The Edge of Perception : The Psychology of the Seen and the Unseen in the Works of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Sammanfattning: This thesis investigates the psychological dimensions of sense perception in the works of two key poets in the British Romantic tradition - William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge - using a combination of traditional close reading and a newer psychobiographical approach. The thesis proposes that Wordsworth's and Coleridge's works can be seen as staging a dialogue between two mutually incompatible habits of sense perception, with Coleridge experiencing perception as metaphysically divisive, and Wordsworth experiencing it as metaphysically unifying (once the mind learns to correctly process sensory gaps). In this dialogue, Wordsworth eventually takes center stage as the dominant 'seer' of the two, while Coleridge takes on the role of auditor, alternating between vicariously adopting, interrogating, doubting and philosophically augmenting Wordsworthian perception. Furthermore, I argue that this dialogue represents a philosophically significant attempt to combine transcendent values with a tangible and intuitive connection to real objects, with Wordsworth and Coleridge attempting to forge a middle road between idealism and empiricism - a pursuit of transcendent objectivity that, I argue, problematizes the conventional reading of Romanticism as an inward turn.