Coleridge as a Critic

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                        > Topic: Coleridge as a critic

                        > Paper no.3 Literary theory and criticism

                        > Name: Abulhasan H. Aabedi

                        > Roll no: 01

                        > Class: Semester 01

                        > Enrollment no.:2069108420180001

                        > Email Id: abediabul@gmail.com

                        > Batch: 2017~19

                        > Submitted to Department of English MK Bhavnagar University.

> COLERIDGE AS A CRITIC:

> Introduction:~

                             Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] was a great poet, but he is also a great critic. He is one of the greatest of poet-critics that England has ever produced. He was a genius and when he inspired, and when the mood was upon him, he could create works of the highest order, but he was incapable of sustained and persistent labour.

          Stray’s remarks on literature and literary theory are scattered all over his prose works as, The Friend, Table Talks, Letters, Aids to Reflections, Confessions of an Inquiring spirit, Animal Poteau and Sibylline Leaves. But the bulk of his literary criticism, all that is most worthwhile in it is contained in his

(1)     Biographia Literaria and

(2)     Lectures on Shakespeare and other poets.

                 Activity of the ‘poet’s’ mind, and a ‘poem’ is merely one of the forms of us expression, a verbal expression of that activity, and poetic activity is basically an activity of the imagination. As David Daiches points out. ‘Poetry’ for Coleridge is a wider category than that of “poem”, that is poetry is a kind of activity which can be engaged in by painters or philosophers or scientists and is not confined to those who employ metrical language, or even to those who employ language of any kind. Poetry, in this larger sense brings, “the whole soul of man”, into activity, with each faculty playing its proper part according to its ‘relative worth and dignity’. This takes place whenever the “secondary imagination” comes into operation. Whenever the synthesizing the integrating, powers of the secondary imagination is at work, bringing all aspects of a subject into a completion unity, then poetry in this larger sense results.

                Coleridge is one of the greatest of literary critics, and his greatness has been almost universally recognized. He occupies, without doubt, the first place among English literary critics. After eliminating one after another the possible contenders for the title of the greatest critic, Saintsbury concludes:

Coleridge’s Criticism:

→      Themes of poetry:

●       Rustic Language:

            At the second charge on the statement of Wordsworth, Coleridge object that best part of the language is derived from object which the rustic constantly communicates. First, communication with an object indicate reflection on it, and richness of vocabulary arises from such a reflection. Coleridge says that vocabulary of rustic is poor because they can express only barest fact of nature can’t express such a idea, thoughts or universal-law which from reflection on the facts. secondly, Coleridge charge that the best part of the man's language does not simply communicates with nature. but from the education, from the noble ideas, thoughts, words and great mind. So, here Coleridge object that man communicates with nature through his ideas and with the master mind of humanity.

●       Poetic Diction:

          Coleridge, even though he did not agree to Wordsworth's views  on poetic diction, vindicated his poetic creed in chapter 14 of Biographia Literaria. Coleridge writes in defence to the violent to the 'Language of real life' adopted by Wordsworth in the Lyrical Ballads . Wordsworth manifest that the language of poetry is, “a selection of the real language of men or the very language of men, and that there was no any difference between the language of prose and that of poetry”, Coleridge, retorts that, ‘every man’s language’, “varies according to the extent of his knowledge, the activity of his faculties and the depth or quickness of his feelings. “Every man’s language has, first its individual peculiarities, secondly, the properties common to the class to which he belongs, and thirdly, words and phrases of universal use. “No two men of the same class or of different classes speak alike, although both use words and phrases common to them all, because in the one case their natures are different, and in the one case their nature are different, and in the other their classes are different.” This applies as much to the language of rustics to that of townsmen in both cases. The language varies form person to person, class to class, and place to place.

                      According to Coleridge there are two main cardinal points of poetry:

(1)     The power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature.

(2)     The power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of imagination.

          Words worth tried to focus on the charms of novelty to things of everyday directing the human mind to the loveliness and wonders of the world.  According to Coleridge there aretwo types of poetry:

(1)     Nature Poetry

(2)     Supernatural Poetry

          In which the incidents and people were to be the part of supernatural. Coleridge says that subject of the poem, people and other objects should be chosen from ordinary life. It should be taken from the rustic and the village life. In lyrical: ballads it was written that the persons and characters which are supernatural or at least romantic. Thus our interest should transfer from our inward nature to human interest. According to Coleridge the language of poetry should be the language of real life. A poem contains the same elements as a prose composition. It is distinguished from prose by meter or rhyme. In this sense it is the lowest sense of poem. A particular type of pleasure is derived from the sounds and all compositions that have this charm may be entitled as a poem. A difference of object and content also distinguishes them. The immediate purpose may be the communication of truth either absolute truth as science or facts experienced and recorded as in history. Pleasure and that of the highest and the most permanent kind may result from the allayment of the end. In other words the communication of pleasure may be the immediate purpose and the truth either moral or intellectual ought to be the ultimate and. The communication of pleasure may be the immediate: object of a work not metrically composed. It is quite possible that the highest type of pleasure can be communicated by a novel then can it be called a poem? In this case the final definition is:

          A poem is that species of composition which is opposed to works of science by proposing for its immediate object pleasure not truth, and from all other species. It is discriminated by proposing to itself such delight from the whole, as is compatible with a distinct gratification from each component part.

          As a result the reader should be carried forward by the pleasurable activity of mind excited by the attractions of the journey itself. The reader should be carried forward not merely or chiefly by the mechanical impulse of curiosity or by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution.

          Now Coleridge talks about the pleasure that you derived from the poetry and says that the poet described in ideal perfection brings the whole soul of man into activity.

          Coleridge differs with Wordsworth’s theory based on assumption that his words had been rightly interpreted that the proper diction for poetry in general consists all together in a language taken with due acceptations. According to words worth’s, language should be taken from the mouth of man.

          Coleridge agrees with Wordsworth that in rustic life human soul can prosper fully but he believes that every man is not likely to include by a country life. Coleridge accepts the principle of Aristotle that the poetry is essentially ideal and that it avoids all accidents and feels completely individualistic in rank and characters who represent a class. Coleridge says that a rustic language purified from all provincialism and written as per rules of grammar than there is no difference from rustic and the language of any other learned or refined man. Coleridge says that the literal knowledge of an educated rustic person will provide a very scanty / limited vocabulary. The few things and modes of action requisite for his bodily convenience that alone would be individualized whereas all the rest of nature would be expressed by a small number of confused general terms. The nature of a man’s world, where he is strongly affected by joy, grief of anger, must necessarily depend on the quality of the general truth, conceptions, and images and of the words expressing them which are already stored in the mind of a man. Words worth truly says that poetry always implies passion means all excited state of the feelings and faculty so there is an essential difference between the language of prose and of metrical composition. Thus, Coleridge in the end gives the above statement that there should be difference between the language of prose and poetry.

          At the end of his notes on Shakespeare, he has a passage, full of power and meaning, incidentally, referring to the same, thought: ‘There are three powers.’

(1)     Wit which discovers partial likeness hidden in general diversity.

(2)     Subtlety which discovers the diversity, concealed in general apparent sameness.

(3)     Profundity which discovers an essential unity under all the semblance of difference. Give a subtle man fancy and he is a wit, to a deep man imagination and he is a philosopher.

               Add again pleasurable sensibility in the interesting in morals, the impressive in form, and the harmonious in sound and you have the poet. But combine all, wit subtlety, and fancy, with profundity imagination, and moral and physical susceptibility of all pleasurable and let the object of action be man universal; and we shall have – Orash prophecy! Say, rather we have – a Shakespeare! Let’s come back to our topic that is poet and prose. Pleasure may be the immediate object of a work not metrically composed as it is in novels and romances. Worse than the more super addition of meter, with or without rhyme entitle these to the name of poems? The answer is that we cannot call them poems because in the first place metrical form would not be suitable to its language and content and, secondly, due to its length all parts would not require equal attention and therefore would not equally contribute, to the total pleasure. ‘A poem, defines Coleridge,’

        

          A legitimate poem defines it as , "it must be one, the parts of which mutually support and explain each other; all in their propostion harmonizing with, and supporting the purpose and known influence of metrical arrangement". Therefore, the legitimate poem is a composition in which the rhyme and the metre bear an organic relation to the total work. While reading this sort of poem "the reader should be carried forward, not merely or chiefly by the mechanical impulse of curiosity or by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution; but by the the pleasurable activity of mind excited by the attraction of the journey itself". Here Coleridge assert the importance of the impression created by the harmonious whole of the poem. To him not one or other part but the entire effect, the journey of reading poem should be pleasurable. Thus Coleridge puts an end to the age old controversy whether the end of poem is instruction or delight. Its aim is definitely to give pleasure and further poem has its own distinctive pleasure, pleasure arising from the parts and this pleasure of the parts supports and increases the pleasure of the whole

          “A poem of any length neither can be nor ought to be, all poetry size does not decide the quality. It doesn't determine prose or poem too.”

His Practical Criticism—Father of Impressionistic Criticism:

                      A man of stupendous learning, both in philosophy and literature, ancient as well as modern, and refined sensibility and penetrating intellect, Coleridge was eminently fitted to the task of a critic. His practical criticism consists of his evaluations of Shakespeare and other English dramatists, and of Milton and Wordsworth. Despite the fact there are so many digressions and repetitions, his practical criticism is always illuminating and highly original. It is rich in suggestions of far reaching value and significance, and flashes of insight rarely to be met with in any other critic. His greatness is well brought out, if we keep in mind the state of practical criticism in England before him. The Neo-classic critics judged on the basis of fixed rules, they were either legislative or judicial, or were carried away by their prejudices. Coleridge does not judge on the basis of any rules. He does not pass any judgment, but gives his responses and reactions to a work of art. His criticism is impressionistic-romantic, a new kind of criticism, a criticism which dealt a knockout blow to neo-classic criticism, and has been in vague, more or less, ever since. He could discover new beauties in Shakespeare and could bring about fresh re-valuations of a number of old English masters. Similarly, his criticism of Wordsworth and his theories enable us to judge him and his views in the correct perspective.

Philosophize Literary Criticism

                 In the field of theoretical inquiry, Coleridge was the first to introduce psychology and philosophy into literary criticism. He was interested in the study of the process of poetic creation, the very principles of creative activity, and for his purposes freely drew upon philosophy and psychology. He thus made philosophy the basis of literary inquiry, and thus brought about a union of philosophy, psychology and literary criticism. His literary theories have their bases in philosophy; he imparted to criticism the dignity which belongs to philosophy. He philosophized literary criticism and thus brought about a better and truer understanding of the process of creation and the nature and function of poetry.

Theory of Imagination—Revolutionized the concept of Imitation

                   His greatest and most original contribution to literary criticism is his theory of imagination. Addison and examined the nature and function of imagination, had Wordsworth, too, had developed his own theory on the subject. But all previous discussions of Imagination look superficial and childish when compared with Coleridge's treatment of the subject. He is the first critic to differentiate between Imagination and Fancy, the first literary critic to distinguish between primary and secondary Imagination. Through his theory of imagination he revolutionized the concept of artistic imitation. Poetic imitation is neither a servile copy of nature, nor is it the creation of something entirely new and different from Nature. Poetry is not imitation, but creation, but it is creation based on the sensations and impressions received from the external world. Such impressions are shaped, ordered, modified, and opposites are reconciled and harmonized, by the imagination of the poet, and in this way poetic creation takes place.

Demonstration of the Organic Wholeness of Poetry

                  Further, as David Daiches points out," the employment of secondary imagination is a poetic activity and we can see why Coleridge is let from a discussion of the poet's activity when we realize that for him the poet belongs to the larger company of those who are distinguished by the activity of their imagination By virtue of his imagination, which is a synthetic and magical power, he harmonize and blend together various elements and thus diffuses a tone and spirit of unity over the whole. It manifests itself most clearly in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities- such as sameness with difference, of the general with concrete, the idea with the image, the individual with the representative, the sense of novelty and freshness with old familiar objects, a more than usual state of emotion with more usual order, judgment with enthusiasm. And while this imagination blends and harmonizes the natural and artificial, it subordinates to nature, the manner to the matter and our admiration of the poet to out sympathy with the poetry. This demonstration of the organic wholeness of a poem is one of his major contributions to literary theory.

‘‘Willing Suspension of Disbelief”

                   Similarly, his theory of “Willing suspension of disbelief” marks a significant advance over earlier theories on the subject. His view that during the perusal of a poem or the witnessing of a play, there is neither belief nor disbelief, but a mere suspension of disbelief, is now universally accepted as correct, and the controversy on the subject has been finally set at rest.

His Related Recognition and Influence: Its Causes

                  However, it may be mentioned in the end that as Coleridge’s views are too philosophical, he is a critic not easy to understand. Often it is fragmentary and unsystematic. Victorians, in general, could not appreciate him and his appeal was confined to the few. Says George Watson in this connection, ‘‘Coleridge’s aesthetics could not appeal to a generation of Victorians to whom no system of aesthetics was of much interest. As a descriptive critic, his achievement is brilliant but sporadic, and he offers no single example worthy to be advanced as a model. If his criticism survives, as it vigorously does, it is not by virtue of what it demonstrates but by what it abundantly suggests, for no English critic has so excelled at providing profitable points of departure for twentieth-century critics. Perhaps there is something perverse about a professional pundit who had so little to say that was comprehensible to his own century ; but, a hundred years later, his manuscripts, as they belatedly see print, seem among the richest of our capital assets. They are the relics of a mind passionately in love with free inquiry, concentrated and disciplined in its determination to decipher the secret of poetic discourse.” It is only in the 20th century that his literary criticism has been truly understood and recognition and appreciation have followed. To-day his reputation stands very high, and many go to him for inspiration and illumination. Despite the fragmentary nature of his work, he is now regarded the most original critic of England.

So, then there abide these three – Aristotle, Longinus and Coleridge.

According to Arthur Symons, Coleridge's Biographia Literaria is,

… the greatest book of criticism in English.

Herbert Read concludes Coleridge as:

 … head and shoulders above every other English critic.

              I. A. Richards considers him as the fore-runner “of the modern science of semantics”, and Rene Wellek is of the view that he is a link, “between German Transcendentalism and English Romanticism.”

               In the 20th century Coleridge recognize as a great critic and also today his status very high and critics also following his style of criticism and get inspiration. nevertheless the fractal nature of his work, he is now regarded as the most genuine critic of England.

Conclusion:

          To conclude, we may say in his own words, he endeavored ‘to establish the principles of writing rather than to furnish rules about how to pass judgment on, what had been written by others.’

          Thus, Coleridge is the first English critic who based his literary criticism on philosophical principles. While a critic before him has been content to turn a poem inside out and to discourse on its merits and demerits ; Coleridge busied himself with the basic question of, ‘how it came to be there at all.’ He was more interested in the creative process that made it, what it was, then in the finished product.

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Works Cited 

http://bhatturvi1315.blogspot.in/2013/10/coleridge-as-critic.html.

http://educationcing.blogspot.in/2012/07/assessment-of-coleridge-as-critic.html.

http://www.cssforum.com.pk/css-optional-subjects/group-v/english-literature/383-s-t-coleridge-critic.html.