Colonial Overtones: Reviewing Selected Poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge

Abstract

Abstract

A critical reading of some of the popular poems of the Romantic Period of British English literature would explore a colonial dimension in them. The historical and political understanding of the then time helps one in interpreting the poems in a new light and might unravel a colonial discourse in them. As colonizers intruded various parts of the globe including Africa, West Indies, India and so on, military power and economic growth became synonymous to British identity. Colonialism and cultural imperialism shaped the position of Europe in the globe and made British Empire the largest formal empire that the world had ever seen. But soon European colonists were to see the fatal effects of colonialism as they came into contact with the indigenous people and unfavorable climates of the tropics. End number of colonizers was wiped out due to the inflation of epidemic diseases of the tropics and many soldiers and sailors returned their homeland, wounded and diseased. The literature of the 1790s was full of bereaved mothers, abandoned wives and injured soldiers. This paper attempts to reveal the dark shades of colonialism in a few selected poems such as “The Brothers”, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” etc. by Wordsworth and Coleridge respectively, the two very important romantic nature poets, to mirror the hidden paradox of British magnificence and their colonial triumph.