The 'egotistical sublime' is a phrase coined by John Keats to describe the poetry of William Wordsworth in an 1818 letter to Richard Woodhouse. The phrase expresses the underlying self-centered nature of Wordsworth's poetry, particularly his use of the narrative voice to convey his own conception of a singular truth. The egotistical sublime contrasts with Keat's perception of 'negative capability' which he believed to be the ideal and exemplified by the sonnets of William Shakespeare.[1][2]

Other uses

English literary scholar, John Jones, titled his 1954 work on William Wordsworth The Egotistical Sublime: A History of Wordsworth's Imagination

References

  1. ↑ Baldick, Chris (2015). Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 111–112, 239–240. ISBN 978-0-19-871544-3.
  2. ↑ Fessler, Leah. "A 19th-century poet's trick for cultivating a creative mindset". Quartz. Retrieved 2022-04-19.


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