The English Poetsvol4

Author : Thomas Humphry Ward
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9781332956333
Total Pages : 656 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (563 download)

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Download or read book The English Poets, Vol. 4 written by Thomas Humphry Ward and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2016-06-25 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The English Poets, Vol. 4: Selections With Critical Introductions by Various Writers, and a General Introduction; Wordsworth to Dobell Wordsworth was, first and foremost, a philosophical thinker a man whose intention and purpose of life it was to think out for himself, faithfully and seriously, the questions concerning Man and Nature and Human Life.' He tried to animate and invest with imaginative light the convictions of religious, practical, homely but high-hearted England, as Goethe thought out in his poetry the speculations and sceptical moods of inquisitive and critical Germany. He was a poet, because the poetical gift and faculty had been so bestowed on him that he could not fail in one way or another to exercise it but in deliberate purpose and plan he was a poet, because poetry offered him the richest, the most varied, and the completest method of reaching truth in the matters which interested him, and of expressing and recommending its lessons, of 'making them dwellers in the hearts of men.' Every great poet, ' he said, 'is a teacher; I wish either to be considered as a teacher or as nothing.' Not like poets writing simply to please; not like Lucretius or Pope, casting other men's thought into ingenious or highly-coloured or epigrammatic verse not like Homer or Shake speare or. Milton, standing in impersonal distance from their wonderful creations not like Shelley, full of philosophic ideas but incapable from his wild nature of philosophic steadiness of thought not even like poets who write to give an outlet to their sense of the beauty, the strangeness, the pathetic mystery of the world, to un burden their misgivings, to invite sympathy with their sorrows or hopes, - Wordsworth, with all his imagination, and in his moments of highest rapture, has a practical sense ofa charge committed to him. He is as much in earnest as a prophet, and he holds himself as responsible for obedience to his call and for its fulfilment, as a prophet. 'to console the af icted lo add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier; to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to t/iz'nh, and feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous, ' - this is his own account of the purpose of his poetry. (letter to Lady Beaumont, May, He has given the same account in the Preface to T he Excursion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."