristic melancholy and thoughtful attitude to nature and childhood.
With Wordsworth he differed in many points, was an opponent of his theory about the identity of the language of poetry and prose, but a deep understanding of his poetry and in his article made a very interesting and original idea of the true meaning of poetry and the origin of the measured, poetic speech.
In Coleridge’s philosophy of transcendentalism was a preacher, who came as a reaction against materialism. He always sought the knowledge of the basic principles of “the search for absolute”. His philosophical views are set out mainly in the “Aids to Reflection”, “The friend”, “The Biographia Literaria” and accounted for the content of his talks in “Highgate”, reproduced in part «Table Talk».
Also popular of his works: “Aids to Reflection”, “The Statesman’s Manual”, “Zapolya”, “Sibylline Leaves”, “Remorse”, “Cristobel”, “The Watchman”, “Poems on Various Subjects », “Frost at midnight” other.
The poem “To the River Otter” was written in 1793 when Coleridge was just 21 years old. The Otter was the river running through the village where he was born and spent his early childhood.
The poem is about Coleridge’s memories of playing by the river as a child and skimming stones. As an adult he can simply close his eyes and imagine himself amongst the scenes of his childhood. Being able to remember these pleasures helps him to deal with the ups and downs of his adult life. The poem is not really about the river at all, but about Coleridge himself and the part that memory plays in his thoughts and throughout his life. Unlike Wordsworth however, who sees his childhood memories as a source of strength and hope, Coleridge seems to find that recalling his childhood is a bitter-sweet experience because it reminds him of the “various-fated years” that have intervened since then. The last line, with its heart-felt exclamation, “Ah!” expresses a wish to turn the clock back, to abandon his adult cares and become once more “a careless Child”(Coleridge. p.211).
One of the most famous his poems is “Frost at midnight”. The speaker in the poem is the author himself, and the poem is his individual evaluation of three popular topics of early English Romanticism, such as: the influence of nature on human’s imagination, the connection between nature and children, and the relationship between childhood and adulthood and how they are connected in the memory of a grown-up person.
The poem “Frost at Midnight” shows the imagination in attitude to his surroundings, while the teller is talking about the past, present and future of childhood. The poem shows the teller who describes his childhood and surroundings, he mentions “film” that in this situation means soot and is a metaphor, meaning industrial revolution and the effects it made on the people at the time. Coleridge shows frost as “silent ministry” which emphasizes the glorious aspects of nature. The teller tells about his son who is in reality sitting near him and hopes that once his son will “wander like a breeze”. Such words signify that Coleridge wishes his son to experience life by soaring like the wind and experience everything that the wind does.
The speaker in the poem allows the reader look into the father’s imagination and mind while the father is holding his child late at night. The cottage where the speaker lives is so quiet, that his mind starts to wander. “This Calm indeed! So calm, that it disturbs and vexes meditation with its strange and extreme silentness” (Coleridge. p. 213). The father starts to lose himself in his memories of adulthood and childhood that are connected together through the adult memory. “Already I had dreamt of my sweet birthplace, and the old church tower, whose bells, the poor man’s only music, rang from morn to evening, all the hot fair-day” (Coleridge. p. 251). Coleridge often uses children in his poems in order to express his thoughts.
If to talk about William Wordsworth we should say that he is a famous English Romantic poet. Names of Wordsworth and Coleridge often are mentioned together, because they are representatives of the so-called “Lake School”.