Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is the book that Coleridge wanted to write
for a long time, examining the relationships between literature and philosophy. The book
began as a conversation between Coleridge and his neighbor, William Wordsworth, although
the book did not appear for another seventeen years. Coleridge provided the ideas for the
Preface to the second edition of Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads and this then was developed
into Biographia Literaria, which he dreamed about writing for a long time.
Biographia Literaria is concerned with the form of poetry, the genius of the poet and the
relationship to philosophy. Coleridge feels that all of the great writers had their basis in
philosophy because philosophy was the sum of all knowledge at this time. All education at
that time consisted of a study of philosophy. Coleridge examines issues like the use of
language in poetry and how it relates to everyday speech. He looks at the relationship
between the subject of poetry and its relationship to everyday life.
Coleridge examines the sources of poetic power which relates to the brilliance of the poet.
This involves the use of language, meter, rhyme, and the writing style or the poetic diction.
The poet, he feels, should write about subjects that are outside his own sensations and
experiences. This is where the poetic genius comes from. If the poet confines his poetry to
subjects within his own experiences, then the work is mediocre. Coleridge feels that the
purpose of poetry is to communicate beauty and pleasure. This is an expression of the
brilliance of the poet.
A great deal of Coleridge's works were the analysis and criticism of other writers. There are
many passages from various authors in Biographia Lieteraria and much of the book
examines the works of Wordsworth and Shakespeare, both contemporaries of Coleridge, as
Coleridge examines the link between literature and philosophy. He also examines the views
of Des Cartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, as well as other philosophers. He uses this approach to
examine the source of the poet's imagination. The brilliance of the poet must elicit feelings
of excitement and emotion in the reader and Coleridge examines how this process functions
and why some writers are more popular than others.
Coleridge also addresses the issue of literary critics, some of whom he had problems with
regarding his own works. He feels that the critics must find something wrong with a literary
work in order to sell reviews. Therefore, many reviews are unfair and the result of personal
animosity.
Coleridge accomplishes his goal of examining the relationship between philosophy and
literature in this book.
from CHAPTER 14
[LYRICAL BALLADS AND POETIC CONTROVERSY]
...the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the
reader by faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the
interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination. The sudden charm
which accidents of light and shade, which moon-light or sun-set diffused over
a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of
combining both.
Truth seems to be one of the preoccupations of the Romantic poets. In this
sense, the truth of nature will always remain superior to poetry, which is an
artifice. However, imagination is that aspect of poetry that provides another
way of looking at nature so that what is ordinary and familiar can be seen
anew.
4) What is poetry? is so nearly the same question with what is a poet? that the
answer to the one is involved in the solution of the other. For it is a distinction
resulting from the poetic genius itself, which sustains and modifies the
images, thoughts and emotions of the poet's own mind. The poet, described in
ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the
subordination of its faculties to each other according to their relative worth and
dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity that blends and (as it were) fuses
by that synthetic and magical power…the imagination. This power, first put in
action by the will and understanding...reveals itself in the balance or
reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference;
of the general, with the concrete; the idea, with the image; the individual, with
the old and familiar objects; a more than usual state of emotion with more
than usual order; judgement ever awake and steady self-possession, with
enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement; and while it blends and
harmonizes the natural and the artificial, still subordinates art to nature; the
manner to the matter; and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the
poetry.
The soul is the imagination. Coleridge's assertion that the imagination is both
synthetic and magical only reaffirms what is already known about him. His
works, especially in the Lyrical Ballads, deal with the supernatural in so far as
they express real emotions regardless of whether one believes in the
phenomena. Similar to William Blake's philosophy, this power of the
imagination is revealed in oppositions.
