Abstract

In his “Essay, Supplementary to the Preface” of 1815, Wordsworth indicates that all “higher poetry” should be modeled on “a pure and refined scheme of harmony” (PrW 3.64). During one of his conversations with Thomas Cooper on Tennyson in 1846, Wordsworth was reported to have said that “the perception of harmony lies in the very essence of the poet’s nature” (292). Coleridge, in a similar vein, identifies a “manly harmony” (Misc 67) in the satires of Donne and comments that the unity of philosophy and poetry in the works of Milton and Shakespeare evokes a sense of “delightful harmony” (Lectures 395). To justify Plato’s status as a poet, Shelley praises his endeavor to “kindle a harmony in thoughts” (484). The “frequent recurrence of the poetical power,” Shelley elaborates, “may produce in the mind an habit of order and harmony correlative with its own nature and with its effects upon other minds” (506–07). For many Romantic writers, harmony not only is a defining characteristic of good poetry, but is also a leading quality of a poet. Examining the complex interplay and divergence in the poets’ conceptualization of harmony, this essay explores a language of music that is closely associated with the resonance between semantics and sound, the transformative power of the imagination, and the aesthetic unity or integrity of experiences.