
Wordsworth's
Views on Imagination and Fancy
In order to understand Wordsworth's view on
imagination, we have to go to his poems, and to his letter. In 'The Preface',
the word occur first when Wordsworth tells us that his purpose has been to
select incidents and situations from humble and common life and make them look
uncommon and unusual by throwing over them a coloring of imagination. This
clarifies that imagination is a transforming and transfiguring power which
presents the usual in an unusual light. The poet does not merely present "image
of men and nature" but he also shapes, modifies and transfigures...