'egotistical Sublime'
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'egotistical Sublime'
The 'egotistical sublime' is a phrase coined by John Keats to describe the poetry of William Wordsworth in an 1818 letter to Richard Woodhouse. The phrase expresses the underlying self-centered nature of Wordsworth's poetry, particularly his use of the narrative voice to convey his own conception of a singular truth. The egotistical sublime contrasts with Keat's perception of 'negative capability' which he believed to be the ideal and exemplified by the sonnets of William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation .... Other uses English literary scholar, John Jones, titled his 1954 work on William Wordsworth ''The Egotistical Sublime: A History of Wordsworth's Imagination'' References Literature Romanticism {{lit-stub ...
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John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death. By the end of the century, he was placed in the canon of English literature, strongly influencing many writers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' of 1888 called one ode "one of the final masterpieces". Jorge Luis Borges named his first encounter with Keats an experience he felt all his life. Keats had a style "heavily loaded with sensualities", notably in the series of odes. Typically of the Romantics, he accentuated extreme emotion through natural imagery. Today his poems and letters remain among the most popular and analysed in English literature – in particular "Ode to a Nightingale", "Od ...
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William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798). Wordsworth's ''magnum opus'' is generally considered to be ''The Prelude'', a semi-autobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published by his wife in the year of his death, before which it was generally known as "the poem to Coleridge". Wordsworth was Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death from pleurisy on 23 April 1850. Early life The second of five children born to John Wordsworth and Ann Cookson, William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in what is now named Wordsworth House in Cockermouth, Cumberland, (now in Cumbria), part of the scenic region in northwestern England known as the Lake District. William's sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy Wordsworth, to whom he wa ...
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Negative Capability
Negative capability is a phrase first used by Romantic poet John Keats in 1817 to explain the capacity of the greatest writers (particularly Shakespeare) to pursue a vision of artistic beauty even when it leads them into intellectual confusion and uncertainty, as opposed to a preference for philosophical certainty over artistic beauty. The term has been used by poets and philosophers to describe the ability to ''perceive'' and ''recognise'' truths beyond the reach of consecutive reasoning. Keats: The poet's turn of phrase Keats used the phrase only briefly in a private letter, and it became known only after his correspondence was collected and published. In a letter to his brothers, George and Thomas, on 22 December 1817, Keats described a conversation he had been engaged in a few days previously: I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievem ...
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William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the " Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an ...
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John Jones (academic)
Henry John Franklin Jones known as John Jones (6 May 1924 – 28 February 2016) was an English academic, a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and Oxford Universitys 38th Professor of Poetry (1978–1983). Jones wrote books on literary topics including Greek tragedy, Wordsworth, Shakespeare and a novel, ''The Same God'' (1972). ''The Same God'' is described as "idiosyncratic" by literary historian and critic Frank Kermode Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work '' The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction'' and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing. He was ... (1920–2010).Kermode, Frank"Improving the Plays"(review of Jones' ''Shakespeare at Work''), ''London Review of Books'' 18(5), 7 March 1996, 6-7. Works * 1954: ''The Egotistical Sublime: A History of Wordsworth's Imagination'' * 1962: ''On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy'' * 1962: ''Heathcote William Garrod 1878-1960 ...
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Literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include oral literature, much of which has been transcribed. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment, and can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role. Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoir, letters, and the essay. Within its broad definition, literature includes non-fictional books, articles or other printed information on a particular subject.''OED'' Etymologically, the term derives from Latin ''literatura/litteratura'' "learning, a writing, grammar," originally "writing formed with letters," from ''litera/littera'' "letter". In spite of this, the term has also been applied to spoken or s ...
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