Question

In which work does Coleridge critique Wordsworth’s views on poetic language?

• A. Lyrical Ballads
• B. Preface to Lyrical Ballads
• C. Biographia Literaria
• D. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Answer 1

Answer:

C. Biographia Literaria

Coleridge critiques Wordsworth’s views on poetic language in his work Biographia Literaria (1817). In this work, particularly in Chapters 14 and 17, Coleridge discusses and challenges Wordsworth’s claims about the use of ordinary language in poetry, which Wordsworth had put forward in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800). While Coleridge agrees with some aspects of Wordsworth’s theory, he argues that poetry requires a more elevated and imaginative diction than ordinary speech.