Gents Mag 1842 part 1 p.3
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introduction | ||
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list, 2nd qtr 19th century | ||
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Gentleman's Magazine 1842 part 1 p.3
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William Wordsworth poem |
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Wordworth Poems of Fancy and
Imagination
WORDSWORTH. POEMS OF THE FANCY. POEMS OF THE IMAGINATION. FEW readers of English poetry can be ignorant of the distinction which the poet, whose name we have placed at the head of this article, endeavours to establish between the Fancy and the Imagination - as faculties or powers of the human mind: and some have perhaps exercised their critical perspicacity in attempting to ascertain with what consistent accuracy the poet, in the composition of the poems, arranged under the heads respectively of these two supposed faculties, may have observed his own distinction. For our own parts, we must candidly confess, however the confession may derogate from our pretensions to a nice perception and lively sensibility, that if we had not chanced to entertain some long-cherished preconceptions of our own upon the classification of poetical imagery, we should have been so satisfied with the beauties so profusely scattered through these poems, and our minds so absorbed in the contemplation of them, that we should have cared little to investigate, whether they were intended by their author to be considered as the progeny of the one faculty or the other. In the course of our brief dissertation, we shall have occasion to present (to the no small gratification, we doubt not, of many readers of the Gentleman's Magazine,) some few choice specimens of the passages with which we have been more particularly delighted. That elegant and ingenious writer, Mr. Dugald Stewart,* appears to have been the first who, on modern days, proposed to place the Fancy and the Imagination over separate provinces, and to assign to each a peculiar jurisdiction. The professor, after a lapse of about forty years, was followed by Mr. Taylor,† of Norwich; who, without animadverting upon the refined speculation of Mr. Stewart, expounds to us a discrimination of his own. It is very remarkable - that this latter experiment is cited and commented upon by the POET, while the former, though an earlier and more elaborate effort, is not even referred to, and was, not improbably, either forgotten or unknown. If the POET had taken into his consideration the opinions of the Professor, he would, it may be believed, have found no occasion to start the objection, which he urges in limine against those of Mr. Taylor, viz. that the author's mind "was enthralled by etymology." Objections of this kind are too frequently intended (though they cannot here be suspected of being so) to supersede the trouble of a more careful and minute examination, and also to mark the mind of the individual, against whom they may be advanced, with the character of being too partial and limited in its views to deserve any greater share of attention. For our own parts, however, we should not be discouraged by any fear of a similar imputation from resorting to etymology, and availing ourselves of its assistance, if it would serve our purpose so to do, nor shall we, at |
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* Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, ch.v.
† English Synonyms discriminated. |
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