De Quincey on Wordsworth's Theory of Diction

Abstract

Thomas de Quincey is one of the few prose stylists whose work is inevitably tagged with that vague suggestion of mélange des genres, “prose poetry.” Such a label, prompted by the rich “poetic” quality of his diction as well as the beautiful orbicularity of hit rhythmical periods, is enough to encourage the question, “What was the position of such a wielder of words on the controversy of his contemporaries over the language of poetry and the language of prose?” The answer takes on more interest when we recall his close association with the giants of that argument. “Like one of our own Family,” he tramped the dales of Grasmere with Wordsworth, who roundly asserted, “There neither is, nor can be, any essential difference between the language of prose and metrical composition.” He was, however, also a disciple and sacrificial benefactor of Coleridge, who called vital parts of Wordsworth's theory “useless, if not injurious,” and declared that “in every import of the word essential, which would not here involve a mere truism, there may be, is, and ought to be, an essential difference between the language of prose and of metrical composition.” Some of this disagreement may have been more apparent than real, and it is likely that if confusions of meaning had been cleared up, the two poets would have found themselves close together in their basic concept of poetry. Probably by “language” Wordsworth intended only “diction,” whereas Coleridge used the word more in the sense of “style.” Wordsworth's context, however, admits the broader interpretation and Coleridge's includes the narrower, so that on this issue there appears clear-cut disagreement. De Quincey thought that an “unfathomable chasm of chaotic schism opened between them.” Where, then, between these “mighty opposites” did De Quincey himself stand on poetic diction?