The Corner Stones of Romantic Autobiography: Sympathy, Simplicity, and Authenticity

Kimberley Waterman rMA Thesis

Dr. R. Glitz

The Corner Stones of Romantic Autobiography:

Sympathy, Simplicity, and Authenticity

“And how know they, when from myself they hear of myself, whether I say true; seeing no man knows what is in man, but the spirit of man which is in him?”

– St. Augustine

To create an understanding of attitudes towards autobiography today it is essential to take a look at the notions that play an essential part in the creation of and critique on autobiography today and during the Romantic period. The goal is to gain an understanding of truth in the Romantic era. What were the arguments, what was being said about this newly emerging and increasingly popular genre? It is important to ask how Romantic critics understood the role of truthfulness in autobiography as well as enquire into their opinions on alteration and modification. The essential notions for successful autobiography include language, sympathy, and truthfulness and authenticity. The genre of autobiography as we know it today was emerging during the Romantic era. “It is during the Romantic period that autobiography emerges from the shadows, and effectively rises above the sub or marginally literary […] to establish itself as a literary genre”(3 Stelzig). A discussion of Romantic critical texts concerning the forms of self-writing at the time will reveal the importance placed on truthfulness as well as how these critics were starting to differentiate between biography, a genre they were familiar with, and autobiography, a new genre that appeared to be a form of biography. They were trying to understand this new form, unpack it, and also prescribe its practice. The discussion will reveal how and under which circumstances the Romantic critics believed autobiography was supposed to be written. Simple language use proved to be an essential element for a successful autobiography. The importance of this type of language use can be illuminated by a discussion of William Wordsworth’s The Preface in which he advocates for the use of everyday language in poetry writing to push out the popular but abstruse poetic diction that was frequently employed. In doing so, Wordsworth brought poetry and autobiography closer together. The general acceptance

of his theory took some time but now is seen as a pivotal to an understanding of the Romantic era. However, there is still a lack of consensus when it comes to defining autobiography, critcis like De Man question whether it is at all possible to do so. A comparison between the Romantic prescriptive texts and present day critical texts that attempt to define autobiography sheds light on this issue and can help create a better understanding of why the genre of autobiography has been so difficult to properly define and pin down.

1. Essential Truth

In order to establish the role of truthfulness in the conception of autobiography as we know it today, it is most informative to look at critical definitions and critically prescriptive texts from that time. These texts do not directly state a concrete definition of the genre of autobiography. They are not actively defining the genre as critics presently are. Rather, they were prescribing a newly emerging practice. These influential Romantic critics describe what they believed an autobiography should look like, what it should entail, and equally important, what it should not entail. These descriptions of their understanding of what a self-writing text should be, reveals their attitude towards truthfulness, alteration, the proper topics to discuss and, importantly, the correct tone of language to describe it all in. What becomes apparent is that truthfulness was essential in order to create a proper autobiography that would be accepted by critics and readers. However, at the same time alteration was equally important. The two may seem mutually exclusive but in fact had to come together in self-writing in order to maintain the fine and frail line that existed between what one may share of himself and what had to be kept private.

John Foster was a minister, essayist, and reviewer who wrote Essays in a Series of Letters to a Friend (1826) in which he dedicated one of the essays to ‘a man’s writing memoirs of himself’. These prescriptive essays present Foster’s opinions on how he believed one could best write autobiographical texts, the necessary elements that need to be contained in a proper autobiography, as well as the problems an autobiographer may face and how to overcome them. Foster describes how he had proposed to some of his friends that they should write down memoirs of their own lives. The goal in doing so would not be to merely list the facts and events of their lives but rather to record their states of mind in order to demonstrate the progress of their respective characters,

because “it is in this progress that we acknowledge the chief importance of life to consist”(2). From the start on Foster demonstrates a clear preference for internal personal development and is less concerned with external facts and events. However, that does not mean that the external facts have no place within Foster’s theory on autobiographical texts; in fact they have an essential role to play, a threefold one to be precise.

The most important concept that Foster develops in his theory is that of the interior person versus the exterior person. He makes a clear terminological distinction between the progress of a person’s character, the most important aspect of self-writing, according to Foster, and a person’s life events; he calls these, respectively, the interior and the exterior life. The exterior events procure their value because of their influence on the interior person, without this connection, and if external facts and events were to be examined in isolation, their value could not be properly estimated. Therefore, Foster emphasizes that any retrospective self-examination, which arguably is an essential aspect of autobiography, ought to start with an examination of the interior and may move outward from there. When an adequate analyses of the inner man has been made, the autobiographer “may proceed outward, to the course of his actions; of which he will thus have become qualified to form a much juster estimate, than he could by any exercise of judgment upon them regarded merely as exterior facts”(52). As Foster understands it, the progress of a person’s character is what an autobiography ought to contain in order to be considered valuable. External facts and events serve a purpose in the process of self- examination and autobiographical writing, however, “it is that interior character, whether displayed in actions or not, which forms the leading object of inquiry”(52). The interior character of a person is the most important object of analysis, and the exterior life serves a supporting role in this analysis. It is left to the writer to decide whether or not that interiority is ‘displayed in actions’ within his text. Introspection is thus the chief goal of writing an autobiography. The chronology of a life may be valuably relayed and can perform useful functions, however, an autobiography would not be an autobiography without a description of the progress and evaluation of the interior person.

Even though their role is a secondary one, the external facts and events are of importance and value to both the process of writing autobiography and the resulting autobiographical text in several ways. “Through such a retrospective examination, the

exterior life will hold but the second place in attention, as being the imperfect offspring of that internal state which it is the primary and more difficult object to review”(52). Even though the facts and events come second they are still valuable to the autobiographical process. This becomes evident when Foster explains what a description of the development of a person’s character should look like and entail.

What I am recommending is to follow the order of time, and reduce your recollections, from the earliest period to the present, into as simple a statement and explanation as you can, of your feelings, opinions and habits, and of the principal circumstances through each stage that have influenced them, till they have become at last what they now are (14-15).

Foster advises any aspiring autobiographer to create a chronological overview of his or her life from the earliest moment of recollection to the present, with a focus on ‘feelings, opinions, and habits’. Because, according to Foster, the first way in which the external facts and events can be valuable is because of the impact they can have on ‘feelings, opinions, and habits’, in other words; the influence they can have on the interior life. This is the first way in which external facts and events manifest themselves as influential. The second purpose they serve is to aid the examination of a past life as well as provide the resulting narrative of that introspection with the chronological aspect of autobiography. “The chief circumstances of his practical life will, however, require to be noted, both for the purpose of so much illustration as they will afford of the state of his mind, and because they mark the points, and distinguish the stages of his progress”(52-53). Thirdly, then, the circumstances of a life can provide an illustration of a person’s state of mind.

The importance of truthfulness for Foster’s conception of autobiography becomes especially apparent in his discussion of memory. Memory is of essential importance in order to write a truthful autobiography. Without it, introspection is of little use or even impossible. Thus, when memory fails it makes it difficult for the interior and the exterior to come together in a description of one’s life.Foster discusses authenticity of memory, the sparse occurrences of which he highly esteems. Because of the significance Foster places on memory and its function for autobiography it is safe to say that he believed an

autobiography had to be accurate, authentic, and truthful. Memory is fundamental to introspection and to the reconstruction of oneself and one’s history in writing. However, memory may not always be reliable or readily available. Foster discusses two different ways in which memory may fail. First of all, memory fails us simply because we forget. “We have not only neglected to observe what our feelings indicated, but have also in a very great degree ceased to remember what they were […] As to my own mind, I perceive that it is becoming uncertain of the exact nature of many feelings”(17). Besides a general negligence of people to note down feelings and what they mean, trying to remember them later on in life becomes harder the more removed one becomes from the event in time. Foster admits that he himself cannot explain some of his feelings because he cannot recall the circumstances that influenced or gave rise to them. Memory does not only fail because we cannot remember our past life properly, Foster also argues that people change over time, which may make it difficult to identify with a younger version of one’s self. “If a reflective aged man were to find […] a record which he had written of himself when he was young […] His consciousness would be strangely confused in the attempt to verify his identity with such a being”(56). Because of the change a person goes through over time it is hard to identify with one’s younger self. In that respect it is hard to describe previous feelings and states of mind precisely as they had been experienced in the moment. It is even more difficult when those states of mind, as well as the accompanying feelings, have been forgotten. Therefore, that which is pivotal to Foster’s understanding of autobiographical writing is threatened by the failing function of memory.

There are, however, two ways in which these faults of memory might be remedied so that a crisis between the interior and exterior person can be overcome and an authentic image of the self may be drawn up. The first solution proposed by Foster is to write down the character of one’s self early in life in order to preserve that image, so that it can be retrospectively reviewed later in life. “Might it not be worth for a self-observant person in early life, to preserve, for the inspection of the old man […] a mental likeness of the young one? If it be not drawn near the time, it can never be drawn with sufficient accuracy”(57). The implication is that the events of a life and the character of a person can only be most truthfully documented when the moment of recording is not too far away removed in time from the occurrence and the recorded subject. We may be certain that Foster did not mean that people who want to write autobiography should

keep a diary, since, for one, diary entries lack the aspect of retrospection, as they are recorded quite immediately after an event. If a writer would want to use his collection of recorded memoirs for any future autobiographical text “they should not be composed by small daily or weekly accumulations, but at certain considerable intervals, as at the end of each year, or any other measure of time that is ample enough for some definable alteration to have taken place in the character or attainments”(58). In order to reflect on an event properly, enough time needs to have passed, but then again not so much time that the writer has fallen out of touch with his former self.

The second type of opportunity that could aid an autobiographic writer in reconstructing the feelings, events, and habits of his life are specific moments of lucidity in which a distinct memory comes back to one’s mind in full force. Foster describes how there are certain moments in which we, without understanding why, suddenly have a very clear image of a specific moment of the past. “I would advise to seize those short intervals of illumination […] in which the genuine aspect of some remote event, or long-forgotten image, is recovered with extreme distinctness by vivid, spontaneous glimpses of thought”(18). These lucid moments are highly valuable since, for a brief moment, the writer has access to details of his past that are not available at other times. In that moment of lucidity the writer is able to give an account of the memory in a way that would otherwise not have been possible. Therefore, the writer should make as much use as possible of such occurrences. Foster’s tone, as he describes how he personally has experienced such an ‘interval of illumination’, clearly communicates the strong appreciation he feels for such instances. Foster describes that he experienced a memory coming back to him in such a powerful way that it almost seemed as if he could see the room and the people in it. The people in the room “were so perfectly restored to my imagination, that I could recognize not only the features, but even the momentary expressions of their countenances, and the tones of their voices”(19). It was almost as if he experienced the memory once more at the moment of recollection.

Thus, in Foster’s understanding of an autobiography the recording of the process of one’s character is the most important. It is the essence of life and as such must also be the essence of the description of one. An accurate presentation of a life is achieved by a portrayal of the writer’s interior experiences and feelings combined with and illustrated by the exterior facts and events of his life. This goal, however, can be endangered by inadequate memory function. If one cannot remember the events of his life and how

such events sparked changes in one’s character there is no way in which accurate self-reflection can take place. The memory issue can be overcome if the autobiographer makes sure to record events as they occur, making sure to leave enough time between the event and the recording of it to allow for retrospection, as well as by making full use of those rare occasions on which memories that were lost are suddenly triggered and temporarily available to be accurately recorded. Because accuracy of memory and the justification of the development of one’s feelings and character are such prominent issues in Foster’s theory they reveal that Foster believed autobiographies should be truthful and authentic.

In November 1759 an article was published in the Idler, discussing the differences between biographers and autobiographers. The author of this article, Samuel Johnson, mostly focuses on a discussion of the different goals of writing biography and autobiography, through which he shares his ideas of what autobiography should be. Also, they reveal which role truthfulness plays in Johnson’s idea of an autobiography. Since Johnson wrote on life writing before the terminological distinction between biography and autobiography was clearly made he understood autobiography to be a form of biography, namely a self-biography. Therefore, his ideas about the correct way in which to write biography are informational for the discussion of autobiography as well. Treadwell states, “his [Johnson’s] essay antedates any terminology that distinguishes autobiography from life-writing in general and he seems to see no need for any such categorical distinction. The historian of his own life is simply an exceptionally well-informed biographer”(10). Moreover, in describing where the biographer fails and the writer of his own life fulfills the role of a biographer better, Johnson does make a distinction between the two.

In the distinction he makes, Johnson touches upon the different reasons a biographer and an autobiographer may have for being truthful in their writings and recordings. First of all, Johnson lists the reasons why a biographer could be tempted to be untruthful in his writing about another person’s life. A biographer writes about someone else, he writes about a person to whom he will have a specific relationship. This relationship could be, simply stated, either friendly or antagonistic. Johnson believed that this connection, whichever it may be, would influence the writer to alter and perhaps enhance that relationship by use of his text. “He that writes the life of another is either his friend or his enemy, and wishes either to exalt his praise or

aggravate his infamy: many temptations to falsehood will occur in the disguise of passions, too specious to fear much resistance”. Thus, in Johnson’s understanding the biographer will be tempted to write that which is not true and he will not be able to resist it.

Another objection Johnson has to biographers is his belief that they do not portray their subject properly, or understand what a good biography ought to contain. “Biography has often been allotted to writers who seem very little acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negligent about the performance”(Rambler). Johnson’s disapproval stems from experience with biographers who are either careless or who do not realize what kind of events and information they need to relay in order to supply the reader with an in-depth and complete portrayal of their subject. In Johnson’s eyes biographers are insufficiently aware of the essence of biography. An important problem he notes is the lack of proper topics and relevant events choose to describe and discuss. The narrative offered by these faulty biographies is often made up of details that are readily available to anyone, and therefore practically public knowledge already. In doing so, the biographer may believe that he is portraying a life, but the only thing he actually offers is a chronological account of one. The biographer lacks a certain depth. “They rarely afford any other account than might be collected from publick papers, but imagine themselves writing a life when they exhibit a chronological series of actions or preferments; and so little regard the manners or behaviour of their heroes”(Rambler). Johnson’s statement can be illuminated by use of Foster’s theory and terminology. A biography is not a biography when it only contains a description of a person’s exterior, the biographer must make sure to include the interior as well.

Johnson is troubled by the fact that the biographer fails to understand the importance of the interior in creating a complete image of a person’s life. Foster discussed the importance of a picture of the interior person in relation to autobiography. Because Johnson criticizes biographers for a great lack in this department it becomes clear that his ideas are in accordance with Foster’s theory. Johnson judges the biographers on providing information that, on its own, does not portray an accurate account of a life. “Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which he cannot apply will make no man wise” (Idler). The chronological relay of a person’s life is of no use to anyone else, it is not valuable information because it is not something others can learn

from. A discussion of a person’s interior, of his motives, feelings, and thoughts, however, can be of value to others. Therefore, Johnson deplores a sectional account as much as he would deceit in a biographical or autobiographical text. Subsequently, Johnson gives some advice and clarifies what biographers ought to look out for and describe. “Tell not how any man became great, but how he was made happy; not how he lost the favour of his prince, but how he became discontented with himself”(Idler). Like Foster, Johnson believes that a good biography of any form should reveal a combination of the interior and the exterior person. To provide only a chronological overview of a life is not a valuable pratice on its own.

To contrast the work of the biographer Johnson discusses the ways in which a self-biographer, what we would not call an autobiographer, practices life writing. Johnson also explains why he believes an autobiographer would be more likely to produce a truthful text than a biographer would. The main contrast he finds between biographer and autobiographer is based on the idea that someone who writes about his own life has “knowledge of the truth” in a way in which a biographer could never have. Johnson argues that consequently an autobiographical text will be more reliable than a biographical one, because “certainty of knowledge not only excludes mistake, but fortifies veracity”. The knowledge of experience, which the biographer lacks, increases the autobiographer’s authenticity and opportunities for truthfulness. However, Johnson admits the objection could be made that an autobiographer might very well be faced with similar temptations of alteration and enhancement as a biographer. “It may be plausibly objected that his temptations to disguise it are equal to his opportunities of knowing it”. The autobiographer may have more knowledge of the truth, as Johnson states, still, that does not necessarily guarantee that the autobiography will be completely truthful. Nonetheless, Johnson believes that the biographer has more than one motive to cover up the truth or to strategically leave out certain elements, whereas the writer of his own life has only one motive to allure him. “He that speaks of himself has no motive for falsehood or partiality except self-love”. Self-love would be a good reason for an autobiographer to be untruthful, however, Johnson insists that the autobiographer will inherently write more truthful than a biographer could.

However, this does not mean readers should simply believe any autobiographical text to be truthful simply. There is a way in which an autobiographer’s motivations to write can be scrutinized. Johnson lays out a notable criterion by which readers and

critics will be able to ascertain the motive of the autobiographer. In that way readers can decide for themselves whether they assume the autobiographer to have written out of self-love and whether they suspect the writer of having made any alterations in order to positively enhance his own image. The first criterion is that a writer should sit down “calmly and voluntarily” to assess his life and record it for posterity, or for personal amusement. If that is the case, it may be safely concluded that self-love was not the autobiographer’s incentive. Secondly, an autobiographer who “leaves this account unpublished, may be commonly presumed to tell the truth, since falsehood cannot appease his own mind, and fame will not be heard beneath the tomb”. If a writer records his life just for himself and not for the public, there is no sensible reason the text will contain fabrications since there seems no use in lying to oneself. Similarly, Johnson finds it unfeasible that a writer would try to enhance his own image if his text would not be published during his own lifetime. Since, after passing away, the opinion of posterity would not be of much use to him. With that in mind, it would be safe to say Johnson would have approved of Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem The Prelude. Wordsworth wrote for himself and a handful of close friends and relatives, with the goal of gaining an understanding of the growth of his own mind, and insisted that the text would not be published during his lifetime.

Johnson distinguishes between biographer and autobiographer mainly on the basis of their respective proximity to, as he calls it, “knowledge of truth”. Johnson’s issue with biographers is that they fail to understand what they ought to include in order to write a good and accurate biography. He believes that biographers fail to understand the importance of the essential interior character and often write only about the exterior. Also, Johnson argues that a biographer could easily be tempted to alter events and write untruthfully. A self- biographer however, has a closer relationship to the truth and therefore is more likely to write a text that is authentic and truthful. These arguments, as well as Johnson’s criteria for truthful self-writing, reveal that Johnson believes truthfulness to be necessary for biography and autobiography.

The British scholar Isaac D’Israeli dedicated a chapter of his Miscellanies (1796) to observations on ‘diaries, self-biography, and self-characters’. As with Foster’s and Johnson’s texts, D’Israeli discusses different forms of self-writing, the possible reasons for writing an autobiography, and what was expected and accepted of autobiographical texts and their writers. D’Israeli also defends the genre of self-writing. The value of

writing about oneself and of reading about someone else’s life and character was not a generally accepted at that time. In the same year as the Miscellanies were published, defending the value of autobiographical texts, Coleridge, in the preface to his poems, questioned why readers should be interested in the description of other people’s lives. “The communicativeness of our nature leads us to describe our own sorrows; […] but how are the PUBLIC interested in your sorrows or your description?”(4 Coleridge’s Poetry). Coledridge does not question why people would want to write about themselves since it is in our nature to do so. However, he questions why others should be interested in reading an autobiographical text. D’Israeli most likely would have answered that an autobiography is inherently interesting and valuable because it portrays an instance of humanity and preserves that recording for future generations. He states that the person who takes the time to study his own mind and who has the diligence to note down all changes of his “opinions, the fallacies of his passions, and the vacillations of his resolutions, will form a journal to himself peculiarly interesting, not undeserving the meditations of others. Nothing which presents a faithful relation of humanity, is inconsiderable to a human being”(97-98). D’Israeli echoes Johnson who believed that a well written, truthful, and authentic autobiography could be valuable for others when he states that an autobiographical account is worthy of consideration as long as it faithfully portrays a life.

Johnson warned readers to look out for motives of self-love when reading an autobiographical text. Similarly, D’Israeli believes that the reason to create an autobiographical text should spring from a desire to write for oneself first and foremost. However, the resulting text of self-examination can also be of interest to others, provided that it is a faithful account. Again in line with Johnson, D’Israeli sets some conditions under which an autobiography should be written. “There are certain things which relate to ourselves, which no one can know so well; a great genius obliges posterity when he records them. But they must be composed with calmness, with simplicity, and with sincerity”(101-102). Autobiography is valuable because it allows access to the inner workings of a person that cannot become known if it were not for autobiography. However, in order for an autobiography to be worth a reader’s consideration it must have been written under the right conditions and with the right intentions.

D’Israeli explains his ideas on self- writing by distinguishing between two forms of autobiography. “There are two species of minor Biography which may be discriminated; detailing our own life, and portraying our own character”(101). The first description concerns the kind of autobiography in which someone records the details of his life, what Foster would call the exterior, and the second kind is a depiction of one’s own character, the interior in Foster’s terminology. Foster argued that an autobiography should contain both the exterior and interior to be valuable, but D’Israeli separates the two. Both forms would be called autobiography today, however D’Israeli calls them ‘species of biography’ since he understood autobiography to be a form of biography, like Johnson did. The first form that is described, the writing of one’s life, is not necessarily always a successful practice according to D’Israeli. “The writing our own life has been practiced with various success; it is a delicate operation; a stroke too much may destroy the effect of the whole. If once we detect an author deceiving or deceived, it is a livid spot which infects the entire body”(101). Thus, the success of an autobiography depends on its truthfulness. As Johnson and Foster, D’Israeli places a lot of value on sincerity as well. D’Israeli argues that when one instance of deceit is present in the text and when the author is suspected of insincerity it affects a reader’s opinion of the whole text. As will be discussed later on, this response to arguably deceitful autobiography is still the same with readers today.

The second form of autobiography D’Israeli discusses, is the kind in which the writer describes his own character. D’Israeli does not particularly approve of this kind of self-writing, mostly because he believes it to be too self-indulgent. The examples he uses to illustrate this type of autobiography are mostly French texts. “There is another species of minor Biography, which, I am willing to believe, could only have been invented by the most refined and vainest nation. A literary fashion formerly prevailed with authors, to present the public with their own Character”(104). He attributes this style of self-writing to French writers, the vainest nation in his mind. D’Israeli quotes from a French autobiographical text that is focused on the author’s own character, in order to support his statement. The writer in question describes his own looks in extensive detail, as well as his intellect, his agreeable conversation skills, and does not hesitate to share that he has often been complemented on his brilliant mind. According to D’Israeli such a style of writing had never practiced by English writers who he considers to be more modest than the French. “I do not recollect such a custom among

our more modest writers”(104). This French style of portraying one’s own character is the embodiment of self-love and egotism Johnson warned writers and readers to be weary of. D’Israeli was concerned about egotism as well, which is why he stated that autobiography should be written with “calmness, with simplicity, and with sincerity”.

In the eyes of English Romantic era readers, texts that focus too much on one’s own character cross a line because the tone of such texts is too ostentatious. “The French long cherished this darling egotism […] every writer then considered his Character as necessary as his Preface. I confess myself much delighted with these self-descriptions of persons whom no one knows”(105). Although D’Israeli disapproves of this kind of autobiography, he enjoys reading them at the same time, almost as if it was a guilty pleasure. The main problem with these French autobiographical texts is their air of egotism. If a writer appears to be trying to ‘dazzle’ his audience critics and readers become suspicious of the text and author. The pitfall of writing about oneself is egotism. Only a fine line separates a proper autobiographer from an egotistical one. “If he is solicitous of charming and dazzling, he is not writing his life, but pourtraying the ideal adventurer of a romance. […] Simplicity of language and thought, are sweet and natural graces, which every Self-biographer should study”(103). Like Wordsworth would advocate five years later in The Preface, D’Israeli prescribes a simple and natural style of writing best suited for writing about oneself. Simple language is essential in order to write a proper autobiography and to steer clear of egotism. There should be no attempts at idealizing an image by use of fancy and ostentatious language. To portray an ideal is to portray an image that is not realistic and such an ideal image does not lead to a truthful text. An autobiography was expected to be authentic and truthful and therefore also realistic.

D’Israeli’s ideas have a lot in common with those of Johnson. Both believe that a well-executed autobiography is a truthful and sincere one, and that an autobiography’s value depends on it being truthful. Also, both critics list criteria to indicate under which circumstances and with which goals an autobiography should be written. For Johnson it is most important to be able to rule out self-love as a motive for the autobiographer to write his text. If self-love was indeed not an incentive to write the autobiography readers may be certain that the text is truthful. D’Israeli’s criteria resemble those of Johnson in as much as he agrees an autobiography should be composed in a calm state. He, however, also stresses that the language used to write an autobiography should be

simple. An autobiographer should avoid ostentatious and glittery language since such a style of writing paints an idealized image, the type of image that any autobiographer should make sure to avert. Johnson warns for self-love, D’Israeli in his turn focuses on egotism. The two issues are related because where self-love is the incentive to write an autobiography the resulting autobiographical text displays the writer’s egotism.

Another essential aspect to successful autobiography is the enabling of a sympathetic connection between the reader and the text. One of the ways in which this can be achieved is by using recognizable topics and issues to describe. Johnson, in his article in the Rambler, discusses the sympathetic connection that may arise between reader and text. Johnson argues that it is important for a writer to adopt relatable topics in his text in order to move the reading public. “Our passions are therefore more strongly moved, in proportion as we can more readily adopt the pains or pleasure proposed to our minds, by recognizing them as once our own, or considering them as naturally incident to our state of life”. In order to have an effect on readers it is important that the writer enables the reader to recognize the events he describes as something the reader may have experienced himself at one point, or as a situation that is recognized as an inherently natural part of life. Even the most artful writer will have trouble evoking a readers’ sympathy if he does not make use of such recognizable and relatable topics. “It is not easy for the most artful writer to give us an interest in happiness or misery, which we think ourselves never likely to feel, and with which we have never yet been made acquainted”. Johnson states that such ‘kindred images’ are mostly to be found in life narratives “and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest”. Therefore, the reader’s sympathy is essential to acceptance of autobiography.

A biographer will generally focus on events of his subject’s life that are readily observable, thus lacking a depth. “He that recounts the life of another, commonly dwells most upon conspicuous events, lessens the familiarity of his tale to increase its dignity, […] and endeavours to hide the man that he may produce a hero”. As discussed, Johnson believed that biographers chose the wrong elements of their subject’s life to describe. They focused on the exterior person and failed to include a record of the interior character. Also, he believed that biographers would be easily tempted to veil the truth in order to enhance the image of the person described. However, in doing so the

biographer removes the aspects of a person that readers could relate to. By leaving out thoughts and feelings, that might be uncomely, in order to exalt the biographer’s subject, it will be less easy for a reader to connect to the text on a sympathetic level since the understanding and recognition of similarity in experience is abated.

All three critics, Foster, Johnson, and D’Israeli, agree on the importance of truthfulness in autobiography and disapprove of alteration. In order to write a truthful autobiography certain elements need to be avoided since those aspects threaten truthfulness in different ways. First of all, Foster discusses how faulty memory can hinder the creation of a truthful autobiography. Secondly, Johnson explains how an autobiographer may be tempted to alter the truth in order to enhance his own image in society. Alteration in this scenario would most likely be spurred on by self-love. Lastly, D’Israeli discourages the use of flamboyant and boastful language. Such a style of writing could not lead to a truthful account of one’s life since it can only lead to an idealized image. Foster and Johnson both state that the description of one’s interior character is crucial for an autobiography. Exterior events can and sometimes should be included, if only to provide the self-narrative with a chronological order. They should, however, hold a subsequent place to the description of a person’s interior. D’Israeli does not look favorably on autobiographies that focus too strongly on the writer’s own character. The writer of an autobiographical text with such a focus could be easily suspected of egotism. Thus, the line between a proper autobiography, which includes insights into the writer’s inner person, and an egotistic autobiography is very thin and easily crossed. As an autobiographer it is therefore essential to make sure not to write out of self-love in order to avoid being suspected of egotism.

All three critics discussed stress the importance of truthfulness and thus frown upon alterations. However, autobiographers should not share too much private detail either. During the Romantic era there was a veil in place between what could be shared and what ought to remain private. Autobiographers were expected to keep this veil in place, even if that meant they had to make alterations or omissions. In order to write a successful autobiography, writers had to make sure their text was trusted and that readers would be able to relate to the experiences described. Truthfulness was an essential aspect of autobiography in the eyes of many critics, however, too much truthfulness would not do. A fine line existed between personal details that were deemed to remain private and interior experiences that made an autobiography

valuable. Egotism, sharing too much private details, and using flamboyant language were all features to be avoided by autobiographers. In that sense, truthfulness was essential but only up to a certain point. Alteration was allowed, perhaps even necessary, in order to maintain the balance between what one can share and what one should keep to oneself.

In the first chapter of his famous Biographia Literaria Coleridge addresses his readers with a declaration of his intentions and topics to be addressed, and in doing so sets the scene for what readers may expect from this text. He states: “it will be found, that the least of what I have written concerns myself personally. I have used the narration chiefly for the purpose of giving a continuity to the work”(159). On first instance, it may appear to be a declaration of which genre Coleridge intends the Biographia to fall under, namely; to say that the work is not autobiographical. If the text does not concern the person Coleridge, then it could not be an autobiography. Yet the text has been considered to be autobiographical during Coleridge’s time and still is today. The purpose of his statement can be interpreted in two different ways when making use of Foster’s and D’Israeli’s theories.

Starting with Foster’s theory, Coleridge’s statement could be interpreted as an explanation for the use of autobiographical elements such as important life events in his text. In this light the intended purpose of including elements from his own life is merely to give the work a chronological order and not because the events of his life are necessarily what his public should take away from his work. When using D’Israeli’s description of different types of biography as a lens through which to comprehend this statement the focus lies somewhere else. Coleridge is careful to place himself amongst the first type of biographers identified by D’Israeli, the biographer that describes his life, and makes sure to steer clear from the second kind in which the writer describes his own character. The latter type of biographer is quickly accused of self-love and egotism, the type of autobiographer Coleridge does not want to be confused with. Coleridge seems to have been successful in that department. In The Spirit of the Age Hazlitt says of Coleridge “Mr Coleridge talks of himself, without being an egotist, for in him the individual is always merged in the abstract and general”(651 Qtd. Coleridge’s Poetry). Hazlitt believes that Coleridge could no be seen as an egotist because Coleridge speaks of himself only in relation to the general. He describes parts of himself and his life in order to serve a purpose greater than merely speaking of only himself.

An egotist is someone who speaks about his own person and character too much, as D’Israeli illustrated by use of the French autobiographer who in his text mostly described his own character, how smart he was, and how much his brilliance was complemented on and appreciated by others. Besides this, there are two more aspects autobiographers should take care to avoid if they want to write an authentic and truthful autobiography. The first of these two is the ‘dazzling’ language D’Israeli warned for. A flashy and ostentatious style of writing is associated with idealization and untruthfulness, while D’Israeli’s proposed simple language creates an aura of authenticity. Lastly, autobiographers should make sure not too share too much private detail. Even though Romantic era autobiographers were expected to describe their life by recording interior as well as exterior experiences a fine line existed between parts of the interior person that could be openly discussed and those that should be kept private. Autobiographers were expected to keep this division in place. An anonymous critic writing in Blackwood exclaimed, “what a veil is here rent away!” in response to Hazlitt’s autobiographical work Liber Amoris (56 Qtd. Treadwell) which proves that these three issues should be carefully avoided if an autobiographer wants to write an acceptable autobiography. However, autobiographies, such as Hazlitt’s, kept pushing the boundary on the amount of shared personal detail that was accepted. Because of this, Treadwell notices that autobiography changed the existing balance. “Less polemical observers [than Wilson] might not go so far in their censure, but would still agree that autobiography disturbed a balance which those shrouds and veils existed to preserve”(56 Treadwell). Autobiography pushed boundaries and in doing so changed the playing field which critics tried to demarcate through their prescriptive texts.

Rousseau’s autobiography is an emblematical example of an autobiographical text that shares too much. Treadwell describes the reception of the Confessions from the time when the text was published in English in 1783. Critics were bewildered by the work because there was no category in which to place the Confessions. Rousseau’s text was not necessarily suspected of dishonesty but the overabundance of shared personal details shocked the readers, even more so because of the nature of the private details he revealed. “Their scepticism was instinctive, not based on any evidence for suspecting a fraud; the publication of the Confessions, with its embarrassingly frank admissions of masochistic eroticism, compulsive onanism, opportunism, and dishonesty, simply did not make sense”(38 Treadwell). Treadwell argues that the sharing of private

experiences of this nature was something the English reading public was not used to. There was no frame of reference in place by which to understand and categorize this autobiography, which lead to uncertainties about the text.

2. Simplicity: the Road to Truthfulness

Simple language use is one of the main ways to avoid egotism in self-writing as well as it is essential for the creation of a realistic, authentic, and sincere image of oneself. As D’Israeli stated, every self- biographer should study “simplicity of language and thought” because that would ensure realism and authenticity in the text. William Wordsworth advocated a similar goal in The Preface he wrote to his and Coleridge’s collection of poems called the Lyrical Ballads and shows that straightforward and simple language was of major importance in the Romantic era. In The Preface Wordsworth argues for the use of a simple style of language and argues against the at that time popular poetic style that was used by many poets. Poetry and autobiography are brought closer together through Wordsworth’s discussion of the importance of simple language. Even though Wordsworth’s simple language theory is essential for our current understanding of the Romantic era, at the time his ideas received a lot of criticism and were not immediately accepted.

Wordsworth did not necessarily want to write a preface to his and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. He did not see himself as a critic and did not want to be thought of as such; he was a poet. However, urged on by Coleridge, among others, Wordsworth realized that some introduction would be necessary, since his poetry was so essentially different from the style of poetry people were used to. “Yet I am sensible, that there would be some impropriety in abruptly obtruding upon the Public, without a few words of introduction, Poems so materially different from those, upon which general approbation is at present bestowed”(560). By writing The Preface Wordsworth hoped to offer his readers an account of his ideas and theories, reflected in the poetry of the Lyrical Ballads, so that they would understand why he chose this specific path and style. Even though at the time his theories of ‘rustic life’ and the ‘true language of men’ were received with a fair amount of skepticism, The Preface has come to be regarded as an invaluable text by now. Not only does the text provide an introduction to the poems of the Lyrical Ballads, it also provides an insight into Wordsworth’s opinions and thoughts

on poetry, poets, and the act of writing poetry in general which are informative for an understanding of Romantic autobiography. The most important implications from the text have to do with Wordsworth’s ideas on the type of language poets ought to use in writing poetry, his reasons for rejecting ‘poetic diction’ as a style of poetry, which is similar to the ostentatious language D’Israeli criticized, and consequently the implications these matters have on truthfulness in poetry.

Wordsworth and Coleridge’s main object for writing the poetry of the Lyrical Ballads was to describe events from daily life and to describe these in a style language that resembles daily spoken language. “The principal object […] was to chuse incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and, at the same time, to throw over them a certain colouring of imagination”(561). When one focuses on this statement from The Preface alone it seems a rather straightforward idea: according to Wordsworth an author should choose events from everyday life and describe them in a style of language that reflects daily speech to write good poetry.

Wordsworth’s style of poetry was different from the poetic diction popular at the time because he aimed to write in a way that came as close as possible to everyday language. He strongly disapproved of poetic diction and actively advocated the use of every day language for writing because “Poets do not write for Poets alone, but for men”(570). Therefore, the first reason to write about recognizable everyday events in a straightforward style is because Wordsworth believed poetry should be accessible to all. If such accessibility can be achieved it enables a sympathetic link between reader and text, which was of great importance to Wordsworth. In order to achieve a sympathetic link between reader and text the language had to be of such a nature that the events and descriptions relayed would be easily understandable by anyone so that the reader may recognize similar events in his own life. Secondly, the language used plays a significant role in Wordsworth’s idea that poetry possesses the ability to express truth. The aim to “bring [his] language near to the language of men”(564) inherently entails some sort of promise to try to be truthful: “I have at all times endeavoured to look steadily at my subject, consequently, I hope that there is in the Poems little falsehood of description”(564). The description of a subject and the language used to describe it go hand in hand and together create an aura of authenticity. Poetic diction, however, obscures the message and therefore steers away from truthfulness in the same way

ostentatious language does in autobiography according to D’Israeli.

Brooke Hopkins argues that Wordsworth was not necessarily worried whether his readers would believe that what he had written was true, rather, he cared whether or not his readers would be able to connect to his text on a sympathetic level. “Wordsworth was far less concerned to persuade his reader to believe in the truth of what was contained in the Prelude, than he was to persuade the reader to respond to it on the basis of his own personal experience”(94-95). However, Wordsworth’s statement proclaiming that he hoped his poems would contain ‘little falsehood of description’ contradicts Hopkins’ argument. She does however raise an important point about the role of sympathy for Wordsworth. A poet’s goal is […] to describe experiences in such a manner that the reader can possibly experience the described event themselves (103 Hopkins). Importantly, some form of recognition has to take place to create this sympathetic connection. “In order to be able to read his poem properly, that is, to respond to it with the heart as well as with the head, its readers would, to a certain degree at least, have to ‘recollect’ themselves as they read, to recognize the analogies between his experience”(106 Hopkins). Not surprisingly perhaps, the key to writing in a manner which evokes reader’s sympathy and which triggers them to think about their own lives in relation to what they have read is the style of language employed. In expression of his disapproval of poetic diction Wordsworth states that by utilizing this obscure style of writing these poets “separate themselves from the sympathies of men”(562 Preface) and it is precisely the sympathy of the reader that enables them to read and understand poetry. Thus, Wordsworth’s simple and natural style of poetry enhances sympathetic connections between readers and poetry.

Wordsworth expressed the desire to evade ‘falsehood of description’ and aimed to achieve this through his style of writing. He believed that poetic diction made poetry abstruse. Contrastingly, a poetic style that resembled language used in daily life could elucidate poetry and its message. In the appendix to The Preface Wordsworth explains poetic diction in greater detail and elaborates upon the reasons why he believes this style of poetry cannot portray a truthful image. As he describes, the earliest poets used figurative language, but they wrote naturally and their descriptions were based on experience. Later on, other poets wished to equal the success of these earliest poets and they adopted the figures of speech that had been used to describe events and ‘passions’. However, they did so without having experienced the same passion the earliest poets

had. By doing so they abused what they had copied; they applied the borrowed figures of speech to describe objects to which that specific language had no natural connection. “A language was thus insensibly produced, differing materially from the real language of men in any situation”(576). Thus, the language used in poetry had become disjointed from the real language Wordsworth continues to refer to. The new poets were not in touch with the exterior experiences that had given rise to the descriptions and language use of the earlier poets. The figures of speech and poetic style that had been created by these earlier poets became further and further removed from what they had represented, from the incidents that had brought them to life. Therefore, this poetic style could no longer describe an experience in a truthful manner. The description had been cut off from the original object, and pasted onto a new one; one to which no natural connection existed. That is why Wordsworth believed these descriptions to be untruthful, incomprehensible and perhaps even meaningless.

Another way in which Wordsworth’s ideas come close to those of the Romantic critics discussing autobiography is by his discussion of what a poet is and what a poet ought to be and how these qualities distinguish the poet from other people. In this discussion the extent to which a poet may create events or whether he ought to base his work on real life experiences is discussed as well. Compared to other people the poet excels in the aspects of sensibility, enthusiasm, and knowledge; moreover, the poet “[…] rejoices more than other man in the spirit of life that is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings-on of the Universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find them”(567 Norton). According to this idea, a poet enjoys to mull over feelings and emotions that are called forth and perceived by events that can be experienced in daily life, however, the poet also has a custom of creating them if such emotions or events are not at hand. Wordsworth continues:

To these qualities he has added a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present; an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from being the same as those produced by real events, yet do more nearly resemble the passions produced by real events (567 Norton).

To experience something makes one feel; experiences have effects on people. Such feelings and effects are what a poet tries to recreate for his readers. To read about an experience makes it come to life and in a similar way conjures up feelings that would accompany a real life experience. Those are the ‘passions’ Wordsworth keeps referring to. According to Wordsworth a poet has a predisposition by which he can experience passions from fictive events in a similar way to actually experienced situations. The poet is contrasted with an ordinary man, one who does not have the sensibilities of a poet and who would be able to experience such passions only from personal experience. Fictive situations may be conjured up by a poet, when there are no real life events at hand to describe, however, these descriptions should resemble real life in a highly precise manner, in order for them to be as realistic as possible. Wordsworth is somewhat vague about the passions resulting from fiction; they do not equal passions that arise from real events, but at the same time resemble them ‘more nearly’. Wordsworth explains that the different kinds of passion, the one based on fiction and the other on reality, are easily discernable from one another since they are not equal. Consequently, the reader would not be fooled and could easily discern between a description of a fictive event and of a real life experience. However, fictionalized passions, so to speak, have to closely resemble a passion resulting from an actual event in order to be considered authentic. Like the descriptions of events in autobiography the events relayed in poetry should be realistically portrayed, even if they are fictive.

But how can a passion based on fiction ‘more nearly resemble the passions produced by real events’? To answer this question we must look further on in the text where Wordsworth continues on the idea of the importance of resembling reality when a poet chooses to write fiction. He explains how a poet could make sure that passions resulting from a fictive description come as close as possible to a passion that resulted from something or someone encountered in real life.

However exalted a notion we would wish to cherish of the character of a Poet, it is obvious, that, while he describes and imitates passions, his situation is altogether slavish and mechanical, compared with the freedom and power of real and substantial action and suffering. So that it will be the wish of the Poet to bring his feelings near to those of the persons whose feelings he describes, nay, for short spaces of time

perhaps, to let himself slip into an entire delusion, and even confound and identify his own feelings with theirs;modifying only the language which is thus suggested to him, by a consideration that he describes for a particular purpose, that of giving pleasure. Here, then, he will apply the principle on which I have so much insisted, namely, that of selection; on this he will depend for removing what would otherwise be painful or disgusting in the passion; he will feel that there is no necessity to trick out or elevate nature: and the more industriously he applies this principle, the deeper will be his faith that no words, which his fancy or imagination can suggest, will be to be compared with those which are in the emanations of reality and truth (567 Norton).

To imitate passions cannot be the same in the effect it has on readers as the real deal could. However, the poet must do everything he can to get as close to reality as possible. In order to try to imitate an experiences and create good poetry out of the description thereof, the poet must temporarily slip into someone else’s skin, he must call upon his empathic skills and utilize them to his utmost ability, perhaps even so intensely that for a moment he forgets himself and in his imagination has become the person who’s emotions and events he intends to relay. Most importantly, Wordsworth here states that the poet may only modify the language in which he chooses to describe the events and emotions. The only reason for this allowance of imagination in this instance is the fact that the poet needs to serve the specific purpose of giving pleasure via his poetry. The event or persons that are described then need to be authentic.

Wordsworth’s statement reveals another salient issue for poetry that also plays an important role for autobiography. The veil between private details that should remain private and those that can be shared with the public also exists within poetry. “Here, then, he will apply the principle on which I have so much insisted, namely, that of selection; on this he will depend for removing what would otherwise be painful or disgusting in the passion” (567 Norton). The selection process Wordsworth speaks of is necessary so that the poet can maintain the veil and demonstrates Wordsworth’s approval of alteration under certain circumstances. The selection process allows the poet to alter descriptions so that he may leave out any vulgarities that belong to the spectrum of privacy one should not wish to share. This means that the poet is allowed to

leave out certain elements or descriptions at his discretion in order to maintain propriety.This attitude towards alteration in order to maintain the veil between private and public spheres is the similar in its prescription to discussion on autobiography during the Romantic era.

There is another way in which the poet is discernable from others according to Wordsworth. The poet differentiates himself once more by his ability to be more accurate and to stand closer to truthfulness than men in other professions, such as biographers, historians, and lawyers, could be. “The obstacles which stand in the way of the fidelity of the Biographer and the Historian, and of their consequent utility, are incalculably greater than those which are to be encountered by the Poet”(568). Thus, the poet is closer to fidelity and truth. The only restriction the poet needs to adhere to is to provide his readers with pleasure, he does not have to fulfill a role such as other professions require, he can simply be “a Man”. The point Wordsworth makes is that poets are naturally inclined to stand closer to the truth, in a similar way as Johnson believed the autobiographer to stand closer to the truth than a biographer. The poet mainly differentiates himself from men in professions of science; the attitude towards truth is the key element in that differentiation. “The Man of Science seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude: the Poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion”(569). The poet is concerned with general truth, events and objects that all readers should be able to recognize.

In Wordsworth’s understanding the poet distinguishes himself from other people mainly because of his relationship to truth, his ability to describe passions arising from experiences in a realistic manner, and by doing so is able to provide his readers with passions and sense of experience similar to those arising from real life events. The use of simple language is the key to achieve this. Wordsworth’s theory of poetry, poets, and simple language draws many parallels with the previous discussion on autobiographers, truthfulness, and autobiographical texts. The poetic diction Wordsworth disapproves of obscures language in the same way ostentatious language does for D’Israeli. Both forms of language use have to be avoided in order to create a truthful and realistic description of an experience. Both Wordsworth and D’Israeli propose to use simple language to achieve this goal. The image Wordsworth draws of a poet is similar to Johnson’s idea of an autobiographer, both stand closer to truth and are therefore more inclined to create

truthful text than others. Wordsworth allows for a selection process so that what is ‘disgusting in the passions’ may be kept hidden, thus alteration is only allowed when used to keep the veil in tact.

As stated, the new theory proposed by Wordsworth in The Preface was received with much criticism. One of the critics was Coleridge, Wordsworth’s co-author. Even though the Lyrical Ballads was produced by a communal effort of Wordsworth and Coleridge, each one having added works of his own, Coleridge did not wholly agree with all Wordsworth stated in The Preface. In July 1802, when the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads had been published, he wrote to Robert Southey “I rather suspect that some where or other there is a radical Difference in our theoretical opinions respecting Poetry”(467 Lyrical Ballads Ed. Gamer & Porter). This difference of opinion had become evident because of Wordsworth’s Preface. In a letter to his friend William Sotheby from July 1802, Coleridge makes sure to distance himself somewhat from The Preface; he describes to Sotheby how the different parts and topics of The Preface arose from conversations between himself and Wordsworth, but that he does not agree fully with the resulting text and its arguments. He stresses to add that the intention had at first been that Coleridge should write a preface to the collection of poetry.1 _{Throughout his}

personal correspondence and in his Biographia Literaria Coleridge explains in detail which aspects of The Preface specifically he disagrees with.

A prominent issue put forth by Coleridge is the faulty line of argumentation in Wordsworth’s discussion of the notion of ‘real’ language versus poetic diction. First of all, it is important to note that Coleridge did agree Wordsworth’s disapproval of poetic diction. “It is likewise true, that I warmly accord with W. in his abhorrence of these poetic Licences, as they are called, which are indeed mere tricks of Convenience & Laziness”(466 Lyrical Ballads Gamer & Porter). The disagreement arises from Wordsworth proposed style of language to use when writing poetry. In chapter seventeen of the Biographia Literaria, Coleridge discusses this issue extensively. A crucial point of criticism is the idea expressed by Wordsworth that language could be real. “I object, in the very first instance, to an equivocation in the use of the word ‘real’. Every man’s language varies, according to the extent of his knowledge, […] and the

1 _{Coleridge, Samuel Taylor & Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads 1798 and 1800. Ed.}

depth or quickness of his feelings”(343). Essentially, then, Coleridge challenges Wordsworth’s proposition for the use of real language in poetry because it is an unfeasible one since no such thing exists. However, the crux of the matter lies with Wordsworth’s explanation of the concept, not with the idea itself. Coleridge agrees that poetic diction is not a suitable style for poetry; however, a real language as described by Wordsworth is not the solution. Thus, Coleridge does agree that simple language is the way to overcome obscure poetic diction. However, he sets out the premises of the idea of more simple language in a different way. “For ‘real’ therefore, we must substitute ordinary, or lingua communis [the common tongue]”(344 Biographia). Thus, naturally spoken language, the language that is used in daily conversation, is a suitable option and the right description of this idea.

Notably, Coleridge never completely disagreed with Wordsworth on the language issue; he merely did not believe that Wordsworth’s description and explanation were correct. Therefore, Coleridge believed that The Preface could at times have been wrongly interpreted. In Biographia Literaria Coleridge takes it upon himself to set the record straight and to specify what he believed Wordsworth had intended to express. Coleridge states that he is certain Wordsworth’s intention was to aim for “a species of excellence […] to [write] verses in which everything was expressed, just as one would wish to talk, and yet all dignified, attractive, and interesting; and all at the same time perfectly correct as to the measure of syllables and rhyme”(366 Biographia). A possible misunderstanding of Wordsworth’s intentions could have arisen from Wordsworth’s choice to take objects and language from ‘low’ and ‘rustic’ life, a topic which at times had been pleasurable to a higher class public, who would derive enjoyment out of an imitation of the inelegant ways of the lower classes. Coleridge stresses his disapproval of this concept and urges his readers that this in no way had been Wordsworth’s intention. “In order to repeat that pleasure of doubtful moral effect, which persons of elevated rank and of superior refinement oftentimes derive from a happy imitation of the rude unpolished manners and discourse of their inferiors”(335 Biographia). On the contrary, Wordsworth chose this style of everyday language “because in that condition the essential passions of the heart find a better soil”(335 Biographia), in that way the language of poetry would be more transparent, direct, and emphatic.

Coleridge summarizes what he believed Wordsworth was trying to express in The Preface “he suffered himself to express, in terms at once too large and too exclusive, his