‘Who is the Poet?’: Hartley Coleridge, William Wordsworth and the ‘The Use of a Poet’

Abstract

Hartley’s relationship with his father forced him to scrutinize the value of name, fame and posterity. His relationship with his metaphoric father, William Wordsworth, drove him to explore these themes further in his life-long attempt to demarcate his own literary identity, and thereby reach a greater understanding of the role of the poet in general. Hartley uses William in particular to criticize the egotistical tendencies of a poet: his attack on William’s poetic ‘ownership’ of the celandine — ‘The Celandine one mighty bard may prize; / The Daisy no bard can monopolise’ (CPW, p. 165, ll. 13–14) — forms part of Hartley’s larger discourse on the necessary humility of the poet’s vocation.