These notes summarize the main theoretical points and cite the main passages of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Biographia Literaria (1817), a major work from the English Romanticism on poetics, the poetic imagination and the language of poetry, as well as on the poetry of his friend Wordsworth.
Full text:
Notes on
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Biographia Literaria
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5176151
14 Pages Posted: 13 May 2025 Last revised: 12 Mar 2025
Date Written: January 01, 1987
Keywords: Poetics, Poetry, Romantic poetry, English Romanticism, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Poetic imagination, Poetic language, Stylistics, Criticism, Literary criticism
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—oOo—
Notes on Samuel Taylor Coleridge's
Biographia Literaria
José Angel García Landa
Vanity Fea (1/1/2025)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Biographia Literaria: or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions. Edited with an introduction by George Watson. (Everyman's Library; Essays, 11). London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1975. XXIV, 303 p.
Ms. notes taken by José Angel García Landa, c. 1987.
Introduction by George Watson
Biographia Literaria is an answer to "Wordsworth's" 1800 preface to Lyrical Ballads, inspired by himself. → (x): "the sharpness of a middle-aged man disagreeing with his youth". In the Preface, 2 questions: the relationship of the language and of the subjects of poetry to those of ordinary life. Biographia was in the making since 1800, written 1815, published 1817. Deliberate biographical form, adapted to himself, intense personalism, admits the fragmentary and inconclusive. Letter to Richard Sharp, 16 Jan. 1804: (xii): "Imagination, or the modifying power in the highest sense of the word, in which I have ventured to oppose it to Fancy, or the aggregating power". For Wordsworth, it was an incisive restatement of an ancient value-judgment. Biographia Literaria was dismissed by reviewers and Wordsworth, but appreciated by Keats and Shelley. (xix): "Design and purpose have been denied in it, and yet its greatest originality is its design"; (xix) "he suceeds for the first and (so far) for the last time in English criticism in marrying the twin studies of philosophy and literature, not simply by writing about both within the bounds of a single book or by insisting that such a marriage should be, but in discovering a causal link between the two in the century-old preoccupation of English critics with the theory of the poet's imagination." Chapters 10 & 11 are "a lamentable exhibition of cold feet". Too fussy. The concern with imagination comes from Hobbes & Dryden in the 17th c., but (xx) "Hobbes was too much of a professional philosopher to indulge his literary interests except as a hobby; Dryden too much of a professional man of letters to offer more than a brilliant aside on the subject; and the eighteenth-century aestheticians (Addison, Burke, Kames Reynolds, Beattie and many others) were dilettants in criticism, coiners of theories that never found currency. Johnson managed to write the critical masterpiece of the age, the Lives of the Poets, without once referring to the theories of any of them." The 1800 Preface to Lyrical Ballads starts a new aesthetic.
Coleridge vs. criticism as evaluation. His aim: "to reduce criticism to a system by the deduction of causes from principles involved in our faculties" (Coleridge).
Biographia Literaria
—1—
The superiority of an austerer and more natural style. Homer & Demosthenes, over Virgil & Cicero. Poetry has a logic of its own as severe as that of science: "to the truly great poets ... there is a reason assignable not only for every word, but for the position of every word." Sense must underlie metaphor and image; plain words where possible: vs. "poetic" diction and similes. Coleridge's 'preposterous' taste for philosophy: mismanaged sensibility in abstruse researches. 18th -c. poetry: (9) "The excellence of this kind consisted in just and acute observations on men and matters in an artificial style of society as its matter and substance—and in the logic of wit conveyed in strong and epigrammatic couplets in its form." It had "not so much poetic thoughts as thoughts translated into the language of poetry." He defended Shakespeare and originals vs. imitators, lines running into each other vs. closed couplets, and natural language. "I laboured at a solid foundation on which permanently to ground my opinions in the component faculties of the human mind itself and their comparative dignity and importance." Pro poems to which we return, and simplicity (other things being equal); vs. punctual wit or surprising novelty. Metaphysicals and (18th-c.) "moderns": "The one sacrificed the heart to the head, the other both heart and head to paint and drapery." Heart & head are reconciled in Cowper and Bowles. His own conversion in diction.
—2—
The supposed instability of men of genius. Where ideas are vivid, and power existes to combine and modify them, the mind is affected by thoughts rather than things—which may drive to diseased slowness of action. But absolute geniuses rest not between words and things, they rather (17) "impress their preconceptions on the world without". They create and destroy. (Vs. rules in drama: they are not essential, but only means to an end. The end is different now. Coleridge protests his originality vs. Schlegel). Geniuses are affable and cheerful, or at least show gentle self-possession. The English language has been refined since Chaucer, too; now it is easy to write. (Pro Pope's original compositions. His translations, however, are the source of our "poetic" diction). Bad poets, false poets, are irascible, and they abound. The sensibility of true genius is excited by any other cause more powerfully than by its own personal interests; the genius lives most in an ideal world. (Vs. Dryden's equation of great wit and madness; it is also rapidity of association of thoughts). But Coleridge descries his own character and does not claim to be a genius.
—3—
His obligations to critics (ironic). Coleridge vs. common readers. His ill treatment by critics, mainly because of his friendship with Wordsworth and Southey. Decay of esteem towards books and authors in contemporary critics. Vs. criticism understood as pointing out petty faults. Pro critics referring (36) "to fixed canons of criticism, previously established and deduced from the nature of man" —(pro classical sound sense). Critics must elucidate beauties. (37): he contrasts wit vs. knowledge. Southey has both. He praises Southey, mainly on man.
— 4 —
Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads: (41) "poems purporting to derive their subjects or interests from the incidents of domestic or ordinaly life, intermingled with higher strains of meditation which the poet utters in his own person and character." There were attacks vs. Wordsworth because of the preface (although the colloquial style gave some offence too), because of its novelty. Wordsworth's excellence, and his evolution: "union of deep feeling with profound thought"; truthful observing and imaginative modifying are balanced; union of old and new, and a sense of the novelty of known things → genius. Freshness of sensation. Fancy ≠ imagination; terms are gradually desynonymized. The importance of this theoretical distinction to the critic, and then to the poet. (51): "To admire on principle is the only way to imitate without loss of originality." (On synonymy and word-formation. Influence of language on thought). The occasion of Wordsworth's distinction between fancy and imagination.
—5—
On the law of association - Its history traced from Aristotle to Hartley.
Sensations are passive. Thoughts, active (volontary) or spontaneous (associations). Association of thoughts established first by Descartes (not Hobbes): contemporaneous impressions, whether images or sensations, recall each other mecanically [Descartes's semiotics - JAGL]. Hobbes, Hartley, etc., derive associations from the connection and interdependence of our material bodies. Even before Descartes, Melanchton, Ammerbach and Vives. In Vives, phantasia is active, imaginatio is passive perception. Subordinate causes of association due to time, relations cause / effect, part / whole... Vives (58) "the phantasia joins and disjoins what the imaginato receives as single units". Wise Aristotle, too is not a crude materialist or mechanicist like Hobbes etc.; he excludes place and motion from the operations of thought too. In Aristotle, a law of passive fancy. In sum, "Ideas by having been together acquire a power of recalling each other, or every partial representation awakes the total representation of which it had been a part." Hume's associationism inspired by Aquinas's comment on Aristotle. Hartley differs from Aristotle only to the ear.
—6—
That Hartley's system, as far as it differs from that of Aristotle, is neither tenable in theory nor founded in facts.
Vs. mechanicism (he follows Maass): it presupposes the pre-existence of all ideas in our mind. There are more faculties in the mind than outward impressions and passive memory.
—7—
Of the necessary consequences of the Hartleian thoey - Of the original mistake or equivocation which procured admission for the theory - Memoria technica.
Vs. will & thought being a blind mechanism instead of being controlling powers. It assumes a communion between separate substances. (70): "The existence of an infinite spirit, of an intelligent and holy will, must on this system be mere articulated motions of the air". Hume degraded notions. They take effects for causes. (71): "contemporaneity (Leibnitz's Lex Continui) is the limit and condition of the laws of the mind, itself being rather a law of matter, at least of phaenomena considered as material." The mind works by alternately opposing & yielding to mechanic law (both by an act of will) - (72): "There are evidently two powers at work which relatively to each other are active and passive; and this is not possible without an intermediate faculty, which is at once both active and passive" → the imagination. On poetry, we reserve the name "to a superior degree of the faculty, joined to a superior voluntary controul over it". Time is a condition of association, but simultaneity is not the essence of the phenomenon (logic, space, too).
—8—
Rationalism, materialism (& Hylozoism), neither provide an explanation of the formation of the associable in the mind. We are led to suppose either the pre-existence of ideas in the mind or their actual unfolding in the outer world.
—9—
Philosophy as science - Kant, etc. - Their influence on Coleridge.
The present reflections are inspired on Schelling, but Coleridge protests his originality. Limits of empiricism (vs. Locke). Pro Leibniz, but he too is unsatisfactory. Idea of intelligence & Being being correlative (Plato, Plotinus, Ficino, Bruno) prepares Descartes's cogito. The unlearned had a clearer insight into truth than philosophers → mystics, Böhme, Law, Fox. Kant, and Coleridge's conversion. Clear, but does not believe it completely, he may have meant more than he said. Fichte, Schelling. Coleridge developed these ideas apart from Schelling and Schlegel. Kant and Schelling on the perfections of Bruno's dynamic philosophy.
—10—
Digressions (93- "This semi-narrative")
(91): "pedantry consists in the use of words unsuitable to the time, place and company". Coleridge pro technical terminology. His publishing ventures and political troubles. Vs. intolerance. He mentions his "constitutional indolence". His philosophical and religious evolution and doubts. Religion has a moral origin (≈ Kant). Coleridge's journalistic activity; his moral integrity and foresight. Vs. the accusation of idleness. His influence as a diffuser of ideas and thinker.
—11—
An affectionate exhortation to those who in early life feel themselves disposed to become authors. Direct talent, to a profession; and genius to vocation. Clerical life is praised. Vs. an overdue concern with publishing.
—12—
A chapter of requests and premonitions concerning the perusal or omission of the chapter that follows. (134): "Until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding." Analysis of concepts such as consciousness, soul, time, is necessary in philosophy. On transcendental philosophy: the few philosophers of each age are a part of the process of Nature. Consciousness of freedom and spirit as the first step to understanding. Leibniz: philosophy as the unification of scattered truths. Postulates of philosophy (based upon Schelling) must rest on inner sense —and the direction of this is determined by an act of freedom. The act of contemplation makes the thing contemplated. Antithesis nature/self. Subject and object are together in perception, but in analysis
- either the Objective is taken as the first, and then we have to account for the supervention of the Subjective which coalesces with it... (But natural philosophy must end up in theorizing and and reducing Nature to an intelligence)...
- or the Subjective is taken as the first, and the problem then is, how there supervenes to it a coincident Objective. Coleridge vs. the "prejudice" that there exist things without us: idealism is the truest realism—(149): "This believes and requires neither more nor less than that the object which it beholds or presents to itself is the real and very object."
Theses: (I) Truth is correlative to Being. (II) Either mediate or immediate (vs. system of truths). (III) Absolute and ungrounded truth. (IV) There can only be one absolute principle. (V). It can't be an object. (VI) It's Sum, self-consciousness. In this alone object & subject coincide. (152) "It may be described therefore as a perpetual self-duplication of one and the same power into object and subject, which pre-suppose each other, and can exist only as antitheses." Coleridge vs. cogito, ergo sum. We must suppose not a deduction but an absolute I am. (VII) In order to be consciousness, spirit has to dissolve its own subject/object unity; then it is an act and an original will. Freedom as the ground of philosophy, not something to be deduced. (VIII) Spirit cannot be conceived of either separately finite or infinite → the union of both is life. (IX) Principium commune essendi et cognoscendi -The indirect principle of every science but the direct principle of transcendental philosophy. (This theory is not an absolute principium essendi, that belongs to religion). (X) The principle of our knowing is sought inside the sphere of our knowing, in something which itself can be known; i.e. Self-consciousness may be explicable into something beyond our knowledge. Centrifugal movement of intelligence to objectivation; centripetal, to self-knowledge. Coleridge's theory of imagination in the Omniana and Wordsworth's complaint that it is too general.
—13—
On the Imagination, or esemplastic power.
(167) "The imagination then I consider either as primary or secondary. The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create, or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still, at all events, it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead.
Fancy, on the contrary, has no other counters to play with but fixities and definites. The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space; and blended with, and modified by that empirical phaenomenon of the will which we express by the word choice. But equally with the ordinary memory it must receive all its materials ready made from the law of association."
—14—
Occasion of the Lyrical Ballads, preface, controversies. Philosophic definitions of a poem and poetry with scholia.
(168) "the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adhesion to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination." (168): "to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, whic constitutes poeti faith." Combining both powers of poetry in Lyrical Ballads; Coleridge wrote on the fantastic and supernatural, Wordsworth on the ordinary life, (169): "awakening the mind's attention from the lethargy of custom and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us"; removing "the film of familiarity". Vs. Wordsworth's apology of the "language of real life", an equivocal expression. Wordsworth's success "among young men of strong sensibility and meditative minds", an admiration which is almost "religious fervor" [Coleridge's meta-criticism - JAGL]. Coleridge does not concur with many parts of Wordsworth's creed. (171): "A poem contains the same elements as a prose composition; the difference therefore must conssit in a different combination of them, in consequence of a different object proposed." Mere form may be called poem. But object is also a ground of distinction. In scientific works, pleasure results from attainment of the end — it's not the end itself, "and though truth, either moral or intellectual, ought to be the ultimate end, yet this will distinguish the character of the author, not the class to which the work belongs." Communication of pleasure is a purpose common to poetry and prose fiction—not proper to poetry. Metre is not simply added: the rest must be made consonant with it. (172): "A poem is that species of com position which is opposed to works of science by proposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth; and from all other species (having this object in common with it) it is discriminated by proposing to itself such delight from the whole as is compatible with a distinct gratification from each component part" — (172): "one of the parts of which mutually support and explain each other; all in their proportion harmonizing with , and supporting the purpose and known influences of metrical arrangement." The reader is interested in parts and in the process too, and not only in the whole and the end. (173): "at every step he pauses and half recedes, and from the retrogressive movement collects the force which again carries him onward." (173): "poetry of the highest kind may exist without metre, and even without the contradistinguishing objects of a poem" (the Bible, Plato...). (173): "A poem of any length neither can be, nor ought to be, all poetry. Yet if a harmonious whole is to be produced, the remaining parts must be preserved in keeping with the poetry; and this can be no otherwise effected than by such a studied selection and artificial arrangement as will partake of one, though not a peculiar, property of poetry,. And this again can be no other than the property of exciting a more continuous and equal attention than the language of prose aims at, whether colloquial or written." Poetry is (173) "a distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself, which sustains and modifies the images, thoughts and emotions of the poet's own mind." The question 'What is poetry?' is equivalent to asking 'What is a poet?'. The poet brings his soul into activity, subordinates the soul's faculties according to their dignity, Imagination (174) "reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference, of the general, with the concrete..." etc. An old object is refreshed, an unusual state of emotion + an unusual order, manner and matter.... (174) "Good sense is the body of poetic genius, fancy its drapery, motion the life and imatination its soul", all are blended.
—15—
The specific symptoms of poetic power elucidated in a critical analysis of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and Lucrece
Musicality and the power of reducing many thoughts into one, proof that poeta nascitur, non fit. (176): "A second promise of genius is the choice of subjedts very remote from the private interests and circumstances of the poet himself." Dramatic power: (177) "You seem to be told nothing, but to see and hear everything." (177): "utter aloofness of the poet's own feelings from those of which he is at once the painter and the analyst." Through the use of images, etc., the poet forces the reade into action and directs his response to th theme. Imagery is a proof of genius when it is modified by a predominant passion, "or by associated thoughts or images awakened by that passion, or when they have the effect of reducing multitude to unity, or succession to an instant; or lastly, when a human and intellectual life is transferred to them from the poet's own spirit": (178): "when it moulds and colors itself to the circumstances, passion or character present and foremost in the mind." Depth and energy of though, too. The poet is not the passive subject of inspiration: study and knowledge are requisite; (180): "All things and modes of action shape themselves anew in the being of Milton; while Shakespeare becomes all things, yet for ever remaining himself."
—16—
Merits of the present poets and those of the 15th-16th c. Wish for their union.
Foregrounds in painging, and words&meter in poetry, are unattractive now: interest in backigrouunds. Now an interest in novelty of subject, formerly it was avoided: treatment was important, high finish. Now there is more various imagery, interest, pathos and reflection.
—17—
(On poetic diction). Vs. Wordsworth's language of cottagers. Reformation of poetic diction is necessary (vs. artificial ornament). Low and rustic life is not beneficial in itself: education is better. (192): "I adopt with full faith the principle of Aristotle that poetry as poetry is essentially ideal, that it avoids and excludes all accident, that its apparent individualities of rank, character or occupation must be representative of a classs", etc. Vs. Wordsworth's theory: although the individual form in which universal trughts is clothed is uppermost in poetry. But not vs. his practice. Refinement is inevitable; and rustics therefore are not different from men in general. Pro language as the result of a whole society and history, not of the simple intercourse between man and nature. "Real" language is already in literature (depends on contexts), not the same as ordinary. Wordsworth's notion about the poet being "in a state of excitement" is wrong too: passive is not creative. Also, the language of prose and that of metrical composition are not the same (vs. Wordsworth).
—18—
Language of metrical composition, why and wherein essentially different from that of prose. Origin and elements of metre. Its necessary consequences, and the conditions thereby imposed on the metrical writer in the choice of his diction.
Attention to vocabulary is not all; order of words too. The thought of uneducated men is more disjunctive. And not everything becoming in prose is becoming in poetry, & vice-versa. Origin of metre: (206): "the balance in the mind effected by that spontaneous effort which strives to hold in check the workings of passion"—but metre is the product of will, and is assisted by the very state it counteracts. Metre springs from excitement and should be accompanied by the natural language of excitement, filtered by present volition: an interpenetration of passion and will. A more frequent (but wilful) employment of picturesque and vivifying language. Cf. Shakespeare in The Winter's Tale: art that adds to nature is itself the product of nature. Metre (207) "tends to increase the vivacity and susceptibility both of the general feeling and of the attention. This effect it produces by the continued excitement of surprize, and by the quick reciprocation of curiosity still gratified and still re-excited, which are too slight indeed to be at any one moment objects of distinct consciousness, yet become considerable in their aggragate influence." Meter ≈ yeast. The subject must be suitable (Wordsworth's sometimes are not). (209): "Metre in itself is simply a stimulant of the attention". Wherefore? Because the language of poetry is different from that of prose. Metre is the proper form of poetry (which is defective without it), though it is not intrinsically poetic. Poetry is an imitative art; imitation ≠ copy: (212) "imitation, as opposed to copying, consists either in the interfusion of the same throughout the radically different, or of the different throughout a base radically the same." Vs. Wordsworth's emphasis on "observation": pro meditation and imagination.
—19—
Colloquial styles in poetry are always frequent. Examples from Chaucer, Herbert.
—20—
Wordsworth's voice is characteristic sometimes even behind his dramatis personae, but not in his greatest poems, where the vocabulary is common only in the sense that the vocabulary of all great poets is common. The same for his syntax and his transitions. Wordsworth's practice is wider than his theory.
—21—
Remarks on the present mode of conducting critical journals.
Pro a philosophical (systematic) criticism —critics' errors would be easily detectable. Ethics of reviewing: permitted vs. illegitimate censure (Lessing). Vs. substitution of assertion for arrgument, and vs. criticising parts instead of the whole.
—22—
Wordsworth's defects.
1) Mistaken theory. Inconstancy of style, sudden transitions from lines or sentences of peculiar felicity to the undistinguished (proper to prose, not even neuter). Literary vs. common language (there are degrees in this, too).
2) Matter-of-factness, superfluous in poetry (minute descriptions, etc.), vs. the essence of poetry (Aristotle, Davenant). (252): "The poet should paint to the imagination, not to the fancy." This is seen also in the choice of characters. But this is wilfully and un-Christianly ridiculed by his critics. Anyway, this is more proper to a moral sermon than to a poem. (234): "It seems, indeed, to destroy the main fundamental distinction, not only between a poem and prose, but even between philosophy and works of fiction inasmuch as it proposes truth for its immediate object instead of pleasure." - "the communication of pleasure is the introductory means by which alone the poet must expect to moralize his readers." The feelings are too particular, more proper for biography. Pro Horace's common sense wisdom here: Wordsworth's personae are often out of character.
3) An undue predilection for the dramatic form. Resulting in either "ventriloquism, where two are represented as talking while in truth one man only speaks", or a clash of styles.
4) The same with respect to feelings.
5) Thoughts and images are too great for the subject: "mental bombast". Sometimes (262) "you must at once understand the words contrary to their common import, in order to arrive at any sense; and according to their common import, if you are to receive from them any feeling of sublimity or admiration."
Strong sense coupled with depth of feeling precludes Wordsworth from being imitated. His virtues:
(263): "in poetry, in which every line, every phrase, may pass the ordeal of deliberation and deliberate choice, it is possible, and barely possible, to attain that ultimatum which I have ventured to propose as the infallible test of a blameless style, namely its untranslatableness in words of the same language without injury to the meaning. Be it observed, howerver, that I include in the meaning of a word not only its correspondent object, but likewise all the associations which it recalls. For language is framed to convey not the object alone, but likewise the character, mood and intentions of the person who is represnting it." [This conception of poetic language and meaning is close to ideas found later in Bühler and in Lotman - JAGL]
Purity of language is easier to attain in poetry than in prose. Coleridge favours verbal precision, vs. fanaticism on poetic diction, vs. watch-words. He is for (265) "distinguishing the similar from the same, that which is peculiar in each thing from that which it has in common with others", in all aspects. Poetry is a discipline.
Wordsworth does not believe in Platonic pre-existence, and neither did Plato. Coleridge expects that Wordsworth will produce "the First Genuine Philosophic Poem".
CONCLUSION
Coleridge favours a sense of order: it is an intimation of Eternity revealing itself in time, of causlity imposed on succession, of God ruling the Universe. Confusion is painful to some.
Personal complaints vs. reviewers. His submission to religion. Christian, and also pro Spinoza. A belief in the individual arising from a hidden God.
Coleridge's will "to preserve the soul steady and collected in its pure act of inward adoration to the great I AM and to the filial WORD that re-affirmeth it from eternity to eternity, whose choral echo is the universe."
—oOo—
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