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Add to My Yahoo! thought and language in the prose of johnson, wordsworth and shelley: their letters, landscape descriptions and critical statements

This essay will examine some representative prose of Samuel Johnson, William Wordsworth, and Percy Bysshe Shelley to exemplify Frye s three levels of the mind and the corresponding stages in the history of Romanticism. Each of these writers, in the thought and language of a few letters, travelogues and critical statements, can be seen to argue one of the three basic perspectives of a literary dialectic.

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I. Introduction In The Educated Imagination Northrop Frye outlines the evolution of "three levels of the mind": 1) individual awareness, 2) social participation, and 3) the imagination. According to Frye, each level of consciousness is also one of expression, and so this model represents the complex relationship between three levels of thought and language (Frye 1963:6). By switching the first two levels around, this pattern can be seen to parallel the progress of the Romantic revolution in terms of how the content and form of literature generally changed during this period. Thus the succession of prevailing ideas and discursive styles during this time can be understood to have occurred in three stages: the social, the individual, and the imaginative. This essay will examine some representative prose of Samuel Johnson, William Wordsworth, and Percy Bysshe Shelley to exemplify Frye s three levels of the mind and the corresponding stages in the history of Romanticism. Each of these writers, in the thought and language of a few letters, travelogues and critical statements, can be seen to argue one of the three basic perspectives of a literary dialectic following a particular order. Firstly, Johnson wrote to champion the rationalistic thesis which stems back to Plato and the origins of collectivism his writings generally exhibit the thought characteristic of Frye s "level of social participation" and "the language of teachers and preachers and politicians and advertisers and lawyers and journalists and scientists"(Frye 1963:6). Secondly, Wordsworth resurrected the emotive antithesis that stems from Longinus and the evolution of individualism in literature, and he wrote with what Frye would call a heightened sense of "consciousness and awareness" and a "language of self-expression"(Frye 1963:6) however, he could not deny the value of reason and so the revolution was incomplete. And finally, Shelley provided a sort of synthesis which neutralized (temporarily) the thesis and the antithesis that is, he denied that reason was fully or even partially, in conjunction with emotion, responsible for the high level thought and language of good literature. For Shelley, all three levels of the mind, reason, emotion and imagination, are inextricably part of the same creative process. Since Frye s third level of the mind is manifested in all "poems and plays and novels"(Frye 1963:6), and since our three writers were "imaginative" in their own way, to distinguish Shelley from Johnson and Wordsworth the third level of the mind will be adapted so that instead of representing the ability to create something which does not exist in reality, which is commonly called the imagination, it will stand for the ability to synthesize diverse elements and to reconcile the irreconcilable, and will be called the capital-I Imagination for the purpose of this paper. Shelley believed that reason, emotion and even the imagination are insufficient, at least individually, to discover the mystery of life, and that neither the social and practical state of mind nor that of individual consciousness can fully comprehend reality. Thus thought and language were not to be restricted to a single level of the mind they were allowed to be simultaneously, though not necessarily equally, rational, emotional and imaginative so that mind and literature can help us to think, feel and imagine the whole of the truth rather than just one side of it. Shelley s basic imagination, having been educated as it was by the successes and failures of Johnson and Wordsworth, provided the means by which he could usurp those two earlier authorities with the creative and abstract concept of the Imagination as a power of synthesis. However, with historical hindsight, we can see how Shelley s victory was only momentary, as was that of Johnson s thesis and Wordsworth s antithesis, and how the dialectic of the mind continues to revolve and change, thanks in part to the added impetus provided by these three writers. Rather than solving the mysteries of the mind, Shelley presents a third point of view which, like those espoused by Johnson and Wordsworth, is valid to the extent that it reveals part of the truth, but it also has inherent weaknesses in its "unreality" and its non-viable nature while the Imagination is indisputably valuable because of its ability to make connections and associations in thought and language beyond those dictated by the bounds of reason, of what we normally consider as "reality," the concept involves insurmountable difficulties in its reliance upon the paradoxical notion of a creative synthesis which reconciles the irreconcilable dualities like that of reason and emotion or that of society and the individual. Shelley s theory on how the mind and literature ought to deal with the mysteries of their existence was no less problematical than was Johnson s one-sided rationalistic and Wordsworth s ambiguously sensual yet intellectual point of view. At the end of the Romantic period the dialectic was by no means complete it was merely ready for the inevitable: a new thesis to undermine the unstable synthesis which will then lead to another antithesis, and so on. Every system or theory has limitations in its capacity for explanation, and these allow for or even encourage those who are dissatisfied with the status quo to bring about reversals in authority. In this way the cycle continues, not necessarily to bring us to a better or higher level of the mind, since literature "doesn t evolve or improve or progress"(Frye 1963:7), but to keep thought and language from the crystallization and conventionality which occur when authority, in literature as well as in every other field of discourse, is not challenged and reconstituted on a regular basis. To determine the actual contribution to this crucial pattern of change in literature by Johnson, Wordsworth, and Shelley, this paper will begin with some letters to friends which reflect each author s personal point of view and his corresponding level of thought and style of language. The discussion will then move on to some descriptions of landscapes (also in letters) and central critical statements in order to illustrate how each author participated in the dialectic revolution regarding standards of content and form in literature. Finally, there will be an overall analysis of this selection of prose where it will be argued that the three authors were not only compelled by an evolutionary or historical force to adopt the positions which they did, but more importantly, that in doing so they figuratively overcame their literary predecessor, thus perpetuating the cycle and rescuing the thought and language of literature from the tyranny of a stagnant tradition. II. Letters Early Romanticism was a natural reaction against the prevailing authority of Neo-classicism, the eighteenth-century version of the objective thesis wherein the thoughts are those of social participation and the language is that of common sense. The mind on this level is conceived of as being very orderly, rational, and disdainful of the distortions of reality produced by emotion and the imagination--at this point those two terms are virtually synonymous. For Samuel Johnson, a representative of the Neo-classic dialectical point of view, the two non-rational levels of the mind were equally erroneous, to be referred to as fanciful or otherwise of little value and meaning. For instance, in a letter of 8 July 1784 to the beloved Mrs. Thrale, with whom he had many tender correspondences, he warns her that "only some phantoms of the imagination seduce you to Italy" (Johnson 1971:31). The implication here is that both imagination and emotion are misleadingly seductive and as such they are completely inferior to reason. Almost twenty years earlier Johnson wrote a similar letter to Boswell in which he advised his friend, who complained of having difficulty thinking, to concentrate harder on his studies so that "the gusts of imagination will break away" and fancies, illusive and destructive, will be banished henceforward from your thoughts forever"(Johnson 1971:9). Again, the idea that reason dominates the mind is suggested by the language as "imagination" is used in a derogatory way, and "gusts" and "fancies" express Johnson s consideration of Boswell s passions and appetites as negative influences in both mind and literature. Many attitudes of Johnson s, such as his disapprobation of sensuality and sentimentality are clearly exposed in his letters, and he even recognized the personal significance of them himself. He states in another letter, after mentioning that such correspondences were likely to be published, that in his letters "a man s soul lies naked.you see systems in their elements you discover actions in their motives"(Johnson 1971:25). Indeed, Johnson is "naked" in these letters, most notably in the way he denounced what he thought were ilusory influences upon his friends by, in effect, calling them emotional and imaginary. In his authority as a man of letters, both literally and figuratively, he helped make the stage in history to which he belongs one that emphasized thoughts over feelings, society over the individual and the use of practical language over that of what he considered fanciful. It was as if, to use the image of a rider of reason on a horse of emotion or imagination, the former had to have full control over the latter or else the mind would stray from its true course. Like Johnson, Wordsworth also wrote letters of advice to friends which bare his soul, but in these we see a very different level of the mind at work. Although reason and practical sense are not discarded, emotion and self-expression become the dominant basis for thought and language, and the "systems" and "actions" of Neo-classicism give way to those of early Romanticism. A hint of this dialectical antithesis appears in a letter written by Wordsworth during the early 1790 s to William Mathews. The latter had made "complaints about the diminution of his knowledge" (Wordsworth 1970:I, 55-rather as Boswell had done to Johnson. Unlike Johnson, however, Wordsworth did not prescribe severe studies but, humorously, recommended a leisurely reading of "Pope s description of the cave of spleens"(55)! Wordsworth s light-hearted advice, when compared with Johnson s heavier, more dogmatic and rationalistic response to Boswell, exemplifies a significantly different point of view. Instead of issuing a warning to beware of illusory "phantoms" and "gusts" and to study harder, there is a friendly celebration of how a poetic "cave" can actually help rejuvenate the mind. Johnson, as we have seen, thought that both the emotional and the imaginative qualities of the mind were highly seductive and illusory and that they had to be regulated through intellectual concentration and common sense so that they were properly reasonable and social in accordance with the rules of Neo-classicism. Wordsworth, on the other hand, as he more explicitly stated in his famous Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, felt that all good poetry (which in his view was the highest achievement in thought and language) was primarily a product of emotion, "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" which, when experienced by one with "more than usual organic sensibility" who can think "long and deeply," brought about the realization of universal truth (Wordsworth 1984:598). Such statements were central to the rise of English Romanticism and were used to defend the value of the individual and that of self-expression. As Romantic feelings and sensibilities became increasingly popular and conventional, it became clear that Wordsworth had managed to liberate thought and language to a significant degree. The rider now had much less control over the horse since emotion and imagination--although no longer synonymous these terms were still largely interchangeable--had come to be considered as the true means and the end of poetic discourse. Some of the old order remained, however, since it was recognized by Wordsworth that reason must continue to play an important role in the creative process. The curious qualification that one must think "long and deeply"(Wordsworth 1984:598), for instance, is very reminiscent of Johnson s advice to Boswell and indicates how much Wordsworth was still influenced by Neo-classic authority even though he had such radically different views about the mind and literature. At this point in history, the image of an intelligent rider dominating an emotive horse continues to be an appropriate model of the mind because the tradition of rationalism had not yet lost its influence upon the thought and language of the day. Turning our attention now to Shelley, he also wrote a letter to a friend in need of advice, but in his response to Thomas Jefferson Hogg s complaint about a weakening of the mind he actually contradicted both of the earlier authoritative recommendations--for the intellectual excercise of study made by Johnson to Boswell and for the emotional invigoration of poetry made by Wordsworth to Mathews--by saying that to achieve a high degree of mental "comfort" one must "cease to think, to cease to feel"(Shelley 1964:II, 62). Although this recommendation to avoid all intellectual and emotional activity is absurd because it requires the impossible, it is nevertheless meaningful as it expresses the belief that one does not find truth through hard study nor through powerful feelings but through the Imagination, a state of mind beyond anything suggested by the earlier notions of "fancy" or of "organic sensibility." Neither reason nor emotion nor even the imagination could bring the mind or literature to its highest level of thought and language because each faculty has been seen to be inadequate in its own way. Now the roles of rider and horse were reversed, as the Imagination, which subsumes both emotion and imagination as part of its creative force, came to dominate over reason as the controlling influence in good writing. Arguing his point of view more fully at the beginning of The Defense of Poetry, Shelley undercuts the rationalist thesis of Neo-classicism by stating that reason, "the principle of analysis," can only understand relationships between things known, while the imagination, "the principal of synthesis," allows one to penetrate the mystery of life and to discern universal principles (Shelley 1986:310). Unlike Johnson and Wordsworth who fully or partially believed in reason, Shelley believed only in the Imagination which, paradoxically, involves both reason and emotion but is neither the one nor the other. The two opposing modes of thought and language are seen as part of one creative motion of the mind, more powerful and less finite than Johnson s intellectual and Wordsworth s volitional understanding of the infinite universe. Nevertheless, even Shelley s Imagination did not bring a complete solution to the mystery which all art deals with instead, it amplified the motive force or capacity for change in the historical dialectic regarding the mind and the corresponding effect upon the form and content of literature. III. Landscape Descriptions Johnson, Wordsworth and Shelley all wrote about their travel experiences in letters and essays, and a comparison between examples representing each writer s characteristic level of thought and style of language reveals the historical relationship between these three literary authorities. Their reactions to natural scenes reflect their views on whether the content and form of literature should be absolutely, partially or not at all determined by reason. Johnson, for example, in yet another a letter to Mrs. Thrale (3 July 1771), again reveals his "soul" and implies that the rider is superior to the horse in what is ostensibly about a tour of the Scottish Highland. Humorously, the description of the landscape may be read as a sarcastic attack against both the individual and the imaginative points of view towards a landscape or even as a precognitive parody of the form and content of the travelogues which were later to be written by Wordsworth and Shelley. The whole excursion was one of misery and disgust for Johnson. He complained about the land, the people, the lodgings, the food, the beds and even the bugs (Johnson 1971:18). No doubt such a journey in the Highlands must have been filled with inconveniences, but that he wrote such a completely negative account of any natural landscape suggests that Johnson was rationally, as opposed to emotionally or imaginatively, biased in his writings. Furthermore, the social is continually stressed over the individual, and the language is generally that of an analytical and hypercritical observer, all of this indicating a Neo-classical point of view. When we read the letter, we actually read less about the landscape itself than we do about Johnson and his quirky prejudices in thought and language. And when he tells us how there was very little to eat in the Highland inn were he stayed, which was no doubt true, we ought to remember that this man defined oats in his Dictionary as "a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people"(Pyles and Algeo 1982:208). Throughout the letter, Johnson reveals the extent of his rationalism in his constant refusal to let emotion and imagination run freely so that he may enjoy what little beauty there was available to him. Even when he does find what he considers a reasonably nice spot, something prevents him from being pleased or impressed by it: I sat down to take notes on a green bank, with a small stream running at my feet, in the midst of savage solitude, with mountains before me, and on either hand, covered with heath. I looked round me, and wondered that I was not more affected, but the mind is not at all times equally ready to be put in motion(Johnson 1971:15) While it is true the mind is not "at all times equally receptive"(15), Johnson here seems to be excusing himself for not being moved, as if he knew he had an overly rational mind and could not respond to the landscape in the way expected of enraptured travellers. The unwary modern reader might think that Johnson meant to express something like Wordsworth s habitual lament for lost childhood--ambiguously tempered with a respect for the wisdom of age--or like Shelley s evocation in the essay "On Life" to "Let us recollect our sensations as children. What a distinct and intense apprehension had we of the world and of ourselves.We less habitually distinguished all that we saw and felt from ourselves"(Shelley 1977:477). However, although Johnson certainly 1 is 1 alluding to the Romantic synthesis between self and other, whether he really "wondered" about his unsentimental and un-imaginative reaction to nature in a regretful manner is doubtful on the contrary, the serious and sober language implies that he was wittily complimenting himself for not letting his mind be "affected" by the "savage solitude," which was for him a "motion" as undesirable as that of a runaway horse! In fact, the passage seems to ridicule anyone who imagines he or she could find true aesthetic pleasure in that Scottish glen, even to the extent of denouncing the entire mystical tradition of the natural sublime. From Johnson s view on life, the purpose of experiencing any landscape, Scottish or otherwise, was not to make it the subject of emotional and imaginative reflection but an object of social and scientific exploration. This collectivistic orientation is evident when he tells Mrs. Thrale that if she had been there with him, the landscape would have been more meaningful because we should have produced some reflections among us, either poetical or philosophical, for though Solitude be the nurse of woe, conversation is often the parent of remarks and discoveries.(Johnson 1971:15) This comment can be said to be part of an epistolary defense of rationalism in the guise of travelogue written with an eye towards its publication furthermore, it is an indication that Neo-classic beliefs needed to be defended because they were already being disposed by those of Romanticism. Johnson s reaction here and in the rest of his letter is an act of rebellion against those very notions of solitude and poetic introspection which were later to become central to Wordsworth s individualistic antithesis. Instead of a typical travel account, which records what one did on a trip, Johnson wrote about what he could have done but pointedly did not do, and this is a rhetorical ploy to denigrate the stereotypical conventions expressed by the sentimental and irrational observer of a landscape: You are perhaps imagining that I am withdrawn from the gay and the busy world into regions of peace and pastoral felicity, and am enjoying the reliques of the golden age that I am surveying nature s magnificence from a mountain, or remarking her minuter beauties on the flowery bank of a winding rivulet that I am invigorating myself in the sunshine, or delighting my imagination with being hidden from the invasion of human evils and human passions in the darkness of a thicket that I am busy in gathering shells and pebbles on the shore, or contemplative on a rock, from which I look upon the water, and consider how many waves are rolling between me and Streatham.(1971:19) In this lengthy period, Johnson exaggerates the poetic vocabulary of landscape descriptions by using an overwhelming list of naturalistic details and superfluous references to emotion and imagination, and it is all tightly balanced and held together with extreme syntactical precision as if to make the rigidly Neo-classical form defy the disorderly Romantic content. He also emphasizes how the emotional and imaginative appeal to nature is absurd because it has one gathering "shells and pebbles," contemplating a "rock," and enumerating "waves". By thus indicating that such language and thought is illusory and to be avoided in literature, he mocks not only its traditional past but its impending future as well. Johnson was fully aware of the dialectical nature of the history of criticism. He knew that there have always been reversals in the manner in which literary authorities regarded the relative importance of reason compared to emotion or imagination, and so it is not unlikely that he anticipated how literary thought and language would continue to change as the arrival of every prominent new author exerts an influence upon the course of the argument. Ironically, he even contributed to this change, because by satirizing any deviation from his rationalistic position as strongly as he did, his readers do not fail to recognize the extent to which Johnson s attitudes were inadequate, at least in that they inhibit him from really feeling and imagining the power of nature during his travels. This creative deficiency resulting from an overly developed first level of the mind, akin to the incapacity for speed of a rider without a horse, was symptomatic of a need for a new theory on mental and creative processes and a restructuring of the conventions of literary content and form. And so it was that Wordsworth turned to the second level of mind and considered emotion as the basis for a rejuvenation in thought and language because it offered a means of understanding and discussing the world through individual rather than social awareness and expression. Balancing the historical argument by countering the extreme claims of Neo-classic rationalism, Wordsworth made the most of this subjective or egotistical point of view in his landscape descriptions which were inevitably written in a manner not unlike that parodied by Johnson. For instance, having just recently settled at a new home in Grasmere, Wordsworth wrote a letter to Coleridge to tell his friend about a brief tour he had made of the area. The prose style of this account is in many places very poetic and emphasizes an emotional rather than an intellectual response to nature, and the thoughts contained therein consistently reflect the mind of the poet rather than the landscape itself. Likewise, the language is not cold and analytical as it was with Johnson, but is alive with feeling and action, as in " twas a beautiful morning with driving snow-showers that disappeared by fits, and unveiled the east which was all one delicious pale orange colour," or "in a moment a sweet little valley opened up before us, with an area of grassy ground, and a stream dashing over various lamina of black rocks close under a bank covered with firs"(Wordsworth 1970:I, 679). Even though, in this case, it is the English Lake District rather than the Scottish Highlands which is being described, nevertheless we can see that Wordsworth had a much more developed "organic sensibility" than did Johnson, at least when it came to enjoying nature. By this it is not meant that he was simply open to experiences of nature, but that he could also make the landscape come alive by projecting himself onto it. Wordsworth even said, referring to the second of the three waterfalls encountered on the tour, that he and his companions were "no unworthy spectators of this delightful scene"(Wordsworth 1970:I, 681) because they possessed the necessary emotional and imaginative capabilities to see the beauty of the scene. Wordsworth would no doubt have included Johnson among those who are "unworthy" of appreciating nature. When he writes about waterfalls as a sensitive spectator, Wordsworth does not dwell upon rational ideas and philosophical concepts rather, he describes what he saw and felt in very emotional and imaginative manner rather than in the strictly rational and strictly practical terms of Johnson: That huge rock of ivy on the right! the bank winding round on the left with all its living foliage, and the breeze stealing up the valley and bedewing the cavern with the faintest imaginable spray. And then the murmur of the water, the quiet, the seclusions, and a long summer day to dream in!"(Wordsworth 1970:I, 682) Nature is not regarded as an inert object of rational inquiry but as an active subject of poetic contemplation, something which the poet can engage with in his pursuit of universal truth. It is something which is "living" and "winding" and "stealing" through the landscape, and the language used to describe it is not regulated by the dictates of reason and common sense but is allowed to flow freely in an expression of the creative self. The rider no longer has full control over the horse, and both the domination of reason over emotion and imagination and that of society over the individual, two impediments to progressive change in thought and language, decreased as the rule of Neo-classicism gave way to that of Romanticism. Wordsworth s theory could not, however, provide a fully consistent alternative to Johnson s definition of how the mind ought to operate and of what constituted good literature his system of "feelings" and "organic sensibility" was inherently ambiguous because it was also one of thinking "long and deeply" about things. For Wordsworth, experiencing a landscape in particular or the universe in general certainly produced an emotional and imaginative euphoria, but this state of mind could not be artfully expressed without the deliberate use of reason. In fact, despite the efforts of the early Romantic writers to the contrary, the tradition of rationalism retained or perhaps even gained influence during this time as scientific and industrial developments came at a quickening pace. Through retrospection we can see that there was no way to completely liberate thought and language from Neo-classic conventionality until the idea of the Imagination arrived. Shelley was foremost among the later Romantic poets who saw in the mind the ability to make connections and associations which, although not seemingly as "real" as ideas and feelings were considered to be, in some ways nevertheless represented universal truth. He realized that some things could only be explained through a paradoxical union of what had been considered the separate faculties of reason, emotion and imagination. Abandoning the fragmented models of the mind like those of Johnson and Wordsworth, which rather dogmatically force the consideration of one level of thought and language as superior to another, Shelley argued that all three levels are involved during the creative process. Again, the successes and failures of earlier writers revealed to him that, independently or in contradictory combinations, neither reason, emotion nor imagination alone can sufficiently comprehend the mysteries of life. And so, by using the power of synthesis, he was able to deny the oppositions of existence which had previously undermined the thesis and the antithesis. Shelley s landscape descriptions are not like the analytical reflections characteristic of Johnson, which isolate the speaker from his surroundings, nor are they identical to the recollections of Wordsworth, which ambiguously combine subjective impressions and objective observation rather, they exemplify the Romantic fusion between self and other which defies any rational explanation and is singularly the product of the Imagination. As an example of this synthesis between reason and emotion, and between society and the individual, there is a letter to Thomas Love Peacock written during a tour of Italy. In it Shelley described the sight of some Roman ruins from the top of an ancient staircase: This you ascend, & arrive on the summit of these piles. Here grow on every side thick entangled wildernesses of myrtle & the myrtelus & bay & the flowering laurustinus whose white blossoms are just developed, the wild fig & a thousand nameless plants sown by the wandering winds.(Shelley 1964:II, 85) Shelley s "wildernesses" of plants, some named with botanical specificity and a host of others simply but passionately alluded to, are the result of a combination of Johnsonian rationalism and Wordsworthian emotionalism. The passage focuses upon a particular place, as is expected in a travel letter, as well as upon the mind of the poet, and it contains both objective, prosaic details as well as subjective, poetic impressions. Also, the language used to describe the scene contrasts the rambling rhythm of a factual list with the intense alliteration of "white" and "wild" and the suggestiveness of "wandering winds." These juxtapositions of two levels of thought and language identify Shelley s views regarding mind and literature as dependent upon the power of the Imagination. Whereas for Johnson nature was properly the focus of a practical discourse upon social concerns, and Wordsworth described landscapes in the frequently sentimental language of individual reflection, Shelley chose to depict the relics of a dead civilization overgrown by thriving vegetation by means of creative synthesis so that the scene is simultaneously rational and emotional in significance. In the passage above, the prose content has primarily social implications in the idea that monumental human achievements in time become lifeless and inert while nature inevitably lives on, and yet the poetic form, the expression of feelings of wonder and rapture is primarily concerned with the individual. Shelley s synthesis of the thought and language of the first two levels of the mind in the letter seems to affirm an implicit faith in the Imagination, the third level which represents a power superior to reason, emotion or imagination alone because it involves intelligence, feelings, and creativity at the same time. Like a horse liberated from the domination (though not the influence) of the rider, the Imagination is now free to range over unexplored--at least different if not better--pastures of thought and language. Unfettered by rational considerations of what is real and general, as opposed to what is illusory and particular to the individual, Shelley mixed reasonable and practical prose with emotional and imaginative poetry. When necessary he could either make good use of reason, just as Johnson had required of Boswell, or else he could subordinate reason to emotion, as Wordsworth implied that Mathews ought to do. Empowered by this flexibility of mind, the ability to adapt the strengths of the theories on mind and literature of his predecessors, Shelley helped to establish the Imagination as the sole agent responsible for the creative force behind the ideas and rhythms of good writing. He reconciled the opposing positions of previous authorities, and, although only for a moment in the full scope of history, he neutralized the force of Neo-classic tradition so as to bring the Romantic revolution full circle. IV. Critical Statements The dialectical motion of the argument continues even today, however, and the horse of Imagination faithfully carries us along on a course of constant renewal in thought and language. All models of the mind and theories on literature are eventually proven to be fallible, including Johnson s dogmatic monarchy of reason, Wordsworth s confusing hierarchy of emotions and imagination over reason, and even Shelley s anarchy, where the three levels of the mind mystically combine. As a result of their fallibility, these notions have been succeeded by the conceptualizations of countless other authorities, such as those set forth by Frye, and there can be no end for this process. However, in contrast to this capacity for change, there is the tendency for the argument to repeat itself as it revolves around the same three basic positions. Thus the influence of all great writers lives on through tradition, even though some of their views have become obsolete. As in the letters, the critical statements of each author have both strengths, expressions of truth which remain valid and part of the dialectical cycle, and weaknesses which, curiously, are actually positive in that they contribute to change. Johnson and Wordsworth present the truth regarding the value of reason and society or emotion and the individual, but they also leave us with more questions than they answered which, intentional or not, prompt us to investigate the nature of thought and language for ourselves. Shelley s Imagination provided some solutions to difficulties raised by his two predecessors, but it is nevertheless a model of mind which, like that of Frye, falls far short of being an answer to all our inquiries. In act, the concepts derived by both of these men are helpful because they offer a means of reconciling the dualism represented by the other two levels of mind however, for the same reason, they are also highly problematical: while both theories allow for a greater, more inclusive understanding of mind and literature, they share the same paradoxical premise that irreconcilable oppositions (reason-emotion, society-individual) can and must be synthesized to allow for the production of good literature. At this point it can be said that, ultimately, Shelley s Imagination was as inadequate as were Johnson s Reason and Wordsworth s Emotion for revealing the mystery. However, the use of a capitalized trio of abstractions here to describe each author s point of view reflects how inadequate such labels and neat models of discussion are for the complex issues being dealt with here, and so the strengths and weaknesses in thought and language are exposed in this paper as well as in the historical course of the argument. To return to the critical statements of our authors, an example of the historically overthrown yet timelessly authoritative utterances which Johnson typically made can be found in one issue "The Rambler" (No.4 31 March 1750) where he wondered how the "wild strain of imagination" could ever be received in "polite and learned ages" since "a knowledge of nature.can never be attained by solitary diligence, but must arise from general converse, and accurate observation of the living world"(Johnson 1971:68). To some degree he is correct here, as he was in his letters, for the vagaries of individualism certainly can obscure universal truth however, remembering his rationalistic bias in his advice to Boswell and his biased references to Scotland, it is doubtful that Johnson or even the ancient authorities he defends were themselves absolutely free from the "unjust prejudices, perverse opinions, and incongruous images"(Johnson 1971:69) which, in truth, are apparent in the thought and language of everyone. In contrast, Shelley realized how truth is relative to one s point of view, and that Johnson was expressing personality rather than truth when he denied that emotion and imagination is necessary for and inherent in literature indeed, why else should the rider oppress the horse, without which very little progress would be made, unless he is convinced of his own superiority and independence? Johnson even seems to have avoided facts which contradict the Neo-classic rule that good writing must be thoroughly rational, as when he has to acknowledge that the excellence of Shakespeare s works lies, in part, in their unequalled emotional power. To obscure this problem, Johnson refers to the thought and language of the relatively (compared to Johnson) unlearned and unsophisticated bard in terms of "general passions"(Johnson 1971:263) or "practical axioms and domestick wisdom"(264). By prevaricating and making an exception for Shakespeare, and it could not be otherwise, Johnson s position is weakened Shelley s is strengthened, however, because he acknowledged that emotion is as important as reason in the production of truthful literature. With the arrival of the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, the argument over what is the ideal state of mind and literature becomes less blatantly inconsistent and more profoundly ambiguous as Wordsworth reacts against the "simple authority" of conservative critics like Johnson who, favouring the rational and collective over the emotional and individual level of mind in the tradition of Neo-classicism, required that the poet (excepting of course Shakespeare) alter his feelings for the purpose of writing. Wordsworth considered this a detestable request because if the poet "sets his feelings aside in one instance, he may be induced to repeat this act till his mind loses all confidence in itself, and becomes utterly debilitated"(Wordsworth 1984:612). Certainly it is true that in Johnson s prose the sublimination of particular feelings in order to make general passions the focus of his discourse was the result of a habitual desensitization to the powers of emotion and imagination, and that Wordsworth wrote with an open expression of feelings which marks a great degree of individual awareness however, recalling Wordsworth s rather glib advice to Mathews about reading Pope to restore the mind and his completely subjective and uninformative account of a visit to some waterfalls, it seems that Wordsworth was somewhat "debilitated" himself since he viewed the mind as being fragmented and conflicting in its parts and, as a result, could not consistently reconcile reason with emotion and imagination. Wordsworth s criticism did indeed help to initiate the revolution against Neo-classic thought and language, but it could not provide any definite alternative because it lacked both the intellectual clarity characteristic of Johnson and the Imaginative unity typical of Shelley. While Wordsworth proclaimed that emotion and imagination are the means of a cure for an ailing friend and are the basis for fully experiencing and expressing the beauty of a landscape, he states that such feelings and self-expression must be qualified by rational and practical considerations: the "essential passions of the heart" (Wordsworth 1984:597) not only overflow spontaneously through the mind of the individual, they are also "modified and directed by our thoughts" so that "we discover what is really important to men"(Wordsworth 1984:598). Thus the old order in thought remains, and once again the rider controls the horse, although with the reins much slacker than Johnson would ever have allowed. In terms of language, Wordsworth was understandably opposed to an excessive "elevation in style"(Wordsworth 1984:603) such as that which Johnson had parodied in his travel letter. When he argues that the poet must use the language of "a man speaking to men"(603), however, he seems to be suggesting a completely deflated and common form of expression which is clearly not the case--one is unlikely to find a farmer who speaks the way Wordsworth wrote. In his effort to defend the literary significance of the feelings and self-expression of the individual, Wordsworth actually echoes Johnson here except that a proper style of writing is not said to be based upon the speech patterns of members of the educated upper-class but upon those used by the folk who live a "Low and rustic life.because such men hourly communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived"(Wordsworth 1984:597). This view is admirably democratic but perilously close to denying the importance of individuality and reverting to Johnson s position that the general and universal in thought and language is strictly social and practical in origin. At this point in the dialectic, neither the thesis nor antithesis could, with any credibility, claim to have the means for understanding the mysteries of life, and so there arose an urgent need for a synthesis between the strengths of the Neo-classic and early Romantic arguments for a more consistent and all-inclusive view of mind and literature. The concept of the Imagination developed and gained the status in criticism which it still has today because it was an inevitable reaction against the oppositions and difficulties set forth by Johnson and Wordsworth. Shelley s revolutionary idea was that there is no distinction between reason and emotion and so there was no longer any argument over which of the two was superior since both were necessary for a sound mind and good literature. His objectively detailed and yet subjectively evocative scene of Roman ruins is an example of this power of synthesis which enables the writer to deal with both everything that is real, according to reason and emotion, and with everything that could be or which exists only in the world of imagination. The letter employs an effective combination of perspectives in a mental and literary attempt to understand the nature of the mystery. In fact, without looking further back in history, it seems that Shelley even originated the very principle that Frye uses to support his definition of an "educated" imagination: the notion that the two primary levels of the mind have to be united before any true artistic process can take place. Shelley would have seconded Frye s argument that "whether your point of view is Western Johnsonian or Eastern Wordsworthian , intellect and emotion never get together in your mind as you re simply looking at the world. They alternate, and keep you divided between them"(Frye 1963:3) only through what Shelley called the Imagination and Frye the imagination could there be a creative synthesis which is neither "an intellectual or an emotional conception, because it s both at once"(Frye 1963:3). This amazing reconciliation means that there is "no longer the subject and the object, the watcher and the things being watched"(Frye 1963:4), and there is no longer simply the concern for society of Neo-classicism nor that for the individual of early Romanticism but a "full consciousness of that original lost sense of identity with our surroundings, where there is nothing outside the mind of man, or something identical with the mind of man"(Frye 1963:9). The religious and metaphysical implications of this third level of thought and language are highly problematical, however, for the basic premise is that we have the god-like ability to unite what we consider opposites, such as ourselves and the universe or even ourselves and God. Shelley s paradoxical point of view regarding the nature of mind and literature was apparent in his advice to his friend Hogg to keep himself from thinking 1 and 1 feeling because here there is no distinction made between reason and emotion or imagination likewise, that there is no difference between social and practical values and those of self-awareness and self-expression is the implication to be drawn from his touring letters which are not exclusively written in either collectivistic prose nor in individualistic poetry but in an epistolary synthesis of both. Since Johnson had restricted his thoughts and language to the first level of mind, that of Shelley s "principle of analysis"(Shelley 1986:310), in his prose he ended up gathering the "shells and pebbles" of facts and enumerated the "waves" of generalities which, as we have seen, can be as prejudiced and inconsistent with reality as are the fancies and peculiarities he had ridiculed Romanticism for promoting. Wordsworth s poetic style held some traces of the "principle of synthesis"(Shelley 1986:310) in that emotion and imagination were considered at least equally if not more valuable than reason, but it was not until Shelley that reason ceased to be the prevailing faculty of the mind and the primary source of literary expression: "Reason is to the imagination and emotions as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance" (Shelley 1986:310-and, one might add, as the horse is to the rider. This was the radical reversal in authority that had long been awaited. Shelley was acutely aware of how tradition can crystallize ideas and their forms of expression and stated that "if no new poets should arise to create afresh the associations between ideas and words language will be dead to all the nobler purposes of human discourse" (Shelley 1986:312). The Imagination, which allows the poet to synthesize new ideas and words and restructure thought and language, is of paramount importance because without it all awareness and expression, by becoming simply rational or emotional and imaginative and by being concerned with only society or the individual, will cease to be alive and meaningful. As an alternative to this stagnation of mind and literature, it is clearly preferable to run the risk of Imagining that which does not or cannot exist in reality and which is therefore liable to be called an illusory phantom or the mark of an unworthy spectator on life. V. Conclusion During the course of the Romantic period there was a struggle between static traditional authority and progressive thought and language. The revolution continues today as writing styles undergo gradual but incessant revision. We like still argue about the relative merits of reason as opposed to those of emotion and imagination. Contrasting writing styles are quite evident in the poetry of Johnson, Wordsworth and Shelley, but the survey given here of their personal letters, travel descriptions and critical statements also represent divergent literary perspectives. Each example reflects the author s manner of writing and his role in the dialectical argument as a theorist who reveals some of the truth but never concludes the argument. By comparing their three styles we see the historical tendency towards more comprehensive, though not necessarily better, models of the mind and theories on creativity. In this case the rational thesis was overcome by the emotive antithesis which in turn was displaced by the Imaginative synthesis, but regardless of the sequence, the process is the same for any literary period because every author has a different point of view and seeks to convince others of its validity. They wish to overthrow the rule of authority over thought and language because all rules create limitations which are opposed to change. And, so, as a result of the efforts of good writers, mind and literature never cease to evolve as we continue searching out new mysteries. BIBLIOGRAPHY Frye, Northrop. 1979. The Educated Imagination Toronto: Hunter Rose (for CBC). Johnson, Samuel. 1971. Samuel Johnson: Rasselas, Poems and selected Plays. Ed. Bertrand Bronson. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Pyles, Thomas and Algeo, John. 1982. The History and Development of the English Language. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Johanovich. Shelley, Percy Bysshe. 1964. The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Ed. Frederick L. Jones. Vol.II. London: Clarendon. -- - 1986. "A Defense of Poetry." Criticism: The Major Statements. Ed. Charles Kaplan. New York: St. Martins. 310-335. -- - 1977. Shelley s Poetry and Prose. Ed. Donald H. Reiman and Sharon B. Powers. New York: Norton. Wordsworth, William. 1984. William Wordsworth. Ed. by Stephen Gill. Oxford: Oxford University. -- - 1970. The Letters of Wordsworth and Dorothy Wordsworth. Volume I: The Early Years. Ed. Ernest De Selincourt. Oxford: Clarendon.

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