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    BiographiaLiteraria Question

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    ‘16 Selected Critical Questions With Answers Q. 1. Write a note on Coleridge's concepts of “imagination” and “fancy”. Or Q. 2. “How does Coleridge ‘distinguish between “imagination” and “fancy” ? Or Q. 3. In what way is Coleridge's distinction between “imagination” snd “fancy” vital to his literary criticism ? Or Q. 4. What do you mmderstana by the terms “imagination” and “fancy” as used by Coleridge 7 Or Q. 5. How, according to Coleridge, does “imagination” function in the writing of poetry? What examples of the exercise of this faculty does Coleridge offer ? “Imagination” and “Fancy”, Two Distinct Faculties Early in the Biographia Literaria, Coleridge gives us some idea of what he means by the terms “imagination” and “fancy”. It was Wordsworth’s poem Guilt and Sorrow which led him to meditate ° upon the two terms and come Toa conclision. His conclusion was that_ imagination and fancy were two distinct and widely different faculties, and not two names with one meaning. Coleridge felt that the appeal of Guilt and Sorrow lay in Wotdsworth's exercise of 330 SELECTED CRITICAL QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS 331 it i ie a jon of is imaginative power, this poem Coleridge found_a_union~—ol : "feelin with profound thought. In this poem he found the fine alance of truth in observing objects with the imaginative faculty in modifying the objects observed. Above all, he found in it Wordsworth’s original gift of spreading the atmosphere of the ideal world around forms, in ituations of the everyday world. Wordsworth had here_impart erand novelty to faqniliat- things. Coleridge also points out in this context that Milton had a highly imaginative mind, and that Cowley had a very fanciful mind. He iltastrates the diene between imagination and fancy by quoting a line from Otway, and a line from Shake: re. Otway’s ing,"* Lutes, laurels, seas of milk and ships of amber in example of fancy ; while Shakespeare’s lire in King Lear, “What! have his daughters brought him to this Pass " is an example of imagination. The Primary and the Secondary Imagination However, it is much later (in Chapter XIII) that “Coleridge tries to distinguish these two distinct faculties, namely “imagination” and “fancy”. Of course, - this distinction is stated by him in Philosophical language and is not easy to understand. But this i¢ the distinction which he thought to be vital_to his critical theory. “Imagination”, he here says, is either primary or secondary, The primary imagination is ‘the living power and prime agent of all human perception. The pri magination is a repetition the finite mind of the eternal act of crea ion in the infinite I AM.” The scondary imagination is an echo of the primary. The secondary imagination co-exists with the consciouswill ; it is identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differs only in degree and in the mode of its operation. The secondary imagination dissolves, diffuses, dissi S, in order to re-create ; or, where this Process is Tendered impossible, the secondary imagination struggles to idealize and to unify. The secondary imagination is essentially vital, even as all objects, as objects, are essentially fixed and dead, A Definition of “Fancy” “Fancy”, on the contrary, has no other counters to play with but fixities and definites, Fancy is indeed no other than a mode of emory emancipated from the order of time and space. But equally with "the ordinary-memory-it must receive all its materials ready- made from the law of association, The Function of the “Imagination” oe WDHRAILY a9 ee dye that follows, Coleridge describes “imagination” aa i i rt”. By means of this Power, the Perfect “poet brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the ‘™bordination of its faculties to each other, according to their relative 332 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA worth and dignity. By means of this power, the perfect poet diffuses a tone and spirit of unity which blends and fuses, each into each. This imaginative power is first put in action by the will and understanding. This power reveals itself in the balance or Teconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities. While “fancy” is the drapery of poctic genius, “imagination” is the soul of poetic genius and is to be found everywhere in the poetic work. Imagination forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole. Later in the book, Coleridge remarks that “the rules of the imag nation are themselves thg very powers of growth and production.” It is by the pn ing a poet arrives at the language to be used in poetry while giving expression’to such passions as rage and jealousy. The Poet does not gq wandering about in search of angry or jealous People in order to copy their words. He uses his imagination to meditate upon his observation and experience, and making use of this creative agency decides upon the words to be used by him in his composition. Wordsworth’s Gift of “Imagination” In his critique of Wordsworth’s poetry in the last chapter of the Biographia Literaria, Coleridge says that Wordsworth possesses the gift of imagination in the highest and strictest sense of the word. In the play of fancy Wordsworth is, in Coleridge’s opinion, not always graceful, and is sometimes recondite (or abstruse and obscure) But in imaginative power Wordsworth stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakespeare and Milton, and yet this imaginative power is in him original and his own. He does indeed * add to all thoughts and to all objects “the gleam, the light-that-never fas or_land.” Coleridge then proceeds to illustrate Wordsworth’s exercise of his imaginz-we faculty from some of Wordsworth's poems like Yew Trees, Hesoiution and Independence, the Immortality Ode, and some of the sonnets. On the basis of this gift of imagination Wordsworth is,eapable, says Coleridge, of Producing the first genuine philosophi¢ poem. Shawcross’s Interpretation of Coleridge’s Distinction - a. As already indicated, Coleridge's distinction between imagination” and “fancy”, and even his distinction between the Primary and the secondary imagination, is puzzling. Shawcross gives an interpretation of these distinctions, which has been widely “Res According to this commentator, the primary imagination is ei ation as_universally gctive in consciousness", and. the ion Pe seconds, the consciousness shared by all men, while she Sndary imagination is limited to poets wh oject the unity they discern. in their consciousness upon the particulars of their 333 SELECTED CRITICAL QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS environment. “Fancy”, according to Shawcross's interpretation, is “the faculty of mere images or: impressions, as imagination !s the faculty of intuitions.” Coleridge sees in the oppositicn of imagination and fancy an emblem of the wider contrast between the mechanical philosophy and the dynamic’ philosophy, between the false philosophy and the true philosophy. Bate’s Disagreement With Shawcross There has been little fundamental opposition to Shawcross’s interpretation. The only basic disagreement was voiced by Walter Jackson Bate. who maintains that Shawcross’s rendering of the terms of the distinction between “imagination” and “fancy” is not consistent with Coleridge's known attitudes. Bate expresses dissatisfaction with the idea that Coleridge could have meant the poetic imagination to be nothing more than an “echo” of our consciousness of our surroundings, and says that the secondary imagination is “rather the highest exertion of the imagination that the finite mind has to offer; and in its scope necessarily includes universals which lie beyond the restricted field of the primary imagination.” Thus Bate argues that the primary imagination is something more than the consciousness common to all of us. He goes on to suggest that the primary imagination may be connected to “direct awareness of reason The Distinction in Plain Words Without getting entangled in philosophical controversy, let us find out in plain terms what Coleridge meant by these distinctions, taking as our basis the interpretation offered by Shawcross. Most People spend their whole lives in an uncreative state. Their world is the everyday world of prosaic routine, cold and lifeless, full of objects which are ‘fixed and dead. This is the world of the primary imagination. Now, some people would like this familiar everyda’ World to he heightened or embellished, but without being distorted, According to Coleridge, there isa way of heightening and intensifying nature without distorting it. That is the way of Shakespeare, and the way of Wordsworth, and therefore the way of every true poet. We human beings have a craving for something higher and loftier than’ common-garb” of human life. It is the secondary imagination,. the imagination of the poet, which comes to our help. The Secondary imagination, which is the Poet’s imagination, carries one Step further the work of . the primary imagination. The secondary Imagination consciously gives new life, shape, and unity to the flux of "everyday images. It dissolves the commonplace and the prosaic i it’ dissolves -the dead,: lifeless world of the prit io aeization. The secondary imagination “struggles to idealize and colo To idealize” here does: not mean to impart a ros the essen; £0, Sive 8 false picture of anything. It means to pick ont Ssential idea of a thing, person, or action, and Present it free 334 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA from accidental trapping. It also means to steep it in the life and thought of the poct, making it a living symbol of hi Oe gives the charm of novelty to things of everyday ; it modifies Nee “by reducing multitude to unity, or succession to an instant , bs dy transferring to them a human ana intellectual life from ¢ c poet’s own spirit, shaping them into a symbol of a predominan’, passion. Thus the secondary imagination reconciles a whole series 0! opposites, This imagination is essentially vital, even as all objects are essentially fixed and dead. Directly the poetic imagination : evoked, the whole prosaic spectacle of the world takes on a new in ezciting look. Consequently poetry, if truly imaginative, is life- ife~ i yoo aring and life-enhancing. \yased 0” Observaho Coleridge's Rejection of Empirical Systems of Thought It was in opposition to the 18th-century empirical systems of thought, and the aesthetic theories derived from them, that Coleridge developed his view of the imagination as _a_truiy creative power. According to those empirical systems, the human mind was simply a faculty for re-arranging materials supplied to i thememory-Burt Coleridge regards the imaginatic ify ‘ordering power, | ‘sense_with the min power colours the objects of light. Thus for Coleridge the mind is not the passive recorder of sense-impressions. The product in any given Saract of perception is a modified combination of the percipient and Gj the thing-perceived. As Coleridge puts it, this product i3—neither a Sybject nor an object exclusively but is the most original union of both.uin and through the act of blending thoughts and things, the imagination functions as a Tusing, synthesizing power, an “esemplastic” power whose operation generates a new Teality by sfaping parts into_wholes, by reconciling opposites and drawing unity from diversity. It is not a mechanical faculty ; it is not merely aggregative and associative. It is, rather, a vital and organic power, ‘which permits the mind to penetrate beneath the temporary surface of the material workd, and to see into the life of things. Thus the esserice of Coleridge's theory of imagination lies in his rejection of Passive perception. According to him, the poetic imagination “grows oyt_of an intimate bond between perception, memot associati 2 perceptio# , association, feeling, iateTech and 9 sense ot Te seit eee eas bein; wa autonomous. ~——APguage as being in some way Jackson's Interpretation Shawcross’s interpretation has been found to be inadequate by J. Jackson who gives his own exposition of the place of imagination in Coleridge’s philosophical scheme of human perception. For him pomary imagination is akiti to reason which holds a special place as anermediary between the corisciousness of God and the consciousness ol man.’ This interpretation seems to fit more closely the idea that a J SELECTED CRITICAL QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS 335 the secondary imagination is an echo : in Shawcross's interpretation itis a refthoniene Jackson's interpretation clarifies Coleridge's distinction between “imagination” (a reflection _of the creative: power of the Creator) and “fancy” which is a literary device. ae . Q. 6. Evaluate Coleridge's contribation to English literary criticism, Or Q. 7. Discuss Coleridge's role as a reformer in the field of English literary criticism. Or Q. 8. Can you substantiate the claim that Coleridge occupies a. pre-eminent position as a literary critic ? Or Q. 9. How would you account for th CX we 2. ie for the greamess of Coleridge as die Z 4 betes “eirheg frog Q.- 10. Make an assessment of Coleridge's theoretical and Practical criticism on the basis of your reading of the Biographia Coleridge's High Reputation as a Critic The reputation of Coleridge as a philosopher and criti today higher than ever. Saintsbury eliminated one after another ot Possible claimants to the title of the &reatest critic and concluded : Coos, then, ‘there abide these three—Aristotle: Longinus, and Coleridge.” Arthur Symons called the Biographia Literaria “th Breaest ook of criticism in English” Sieg Neg t eter, f occasional objections, ‘Coleridge’s Stature, at least in the En i Sy Ceaking world, has grown even greater. 1, A. Richards has hailed.” leridge asa fore-runner of the modern science of se: antic leridge's “step across the threshold of general iio tint study of language was of the same type as th that ane tcok Galileo into the modern world.” Herbert ore Coleridge “‘as head and shoulders above eye ihe ac considers and sees him also as anticipati ‘stent oe Faglish critic’, iti 336 BIOGRAPHIA LITERAREA -Coleridge’s principle of the reconciliation of opposites, to his definition of the imagination, to the idea of the organic whole, ang to his distinction between symbpl and allegory. tow} ae 1g ant ach Wes ons Ade His Greatness in hetical as Well as Theoretical ols ot eel? ticlsm Jee rhs. It is generally believed that Coleridge was one of the greatest critics. According to one school of thought. Coleridge is to be admired as a critic mainly for having made penetrating observations on particular works and authors. According to thé other school of thought, Coleridge’s reputation rests on his successful and suggestive treatment of abstract literary problems. The two points of view are not mutually contradictory. They reflect the preference of those who hold them for either practical or theoretical criticism, and it might even be argued that it'is a sign of greatness ini a critic to have satisfied so many people on each count. The actual fact is that there a direct and close relationship between the quality of his practical criticism and the quality of his theoretical criticism. He is great in both fields. His Stress on Canons of Criticism Shawcross is of the view that Coleridge was essentially a teacher, and conscious of a message to his age. The search for a criterion of poetry involved Coleridge in the wider search for a criterion of life. His theory of the imagination, upon which his whole art-philosophy hinges, was primarily the vindication of a particular attitude to life and reality. J. Jackson agrees with this view of Shawcross. According to Jackson, Coleridge was not only a literary critic but a social critic. Coleridge tried to reform the social attitudes of the people of his time by trying to change their methods of thinking. He also tried to reform literary criticism. In the early years of the 19th century, a new force appeared in periodical literature. This force was represented by the literary reviews which began to appear in these periodicals led by the Edinburgh Review. Most of these reviews were characterized by an assertiveness of tone and by personal prejudices. Coleridge strongly reacted ‘to these biased, and most often spiteful, reviews of literary works. He took up the position that the reviewers had no business to pass arbitrary judgments which were most often prompted by. malignity. He wanted that the reviewers and the critics should be guided in theit judgments by some specific. principles. In the Biographia Literaria (Chapter XXI), Coleridge says that a critic should first establish the principles which he holds for the foundation of poetry in general and should only then proceed with his judgment of the merits and faults of a literary work. A critic, he says, should prepare hi ‘canons of criticism for praise and condemnation”, and should then Proceed to particularize the most striking passages to which those canons are applicablo, faithfully noting the excellences and defects. SELECTED CRITICAL QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS 337 ubstitution of assertion for argument. He laments tie eer oe bitrary and petulant verdicts” are common and that these verdicts are seldom supported by quotations from the work condemned. This, then, may be regarded as Coleridge’s first claim to greatness as a critic. The claim rests on his strong plea for the formulation of critical principles or canons, There should be no room for arbitrariness or for; the exercise of mi jity in literary criticism. His Critical Theories, Based on Metaphysics and Psychology Coleridge’s eminence as a critic also rests on his giving a profoundly philosophic basis to literary criticism. His critical theories are based on metaphysics and psychology. As Rene Wellek* points out, Coleridge differs from almost all preceding English writers by his claim fo an epistemology and metaphysics from which he derives his aesthetics and his literary theory and critical principles. Coleridge says clearly in the Biographia Literaria that the critic should support his judgments by references to fixed canons of criticism, previously established and deduced from the nature of mun. To deduce principles of criticism from the nature of man means that these principles must be based on human nature. An analysis of the human mind thus becomes important for the literary critic. Literary criticism must therefore have psychological foundation. In the famous definition of poetry in Biographia Literaria Coleridge speaks of the psychic effect on the readers. According to Coleridge, the poet “brings the whole soul of man into activity’ with the subordination of its faculties to each other, according to their relative worth and dignity.” Coleridge never elaborated such a psychological scheme ; yet he ranked the faculties, beginning with the senses and ascending to reason, in a fairly clear scale, and he used the distinction between “imagination” and “fancy” iteri fanc} a criterion. 'Yy” as a value. His Philosophical Distinction Between ‘‘ imagination” and “Fancy” _ Coleridge brought poetry, criticism, i i relationship with one another. This relancrags ey imt©_@ close concept and definition of “imaginati 4 ; ey”. Hie himself rega be his ch ‘ontribution to literary criticis; eee ie im. It mega ame to ert & manuscript poem Guilt and Se M 9 the conclusic i i oh were two distinct and se; macula Meaning. In this context he ob; (eae eta, eas se i Imaginative” mind and that Cowley hart Milton had a 338 BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA Coleridge even felt at the’ time that he was the first of his countrymen to point out the different meanings of the two terms, “imagination” and “fancy”. The manner in which he subsequently defines these two faculties is clearly philosophical and therefore not easy for the layman to understand, The “imagination”, says Coleridge, may be either primary or secondary. The primary imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and it is a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite “I AM”. The secondary :magination is an echo of the primary ; it co-exists with the conscious will ; and it differs from the primary not in kind but only in degree and in the mode of its operation. The secondary imagination dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to re-create ; or to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital. ‘‘Fancy”, on the other hand, has no other counters to play with but fixities and definites. The fancy is no other tham a mode of memory emancipated from the order of time and space. The Function of the Secondary Imagination In plain terms, Coleridge assigns to the secondary imagination a creative function. The secondary imagination ‘dissolves the dead inanimate world of the primary -imagination and gives a new life, shape, and unity to the flux of everyday images. It struggles to “idealize” and to unify. To “idealize” here does not mean to impart a rosy colour ; it means to pick out the essential idea of a thing or a person and to present it free from accidental trapping. Tk is the secondary imagination which gives the charm of novelty to things of everyday ; it imparts to things a light that never was on sea or land;; it modifies objects by reducing multitude to unity, or succession to an instant. The secondary imagination performs another function also : it reconciles a whole series of opposite or discordant qualities. “Fancy”, on the other hand, is only the aggregative and associative power ; it is the arbitrary bringing together all things that lie remote and forming them into a unity, Wordsworth’s greatest quality as a poet is his imaginative power, says Coleridge. In respect of imaginative power, Wordsworth caries nearest among the modern poets to Shakespeare and jilton. His Conception of Poetry Coleridge's claim to greatness as a critic rests also on his emphasizing the importance of uniting the head and the heart. Early in the Blographia Literaria, Coleridge speaks of the merit of Bowles and Cowper in combining natural thoughts with. natural diction and in reconciling the heart with the head. In this context,. R, A. Scott-James says that, in pointing out the need for the union of the heart and the head, Coleridge already strikes the keynote. Nothing without this union is essential poetry for Coleridge. It is SELECTED CRITICAL QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS 339 Rot tne poem which we have read, but that,to which we return, with the greatest pleasure, which possesses the genuine power and claims. e ame of essential poetry, according to Coleridge. Coleridge finds that it was a continuous under-current of feeling which aroused his Senuine admiration for a great poet ; and it was the lack of this quality which disgusted him with those who sacriticed the heart to e head, or who sacrificed both heart and head to point and drapery. It was the union of deep feeling (heart) and profound thought (head) which struck Coleridge in Wordsworth’s poem Guilt and Sorrow. Now, this is a very important matter. Eighteenth- century English poetry had been wanting in emotion or feeling ; it had neylected the heart : it was therefore imperfect or unsatisfactory Poetry. There was too much emphasis on the head in that poetry. But, while th: heart ‘is important, the head too must not be neglected, In his critique of Shakespeare’s two poems. Coleridge Points out the importance of thought. He speaks of the “depth and encrey of thought” in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis : and then adds that “nu man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.” He goes on to make another significant and :nemoryble statement about Poetry. Poetry, he says, is the blossom and the fragrancy of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language. What strikes us most here is Coleridge’s comprehensive and all-embracing outlook. He surely had a broad and catholic mind. There is nothing narrow or limited about his conception of poetry. His Emphasis on Metre 5 Coleridge «lid a service to literary criticism by emphasizing the importance f metre and rhyme in poetry. In the Biographia Literaria he writes an excellent defence of metre and thyme against Wordsworth’s comparative disparagement of these as a mere“super- edded charm". He explains the effect of metre as a stimulant to the attention of reader, as a “continued excitement of surprise”, an “aygregaie influence” which acts as “medicated atmosphere. or as wine during animated conversation.” Coleridge perceives here the heightening, distancing power of metre, and its capacity to remove us from ordinary emotion, He also sees that metre is not only an ornament ; it must be organic, and all other parts of a poem must be made consonant with it. From the emphasis on metre it is but a small step to an insistence on the sweetness of versification. As he says in his. remarks on Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, the man who has no music in his soul can never be a genuine poet. His Views About the Language and the Aim of. Poetry Coleridge’s insistence that the language of poetry is different from the language of prose must also be taken into aczount here. Wordsworth had said that there neither is nor can be any essential 340 DIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA between the language of poetry and that of prose, Home as Coleridge demonstrates, Wordsworth himself had not stuck to his doctrine in this respect. Coleridge tried to rectify his frienu’s error in formulating a doctrine of poetic diction which could have done great damage to poetry. Both Longinus and Dante had demanded the use of dignified and lofty language in poetry, Coleridge too made the same demand, though we must acknowledge that he ut the same time was opposed to the gaudiness and inane phraseology and specialized diction of 1Rth-century pociry. After all, the felicity of word and phrase, and new combinations of words in poetry do

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