Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
Biographia Literaria
(written in 1815; pub. 1817)
Chapters 4, (13,) 14, and 17.
These chapters were largely written by Coleridge as a
defense against those readers who took Wordsworth's Preface
to their book of poetry, Lyrical Ballads, (which was published first
in 1798 anonymously, and later with the Preface under both their names)
to be the agreed-upon theoretical thinkings of both writers. In fact,
he disagreed with Wordsworth in several respects, and explains them rah-ther
stuffily in these parts of his larger theoretical treatise,
Biographia
Literaria. Also, in Chapter 4, he defines his special usage of
the words FANCY and IMAGINATION. There have been earlier exam questions
on these terms, and how to apply them, in past comprehensive exams; it's
good to understand these well, I ween. To that end, I offer my own
notes on the material. The notes are mine; the quotes are his; and
e'er may the twain meet. Yea, verily. Many of the nonquoted
notes are paraphrases of Coleridge's prose. Anyway, Coleridge has
been dead a real long time. But don't be confused: the notes
that I wrote myself are (c) 2002 Christopher J. O'Brien. Rights
reserved for this arm of the galaxy. Local
laws may apply. Void
where permitted.
From Chapter 4.
Fancy and Imagination are two distinct and widely-different
faculties. They come from, respectively, the Greek phantasia
and the Latin imaginatio. In the popular usage of these English
words, their meanings have, in recent times, come to be almost synonymous.
But they should not be, for their root words were not too similar.
The character and privilege of Genius, and one of the marks that
distinguish genius from talents: the prime merit of genius: to "represent
familiar objects as to awaken in the minds of others a kindred feeling
concerning them and a freshness of sensation."
"Genius produces the strongest impressions of novelty while it
rescues the most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the very
circumstance of their universal admission."
From Chapter 13.
Nota Bene: Chapter thirteen, which features relatively
clear definitions of Fancy and Imagination as Coleridge means them, is
NOT specified as required reading on the Reading List for these exams!
An error, or not?? Anyhow, I feel it is important to understand the
other chapters that ARE on the list, and to understand Coleridge's thinking,
so here goes....
IMAGINATION.
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PRIMARY IMAGINATION. This is the "living power and prime agent of
all human PERCEPTION."
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SECONDARY IMAGINATION. This is an echo of the 1ary imagination; it
differs from the 1ary imagination in DEGREE and in the MODE of operation.
More specifically, it dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to RECREATE--or,
if that is impossible, to idealize and identify. I take that to mean,
the functions of memory and mental interpretation of sensory data into
meaning within the mind. Coleridge says that the secondary imagination
is "essentially VITAL" even as all objects, as objects, are essentially
fixed and dead. I take that to mean that the secondary imagination
is pliable and malleable on the voluntary (conscious) or subconscious level,
as in dreaming.
INTERPRETATION OF THE SENSES.
"FANCY is a mode of MEMORY emancipated from the
order of time and space--blended with and modified by that empirical phenomenon
of the will.....CHOICE. This seems to be what I usually
mean by imagination: to use the mind's "eye/ear. . .etc." to simulate
another sensation of something that might be absent, or nonexistent.
All materials are ready-made from the Law of Association. So Coleridge
seems to be saying that one can use FANCY as a kind of power to create
memory-mosaics or collages, rearranging what we've experienced into a new
combination or shape to suit our "fancy" (in the common usage).
IMAGINATION is an "esemplastic power"--Norton says
that that phrase is Coleridge's coinage, and is built from root words,
to mean that imagination has the power to MOLD INTO UNITY.
From Chapter 14.
When Coleridge and Wordsworth were neighbors, they used to discuss what
Coleridge here refers to as the two "cardinal points of poetry:"
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The power of exciting the reader's sympathy. . .by a faithful adherence
to the truth of nature.
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The power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of
imagination. (but this seems like, by C's terminology, Fancy is the
one who can modify colors, not imagination.)
For example, the sudden charm which accidents of light and shade. . . .
...you get the idea. Such chance effects are "the poetry of Nature."
THE ORIGIN OF "LYRICAL BALLADS"
Wordsworth and Coleridge suggested (C. doesn't recall
(hah) which of them did the suggesting) a series of poems that would be
of two sorts:
-
Incidents and agents to be, in part, at least, supernatural: excellence
aimed at was to invest the affections by the dramatical truth of such emotions
as would naturally accompany such situations, assuming them real.
These were the ones that Coleridge contributed, such as "The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel."
-
Subjects chosen from ordinary life--characters and incidents such as will
be found in every village. . .where there is a meditative and feeling mind
to seek after them. These were the sort composed for the book by
Wordsworth. The excellence aimed at here was to imbue the charm of
novelty to things of every day: to excite a feeling analogous to
the supernaturea, by "awakening the mind's attention from the LETHARGY
OF CUSTOM and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world
around us, an inexhaustible treasure."
When first published, Lyrical Ballads featured 19 poems by Mr. Wordsworth,
and only 4 by Coleridge. C. says that his offerings seemed to be
"an interpolation of heterogeneous matter." Also, two or three (only)
in LB were written in Wordsworth's "own character, in the impassioned,
LOFTY, and sustained diction which is characteristic of his genius."
To me, this statement appears to mean that Coleridge feels that the "rustic"
poems didn't showcase Wordsworth's genius.
ON WORDSWORTH'S STATEMENTS ABOUT THE LANGUAGE OF REAL LIFE.
In the first and then the second editions (the 2nd
having been expanded), the "Advertisement" and the "Preface" (respectively)
seemed that Wordsworth indicated that all poetry should use the language
of real life and avoid the "usual ornaments and extras; the colloquial
style of poems in general. Coleridge maintains that he has always
disagreed with the meaning that seems to be put forth by that statement,
which has been the understanding also of the reading public and which seems
not to be the wrong interpretation of the words themselves. [You
see how C. is distancing himself from both Wordsworth as a friend (they
were not so close now) and from disagreeing directly with Wordsworth himself.
Interesting. . .] "I never concurred; but, on the contrary objected
to them as erroneous in principle, and as contradictory (in appearance
at least) both to other parts of the same preface and to the author's own
practice in the greater number of the poems themselves." He calls
this statement W's "poetic creed."
At all events, considering it as the source of a controversy
in which I have been honored more than I deserve by the frequent conjunction
of my name with his, I think it expedient to declare once and for all in
what points I coincide with his opinions, and in what points I altogether
differ. (399, Norton Anth. of English Lit 5Ed v.1)
COLERIDGE'S DEFINITIONS OF HIS SPECIAL MEANING OF POEM, POETRY, AND POET,
BUT NOT POVERTY.
"A poem contains the same elements as a prose composition;
the difference therefore must consist in a different combination of them,
in consequence of a different object proposed. According to the difference
of the object will be the difffernece of the combination." The lowest
sense is as a mnemonic, such as "thirty days hath September. . ." where
it's called a poem only by the virtue of rhyme or meter or both.
". . .a particular pleasure is found in anticipating the recurrence of
sounds and quantities, all compositions that have this charm superadded,
whatever be their contents, MAY be entitled poems. . . .So much for the
superficial FORM.