Wordsworth and Vaughan Essay -- Poetry Wordsworth Vaughan Essays

Wordsworth and VaughanWhen reading T.S. Eliots critical comment, It is to be observed that the run-in of these poets is as a rule simple and pure, one might assume that he was referring to the Ro patchtics (Eliot 2328). Specifically, we could apply this statement to poets the ilk of Wordsworth, who eschewed poetical affectations and tricked out language for sentiments that originated and flowed of course (Wordsworth 270). Yet Eliot hadnt focused his critical eye there, this time. Rather, he squinted a century back to a lesser-referenced literary group, the Metaphysical poets (Eliot 2328). That the Metaphysical poets and the Romantics share a characteristically simple/natural diction is important. While they are undoubtedly distinct schools, if we can show that they are even remotely stylistically similar, and then we might see grounds to acknowledge similarities between a poet from each, respectively. Thus, I propose considering Wordsworth in relation to an earlier man, He nry Vaughan. I am not the first to do so much has been said of the link between these men regarding their analogous poems The Retreat and Ode Intimations of Immortalityby comparing them I cannot claim every original insight. However, there is more common to these two men than two poems, and in analyzing what Wordsworth desires from poetry and the poet in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads we see that Vaughan had many of the poetic qualities Wordsworth demanded of himself. Even more interesting, Wordsworths shifted perspective from Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey to the Elegiac Stanza replicates Vaughans shift from To Amoret to The Night. Where Vaughans verse originally addressed worldly dearest and natural ... ...h happiness, wherever it be known, / Is to be pitied for tis surely blind (lines 53-56). In these lines, Wordsworth finally counsels that the human world is actually not so near-sighted. Rather, when a man assumes himself separate from mankindw hen he reinforces that separationhe actually blinds himself. So finally, the comparison between Vaughan and Wordsworth is not absolute. However, sorting through the words of men whove been drained for centuries for evidence of a literary association beyond mere coincidence is never and easy undertaking. But let us assume that, if Wordsworth was right, both he and Vaughan shared universal human experiences. Perhaps, upon reaching a certain middle age, they also shared fear and awe of the conditions of their mortalityand if one may have looked to the others words for poetic guidance, the poetic genre is better for it.