Biographia Literaria: Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions, Volumes 1-2 |
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Page 11
... less clear than I at present possess . My judgment was stronger than were my powers of realizing its dictates ; and the faults of my language , though indeed partly owing to a wrong choice of subjects , and the desire of giving a poetic ...
... less clear than I at present possess . My judgment was stronger than were my powers of realizing its dictates ; and the faults of my language , though indeed partly owing to a wrong choice of subjects , and the desire of giving a poetic ...
Page 15
... less than a year and an half , more than forty transcriptions , as the best presents I could offer to those who had in any way won my regard . And with almost equal delight did I receive the three or four following publications of the ...
... less than a year and an half , more than forty transcriptions , as the best presents I could offer to those who had in any way won my regard . And with almost equal delight did I receive the three or four following publications of the ...
Page 20
... less and less striking , in proportion to its success in improving the taste and judgment of its contemporaries . The poems of WEST , indeed , had the merit of chaste and manly diction , but they were cold , and , if I may so express it ...
... less and less striking , in proportion to its success in improving the taste and judgment of its contemporaries . The poems of WEST , indeed , had the merit of chaste and manly diction , but they were cold , and , if I may so express it ...
Page 23
... less surprise than amusement , it proved to be one which I had myself some time before written , and inserted in the Morning Post . To the Author of the Ancient Mariner . Your poem must eternal be , Dear sir , it cannot fail , For ' tis ...
... less surprise than amusement , it proved to be one which I had myself some time before written , and inserted in the Morning Post . To the Author of the Ancient Mariner . Your poem must eternal be , Dear sir , it cannot fail , For ' tis ...
Page 24
... less distinct , anger is the inevitable consequence . The absence of all foundation within their own minds for that which they yet believe both true and indispensable for their safety and happiness , cannot but produce an uneasy state ...
... less distinct , anger is the inevitable consequence . The absence of all foundation within their own minds for that which they yet believe both true and indispensable for their safety and happiness , cannot but produce an uneasy state ...
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admiration appear Aristotle beauty blank verse cause character common compositions criticism DANE deemed defects diction distinct effect Elbe English equally excellence excitement existence express faculty fancy feelings former French genius German German language Greek ground Hamburg heart honour human idea images imagination imitation instance intellectual intelligible interest jacobinism judgment Klopstock knowledge language latter least less lines literary Lyrical Ballads mallem meaning metaphysics metre Milton mind mode moral natural philosophy nature never notions object once opinions original passage passion perhaps person philosophical Plato pleasure Plotinus poem poet poetic poetry possible present principles prose Ratzeburg reader reason rhyme scarcely sensation sense Shakspeare sonnet sophism soul Spinoza spirit stanzas style supposed Synesius taste thing thou thought tion true truth Venus and Adonis verse whole words Wordsworth writer
Popular passages
Page 254 - While he was talking thus, the lonely place, The old Man's shape, and speech, all troubled me: In my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace About the weary moors continually, Wandering about alone and silently. While I these thoughts within myself pursued, He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed.
Page 274 - Ah ! then if mine had been the painter's hand, To express what then I saw ; and add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land, The consecration, and the poet's dream...
Page 206 - At her feet he bowed he fell, he lay down at her feet he bowed, he fell where he bowed, there he fell down dead...
Page 276 - Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise : But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings ; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized ; High instincts before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised...
Page 132 - Keen Pangs of Love, awakening as a babe Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart ; And Fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of Hope; And Hope that scarce would know itself from Fear ; Sense of past Youth, and Manhood come in vain, And Genius given, and Knowledge won in vain...
Page 274 - By sheddings from the pinal umbrage tinged Perennially — beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes May meet at noontide — FEAR and trembling HOPE, SILENCE and FORESIGHT— DEATH, the skeleton, And TIME, the shadow — there to celebrate, As in a natural temple scattered o'er With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, United worship; or in mute repose To lie, and listen to the mountain flood Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.
Page 212 - Yet nature is made better by no mean But nature makes that mean : so, over that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes.
Page 246 - Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay . In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched, And in their silent faces could he read Unutterable love. Sound needed none, Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank The spectacle : sensation, soul, and form All melted into him ; they swallowed up His animal being ; in them did he live, And by them did he live ; they were his life.
Page 184 - Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
Page 239 - Of mountain torrents ; or the visible scene Would enter unawares into his mind With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received Into the bosom of the steady lake.