As a
matter of fact, what Coleridge has to say on poetic diction is prolix
and perilously near commonplace. Instead of making to Wordsworth the
wholly sufficient answer that much poetry of the highest kind employs a
language that by no perversion can be called essentially the same as the
language of prose, he allows himself to be led by his German metaphysic
into considering poetry as a _Ding an sich_ and deducing therefrom the
proposition that poetry _must_ employ a language different from that of
prose. That proposition is false, as Coleridge himself quite adequately
shows from his remarks upon what he called the 'neutral' language of
Chaucer and Herbert. But instead of following up the clue and beginning
to inquire whether or not narrative poetry by nature demands a language
approximating to that of prose, and whether Wordsworth, in so far as he
aimed at being a narrative poet, was not working on a correct but
exaggerated principle, he leaves the bald contradiction and swerves off
to the analysis of the defects and excellences of Wordsworth's actual
achievement.
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