Abstract

Intellectually, the Nineteenth Century was marked by a struggle for a world vision — a struggle which shows itself in the minds and works of the British poets who often sought to reconcile science and religion. Blake feared that sophisticated concepts were destroying our contact with reality. Coleridge drew on Plato, Kant and Hegel and wrestled with the materialism of Hartley. Shelley used ideas from Plato and Berkeley. Wordsworth sought a visio if nature in which people could be comfortable. Hopkins sought the idea of individuality in Duns Scotus. Idealist attempts to reconcile competing visions provided some of the conceptual frameworks, and all the poets responded to the debates about the sources of values.