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Loyola University Chicago
Loyola eCommons
Master's Teses Teses and Dissertations
1938
Coleridge's Idea of the Drama as the Basis of HisShakespearean Criticism.
Virgina Seabert Loyola University Chicago
Tis Tesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Teses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in
Master's Teses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please [email protected].
Tis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Aribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright © 1938 Virgina Seabert
Recommended CitationSeabert, Virgina, "Coleridge's Idea of the Drama as the Basis of His Shakespearean Criticism." (1938). Master's Teses. Paper 350.hp://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/350
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COLERIDGE 18IDEA OF THE DRAUA
AS THE BASIS OF HIS SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM
A T h e s i s
Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY
In Part ial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of Master of Arts
With English as Major Subject
by
Sister Virgina Seabert, S.C.C.
Chicago, I l l inoisNovember, 1938
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C 0 N T E N T S
Chapter
Introduction
I Various Factors That Influenced
Page
i i
Coleridge's Dramatic Theory 1
I I The Fundamental Principles of Coleridge'sDramatic Criticism 23
I II Application of Coleridge's Basic Theories,Philosophical and Aesthetic, to HisCriticism of Shakespeare's Plays 55
IV Coleridge's Contribution to DramaticTheory in His Age, His Influence on
Shakespearean Criticism, and thePosition of His Dramatic Ideas inRelation to Modern Criticism of Drama 101
Conclusion
Bibliography
134
139
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i i
tudes in the t radi t ions of Shakespearean cri t ic ism. His ideas
of dramatic ar t influenced the works of such cr i t ics as Lamb,
Hazl i t t , DeQuincey, and Leigh Hunt. In changing the t radi t ion
of dramatic criticism Coleridge threw out seminalideas regarding
drama that function even in modern interpretat ions of dramatic
character. No student or Shakespeare's plays can be indifferent
to Coleridge's rich findings; no student of criticism can fully
appreciate modern crit icism on drama without a knowledge of
Coleridge's basic ideas of drama.
In matters of form and style Coleridge, together with
Wordsworth, was responsible for an entirely new approach in
crit icism. Throughout the period of classicism, men were con-
tent to view the resul ts of genius, the results of aesthetic and
l i terary thought, rather than the urges, the original impulses,
and the psychological powers and processes tha t created those
resul ts in ar t . The romantic shared the ar t i s t ' s delight in the
creative act i t se l f in a l l i t s changes and moods. The magic
urge of the poet was captured and bound in the fe t ters of a
charming freedom, to be studied, analyzed, and admired. Thus
Coleridge dared to hold imagination in his hands and make i t
exhibit not only i t s outer charms, but also i t s being and
ssence.
Those evidences have been culled from the mass of
Coleridge's Shakespearean cri t icism which show his basic idea of
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i i i
unity, the "manifold in one", the sublimation of the many into
one and the expression of this idea as used by the dramatist ,
Shakespeare.
The writer is deeply indebted to Dr. Morton Dauwen Zabel
of Loyola University, Chicago, for suggesting the study and
lending kind encouragement to carry i t to completion.
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COLERIDGE 1S IDEA 01" THE DRAMA
AS 'l'WJ: :BASIS OF HIS SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICIS)I
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CHAPTER I
VARIOUS FACTORS THAT INFLUENCED COLERIDGE'S DRAMATIC THEORY
Coleridge as poet and philosopher stands silhouetted against
the background of his age, a pivotal figure in whom is concen
trated the best of the ancient cri t ics and from whom radiates the
best of the romantic elements. The slow-growing influences of
romanticism played an important part in the formation of
Coleridge's cri t ical facul t ies . He is a true romantic whose
poetic genius enabled him to ref lect upon the process of poetic
creation and analyze the workings of a poet 's mind. I t was this
power that sublimated the poet in the cr i t ic . Very often, es
pecially during the early period of his poetic fervor, "the
magic, that which makes his poetry", 1 was "but the f inal release
in a rt of a winged thought f lut tering helplessly among specula
tions and theories; i t was the 'song of releaae•."2
Various factors united to form the mind of Coleridge. One
of the primary influences that shaped his thought is the natural
curiosity of his intell igence. His early education, with a l l i ta
attendant desires to see the "Vast", to know the great powers
that lay hidden in the universe, early lead his mind to philosophy
1Arthur Symons, The Romantic Movement in English Poetry (London,1909) ' p . 30 .
2Ibid.
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2
Fowell has aptly said that "the history ot his development is the
gradual substi tution ot dream to r logic."3 At an early age,
coleridgers t ru i t tu l imagination began to project i t s e l t . I t
showed i t se l f in his games, in his dramatizations of the stories
~ e read. Coleridgers eight years a t Christrs Hospital in London,
with their hours ot loneliness and inner reflections, were years
in which his native love for the inf inite and mysterious was fos-
tered. Early in the f i r s t volume of the Biographia Literaria
there is a note of longing for the unknown and the inf in i te .
In my friendless wanderings on our leave-days (for I was an orphan and had scarcelyany connections in London) highly was I de-l ighted, i t any passenger, especially i f hewere drest in black, would enter into conversa-t ion with me. For I soon found the mtans ofdirecting i t to my tavorite subjects.
These favorite subjects were the truths of metaphysics.
Coleridge gives expression to what the pursuit in metaphysics and
speculation had meant to him.
But i t in at tar time I have sought a refugefrom bodily pain and mismanaged sensibil i tyin abstruse researches, which exercised thestrength and subtlety ot the understandingwithout awakening the feelings ot the heart;s t i l l there
was along and blessed interval ,
during which my natural facult ies were allowedto expand, and my original tendencies to de-velop themselves.5
3A. E. Fowell, The Romantic Theory ot Poetry (New York, 1926),p. 80.
4Ed. by J . Shawcross (Oxtord, 1907), I , p. 10. All subsequentquotations trom the Biographia Literaria are taken trom thisedition.
5Ibid.-
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These "tendencies", characteristic of every true poet, were to
him "fancies, and the love of nature, and the sense of beauty in
.forms and sounds • "6
Here also, a t Christ 's Hospital, Coleridge gave evidence of
the romanticism that was to dominate his la ter l i fe . He ap
praised Pope's poetry as having merit, though to him i t lacked
the disjointed harmony of classic poetry--that "unity", that
"harmonious whole" which was to play so great a part not only in
Coleridge's own philosophy but also in his aesthetic.The natural tendencies of·his poetic power, together with
the severe mental training received under Bowyer a t Christ 's
Hospital, made the young Coleridge realize that "poetry, even
that of the lof t ies t , and seemingly, that of the wildest odes,
had a logic of i t s own, assevere as that of science; and more
difficul t , because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on
more and more .fugitive causes."7 These were prophetic words.
They told the poet 's task, the l i fe ' s task of finding and ana
lyzing "the .fugitive causes" o.f poetry and poetic activi ty.
Fortunately .for Coleridge the beauties of his native home a t
Ottery St. Mary had supplied this boy who thirsted for beauty
with a store of memories to cloak the squalor at Christ 's
Hospital. Mere dry speculation did not sat isfy Coleridge. To
6Ibid.
7Ibid. , p. 4.-
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---------------------------------.4
him English philosophy was a contradiction, for possessing grea1
warm emotions, he could not think of Mind as merely a playground
tor physical forces. Materialistic ideas did not function in
his actual l i te . How account, then, tor the wonders of sky
and earth?
That ful ler understanding of the 'object• and •subJect•
problem which grew out of his philosophy of nature l ies hidden
in one of his early poems.
On the wide level of a mountain's head,I know not where but 'was some faer-r place,Their pinions, ostrich-like, tor sails out-
spread ·Two lovely children ran an endless race;
A. s is ter and a.brother!hat tar outstripped the other
Yet ever runs ahe with reverted face,And looks and l istens for the boy behind:
For he, alas, is bl1adtO'er rough and smooth with even step
he passedAnd knows not whether he be f i rs t or last!S
Here Reality is symbolized by the blind brother; Imagination is
the sister . Professor Brandl sees in this allegory a prophecy
of Coleridge's own l i te-- that with philosophy alone the poet
could not be satisfied. All these early experiences at school
and in his own mind and heart formed a firm foundation tor his
future philosophical and aesthetic growth.
Versed in classic lore, Coleridge l e f t Christ 's Hospital
in 1790. He was acquainted with Milton, Gray, and Spenser, yet
aReal and Imaginary•, The Poetical Works of S.T.Coleridge,
ed. by Derwent Coleridge (Boston,l87l),I, p.6. Generally referred to as the Osgood edition.
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5
tul ly cognizant of the peculiar deficiencies of each, though he
himself had not yet the power to define them. The following
year Coleridge enjoyed freedom from the restraint of teachers,
and his love of the inf inite and unknown was put into green pas
tures. Here he fed upon the philosophies of Voltaire and Hume,
strengthening his already assimilated views on association. The
Law of Association as Coleridge saw it "established the contem
poraneity of the original impressions" and "formed the basis of
a l l true psychology".
9He acknowledges his indebtedness f i r s t tc
Aristot le . Detailed explanations in the Biographia Literaria
show the at t i tude Coleridge bore towards Aristot le 's idea of the
general law of association and that of Hartley. The Law of
Association is fundamental in Coleridge's philosophy; i t proves
and develops the very logic and t ruth of his "faculty divine".
To Aristot le 's theory regarding the association of ideas in the
mind Coleridge's ow.n principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites
harks back.lO Aristot le 's theory of the occasioning causes of
ideas in the mind held a foreshadowing of Coleridge's own princi
ple of the Reconciliation of Opposites. Hartley's theory of
association, on the other hand, shows a lack of logical reason
ing. There was evident some detachment in his logic which made
9Biographia Literaria , I , p. 67 • .
10~ . , p. 72. Shawcross l i s t s the five agents Aristotle enu-merates in the association of ideas: 1) connection in time,whether simultaneous, ireceding, or successive; 2) vicinity or
connection in space; 3 interdependence or necessary connection,as cause and effect; 4 l ikeness; 5) contrast .
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i t purely physical and material is t ic . Coleridge draws out a t
length Hartley's fallacious theory.11 In Plato, however,
Coleridge was fascinated by the idea of intuit ive idealism, and
in Aristotle, by the scientif ic realism. Similarly, Coleridge
saw no real divergence between Plotinus and these philosophers.
In none of these philosophers did religion function. To the
romanticist religion was of primary interest ; therefore, with
Coleridge the spir i tual element, not necessarily doctrinal.re-
ligion but the love of the inf in i te , must find a place in hisphilosophy. He searched for this spir i tual element and found i t
in the mystics. The mystics fascinated him because in them he
found the keynote of his own mind. The appeal of the mystics,
especially that of Plotinus, was the appeal to his imagination.
Even during his early l i fe , Coleridge i s beginning to build up
the conception of God and Nature as one. He i s groping for a
unity of the spir i tual and the material; behind the material he
tried to find the spir i tual .
That Coleridge was early acquainted with the works of Plato
and Plotinus is evident from the fact that Taylor's translation
was in his hands. 12 As indicated before, Coleridge began his
speculations on the nature of beauty in Christ 's Hospital. The
influence of Plotinus never l e f t him. He himself says
11Ibid. , PP· 72 ft.
12Ibid.-
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A ~ t e r the dry teachings o ~ Boyer, and o ~the modern Philosophy, these visionary
13ideas tasted l ike a pleasant antidote.
Brandl observes that "his ~ a n c y took ~ r o m that time a mystico
theological direction, which he never a ~ t e r entirely threw o ~ ~ ;in so ~ a r remaining his l i ~ e long a Platonist--or rather a
Plot inist ."14 The world i s ideal and rea l , Plotinus reasons,
and this unity o ~ the ideal and real i s God. The mystic believef
that man and nature are derived ~ r o m God, yet in the essence 9 ~
their being are capableo ~
unity with the divine source. Man maJlook out and know the universe only through his senses; he may
~ e e l conscious o ~ himBelf as an individual being. So, Coleridge
would say, man sees the world as "a multitude of l i t t l e things",
the material "mechanically directed", and "knows nothing of
Reality.•115 Man might withdraw into his consciousness and thus
rel ive the original divine l i fe of his existence. He could be
come one with the divinity and consequently, being a part of that
divinity, know i t . T h e r e ~ o r e , in that state Nature would appear
f i l led with spir i tual l i f e .
Although mysticism o f ~ e r e d the solution which materialism
and atheism fai led to o f ~ e r him, Coleridge remained unsatisfied.
True, his imagination was s t i l l ed , but he could not f i t into thif
system of thought experience and the facts of observation. When
13Ibid.-
4Alois Brandl, Samuel T. Coleridge and the English Romantic
School (London, 1887), p. 43.15
Powell o o . c i t . ~ p p . 8 2 - ~ . - - · - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ·
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he t r ied to harmonize these ideas with his general scheme of
reasoning, he found quali t ies in individual poems which were
characterist ic of the ar t i s t or poet. In other words, something
of the poet or ar t i s t coloured the a r t product. The experience
to Coleridge was identical with some transcendent and universal
real i ty and therefore had objective existence. He believed that
the poet 's heart and in te l lect should be "intimately combined
and unified with the great appearances of nature and not merely
held, in the shape of formal similes."1
6 These ideas were form--ing in Coleridge's mind between the year 1795 and 1798 and
appear in the poetry of this period. The note of similari ty be
tween Plotinus 1 Ennead and Coleridge's "The Eolian Harp" i s
obvious. The predominant thought of his poetry a t this time is
"Nature representing the chief means of intercourse with the
One."17 The One, as understood by Plotinus, is the ultimate
source of nature, but nature as cold "because Mind in her is
darkened by Matter.ul8
Coleridge revels in the idea of his oneness with nature.
He takes the power of intercourse for granted and believes that
with this power he can lay bare real i ty . But just how this is
to be done he does not yet question. The divine l i fe is a
16As quoted in Powell, op.ci t . , P• 84.
17Ibid.
18Ibid.
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radiation of
• • • the one l i fe in us and abroad,Which meets a l l motion and becomes i ta soul,A l ight in sound, a sound-like power in l ight ,
19
Rhythm in a l l thought, and joyance everywhere;
and this divine presence is alive, containing in it a l l being in
spite of organism of nature.
And wh.a t i f a l l animated natureBe but organic harps diversely framed,That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweepsPlastic and vast, one intel lectual b r e e z ~ 0At once the Soul of each and God of a l l .
Thus what Coleridge feels in the presence of nature is that
transcendent l iving Reality.
The essential development of Coleridge's thought leads
naturally to the next great factor that influenced his l i fe and
theory. I t i s his friendship with Wordsworth. In Wordsworth he
found a man, a poet in whom his philosophical theory was exempli
f ied. What a tremendous factor this friendship played in the
development of Coleridge's mind can be traced in the Lyrical
Ballads and Coleridge's own analysis of experience and the
imagination.
Gradually Coleridge's poetic powers waned. The heat and
excitement of the contemporary events in England and France were
19"The Eolian Harp", Osgood edition, p. 285.
20Ibld.
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~ r o b a b l e causes. Professor ~ r a n d l says of the two poets that
"what they composed after the Lyrical Ballads is in many re-
spects beautiful and great, but i t opened no new paths being
only a further application of the art each had acquired.• 21
Coleridge realized that nature would not act by herself; his
own powers reflected this fact . Moreover, his poetry gives vent
to the feeling that his faith in nature must be modified. Man,
he realized, must have some part in the creative process. In
tact , his own moods varied when in communion with nature. Some-times nature solaced and rejoiced him; a t other times, she
created a feeling of despair in him. His "Ode: Dejection" ex-
presses well this conviction.
~ 1
. • • we receive but what we giveIn our l i fe alone does Nature l ive;
. . • from the soul i t se l f must issue forthA l ight , a glory, a fa i r luminous cloud
Enveloping the earth.
• • •
I may not hope trom outward forms to winThe passion and the l i t ~ ! whose fountains
are within.
There are those who maintain that Coleridge plagiarized
QE.cit. , p. 21!.
~ 2 " 0 d e : Dejection,• Osgood edition, p. 29.
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schlegel,23but before German p ~ i l o e o p h y could augment his
goodlY store of thought, his mind had already formed a solution
tor the imaginative element. Coleridge was a close observer;
hie intuit ional experience with nature was at times capable of
very intimate communion. In his Anima Poetae there are descrip-
tions of such experience, but he fe l t the need of a symbolic
language with which to disclose this experience.
In looking at obJects of Nature while Iam t ~ i n k i n g , as at yonder moon dim-glimmering
through the dewy window-pane, I seem ratherto be seeking, as i t were asking tor, asymbol1c.language tor something within methat always .and tor21er exists, than observinganything new • • •
He continues breaking away from every materialist ic idea of the
creative force in mind,
• • • yet s t i l l I have always an obscure
feeling as i f that new phenomena (sic)were the dim awakening of a f o r g ~ ! t e n orhidden truth ot my inner nature.
~ o w could he reconcile his own mind with the forms and phenomena
of nature? In Kant, Coleridge found one form ot solution. Al-
though he followed Kant in his reasoning, he could not restrain
himself from the pantheistic ideas as found in Plotinus and, as
23ror a full account of the parallel passages in Schlegel andColeridge, see A.A. Helmholtz, 1The Indebtedness of SamuelTaylor Coleridge to August Wilhelm von Schlegel•, Philological~ d Literary Series (Madison,l907), III , p.291.
24Anima Poetae, ed. by Ernest H. Coleridge (Boston,l895),p.l36.
25 Ib1d.-
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--------------------------------------------------------------,12
a consequence, his reasoning was that of the imagination rather
than that of logic. Coleridge f i rs t became interested in Kant
through criticism. The view Coleridge took of the sublime and
beautiful (1799) was similar to that of Kant. Sensual opinions
were held concerning these two aspects of aesthetic. Coleridge
opposed Burke who had endeavouredto identify the.beautiful with
the agreeable, and the sublime with terror and pain (1757). He
did not believe the sublime to be connected with terror but
rather with beauty; and that i t operated not on the powers of
the body, but on those of the soul, by bringing about a. 1 suspen-
sion of the power of comparison.• This opinion coincides with
the Kantian theory as expressed in the Kritik der Urtheilskraft
which places the sublime and beautiful together.
Much might be said on Kant's influence on Coleridge's
aesthetics; however, Coleridge did not remain with Kantian views
and, therefore, much of his theory is original in the sense of
application. He did derive from Kant the idea .that the mind is
•a faculty of thinking and forming Judgments on the notices fur-
nished by the sense.•26 Thus, in regard to the understanding,
Coleridge derived a hypothesis, but Kant's idea of reason found
no sympathy in Coleridge's system. The idea of reason as pro-
posed by Kant was that of a •regulative" faculty; Coleridge
formulates the idea of a law of the mind which brings with i t a
26Samuel T. Coleridge, The Friend (London,l844), !,section I ,
essay 3, p. 240.
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13
~ e e l i n g of necessity. He speaks of the 1 ideas of the soul, of
t ree-will , of immortality and of God. 1 27 Kant 1 s' influence is
responsible for giving Coleridge a definition of the l imitations
pt the u n d e r s t ~ d i n g but, as is the case with many other ideas,
Coleridge worked upon the idea changing i t considerably. He ad
mits the influence of Kant.
The writings of the. i l l u s t ~ i o u s sage .o.fK6fi1gsberg, • • • invigorated and disciplinedm1 understand1ng.28
Coleridge hints in the Biographia Literaria that Kant believed
but did not reveal the fact that there is a power which has some
intimate experience with supersensible reali ty.
In 1798, at the age of twenty-six, Coleridge entered G e r m a n ~~ i t h the intention of studying German writers and their l i tera-
ture. With what enthusiasm he mingled with German common people
as well as with the learned men of the country appears in his
~ e t t e r s to the Wedgewoods (Satyrane 1 s Letters).
Through streets and streets I pressed onas happy as a child, and, I doubt not, with achildish expression of wonderment in my busyeyes, amused by the· wicker w a g g o n ~ ~ amused bythe sign-boards of the shops. • •
While dining in a German restaurant, Coleridge is reminded
by the 1pippins and cheese• of Shakespeare, not, however, to see
2 7 ~ . , I , essay 15, p. 147.
28Biographia Literar1a,I, p. 99.
29 Ibid. , I I (Second Satyrane Letter), p. 152.-
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- ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .14
a Shakespearean play, but, as he says,
Shakespeare put i t in my head to go to theFrench comea.y.30
And the play seemed worse to him than the English plays for he
adds
Bless me! why 3i is worse than our modernEnglish plays.
How much worse is difficul t to te l l . The English stage a t
this time produced "inart ist ic , genuinely ca·reless.•32 drama.
:Much dramatic l i terature was modelled af ter the style of the
Elizabethans. There was slavish imitation of o h a ~ a c t e r and plot ,
one reason probably for the lack of progress on the modern
English stage. Thus, Coleridge is turned away from the modern
stage with disgust. Here, in Germany, he sees the same type of
drama as that which is being produced on the English stage. The
description which he gives of this particular German play might
~ e characteristic also of the contemporary English stage.
The f i r s t act informed me, that a courtmartial is to be held on a Count Vatron whohad drawn his sword on the Colonel, his brotherin-law. The officers plead in his behalf - invain! His wife, the Colonel's s is ter , pleadswith most tempestuous agonies - in vain! Shefa l ls into hysterics and faints away, to thedropping of the inner curtain! In the secondact sentence of death is passed on the Count -his wife, as frantic and hysterical as before:
30Ibid. , p. 157.
31Ibid.
~ 2 A l l a r d y c e Nicoll,A
History of Early Nineteenth CenturyDrama-~ 8 0 0 - 1 8 5 0 (New York, 1930), I.L...E..:.__Jj2.::....---·_.· - - - - - - - - - - - - •
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more so (good industrious creature!) she couldnot be. The third and las t act, the wife,s t i l l frantic, very frantic indeed! the soldiersJust about to f i re , the handkerchief actuallydropped; when reprieve reprieve! is heard frombehind the scenes: and in comes Prince somebody,pardons the Count, an4 the wife i s s t i l l frantic,only with Joy; that was allt33
A l i t t le hint of what the reader might expect of Coleridge la ter
when he has launched upon his dramatic criticism is found in the
remark,
• • • for such is the kind of drama which is
now substituted everywhere for Shakespeare•••
34To Coleridge such a play was not art but bombast and exag
gerated acting. Many causes led to productions of this sort .
Playhouses were large, acoustics and l ighting poor, and as a re
sult dramatic effort had to be exaggerated and spectacular.
Players shouted their l ines, while directors bellowed orders.
Coleridge, for whom thought was everything, turned with disgust
from the modern play.
In Germany, Shakespearean productions were on a higher lev
el. Coleridge himself has given the atti tude of the English
people toward Shakespeare:
The solution of this circumstance must besought in the history of our nation: theEnglish have become a busy commercial peopleand they have unquestionably derived from thispropensity many social and physical advantages:
33Biograph1a Literaria, I I (Second Satyrane Letter), pp.l57-8.
~ 4Ibid.-
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they have grown to be a mighty empire.35
~ h i S accounts for their lack of speculation. But the very sub
ject condition of the Germans Coleridge attributes as the cause
pf' their progress in philosophy and speculation. He says on thit
~ o i n t :• • • the Germans, unable to distinguish themselves in action, have been driven to speculation: a ll their feelings have been forced backinto the thinking and reasoning mind. To do,with them is impossible but in determining whatought to be done, they perhaps· exceed every
people of the globe. Incapable of acting outwardly, they have acted internally: they f i r s tset their spir i ts to work with an energy ofwhich England produces no parallel, since • • •the days of.Elizabeth.36
Professor Brandl says that conditions in Germany made possi·
ble the deep apj>reciation of Shakespeare for 1 many of the prince•
~ d princelings who ruled i t Germany maintained theatres in
their residences; this was perhaps the·only note-worthy service
~ o n e to Germany by the 1 Xleinstaaterei 1 • The wealthier towns
~ o l l o w e d suit and buil t theatres of their own. The people,
tired of sermons, and unable to take an interest in politics or
sports sometimes even forbidden to travel, flocked to the per
itormances.•37
35Thomas Middleton Raysor, Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism
(Cambridge, 1930), II , pp. 164-5.
~ 6Ibid., p. 165.-
7Alois Brandl, 1Shakespeare and Germany•, Third Annual
Shakespeare Lecture,Proceedings of the British Academy (July 1,~ 9 3 0 \
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rurther, he points out the chief difference between the temper of
the German people and that of the English: "to be successful a
plaY had to be poetical , had to contain a body of thought, and
had to be clothed in fine rhetoric; for the average German,
though a poor poli t ician, had by his good schools, become an in-
te l l igent person, had a satchelful of solid knowledge on his back
and would not be sat isf ied with superficial farces and operettas;
he wanted to be amused intel l igent ly.• 38 Such qualifications of
a l i terary drama could be found in the plays of Shakespeare.
This demand was answered by Lessing and numerous other transla-
tors. Each o f the German translators borrowed a particular t ra i t
of Shakespeare's drama. Thus, Lessing copied his blank verse;
Goethe copied the lawless structure or the Histories. Shakespeare
was studied with great interest in Germany, for the German people
•want to be shown l i fe , as intense l i fe as possible, which will
enable them to pass, while reading, through a l l the experiences
of the persons described, as i f they were experiences of their
own.n39 I t was this note in the German philosophers that ap-
~ e a l e d also to Coleridge. Here was the essence of real drama.
What Coleridge derived from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason,
was grounds for his belief in a noumenal real i ty, a basis for his
~ i d .3 9 ~ i d .
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idea ot the imagination. Professor Muirhead believes that 1 i t
was tor just such an extension or i t s functions that Coleridge
was looking."40 Evidently, Coleridge had some idea already
rormed as to this faculty in the mind. Consequently, when he
came upon other works or the Germans, he round the same philoso
phY and seized upon i t eagerly. Schelling had sought to show
that nature was not the creation or mind, but that i t was mind in
an unconscious torm. In Schelling's scheme •Nature in the nar-
rower sense ot which science speaks is not the thing-in- i tself .
Natural science abstracts trom the meanings which Nature
symbolized and takes i t as something·merely t in i te . •41 Coleridge
assimilated Schelling's idea and reenforced his whole basis or
aesthetic on the differences between what he cal ls the natura
~ ~ a t a and the natura naturans. Schelling says: "For, as i t
is in the work or art that the problem or the division which
philosophy makes between thought and thing finds i t s solution: in
this the division ceases, idea and real i ty merge in the individ
ual representation. Art thus et tects the impossible by resolving
the inf ini te contradiction in a f in i te product - a result i t
~ c h i e v e s through the power or the "productive intuition" we cal l
•rmagination•.42
~ 0John H. Muirhead, Coleridge as Philosopher (New York, 1930),
~ · 200.
~ 1 A s quoted in Muirhead, ~ c i t . , p. 202.
~ 2 I b i d .
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This idea was exactly what Coleridge had been formulating
in his own mind and here in Schelling i t was strengthened. But
Coleridge went further than Schelling. Professor Muirhead says
that these ideas were not only important as the foundation of a
•true theory ot art in general and of poetry in particular" but
that "they needed to be adapted to the personalist ic metaphysics,
which he sought to substi tute to r the pantheistic impersonalism
of Schelling." 43 Coleridge held that the sense ot beauty is a
torm of personal communication with the spi r i t revealed in nature
~ n d art as a medium or as an interpreter of the l i fe of nature.
Therefore, viewed in i t s general scheme as a combination of
philosophy and the idea of the ar t is t ic imagination, there seems
to be no direct borrowing from Schelling. Coleridge's defense ot
~ i m s e l t against the attacks ot plagiarism made by Professor James
Ferrier44 is interesting in the l ight of what Professor Muir-
~ e a d has said, "Coleridge need not have been directly indebted to
~ c h e l l i n g . 1145
Professor Brandl says in this regard: 1 From no one did
~ o l e r i d g e learn more than from Schelling, and no one would have
had a greater right to complain; instead of which, Schelling re-
joiced over his English pupil, owning even his obligations to him
43Ibid. , p. 203.
44Ct. Helmholtz, op.ci t . , p. 291.
45Op.cit . , p. 203.
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in the Essay on Prometheus, where Coleridge in one happy word
•tautegory 1, defined the distinction between mythology and alle-
gory which Schelling had only reached in a roundabout way.n 46
In general, the contact that Coleridge had with German
dramatists and philosophers seems to be more l i terary than othel-
wise. To ignore entirely the influence of such men as Lessing,
Schiller and the Schlegels would be to understand but half of
Coleridge's development. How much of the German thought in
philosophy and art can be said to have actually functioned in
Coleridge's best crit icism is diff icul t to determine. Coleridge
assimilated the German philosophy and aesthetic making i t so
much a part of his thought that distinction is at times hard to
make. One of the chief characteristics, that of subtle cri t ical
analysis, was a resul t of the philosophical training through his
study of Xant and Schelling.
Coleridge pays a great tr ibute to Lessing in his B i o g r a p h i ~Literaria, but Raysor would at t r ibute this •weight on the wings
of the Greek poets" (Shakespeare's apparent i rregulari t ies) to
Schlegel rather than to Lessing." Moreover, Coleridge seems to
imply that he •reconciled the admiration of Shakespeare with
Aristotelian p r i n c 1 p l e s ~ , 4 7 but in his actual criticism of
Shakespearean plays he makes a distinction between Shakespearean
46Op.cit. , p. 391.
47
Raysor, op.c i t . , I , Introduction, p. xxvi.
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and Greek drama. Raysor says regarding the argument of the
unities "· .• i t is fairly probable that he learned from
~ e a s i n g rather than from Kames the argument that the unities of
time and place depend upon the chorus. This and the general
emphasis upon Shakespeare's art are probable influences from
Lessing. "48
In regard to Schiller various opinions are held. Miss
Helmholtz says that "Schiller 's influence belonged principally to
Coleridge's ear l ier years and suffered a speedy eclipse."49
Dunstan, on the other hand, finds a similari ty in their inter-
~ r e t a t i o n of the drama. According to Dunstan, Coleridge derived
from Schiller his distinction between ancient and modern poets
and also many ideas regarding the dependence of genius on public
taste, the comparison between Greek and Gothic architecture, and
the ' imitation of nature."
Among the lesser influences is Herder. His influence may be
~ e g a r d e d as that of atti tudes towards the various Shakespearean
~ r i t i c s . In this his influence is similar to that of Schiller.
~ o Schiller we must at t r ibute the greater influence. I t is not
~ e f i n i t e l y known when Coleridge became acquainted with Schil ler 's
~ s s a y On Naive and Sentimental Poetry, but the influence that i t
~ d in Germany in 1799 makes i t probable that Coleridge read i t
8 I b i d .~ 9
.Qp.cit., p. 290.
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while he was at Goettingen. In this essay Schiller makes the
distinction between the naive and t h ~ sentimental. This same
dist inction is called in Schlegel's lectures the classic and the
romantic. Coleridge, therefore, may have been familiar with the
distinction before reading Schlegel 's lecture. The idea of
dramatic i l lusion may have been borrowed from Herder's book,
Von Deutscher Art und Kunst.
The greatest influence upon Coleridge's Shakespearean
criticism is that of Schlegel. Although Raysor stresses the in-
fluence of Schlegel, nevertheless, he says "· •• t is almost
certain that the great influence of Schlegel confirmed and de-
veloped rather than suggested many of Coleridge's ideas. They
had both studied Kant, Lessing, Herder, Schil ler, and perhaps
Richter, and had both been students a t Goettingen under Heyne.
They were both romantic cri t ics in conscious revolt against the
criticism of the previous age, particularly that of Dr.Johnson.
Their common background and common subject made coincidences
not merely probable but inevitable."50
Miss Helmholtz has l is ted in detai l the passages that are
parallel in the two ori t ics . 51 In these parallel passages
Coleridge makes definite mention of points which Schlegel merel7
suggests as principles of criticism. Since, too, Coleridge did
50Op.cit . , I , Introduction, p.xxx.
51Op •c it • , p • 297 •
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IInot see Schlegel 's lectures nor his Vorlesungen uber dramatische
Kunst und Litteratur unt i l af ter the eighth lecture of the
series of 1811-12, i t is possible to conclude that what C o l ~ d g esaYs concerning certain passages was already possessed of a l l
the 11 main and fundamental ideas applied by Schlegel before he
had seen a page of the German cr i t ic ' s work."52
However, in the
interpretation of character Coleridge had nothing to learn from
Schlegel. Dunstan definitely states that 11 from Schlegel
Coleridge learnt nothing. Where he agrees with Schlegel, he is
stating views he held long before Schlegel 's lectures were de
l ivered. His whole debt, i f debt i t can be called, is found in
the adoption of a phrase here and there. Schlegel suggested no
fundamental principle and no application of fundamental princi-
1 1153P e. Of a l l these influences, Raysor says: "They frequently
affect Coleridge's statements of general principles of poetry and
Shakespearean cri t icism, but almost never affect his detailed
criticism of part icular plays. Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Othello,
~ o m e o and Jul ie t , The Tempest, Love's Labor's Lost, and Richard
~ h e Second were the plays which Coleridge emphasized. His
~ s y c h o l o g i c a l and aesthetic criticism of these plays, his essay
pn Shakespeare's poetry in Biographia Literar1a, and on
52Ibid.-~ 3A. C. Dunstan, "The German Influence on Coleridge", Modern
~ a ~ u a g e Review, 18:201 (July, 1922).
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Shakespeare's method in The Friend, - these are the highest a t-
54tainments of his Shakespearean cri t icism."
I t is well to bear in mind that the German philosophers as
well as the English were Coleridge's teachers only in aesthetics.
In cri t icism of an actual work of art Raysor asser ts , 11 he
Coleridge was as original as a cri t ic may well be. His origi
nality and power were irregularly displayed because they were
frequently null i f ied by his tragic weakness of body and wil l .
But he should not be judged by his worst, or even by his average;
in crit icism, as in poetry, he should be read for his best
achievements. These do not depend upon plagiarism or even upon
the influence of others. They are the products of h is own
superb genius."55
With these cr i te r ia in mind a consideration of the funda
mental principles of Coleridge's dramatic crit icism follows.
54Op. c i t . , I , I-ntroduction, p. x.xxii.
~ 5Ibid. , p. xxxi i i .
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CHAPTER II
THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF COLERIDGE'S
DRAMATIC CRITICISM
Fragmentary as Coleridge is in his principles of crit icism,
the body of his work presents a unity of thought readily t race-
able in his philosophy and in his aesthetic . Everything which
played upon his feelings, emotions, or in te l lect has been fused
into one great power. Coleridge, in spite of a l l his analytic
powers, remains ever a true romanticist .
A distinguishing mark of the romantic period is the freedom
of the individual imagination, the power that is usually asso-
ciated with mere caprice. Yet, a t the very height of development
in the romantic period, Coleridge comes forth with a philosophy
of the imagination that says that freedom of the imagination does
not mean a power that is lawless and tangential . I t is a power
that acts as a guiding s tar , as i t were, to the poet to find and
follow great law. The idea of the imagination during th is period
wasone of great significance. I t came to be considered the
~ e c u l i a r note of divergence between classicism and romanticism.
Coleridge's own great gi f t of imagination gave not only a unique
~ e a u t y to his own poetry, but len t also to his interpretat ion of
this faculty a power which few other cr i t ics have surpassed.
The age i t se l f with i t s seething act ivi ty stimulated his
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26
imagination. Fundamental questions arose in his mind concern-
ing the changes in the social and pol i t ical order. The age in
general was alive with the sense of change. In his early poems
Coleridge shows how social and pol i t ical happenings with their
various influences pressed in upon him. In his Religious
Musings, he seems to be probing for an explanation of the u l t i -
mate problems of l i fe . This bewildering "manifold" he wishes to
draw together; he would find some power from within that would
unifY both the pressing circumstances with their impressions
without and the crowding thoughts from within. Coleridge's
theory of the imagination in which his entire philosophic
thought might be concentrated was to give this unity within the
universe; a unity in this world of "manifold experience" and thiE
"world of l i t t l e things." This unity Coleridge wished to dis-
cover within himself. Mere delight in the •vast" and the "Whole"
seemed to sat isfy him in his childhood, but i t must be remembered
that the philosophy of Plotinus was implanted in him a t a time
when thought experience and impact had creative power. Thus, the
core of Plotinus 's mysticism became the very condition of
Coleridge's thinking. I t was the philosophy, also, of Plotinus
that helped him supplement and correct modern philosophers when
he fe l t that he could not follow them further. Being a true
child of the romantic age, Coleridge needed a solution in terms
~ f the spir i t to the problem of the many and the One, the rela-
~ i o n of the eternal to the shif t ing, changing temporal.
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the mind of man became Coleridge's whole metaphysical system and
round i t s ful les t expression in his theory of the imagination.
The theory of the imagination, however, is preceded by the
theory of the act of knowledge or, as Coleridge cal ls i t in the
~ o g ! a p h i a Literar ia, the "coalescence of the Object with the
subject. 056 But Coleridge ins is ts upon an "Inner Sense" tha t
cannot have i t s direction determined by any outward object .
Here, Coleridge, very much l ike Blake with his idea of the mani
fold visions of men, says that the Inner Sense "has i t s directiordetermined for the greater-part by an act of freedom. 11 57 As a
result , Coleridge argues that these successive stages of the
operation of the Inner Sense are stages that cannot be attained
equally by al l . There must be a certain act of contemplation,
an in i t i a l act , not mere apprehension. Coleridge denies, there
fore, to the Esquimau or New Zealander th is kind of imaginative
power for , as he says, "the sense, the inward organ for i t , is
not yet born in him.n 58 There must be a "realizing intuition"
which exists in and by the act that "affirms i t s existence, which
is known because i t i s , and i s , because i t is known. 11 59 There-
56Ibid. , p. 175.
57Ibi.9:., p. 172.
5 8 ~ i o g r a p h i a Literar ia, I , p. 173.
59I . A. Richards, Coleridge on Imagination (London, 1934),
p. 46.
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tore, when Coleridge says:
The postulate of philosophy and at thesame time the tes t of philosophic capacity,is no other than the heaven-descended KnowThyself . • . as philosophy is neither ascience of the reason or understanding only,not merely a science of morals, bM8 thescience of BEING altogether. . .
he makes an act of the direction of the Inner Sense an act of
the Will. Coleridge's "Know Thyself" is merely a technique; his
theory of knowing is a kind of making, a bringing into being
what is known. Thus, the postulate,11Know Thyself" is this
coalescence of the Subject with the Object. By Subject
Coleridge means the Self or the Intell igence and the sentient
knowing Mind: by Object he means Nature, or what is known by the
Mind in the act of knowing. The coalescence of the two is that
knowing. He is very specific in his explanation of what he
means by Subject and Object:
Now the sum of a l l that is merely object ive we wil l henceforth cal l Nature, confiningthe term to i t s passive and material sense, ascomprising a l l the phenomena by which i t sexistence is made known to us. On the otherhand, the sum of a l l that is subjective, we maycompreg!nd in the name of se l f or intell igence
For the sake of clearness, dist inct ion i s made between the self
that known, i t s knowing, i t s knowledge and what i t knows, but in
60Biographia Literaria , i , p. 173.
61Ibid.
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30
real i ty , this dist inction does not exis t , for when the act of
the realizing intui t ion is developing i t se l f these dist inctions
are not to be found. Coleridge r ises to the height of his
philosophy when he says:
.•• the phaenomena (the material) mustwholly disappear, and the laws alone (theformal) must remain. Thence it comes,that in nature i t se l f the more the principleof law breaks for th , the more does the huskdrop off , the phaenomena themselves becomemore spir i tua l and a t length cease al together in our consciousness.62
Thus, in the products of knowing we may distinguish Subject and
Object. A di.vision is made between the two merely to make a
discussion of each possible.
Coleridge t rea ts feelings, thoughts, ideas, desires,
images, and passions as forms of the act iv i ty of the mind, not
as "products as opposed to the processes which bring them into
being. 11 63 Thus Professor Richards explains i t : "Into the
simplest seeming 'datum' a constructing, forming act ivi ty from
the mind has entered. And the perceiving and the forming are
the same. The Subject (the self) has gone into what i t per-
eeives, and what i t perceives i s , in th is sense, i t se l f . So the
object becomes the subject and the subject the object . And as
to understand what Coleridge is saying we must not take the
62Ibid . , pp. 1?5-6.
63Richards, op.c i t . , p. 56.
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subject as something given to us; so equally we must not take
the subject to be a mere empty formless void out of which a l l
things mysteriously and ceaselessly rush to become everything we
know. The subject is what i t is through the objects i t has
been."64
Upon such a process Coleridge bases his theory of the
Imagination. I t is in the Biographia Literaria that Coleridge
makes a distinction between a primary and a secondary imagina-
tion:
The Imagination then, I consider eitheras primary, or secondary. The primary Imaginat ion I hold to be the living Power and primeAgent of a l l human Perception, and a repetit ionin the fini te mind of the g ~ e r n a l act of creation in the inf ini te I AM.
That is , the Self is active in the f in i te , working in the Inf i
nite, the •realizing intuit ion." This primary imagination is ,
therefore, a faculty that enables man to differentia te his own
consciousness from the sensible world without; i t makes a
declaration of i t s individual existence, dist inct from a l l else.
The f i r s t sphere of activity, divine act ivi ty, is the mind or
rational spir i t , in which the sublime unity differentiates i t -self into the duality of thought and being, in other words, into
that of consciousness and i t s objects.
64Ibid.
65Shawcross, o p . o i ~ . , I , p. 2 0 2 ~
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The primary imagination is merely the experience imagina
t ion, the normal perception that brings to us the ordinary world
of sense. Professor Richards describes i t as the power that
produces to our senses "the world of motor-buses, beef-steaks,
and acquaintances, the framework of things and events within
which we maintain our everyday existence, the world of the
routine satisfaction of our human exigences.n66 This form of
imagination Coleridge would at t r ibute to every human being.
The greater of the two forms of imaginationis ,
of course,the secondary imagination. This he considers
. the echo of the former, co-existing withthe conscious will , yet s t i l l as identical
67with the primary in the kind of i t s operation.
Therefore, creation is going on in the mind, but i t i s a creatio
directed by the will .
Coleridge goes on to describe the function of the secondary
imagination:
I t dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, inorder to recreate; or where this process isrendered impossible, yet s t i l l at a l l eventsi t struggles to idealize and to unify. I tis essential ly vi ta l , even as a l l objects(as objects) are essent ia l ly fixed and dead.68
The secondary imagination re-forms the world, takes the
66Op.cit . , p. 56.
67Biographia Literar ia, I , p. 202.
68Ibid.
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commonplace things of this world and transfigures them, invests
them with other values than those s tr ict ly necessary for the e x ~gencies of l i fe . I t is the magic power that changed the boyhood
scenes of Coleridge into fairy-lands and the sky of stars into a
treasure-chest of jewels. I t idealizes wherever this is p o s s i b ~raising the routine of l i fe into something having values other
than those of bare necessity.
Professor Richards explains i t thus: "Every aspect of the
routine world in which i t is invested with other values than
those necessary for our bare continuance as living beings: a l l
objects for which we can feel love, awe, admiration; every
quality beyond the physiology of sense-perception, nutri t ion,
reproduction, and locomotion; every awareness for which a
civilized l i fe is preferred by us to an uncivilized.69 The
secondary imagination is , therefore, a God-like act ivi ty, for
with i t man can contemplate the universe, discover the laws that
emanate from this divine central energy and can, moreover,
assimilate the laws that he may use to govern his own creative
art , enabling him to get into his own creation the balance,
beauty, and harmony that is found in nature. Nature, Coleridge
believes, is continually creating, shaping according to that
divine law prevailing in the universe. The genius of the ar t i s t
or poet l ies in his power to divine the correspondence between
69 ~ i t . , p. 58.
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the power that i s working in him and in the world without--to
see the correspondence of this nature which serves as his back
ground and himself. Such is the imagination and genius of the
great poets and ar t i s t s . With this imagination, the ar t i s t
operates, shapes, creates with the Creator. He i s sense-bound,
yet free in an inf ini ty and eternity of thought.
Shawcross says: "The dist inction here drawn is evidently
between the imagination as universally active in consciousness
(creative in that i t externalizes the world of objects by oppos
ing i t to the self) and the same faculty in a heightened power
as creative in a poetic sense. In the f i r s t case our exercise
of the power i s unconscious: in the second the will directs ,
though i t does not determine, the act ivi ty of the imagination.
The imagination of the ordinary man is capable only of detaching
the world of experience from the self and contemplating i t in i t
detachment; but the philosopher penetrates to the underlying
harmony and gives i t concrete expression. The ordinary con-
sciousness, with no principle of unification, sees the universe
as a mass ot part iculars: only the poet can depict this whole as
reflected in the individual parts .n 70
?Q
Fancy, Coleridge defines as power inferior to imagination:
Fancy, on the contrary, has no othercounters to play with, but f ix i t ies anddefini tes . The fancy is indeed no other
Op.ci t . , Introduction, pp. lxvi i - lxvi i i .
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~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~35
than a mode of memory emancipated from theorder of time and space; while i t isblended with, and modified by that empirical phenomenon of the will , which we expressby the word Choice. But equally with theordinary memory, the Fancy must receive a l li t s materials ready made from the law ofassociation.71
But this association is "fixed and dead"; the connection is
mechanical instead of organic. Fancy, moreover, plays with the
mere images or impressions of the sense, but imagination deals
with intuit ions.
Coleridge says in Biographia Literaria:
Milton had a highly imaginative, ~ o w l e y ,a very fanciful mind.72
The comparison is explained elsewhere:
You may conceive the difference in kindbetween the Fancy and the Imagination i n ~ sway, that i f the check of the senses and the
reason were withdrawn, the f i rs t would becomedelirium, and the las t mania.73
When fully checked by the senses and the reason, the mind in i t s
normal state uses both fancy and imagination. Discussing
Wordsworth's account of the two powers Coleridge clar i f ies the
function of each:
I am disposed to conJecture, that heWordsworth has mistaken the co-presenceof fancy and imagination for the operation
7 1 ~ . , I , p.202.
?2Biographia Literaria, I , p. 62.
?3Table Talk and Omniana, ed. by T. Ashe (London,l884),p.291.
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~ - - - - - - - - - - ~36
ot the l a t te r single. A man may work withtwo different tools at the same moment;each has i t s share in the work but the workeffected by each is very different. ?4
The same thought Coleridge states elsewhere in the following
passage:
Imagination must have fancy, in tactthe higher intel lectual powers can only actthrough a corresponding energy of the lower.?5
Indeed, the 0 counters 1 with which fancy plays a r ~ in themselves
images brought about by ear l ier acts ot perception--they have
been formed by ear l ier acts ot imagination but, when fancy only
is at work, these images are not being re-formed nor integrated
nor coadunated into new perceptions. To distinguish imaginatio
as a power that brings into one--an esemplastic power--and fane
as an assembling, aggregating power, a distinction must be drawn
trom examples. In several places Coleridge cal ls fancy
••• the faculty of bringing together imagesdissimilar in the main by one point or moreot likeness distinguished• .• 6
A further distinction is found in Biographia Literaria:
These images are fixi t ies and definites •••they remain when put together the same aswhen apart.??
In Table Talk, Coleridge speaks of the relation ot images thus
74Biograpbia Literaria, I , p. 194.
75Table Talk (April 20, 1833), p. 185.
76aaysor, op.ci t . , I , p. 212.
77
Vol. I , p. 202.
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conceived as having
. . . no oonnexion natural or moral, but areyoked together by the poet by means of someaccidental ooinoidence.78
The images are put together by the activi ty of choice which is
really the experience imagination. I t is the act ivi ty of
"selection from among objects already supplied by association,
a select ion made for the purposes which are not then and therein
being shaped but have been already fixed." 79
Therefore, fancy conceived in this manner is merely an ao-
t ivi ty of the mind which Hartley's associationism suggests.
Images, whether notions, feel ings, desires, or at t i tudes eon-
oeived in this connection are merely accidental l inks, oontribut
ing nothing to the furtherance or growth of the image. The mind
sees the image apart from the emotion thus embodied. Richards
has explained Shakespeare's l ines from Venus and Adonis:
Full gently now she takes him by the hand,A l i ly prison'd in a goal of snow,Or ivory in an alabaster band;So white a friend engirts so white a foe80
as "Adonis' hand and a l i ly are both fa i r ; both white; both
perhaps, pure (but th is comparison is more complex, since the
l i ly is an emblem of the purity which, in turn, by a second
78(June 23, 1834), p. 291.
?9Richards, op.ci t . , p. 76.
80As quoted in Richards, op.oi t . , p. 77.
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metaphor i s l en t to the hand). But there the l inks stop. These
additions to the hand via the l i ly in no way change the hand (or,
incidentally, the l i l y ) . They in no way work upon our percep
tion of Adonis or his hand.n81
But when Shakespeare says:
So white a friend engir ts so white a foe82
he i s r is ing to the imaginative fo r the l ines bear a second sene
and with the second sense "there comes a reach, a percussion to
the meaning, a l ive connexion between the two senses and between
them and other parts of the poem consiliences and reverberat ions
between the feelings thus aroused."83
Then note the purely imaginative in :
Look! how a bright s tar shooteth from the skySo gl ides he in the night from Venus' eye.84
Coleridge says of the above l ines :
How many images and feelings are herebrought together without effor t and withoutdiscord--the beauty of Adonis--the rapidi tyof his f l ight-- the yearning yet helplessnessof the enamoured gazer--and a shadowy idealthrown over the whole.85
Richards explains Coler idge's in terpreta t ion of Shakespeare's
8lcf . Richards, ~ c i t . , p. 81.
82Ib id .
83Ibid.
84Ibid.
85Raysor, Shakespearean Criticism, 1 , p. 213 .
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l ines in deta i l when he says: •Here in contrast to the other
case, the more the image is followed up, the more l inks of
relevance between the units are discovered. As Adonis to Venus,
90 these l ines to the reader seem to l inger in the eye. Here
Shakespeare i s real izing, and making the reader real ize--not by
anY intensity of effor t , but by the fulness and self-completing
growth of response--Adonis' f l ight as i t was to Venus, and the
sense of loss , of increased darkness that invades her.•86 The
meanings of each word are brought together and as these meanings
"come together, as the reader 's mind finds cross-connection af ter
cross-connection between them, he seems in becoming more aware of
them, to be discovering not only Shakespeare's meaning, but some-
thing which he, the reader, i s himself making. His understanding
of Shakespeare i s sanctioned by his own act ivi ty in i t .n87
I t is this that makes Coleridge see in Shakespeare a true
poet
. . • inasmuch as for a time he has made youone--an active creative being.88
Coleridge does not infer that these powers, imagination and
fancy,are
withouta guide.
Theremust be,
hebelieves,
an organ
that brings the spir i tual into play; there must be a medium
86Richards, op.c i t . , p. 83.
87.!&9: . ' p . 84 .
88As quoted in Richards, op.ci t . , p. 84.
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between the sensuous and the supersensuous. This medium is
reason. Understanding is a power that can merely classify
phenomena and can regard the unity of things only in the ir
l imits . I t t ranslates abstract notions into language, but i t is
a language that is s ta t ic and merely picturesque. When the in-
dividual i s regarded as having i t s being in the universal ,
symbols must become the mode of expression. Shawcross summarize
well this thought: "· . . the faculty of symbols is none other
than the imagination, ' the reconciling and mediatory power, whic
incorporates the reason in images of the sense, and organizes, as
i t were, the fluxes of the sense by the permanent and se lf -
circling energies of the reason•. To reason, therefore, the
organ of the ' intui t ion and the immediate spir i tual consciousness
of God', imagination is related as interpreting in the l ight of
that consciousness the symbolism of the visible world. For of
the symbol i t is further characterist ic ' that i t always partakes
of the reali ty which i t renders in te l l ig ible: and while i t enun-
iates the whole, abides i t se l f as a l iving part in that unity of
hich i t is the representative•.89 Understanding is the lesser
f the two powers. I t can have to do with the things of the
enses, the detai ls of the things around us. Materials are sup-
lied to i t by the senses.
Upon the basis of the creative power of the secondary
9Biographia Literaria , . I , Introduction, p. lxx i i i .
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imagination, Coleridge describes the poet as bringing
. . . the whole soul of man into act iv i ty .90
aut, i t must be remembered, the poet does th is ,
. . .with the subordination of i t s facult ies
to each other, according to their relat iveworth and dignity.91
out of this theory of the imagination grows one of Coleridge's
most characterist ic and powerful principles of cri t icism. He
continues:
This power, f i r s t put in action by thewill and understanding, and . retained underthe ir irremissive, though gentle and unnoticed, controul ( laxis effertur habenis)reveals i t se l f IN THE BALANCE OR RECONCILIA-
TION OF OPPOSITE OR DISCORDANT QUALITIES: ofsameness, with difference; of the general,with the concrete; the idea, with the image;the individual, with the representat ive; thesense of novelty and freshness, with old andfamiliar objects; a more than usual state of
emotion, with more than usual order; judgmentever awake and steady self-possession, withenthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement;and while i t blends and harmonizes the naturaland the ar t i f i c ia l , s t i l l subordinates a r t tonature; the manner to the matter; and ouradmiration 6 ~ the poet to our sympathy withthe poetry.
The principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites must be
distinguished from a superfic ia l ly similar formula which seems
to have been i t s forerunner, namely, the formula as a combinatio
90Ibid. , I I , p . 12.
91!£g .
92Ibid.
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of ins truct ion-del ight . In the Instruction-Delight theory,
poetrY was conceived of as a real reconciler of delight. Poetry
was a medium for ins truct ion. Writers made art the union,
therefore, of various pairs of opposites. Poetry was considered
either good or bad according to the degree of the combination of
delight and instruction. However, the in teres t in poetry was no
centered in the result ing reconciling concept, but in the beauty
and in terest of one of the terms, one of the opposites in i t se l f .
Up to the time of the sixteenth century, poetry was the handmaid
of theology and philosophy. Consequently, such things as
morality, t ruth, delight and instruction were conceived of so
narrowly that there resulted merely a compromising combination,
and not a transformation such as i s the meaning of a rea l recon
cil iation. The principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites
could function only when formal morality had been removed from
l i terature and had given place to aesthetic and philosophical
considerations.
This in terest manifested i t se l f during the early nineteenth
century. With new values being put on a r t and the absolute i t
expresses, "almost everything else that was considered a t a l l in
this connection was reduced to that s ta te of relat ive indif
ference characterizing the formula of anti thesis . Rest and
motion, the vi ta l and the formal, man and nature, a l l were the
logically opposed constituents of the defini t ion. Yet in as far
as they were reconciled, the ir meanings were raised (through the
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sense of this new value) to a higher plane. The principle sig
nified an almost supreme in terest in art.u93
In spite of great social and economic unrest that showed
i t se l f especially in the French Revolution and in various other
ways, there was, during the early nineteenth century, a specula
tive and ideal is t ic consciousness that had transcended moral and
religious confl ic ts and which could accept the universe as a
whole. For such consciousness ar t had become as big as the uni-
verse.
There are two kinds of union of Opposites. To formulate ar
as the union of such logical opposites as Rest and Motion, the
One and the Many or Man and Nature is obviously a very different
thing from saying that opposition, symmetry or contrast is a
fundamental structural principle of ar t . In the one case there
is an anti thesis consisting of terms that are logically opposed,
that i s , terms whose meanings are opposed; there is no attempt to
reflect any st ructural opposition evident in the work of ar t . In
the other case, there is opposition without a doubt, but the
terms have no logically opposed meanings, they are identical
nits opposed only spat ial ly; the opposition is the scientif ica
real opposition of the actual structure. Furthermore, there is
the logical anti thesis in which the terms have meaning or con
tents, and on the other hand, the mechanical opposition which is
(3Alice Snyderi The Principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites
Ann Arbor, 19 8), p. 7.
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at once and as one--no division, no change,no anti thesis!94
This kind of dist inction would, as can be seen, f i t into
hiS scheme of imagination. I t was his fundamental idea of the
universe, as a unity composed of many--the same fundamental idea
of the universe that permeated by the divine Intell igence mani
fests i t s e l f in these various anti theses. Unity in variety,
similitude and dissimil i tude express the inner law, the l iving
dynamic forces shaping matter into form. Alice Snyder says in
speaking of th is principle in Coleridge's scheme of crio1tism:
•I t matters l i t t l e which way we put i t : the temper of his specu
lative thinking strongly colored his use of th is principle; or
the principle had so insinuated i t se l f into his thinking that i t
to some degree determined his philosophical temper. The con-
siderat1on of the one i s pract ical ly essent ia l to an interpreta
tion of the other.n95 Whenever the mystic concept i s experienced
n some concrete manifestation, Coleridge describes i t with a
inal i ty that takes i t for granted that i t i s understood by his
eader and he gives no pract ical working out of the principle.
In the study of Coleridge's cr i t ic ism, i t is necessary to
eep always in mind the fact that Coleridge had a real concern
or the medium of experience manifestations--words. To him words
4samue1 Taylor Coleridge, Anima Poetae, ed. by E. H. ColeridgeBoston, 1895), p. ?1.
5Qp.ci t . , p. 12.
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bad vi ta l meanings. He recognized that words had a l i fe of
their own. The whole body of his aesthetic and l i terary cr i t i -
cism shows the importance that he attached to the idea that be
bind a word is the deepest realism. Miss Snyder gives his
att i tude toward verbalism when she writes: "A theoret ical ins is
tence upon inclusiveness, in spheres, and a temperament that
round in abstract metaphysical ent i t ies , in mere words, real
emotional values of almost enervating ultimateness made i t natu-
ral that Coleridge should pin his fai th to the principle of the
Reconciliation of Opposites. And i t is natural , that he should
employ the logical form of this principle, in which the opposites
to be reconciled are words and philosophical concepts rather than
the forces and elements of a mechanically construed universe.
The principle in thi's form serves primarily to define that which
is posit ively inclusive and absolute; at the same time i t gives
room for a l l the negations, oppositions and double meanings that
must arise in any fundamental dealing with words and metaphysical
concepts. 1196
All of Coleridge's sense experiences come to him in terms of
the great elemental sense contrasts . His Anima P o e t ~ would seem
to a reader who was unaware of Coleridge's love of these sense
elements in contrast , a book of enigmas. In everything in nature
e sees this confl ict of elements. Thus he speaks of one of his
6_Qp. c i t . , p. 16.
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sense experiences:
In the foam-islands in a f iercelyboiling pool, a t the bottom of a waterfa l l , t ~ ~ r e is sameness from inf in i techange.
And again as he looks at the world i t becomes to him the expres
sion, half metaphysical, half concrete, of unity and variety:
And again:
Oh, said I , as I looked a t the blue,yellow-green and purple-green sea, witha l l i t s hollows and swells, and cut-glasssurfaces--oh, what an ocean of lovelyforms! And I was vexed, teased that thesentence sounded l ike a play of words!That i t was not. The mind within me wasstruggling to- ixpress the marvellous dist inctness and unconfounded personali ty ofeach of the millions of forms, and yet theindividual unity in which they s u b s i s t e d . ~ 8
The ribbed f lame--i ts snatches of 1m-patience, that half seem and only ~ to
baffle i t s upward rush, -- the eternal unityof individual i t ies whose essence is inthe i r d 1 s t 1 n g u 1 s h a b l e n e s s ~ even as thoughtand fancies in the m i n d . 9 ~
His very fondness for words that carry metaphysical concepts,
these pairs of opposites, formed the natural formulae for
Coleridge to use in defining any and every experience or phe-
nomena.
The Principle of Reconciliation of Opposites, therefore, is
9?Anima Poetae, p. 100.
98Ib1d.
99Ib1d.
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______better than any monistic theory to "reflect the t ruths of actual
conditions as well as the ideal to be at ta ined through their
union."lOO Coleridge saw that the principle of the union of
opposites could be applied to any experience, i t was a "univer
sallY valid form of analysis; but i t was also conceived as a
standard or norm--an ideal which was not always realized.wlOl
During the early nineteenth century art was beginning to be
recognized as a medium between the universe and man. But
Coleridge realized the s t i l l undefined relationship of the
imagination to ar t . Professor Muirhead points out that
Coleridge's defini t ion of the poet described in perfection was
buil t up, as i t were, intent ional ly by Coleridge. The student
must not forget "· . . the devastation which the emaciated ac
counts current in Coleridge's time of the work of the imagination
ad spread in men's minds upon the whole subject, and the neces-
an energetic assertion of the presence of the element of
assion combined with penetrative reflect ion, fundamental sanity
of judgment, and a form of expression tha t would give some sense
of the inner harmony of the material presented to the mind and
herewith of the essential t ruth of the presentation."l02
Coleridge was constantly subjecting l i fe to intense analysis
00snyder, op.ci t . , p. 26.
01Ibid.
02Muirhead, op.c i t . , p. 209.
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and was frequently posit ing the various elements of l i fe as
unions or opposites. Following logically upon his view of the
universe as a universe of unity embracing the inner and outer
senses and of a Divine that emanated i t se l f through a l l ap
pearance to the soul of man, then there must be some kind of
reconcilement between the inner world of sense and the outer
world of nature.
Upon this basic concept of the universe, Coleridge con
ceives of beauty.To
him the beauty of the visible world was adirect expression of the divine l i fe : the very mind of the
Creator expressed i t se l f to sense, therefore. Enjoyment of
beauty, although i t has a physical element, does not originate in
or stop with the senses, which are but physical media of appre-
The idea of unity as essential to beauty runs throughout
of Coleridge's aesthet ic . In a general statement he says
The beautiful , contemplated in i t s essentials ,that i s , in kind and not in degree, is tha tin w ~ 0 g h the many, s t i l l seen as many, becomesone.
One of the best examples that i l lus t ra tes his definition of
he multeity in unity i s that of the coach-wheel. He does not
pare deta i l s to make himself understood. Thus he says:
03
An old coach-wheel l ies in the coachmaker'syard, disfigured with ta r and di r t (I purposely
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary,
. by T. Ashe (London, 1885), p. 20.
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take the most t r iv i a l instances}:-- I f I turnaway my attention from these, and regard thefigure abstract ly , "s t i l l " , I might say tomy companion, "there i s beauty in that wheel,and you yourself would not only admit i t , butwould feel i t , had you never seen a wheel be
fore. See how the rays proceed from thecentre to the circumferences, and how dif ferent images are dist inct ly comprehended a tone glance, as forming one whole, and eachpart in some harmonious relat ion of each toal l . l04
Constantly throughout his crit icism of Wordsworth and the other
dramatists, the echo of Hharmonious re la t ion of each to all" i s
heard. But more specif ical ly , beauty involves the will and the
intel l igence and again Coleridge comes back to the object-subject
idea. Viewed as a product of the will , beauty has seven condi
tions or character ist ics . Knowledge of them i s essential to a
full understanding of many of his statements about the characters
of Shakespeare's plays, as well as the basic reasoning for his
criticism of Wordsworth and the other poets. These characteris-
t ics are:
1. The universal condition of Beauty in thebeaut i ful or the beautiful or beautyexciting object i s , that the Form of th isObject shall appear to be a product of anin te l l igent Will, not wholly or principally
as intell igence, but as Living Will causat ive , or rea l i ty : in other words, of Willin i t s own form as Will.
2. But Will may exis t in a form in which theIntell igence is not only subordinate butla ten t - - i .e . implied and to be inferred,
104Ibid. , p. 17.
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but not evident. In this sense i t i s ,that Life is a Will, a form of Corollary.The f i r s t is seen or fe l t with greatestfaci l i ty or rather i t is only seen withpleasurable faci l i ty when i t exists inconnection and in combination with the
second. Therefore every beautiful Objectmust have an association and a Life-- i tmust have Life in i t or at t r ibuted to i t - Life or Spontaneity, as an action of VitalPower.
3. The Beautiful, which demands the Spontaneous,forbids the arbitrary and as partaking ofthe arbi t rary, the accidental . For the arbi t rary is an exclusion of Intell igence.But
the Willcan
not appear in i t sown
formwithout Intell igence, contained though subordinated. Hence Life and Spontaneity wil lnot of themselves but only as Secondaries,constitute the Beautiful.
4. . •• The Manifold must be melted into theOne, and in a ll but the lowest or simplestProducts must be fe l t in the resul t ratherthan noticed--a beautiful Piece of Reasoning-not beautiful because i t is understood as
true; but because i t is fe l t , as a t ruth ofReason, i . e . immediate with the faculty ofl i fe .
5. . •• There must be a f i tness , indeed, for tobe unfi t is to contradict Intell igence orReason which are to be implied not opposed.
6.... Design must exis t in the equivalence ofthe resul t , Virtual Design without the senseof Design.
7• . . . The Fitness must not be a conspirationof component but of constituent Parts, notof parts put to each other, but of dis t inctbut indivisible parts growing out of a common
Antecedent Unity, or productive Life and Will.I t must be an organic not a mechanic f i tness. l05
105T. M. Raysor, "Unpublished Fragments on Aesthetics by S. T.
Coleridge", Publications of the ModernL a n ~ u a g e
Association,22:529-30 (October 1925 .
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All this the poet or ar t i s t can do by penetrating into the in
most divine l i f e of nature, which is one with the divine l i fe in
hiS own soul, and he i s able to share i t . The creative act ivi ty
of the divine mind awakens in his soul a corresponding creative
activity. The poet or ar t i s t achieves form in his product by
working as nature works through inner law. The divine law,
operating at the heart of nature, operates also in the mind of
the poet. But the nature tha t the poet must imitate, not copy,
is the naturea t
work, the natura naturans, not the natura
naturata. Coleridge always advocates freedom for the ar t i s t .
Again, there is the idea of unity and harmony in his con-
ception of ar t . Art, for Coleridge, i s the
middle quality between a thought and a thing,. . . the union and reconciliation of thatwhich is nature with that which is exclusively
human. I t is the figured language of thought,and is distinguished from nature by the unityof a l l the parts in one thought or. idea. l06
How logically Coleridge's entire body of aesthetic and
philosophy adheres! After he has explained his meaning of imi
tation as "two elements perceived as co-existing 11 ,107 he t e l l s
us:
106
107
These two constituent elements are likenessand unlikeness, or sameness and difference,
Miscellanies, "On Poesy or Art 11 , p. 44.
Ibid. , p. 45.
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and in a l l genuine creations of ar t theremust be a union of these disparates.l08
I t is the function of the ar t i s t or poet to balance and imitate
nature provided
there be l ikeness in the difference,difference in the likenessA and a recon-cilement of both in o n e . l O ~
This involves the technique of ar t . But the ar t i s t must fully
understand that he i s to imitate not copy. Coleridge stresses
again the meaning of beauty when he says:
We must imitate nature! yes, but what innature,--al l and everything? No, the beauti-fu l in nature. And what then is the beautiful?What i s beauty? I t i s , in the abstract , theunity of the manifold, the coalescence of thediverse; in the concrete, i t i s the union ofthe shapely (formosum) with the vi ta l . 10
However, Coleridge i s anxious that his hearers remember that we
must not copy mere nature, the natura naturata. With a feeling
of disgust , he recal l s Ciprani 's pictures which as he says
.• . proceed only from a given form.111
With precision he says:
Believe me, you must master the essence, thenatura naturans which supposes a bond betweennature in the higher sense and the soul ofman.ll2
108Ibid.
109Ibid . , p . 46.
110Ibid.
111Ib1d.112-Ibid.
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What place does the moral element play in Coleridge's
aesthetic? He defini tely says that nature 's wisdom is co-
instantaneous with the plan and the execution; nature has no
moral responsibili ty:
• .• the thought and the product are one,or are given at once; but is no ref lex act ,and hence there is no moral responsibili ty. 113
aut i t is for the genius in man to make a choice; he is capable
of ref lect ion and enjoys freedom:
Inman
there is reflexion, freedom, andchoice; he i s , thi1tfore , the head of thevisible creat ion.
And in his characterist ic manner, Coleridge describes the
"mystery" of the Fine Arts:
The objects of nature are presented,as in a mirror, a l l the possible elements,steps, and processes of in te l lec t antece-
dent to consciousness, and therefore to thefu l l development of the in te l l igent ia l act;and man's mind is the very focus of a l l therays of in te l lect which are scatteredthroughout the images of nature . l l5
With a l l ground fully prepared for the poet , i t is then through
freedom and choice that the poet must
place these images, to tal ized, and f i t ted
to the l imits of the human mind, as toe l ic i t from, and to superinduce upon, the
113Ibid . , p. 47.
114Ibid.
115Ibid.
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forms themselves the moral r l l ~ e x i o n s towhich they approximate• . .
Coleridge supposes, therefore, that every piece of a r t should be
imbued with a moral beauty, not moral in the sense of doctrinal
religious morality, but a natural quali ty which i s at t r ibuted to
man's in te l lec t ra ther than to his animal nature, the sensuous
appetites. For he says that i f a moral feeling is associated
with the pleasure
. . . a larger sweep of thoughts wil l be
associated with each enjoyment, and witheach thought will be associated a numberof sensations; and consequently, eachpleasure wil l become more the pleasure ofthe whole being.ll7
Romanticism i t se l f would put a moral value upon ar t . To
the romanticist , the "inner" consciousness is the essence of per-
sonality. Since i t is a part of the great oneness in nature, an
integral par t , therefore, of the sp i r i t of God, consequently, i t
is spir i tua l . The romanticist 's view of nature is nature not
primarily a part of the external and objective real i ty , but
nature as the outer or sense-form of the "inner" or spir i tua l
real i ty . Thus: "The ' inner ' being, in a l l and in any of i t s
terms, including Vernunft, finds i t s complete embodiment in
'Nature'. And in the same manner in which the individual ' soul '
or ' sp i r i t ' is an in tegral part of the ' soul ' or ' sp i r i t ' of God,
116Ibid.
p . 41.
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the over-soul, each individual 'na ture ' i s an in tegral part of
the universal nature. Likewise, the absolute primacy of the
universal or divine sp i r i t in i t s relat ion to universal nature
is repeated in the primacy of each individual sp i r i t in relat ion
to i t s individual nature. Nature i s thus the symbol of the soul .
Romanticism is nature animism. I t follows from th is that
•nature' offers the complete and suff icient tangible evidence of
the soul. The laws of nature, therefore, must be the laws of the
inner being. Nature embodies and manifests a l l the fundamental
!!uths , motives, and standards of conduct." 118 Therefore, there
is no need for objective doctr inal standards. There i s identi ty
between organic functions and sp i r i tual emotions. To the mind of
the romanticist , in tegr i ty i s "· •. the quali ty of only those
acts which are the immediate resul tants of the spontaneous push
of the to ta l i ty of his nature. This to ta l i ty is beyond the ana-
ly t ic understanding, a mystic force, amenable only to the imme-
diate apperception and expression of the soul. I t s specif ic
manifestation is i t s indissoluble spontaneous oneness of impulse.
Only in complete loyalty and obedience to spontaneous impulse
does the Romanticist acknowledge and follow supreme law of his
and in tha t of universal being. In th is sense in tegr i ty to him
is complete naturalness. The Romanticist denies original s in; he
118 "Martin Schutze, HRomantic Motives of Conduct in Concrete
Modern Philologl, 16:282 (1918-1919).
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asserts original godliness.ull9 The laws that nature gives are
the only norms, therefore, and "the supreme authority and in
tegrity of impulse implies freedom from external, objective,
mediate motives or standards of t ruth and conduct. 11 120 The
mystery l ies in making
. . . the external internal , the in ternalexternal , . . . nature thought and thoughtnature . . . 121
Another keynote of Shakespeare's genius in the creation of
characters, Coleridge found was that
To the idea of l i fe , victory or s t r i feis necessary; as vir tue consists not simplyin the absence of vices, but in the overcoming of them.l22
The ar t i s t or poet must, furthermore,
. . . eloign himself from nature in order toreturn to her with fu l l effect . . . • He must
out of his own mind create forms according tothe severe laws of the in te l lect , in order togenerate in himself that co-ordination offreedom and law, that involution of obediencein the prescr ipt in the impulse to obey, whichassimilates h i m 1 ~ g nature and enables him tounderstand her.
But in te l lect alone does not consti tute a guide in the
technique of the poet. To in te l lect , Coleridge would add
119Ibid. , p. 283.
120Ibid.
121Miscellanies, p. 41.
122Ibid . , p. 52.
123
Ibid . , p . 48 .
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~sensibili ty. I t i s , he says, a •component part of genius.•124
In his lectures of 1811-12, he defines taste as
• • • an attainment af ter the poet hasbeen disciplined by experience, and hasadded to genius that ta lent by which heknows what part of his genius he canmake acceptable and in te l l ig ible to the
125portion of mankind for which he writes .
professor Muirhead writes on this point: 1 I t is a merit in eon
temporary writers on 1Taste 1 to recognize the place in a r t of
the emotional response which they called "sensibi l i ty" . Their
mistake was to interpret this as a form of self-feel ing. On a
view l ike Coleridge's the whole emphasis fe l l upon depth of
teeling, but i t was feeling for a .world in which the sel f in any
personal sense no longer occupied a place, but might be said,as
in love, to have 'passed in music out of sight• .• l26
Those who would appreciate the depth and subtlety of
Coleridge's philosophy ot beauty and his system of the a r t of
crit icism, must remember that philosophy and the principles of
crit icism which Coleridge is concerned with are, it is true,
concerned with theory, but 1 since the theory is of l i fe in a l l
i t s departments, it is concerned with will and feeling as well a
with in te l lec t . •127 All experience in that theory of l i f e ; mor
124Biographia Literar ia , I , p. 30.
125Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism, ed. by T. M. Raysor,
II, p. 129.126
Op.eit . ,pp. 213-14.
12?Muirhead, o . c i t . , p . 213-14.
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aesthetic , in te l lectual , is dealt with throughout Coleridge's
criticism of Shakespeare and other English poets . Just how
these principles of crit icism are used by Coleridge in his in ter
pretat ion of the Shakespearean play will be the subject of the
next chapter.
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CHAPTER III
APPLICATION OF COLERIDGE'S BASIC THEORIES,
PHILOSOPHICAL AND AESTHETIC,
TO HIS CRITICISM OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS
The application of Coleridge's philosophical and aesthetic
theories as found in the mass of his cr i t i ca l works is both com-
plex and i l lus ive . Coleridge's master mind possessed two great
powers, the power of penetrating the work at hand and, l ikewise,
the power of cull ing from the work the very reasons and causes o
i ts being. These two powers fuse in the great cr i t i c , making i t
hard at times to distinguish between the philosophic and purely
aesthetic principles , and unt i l the reader has "got the habit" ,
as Miss Snyder aptly puts i t , Coleridge may baffle even an ad
mirer.
The subject-matter of his crit icism yields i t se l f to three
phases which, although t reated separately, are a composite of
Coleridge's ar t . What part does experience play in the building
up of the Shakespearean play? What function has the theory of
the imagination in the essence of Shakespearean drama? Does
Coleridge allow for a rea l technique in the development of the
Shakespearean drama? I t must be remembered that Coleridge was
not a professional theater man. This fact is apparent in his ap
roach to Shakespearean drama. The l i terary quali t ies of the
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Shakespearean play were to Coleridge of far more interest and
1mportance than the dramatic elements. As a consequence, there
18 very l i t t l e comment on plot structure and popular appeal among
h1S cr i t i ca l works. English audiences were t i red of pompous
k1ngs and queens, and sought in the drama the things that touched
their more commonplace l ives.
Subjective poet that he was, Coleridge saw in Shakespeare a
great prober of the human soul. Coleridge was an ideal is t who
read in Shakespeare's plays hisown
inner musings on that innerl ife of reali ty so dear to him. Hazli t t and Lamb, his intimate
and contemporaries, in whom he sought affirmation of his
wn theories , were vague in determining what ought to consti tute
Hazli t t would admit that drama was more than a panorama
f actions. Lamb would judge a play good i f i t possessed a few
of lyr ica l grandeur. Coleridge, representat ive of the
cr i t i cs , "over-stressed the abstract , and as a conse-
uence those concrete elements which are of such importance in
neglected." 128
The periodicals of the day evidence the sp i r i t of discontent
complaint that arose among the professional active theater
This note of discontent was shown in the London
in which the cri t ic writes: "Action is the essence of
i t s definition: business, bustle , hurly and combustion
op.ci t . , pp. 65-66.
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dire, are indispensable to effective drama• . • . But (address
ing the dramatist) you seem to think that the whole virtue of
tragedy l ies in i t s poetici ty. . . . At any rate i f you don't
think thus, you write as i f you did. • . . In short, your actio
is nothing and your poetry everything.nl29
In the second of the "Satyrane Letters" Coleridge has given
us the at t i tude of the ordinary theater-goer toward the drama of
the day and that of the idea l i s t ' s conception of i t . In an
imaginary conversation the cit izen defends the modern type of
drama by saying that i t i s f i l led "with the best Christian
morality.n130
To which the idea l is t answers that i t is "that
part of Christian morality which can be practised without a
single Christian vir tue , without a single sacrif ice that is
really painful." 131 The idea l is t avers that the s terl ing con
f l icts of an Antony or a Caesar are the essence of dramatic ac-
tion. Against this remark the defendant argues that the ordinary
citizen of London or Hamburg has not much contact with kings or
ueens; and besides, he knows just how such stor ies turn out, for
hey are stor ies known to a l l . This knowledge of the story de
racts from the interest and curiosity of the audience. The
argues that i t is "the manner and the language, the
30Biographia L i t e r a r i a ~ I I , .p. 160.
31Ibid.
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situations, the action and reaction of the passions 11 132 that
should hold the audience's attent ion. The pract ical minded
cit izen says that he is interested in his "friends and next-door
neighbours--honest tradesmen, valiant tars , high-spir ited half
paY officers , philanthropic Jews, etc.n 133 These types are not
such, the idea l is t argues, tha t can perform "actions great and
interesting. 11134 He asks the cit izen what such characters can
do that is real ly noteworthy. The at t i tude of the average con
temporary produceris
evident in thec i t i zen ' s
reply:
11 what is
done on the stage is more striking than what is acted.ul35 To
Coleridge's romantic mind such characters styled as "friends and
next-door neighbours" could not be associated with that "sub-
limest of a l l feelings, the power of dist inction and the con
trolling might of heaven which seems to elevate the characters
which sink beneath i t s i r resis t ib le blow.ul36 These were "mere
:t'ancies 11 137 to the London play-goer who finds in the play a por
trayal of his own l i fe of action with this difference--in the
33
a l l turns out exactly as he desires.
With a note of disgust Coleridge then sums up the reasons
the popularity of contemporary plays:
Ibid. , p. 162.
34Ibid.
35Ibid . , p. 163.
36Ibid.
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.•• the whole secret of dramatic popularityconsists •.• in the confusion and subversionof the natural order of things, the ir causesand effects; in the excitement of surprise, byrepresenting the qual i t ies of l iberal i ty , re-
138fined feel ing, and a nice sense of honor . .•
Poetry in Coleridge's mind is always identif ied with
philosophy. I t is when he is dealing with concrete criticism of
works of a r t that he seems to forget that he is dealing with
abstract thought. Like Aristot le , Coleridge believed that the
aim of poetry should represent the universal through the part iou
lar to give a concrete and l iving embodiment to a universal
truth. This universal of poetry is not an abstract idea. I t is
part icularized to sense; i t comes before the mind clothed in the
form of the concrete, presented under the appearance of a l iving
organism whose parts are in vi ta l and st ructural relat ion to the
whole. Butcher concludes in his Aris tot le ' s Theor of Poetr
Fine Art 139 that although Coleridge adhered to Aris tot le ' s
theory in many respects , he, nevertheless, was careful to explain
that poetry as poetry is essential ly ideal . He himself s tates
this in the Biographia Literaria:
I adopt with fu l l fai th the theory ofAristotle that poetry as poetry is essen-t ia l ly ideal , that i t avoids and excludesa l l accident; that i t s apparent individ-ual i t ies of rank, character, or occupation,must be representative of a class; and thatthe persons of poetry must be clothed withgeneric at t r ibutes , with the common a t t r i -
~ 8 ~ . , p. 164.139
P. 183.
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butes of the class; not such as one giftedindividual might possibly possess, but suchas from his si tuat ion,
148 is most probable
that he would possess.
His at t i tude on this subject of universal and part icular is :
Say not that I am recommending abstrac-t ion, for these class characterist ics whichconstitute the instruct iveness o.f a characterare so modified and part icular ized in eachperson of the Shakespearean drama, that l i fei t se l f does not excite more dist inct ly thatsense of individuali ty which belongs to realexistence. . . . Aristotle has required ofthe poet an invo*ution of the universal inthe individua1.l 1
The differences are
. . . in geometry i t i s the universal t ruth,which is uppermost in the consciousness; inpoetry the i n d i v i ~ ~ ~ l form, in which thet ruth is clothed.
One is inclined to think that Coleridge here supposes the uni-
versal to be a single abstract t ruth. I t is a l l the truths that
are held within bounds of the individual. He stresses the fact
that although the poet i s dealing with the part icular , the "con-
crete fact which the poet uses is so changed that the universal
is represented by i t . "143
At times Coleridge's praise of poetic qual i t ies , his appre-
Ciation of unity, poetical imagery and harmony does not seem to
140Biographia Literar ia , I I , p. 33 . .
141Ibid.
142Ibid.
143As
quoted in Butcher, op.ci t . , p. 393.
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agree with his theory of the imagination. He conceives of
poetry as identif ied with philosophy when he views poetry thus
connected with philosophy as a sublime experience whose expres
sion is more or less independent and i r relevant to him. Ex-
perience of this nature is the f i r s t step in the poet 's creat ive
process; the imagination then becomes as Coleridge himselfsays i
the Anima Poetae
. . • the laboratory in which the f ~ ~ u g h telaborates essence into existence.
Experience is considered as a form of self-expression.
Coleridge distinguishes between observation and medttation. The
creation of characters on the part of Shakespeare was in some
sense self-expression; i t was meditation of his own nature and
then a reproduction, for he says:
. . . he had only to imitate certain partsof his own character, or to exaggerate suchas existed in possibi l i ty , and they were a t
once true to nature . • . some may think themof one form, and some of another; but theyare s t i l l nature, s t i l l Shakespeare, and thecreatures of his meditation.l45
Experiences within the poet Shakespeare afford the patterns , as
i t were, that convey the universal in l i f e . The poet f i r s t medi
tates upon the universal and then recreates i t and concentrates
i t in the individual. In his "Essay on Method" Coleridge says:
144p. 186.
145Powell, op. ci t . , p. 110.
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• • • the observation of a mind, which,having formed a theory and a system uponi t s own nature, remarks a l l things thatare examples of i t s t ruth, and, above a l l ,enabling i t to convey the t ruths ofphilosophy, as mere effects derived from,
what we may cal l , the outward watchingsof l i fe . l46
Characters in Shakespeare's plays were regarded by Coleridge as
•representations of abstract conceptions.ul47 Thus the univer-
sal became an idea. Of the idea Coleridge says
Shakespeare, therefore, studied mankind in
the Idea of the human race.l48This statement i s basic in his psychological method. Shake-
peare's drama then became "the vehicle of general truthnl49 and
a ll his characters have the primary purpose of expressing this
truth. Genius works by laws, not only those which regulate the
outer form of the poem or entire drama but others which are de-
pendent upon the
. . • external objects of sight and sound.l50
Shakespeare is a great dramatist simply because he possesses
knowledge of law
146s. T. Coleridge, "Essay on Method," The Friend (London, 1887),
p. 36.
147Powell, op.ci t . , p. 111.
148~ s quoted in Raysor, Shakespearean Criticism, ii, p. 344.
149Ibid.
150~ s quoted in Powell, op.c i t . , p. 113.
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. . • in the delineation of character, inthe display of Passion, in the conceptionsof Moral Being, in the adaptations ofLanguage, in the connection and admirablein ter texture of his ever- interest ing Fable. 151
.Art becomes then a "form of knowledge", a 11 store-house for b i t s
of rea l i ty" , 11 facts of mind". Shakespeare possessed th is " s t o r e ~house" fo r he knew the essent ia l 11 rea l i ty of things and deep
t ruths underlying human l i f e . 11 152 Shakespeare's poetry gained
Coleridge's admiration and eulogy not for the beauty of the
poetry i t se l f , but because Coleridge found init
these laws and
truths underlying l i f e i t se l f . The characters of Shakespeare's
plays exemplified the many experiences of rea l l i f e . Shawcross
summarizes a few instances of these when he says: "Constance's
personification of grief , in King John, i s jus t i f ied on the
ground tha t Coleridge had _heard a rea l mother ut te r similar
words--and that the passage therefore represented a ' f ac t of
mind 1 • 11153 In a similar way Shawoross says: "The character of
Romeo draws Coler idge's disser ta t ion upon the nature of love.ul54
"Wordsworth's Betty Foy i s an impersonation of ins t inct
abandoned by jud.gment. 11155 But such a theory natural ly led
151Ib id .
152Biographia Literar ia , I I , p. 350.
~ 5 3 I b i d . , I I , p. 36.
5 4 I b i d .5 5 I b i d .
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Coleridge to look for a concept in every poem. The concept or
the reason for which the poem existed or from which i t was born,
,as an experience, a "fact o f mind", a "form of being." In this
case the experience is not regarded as emotional experience of
an individual, but as a peering into the very nature o f the uni
versal . This is Coleridge in theory. When he puts aside this
theoret ical at t i tude , his idea assumes emotion and passion. In
the hands of a poet experience is transformed into more vivid
real i ty by means of the poet 'sown
act of creation. Passion be
comes necessary before the experience becomes an experience of
the poet. The stronger the state of emotion becomes, the more
vivid the reflect ion becomes. This experience Coleridge called
the primary imagination. The poet whose sensibi l i ty is excited
by the beauty of the world about him adds to the object or ex
perience his own sympathetic emotion which arises in him during
the act of creation. When these experiences which are aroused or
created by nature, or when the passions, or the various accidents
of human l i fe are expressed in ordinary language by the man who
does not possess genius, that expression Coleridge would not con
sider a poem. To the powers of observation or the pure experi
ence something must be added: there must be a
. . . pleasurable emotion, that peculiars tate and degree of excitement, which arisesin the poet himself in the act of composit ion;--and in order to understand th is , we
must combine more than ordinary sympathy withthe objects, emotions, or incidents con
templated by the poet, consequent on a more
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than common sensibi l i ty , with a more thanordinary act ivi ty of the mind in l S ~ p e c tof the fancy and the imagination.
Consequent upon this Coleridge says
. . . a more vivid reflection of the i s ~ t h sof nature and of the human heart . . .
is produced. The t ruths of nature and the human heart are the
experiences, the s tuf f of the poet 's imagination. Experience is
the
framework of object iv i ty , that defini tenessand art iculat ion of imagery, and that modification of the images themselves, withoutwhich poetry becomes f lattened into meredidactics of practice or e v a p o r a t ~ d into ahazy, unthoughtful, day-dreaming.l58
To this Coleridge would add the great secondary imagination
which superimposes or rather 11 fuses 11 passions which give a new
l i fe to the experience:
. .• passion, provides that neither thoughtnor imagery shall be simply object ive, butthat the passio vera of humanity shall warmand animate . • . 159
the images of the primary imagination. The poet with the aid of
the secondary imagination produces some new phase of the image
or thought of the primary imagination. Coleridge would have us
believe that in the state of emotion attendant upon creative
156Shakespearean Criticism, I , l!l· 163 . .
157Ibid.
158Ibid. , p. 166.
159
Ibid.-
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genius, the poet stresses the individual experience hidden in
the universal experience of mankind. Poetry i s experience; i t
is experience of a rare individual. I t i s from th is point of
view that Coleridge cr i t ic izes Shakespeare, and from which
Shakespeare selects from history the individual characters that
possess that rare experience. Coleridge stresses more the ex-
perience than the idea. His definit ion of poet implies that the
secondary imagination i s the power that can recapture l iving
experiences:
The poet . . . brings the whole soul of man
into act iv i ty , with the subordination of i t sfacult ies to each other, according to the irrelat ive worth and dignity. He diffuses atone and a sp i r i t of unity, that blends, and(as i t were) fuses, each into each by thatsynthetic and magical power, to which we haveexclusively appropriated the name of imagina-t ion. This power, f i r s t put in action by the
wil l and understanding, and retained undertheir irremissive though gentle and unnoticedcontrol (laxis effer tur habenis) reveals i t -self in the balance or r e c o n c i l i a t i o n 1 ~opposite or discordant qual i t ies •• . -
Coleridge places experience a t the base of a l l true drama.
Every man's experience i s universal yet individual. The drama-
t i s t is not merely an observer; he probes the very root of the
experience, t races i t to the individual in the human being.
Therefore, to do th is the poet must meditate in order to dis-
tinguish passion from general t ruths when creating characters.
The characters of the play must contain a "living balance" for ,
as Coleridge maintains,
!60Biog.z=aohia LiterariA II n. 12.
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The heterogeneous united as in nature. Mistakes of those who suppose a pressure orpassion always act ing-- i t i s that by whichthe individual is distinguished from o!g!rs ,not what makes a separate kind of him.
consequently, i t i s not the poet 's business to analyze and
cri t ic ize the affections and fai ths of men. He must not in ter
pret in the l igh t of his own affections, but must ask, "Are thea
affections and emotions and truths true of every human nature? 11
This i s the cri ter ion by which Coleridge would tes t the genius o
Shakespeare or any other playwright. That Coleridge believedthat Shakespeare's characters were ideal and the creatures of
meditation is t rue, yet he maintained also that
• . • a jus t separation may be made of thosein which the ideal i s most prominent--wherei t i s put forward more intensely--where we aremade more conscious of the ideal , though int ruth they possess no more nor less ideal i ty;
and of those which, though equally idealised,the drsusion upon the mind i s of the i r beingreal . 2
The characters of Shakespeare's plays, as characters in rea l
l i fe , differ . I t is sometimes the real that i s disguised in the
ideal; sometimes the ideal hidden by the rea l . This difference
is obtained by the poet through his use of the different powers
or mind employed in the creation and presentation of character.
Among the real Coleridge class i f ies Shakespeare's his torica
161Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. 228.
162Ibid . , I I , p. 168.
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p l a Y S ~ In his tor ica l plays Coleridge required the following
essential characterist ics:
In order that a drama may be properlyhis tor ica l , i t is necessary that i t shouldbe the history of the people to whom i t i saddressed. In the composition, care mustbe taken that there appear no dramatic 1m-probabil i ty, as the reali ty is taken forgranted. I t must, l ikewise, be poetical; - that only, I mean, must be taken which isthe permanent in our nature, which i s common
163and therefore deeply interest ing to a l l ages.
The essent ia l unity basic in Coleridge's concept of drama i s not
gained in the his tor ica l play by the fusing of the ideal in the
real but i s
. . . of a higher order, which connects theevents by reference to the workers, gives areason for them in the motives, a ~ ~ presentsmen in the ir causative character. 4
Coleridge further distinguishes between the a r t that i s created
by the experience imagination and that which i s created by the
higher power and evinced by the secondary imagination when he
says pointedly:
163Ibid . ,
164Ibid . ,
165Ibid . ,
The dist inct ion does not depend on thequantity of his tor ica l events compared withthe f ict ions, for there i s as much history inMacbeth as in Richard, but in the relat ion ofthe history to the plot . In the purelyhis tor ica l plays, the history informs the plot ;in the mixt i t directs i t ; in the res t , as
M a c ~ ~ ' Hamlet, Cymbeline, Lear, i t subservesi t .
I ' p. 138.
P· 139.
P· 143.
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his tor ica l plays characters are not introduced
. . . merely for the purpose of giving agreater individuali ty and realness, as inthe comic parts of Henry IV.
1by presenting,
as i t were, our very selves. 66
Regarding the presentation of the character of Richard I I ,
Coleridge indicated tha t Shakespeare exercised the power of the
primary imagination:
Shakespeare has presented th is characterin a very peculiar manner. He has not madehim amiable with counter-balancing faul ts ;but has openly and broadly drawn those faul tswithout reserve, relying on Richard's disproportionate sufferings and gradually emergentgood qual i t ies for our sympathy; because hisfaults are not posit ive vices, but soringentirely from defect of character . lo7
Coleridge jus t i f ies Shakespeare's use of the pun in the his tor i -
cal drama by saying that i t is
•.• the passion that carries off i t s excessby play on words, as natural ly and, therefore,as appropriately to d f ~ ~ ' as by gesticulat ion,looks, or tones.
a ll of which are necessary adjuncts to the play. For a l l these
things belong, he reasons very logical ly,
166Ibid.
. . . to human nature as human, independent ofassociations and habits from any part icular
rank of l i fe or mode of employment; and16a th isconsists Shakespeare's vulgarisms •••
167Ibid . , p. 149.
168Ibid.
169Ibid.
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•hiCh have a definite place in the dramatic dialogue, for they
have a place in the human existence of man. In the analysis of
Richard I I Coleridge gives his definition of his tor ical drama,-. . .
the events are a l l his tor ica l , pre-sented in thei r resul ts , not produced byacts seen, or f ~ a t take place before theaudience. . .
The main object of the his tor ical drama is to
• familiarize men to the great f " e s ofthe country, and excite patriotism.
Free will and fate form the elements of histor ic drama.
Coleridge would at tr ibute to Shakespeare good judgment in the
introduction of accidents thus making them drama, not pure
history. However, in general he does not believe that accidents
are allowable in romantic or ideal drama.
An histor ic play would not require the same genius as
romantic play. As regards experience in Shakespeare's plays,
Coleridge notes,
. . . he shows us the l i fe and principle ofeach being with organic regularity. l72
The person of the boatswain in the f i r s t scene of !Qe Tempest is
an example of experience without the coloring of the poet 's
imagination. When danger threatens, the boatswain throws off
the feelings of reverence toward Gonzalo and shouts a t him,
170Ibid . , p. 142.
1?1! l l i · ' p . 153.
17
2Ibid. , I I , p. 170.
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Hence! What care these roarers for the nameof King?
To cabin: silence! trouble us not.l73
After this vulgar speech Gonzalo does not moralize nor comment
on the boatswain's language. He soliloquizes and t r ies to com-
tort himself by meditation on the i l l expression of the boat
swain's face. Coleridge sees in this instance the language of
men such as would be actually used under similar circumstances.
Characters thus drawn are real--they are the embodiment of l i fe
and i t s experiences. In Miranda's exclamation upon seeing theship a t a distance dashed to pieces there is the feel ing of
sympathy with her fellow beings:
0! I have sufferedWith those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel ,Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures in her,Dash'd a l l to pieces. l7 4
I t is important in the study of Coleridge to remember that
to him poetry possesses vi ta l rea l i ty whose essence is the in
timate experience of the poet . For this reason Coleridge t r ies ·
to recreate the poet 's mood within himself and then analyzes that
poet 's expression as a l iving experience.
When Coleridge combines the idea of experience and creative
imagination, a piece of a r t is produced. But mere raw experi
ence, such as contact with l i fe affords, is not a r t in i t se l f .
I t must be recreated, infused with spir i tua l values. The
173Ibid . , p. 171.
174Ibid . , p. 172.
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presentation of l i f e ' s experience requires the aid of the
audience. This aid will be obtained, Coleridge bel ieves, by the
theory of dramatic i l lusion.
In accord with his theory of dramatic ar t , Coleridge views
the stage not as a permanent mechanical structure. To him:
A theatre, in the widest sense of the word,is the general term for a l l places of amusementthro ' the ear or eye in which men assemble inorder to be amused by some entertainment pre-sented to a l l a t the same time . . • The most im-portant and dignif ied species of th is genus i s ,doubtless, the stage {res theatra l is his t r ionica) ,which, in addition to the generic defini t ionabove given may be characterized (in i t s Idea, oraccording to what i t does, or ought to , aim at)as a combination of several or of a l l the finearts to an harmonious whole having a dis t inct endof i t s own, to which the peculiar end of each ofthe component par ts , taken separately, i s madesubordinate and subservient, that namely, ofimitating Ideal i ty {objects, f ~ ~ i o n s , or passions)under a semblance of rea l i ty .
This is an idea l i s t ' s defini t ion of the stage. I t i s upon th is
stage of the "universal mind 11 1?6 that the great Shakespearean
characters as Coleridge singles them out pass in review. There-
fore, in order to hold the individual mind as the stage of l i f e ' s
individuals, mind must be put in the s ta te in which universal
truths and experience will best be seen and understood. This
state is equivalent to delusion created by a picture upon a
l i t t l e child. The picture gives real delight . The scene on the
175Ib id . , I , p. 199.
176Ibi<1·, p. 4.
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stage has the chief purpose of producing as much i l lusion as will
make the spectator contribute his own imaginative power and make
him feel that the scene is rea l . Stage scenes are to men what
the picture is to the child. The dramatic i l lusion that is put
upon the mind of man suspends the act of comparison and creates
poetic fa i th in the spectator . This i s accompanied by a chi ld ' s
sensibi l i ty .
Experiences thus presented before an audience must resemble
reali ty. The genius of the poet will bring about a balance and
anti thesis of feeling and thought. The condition of a l l con
sciousness "that without which we should feel and imagine only by
discontinuous moments," is
. . • that ever-varying balance, or balancing,of images, notions, or feel ings • . . conceived asin opposition to each other; in short, the per
ception of identity and contrariety, the leastdegree of which o o n s f ~ 1 u t e s l ikeness, the greatestabsolute difference.
Between these two, the identity and contrariety or l ikeness and
difference, there is a gradation of feelings and emotions, which
forms the source of interest for our in te l lec t and moral sense.
What place does the unit ies hold in Coleridge's concept of
a play? The unit ies as conceived as an inherent part of the
ancient drama had the ir meri ts , Coleridge conceded. He rejected
the unit ies in his theory, for he believed drama to be a l iv ing,
l??rb_ ! : ! . , p . 205.
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dynamic growth and th is growth, an organic wholeness. The idea
or concept of a vi ta l unity as opposed to mechanical structure
appears not only in Coleridge's consideration of plot and char-
acter, but also in the very words and phrases that express th is
dYnamic dramatic whole. I f , therefore, the dramatist is to be
successful in throwing over his audience that •poetic faith" or
"disbelief", the elements of man's entire being must be fused.
To see these principles actually a t play in Coleri4ge's cr i t i -
cism, the creative imagination and experience imagination, and
his actual technique must not be considered as acting separately,
but as commingling, giving a oneness of impression.
Coleridge dwells a t length on the deta i ls that create this
oneness of impression, but deals with the imagination as the
power from which this unity proceeds. I t is imagination that
distinguishes romantic drama from every other kind. He himself
jus t i f ies the dist inction when he says,
. • . I have named the true genuine modernpoetry the romantic,l78
Then he defines Shakespearean drama as
.•• r o m a £ ~ g c poetry revealing i t se l f inthe drama.
Thus, The Tempest which Coleridge classif ies as a romantic drama
1s one
178Ibid . , p. 197.
179Ibid.
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. • . the in terests of which are independentof a l l his tor ica l facts and associat ions, andarise from their f i tness to that faculty ofour nature, the imagination I mean, which owesno allegiance to time and place,--a species ofdrama, therefore, in which errors in chronologyand geography, no mortal sins in r g ~ species,are venial , or count for nothing.
The laws of the uni t ies would be a res t r ic t ion upon the fu l l
plaY of the imagination. The structure of the play is equiva
lent in Coleridge's mind to the growth of character and the
appropriate unity in that case would pervade the whole, attend
ant upon i t , balancing or posit ing the universal in past experi
encsor , as he cal ls them, •facts of mind". The romantic drama
appeals to the imagination. Anything exterior that might dis
turb the i l lusion or withdraw the mind from that inner realm
would destroy the essence of romantic drama for
•.• the excitement ought to come from within,-from the moved and sympathetic imagination;whereas, where so much i s addressed to the mereexternal senses of seeing and hearing, thespir i tua l vision i s apt to languish, and theat tract ion from without wil l withdraw the mindfrom the proper and only legitimate interestwhich is intended to spring from within. l8l
In other words, there must be a sublimation of the natural with
the spir i tual-- the s p i ~ i t u a l , we must remember, i s the union of
the individual with the universal, the contact with the l iving
nature or the natura naturans.
180Ibid . , p. 131.
181Ibid . , p. 132.
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Imagination becomes in the hands of Shakespeare the brush
that paints not only the characters in l iving colors with the
l ight of sunshine and the shadow of interplay between the souls
of these characters, but also the background of the picture.
Furthermore, imagination is the power that creates dramatic
characters. Coleridge's Principle of the Reconciliation of
Opposites is his main technique. Sometimes th is reconciliation
is a union of opposites, especially of the universal and the
individual. In the individual i t is often modified by circum-
stances such as environment or heredity. This fact Coleridge
definitely states when discussing Shakespeare's women characters.
He says:
. • • there is essentially the same foundationand principle; the dis t inc t individuality andvariety are merely the resu l t of the modifica
t ion of circumstances, whether in Miranda themaiden, in Imogen the wife, or in Katherinethe queen.l82
Coleridge makes the theory of the imagination the basis of
his entire system of ar t . For Coleridge nature and ar t are one
and i t is the function of the secondary imagination to •ruse each
into each by a synthetic and magical power 11•183 The poet must
possess the vision of the universe as Divine act ivi ty and must
imitate not the real in himself but the rea l in the universal.
182Ibid. , p. 134.
183Biographia Literaria , I I , p. 12.
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I t is the laok of imagination in Ben Jonson that makes Coleridge
saY with disgust:
• • • he Ben Jonson oared only to observewhat was external or open to , and l ikely to
impress the senses. He individualizes, notso muoh, i f at al l , by the exhibition of 'moral or intel lectual differences, as by thevariet ies and contrasts of mannersA modes ofspeeoh and tr icks of temper. . . ~ 4
In the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Coleridge points out the
laok of imaginative power. These two dramatists presented the
experiences of the primary imagination without the infused emo-tion:
••• these poets took from the ear and eye,unchecked by any intui t ion of an inward im-poss ib i l i ty ; - - jus t as a man might puttogether a quarter of an orange, a quarterof an apple, and the l ike of a lemon and apomegranate, and make i t look l ike one rounddiverse-colored f ru i t . 85
This to Coleridge is not drama because nature does not work in
that manner. Coleridge says:
. nature, which works from within by evolution and assimilation, according to a law,cannot do so, nor could Shakespeare; for hetoo worked in the sp i r i t of nature, by evolvingthe germ from within by the imaginative poweraccording to an idea.l86
Therefore, f i r s t of al l , drama must be essential ly real ; i t
184Mrs. Henry Nelson Coleridge, Lectures Upon Shakespeare, I I
(London, 1849), p. 39.
185Ibid.
186Ibid.
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must be a product of the imagination, that power which draws out
of the universal the individual, yet gives to the individual
something of the universal. Coleridge interprets Shakespeare's
dramatic characters according to the degree of experience and
imagination that consti tutes them. The reconciling and balancing
of extremes may create a mediocre character, but in comparing
Shakespeare's characters with Chaucer's, Coleridge finds that
Shakespeare's characters are the repre-sentatives of the interior nature of humanity,
in which some element has become so predominant ·as to destroy the health of the mind.l87
In noting the basic use of this theory in Coleridge's inter-
pretations, one is aware of a constant positing of opposites in
the building up of the characters. The dramatist must be able tc
distinguish the surface quali t ies from the essential ly ·inner
real i ty . He must not shape from his own individual person.
Coleridge charges Beaumont and Fletcher with such inconsistency.
Shakespeare, on the other hand, shaped or created his characters
187Ibid.
• .• out of the nature within; but we cannotso safely say, out of his own nature as anindividual person. No! th is l a t t e r is i t se l f buta natura naturata, an effect , a produot, not apower. I t was Shakespeare's prerogative to have
this universal, which i s potential ly in eachpart icular , opened to him, the homo generalis ,not an abstraction from observation of a varietyof men, but as the substance capable of endlessmodifications of which his own personal existencewas but one, and to use this one as the eye thatbeheld the other, and as the tongue that could
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convey the discovery• . . Shakespeare, in com-posing, had not I , but the I representat ive.In Beaumont and Fletcher you have descriptionsof characters by the poet rather than thecharacters themselves; we are to ld , of thei rbeing; but we rare ly or never feel that they
actually are . l88
Sometimes the dramatic element in character consists of a
balance of imagination and experience. Often Shakespeare de-
velops character by the exclusion of one tendency and the
development of the other. Contrast brings out reciprocal t ra i t s
and
11 bymeans
ofthe contrast
the balance isestablished,
oppo-
si tes are created, and since they are par t of one ar t i s t i c unit ,
in a sense reconciled. 11189 Don Quixote and Sancho exemplify sue
contrast .
Don Quixote 's leanness and featurel inessare happy exponents of the excess of theformative or imaginative in him, contrasted
with Sancho's plump r o t ~ g g i t y , and recipiencyof external impression.
Imagination becomes the predominant force in Don Quixote.
Coleridge sees in him lack or knowledge of the sciences. Or, in
other words, experience is lacking and for tha t reason Don fa i l s
to see the invis ible in the world of the senses; he fa i led to
see l i f e in i t s symbolic forms. Consequently, Don creates for
188Mrs. H.N.Coleridge, op.c i t . , p. 45.
189Alice Snyder, op.c i t . , p. 40.
190H.N.Coleridge, Literary Remains (London, 1836), I , p. 117.
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himself a world of reali ty or a world of experience out of the
romances which he read. Coleridge affirms the necessity of ex-
perience for Don when he says of him:
. . • the dependency of our nature asks for someconfirmation from without, though i t be onlyfrom the shadows of other men's f ic t ions. l9 l
Therefore Don Quixote created a world for himself. The will was
active in the realm of the imagination where
Don Quixote's will lived and acted as a kingover the creations of his fancy!l92
On the other hand, Sancho represents common sense without the
modifying power of reason or imagination. Don Quixote is the
result of a complete lack of judgment and understanding. In the
creation of these two characters, Coleridge sees the defect in
the picture of the two men, for there is a need for both elements
in the well developed character. Coleridge gives this idea
clearly when he comments in his summary on Cervantes:
191Ibid. ,
192Ibid. ,
193 IIbid . ,
Cervantes not only shows the excellenceand power of reason in Don Quixote, but inboth him and Sancho the mischiefs resultingfrom a severance of the two main constituentsof sound intel lectual and moral action. Puthim and his master together, and they form aperfect in te l lect ; but they are separated and
without cement; and hence each having a needof the other for i t s own completeness, e r s ~has at times the mastery over the other.
p. 118.
p. 119.
P· 120.
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- - - - - - -86
Tbe same idea regarding the need which seeks to be fu l f i l led in
roan's nature, Coleridge states in h is theory of love elsewhere.
Again, it i s the basic idea of unity that runs as a red thread
through the entire weave of Coleridge's system of thought. Here
Don Quixote's love for the country lass i s a love of the inward
imagination, for ~ e makes no attempt to learn to know the countrJ
lass. Don refrains from seeking her love because of his fear of
having h is
•••cherished image destroyed by i t s
ownjudgment.l94
Therefore, he constantly l ives and loves in his imagination.
Another character ist ic of the imagination is exemplified in
Don Quixote when he describes the things of the senses and sensa-
t ions, especial ly in the desQription of the dawn which he does
• . . without borrowing a single t r a i tfrom either. l95
Imagination makes Don Quixote eulogize himself or ra ther ,
• . . the idol of his imagination, theimaginary being whom he. is acting.l96
Finally, with a promise of glory to himself, Sancho also comes
under the spell of the imagination. Coleridge remarks:
194Ibid. ,
195Ibid . ,
196Ibid . ,
At length the promises of the imaginativereason begin to act on the plump, sensual,
p. 121.
p. 122.
P· 123.
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honest common sense accomplice,--but unhappilynot in the same person, and without the copulaof the judgment,--in hope of the substantialgood things, of which the former (the imagina-t ion) contempla.ted only the glory and the colours .197
But Sancho soon comes back to normal. He is soon cured of h is
seeking for the imaginative glory and his cure Coleridge notes it
• through experience.l98
Experience is one of the balancing effects . Sancho and Don
Quixote together would
.•• form a perfect in te l lect . • .199
The chief characterist ic of imagination is that i t i s 11 a l l -
generalizing11; the memory or the primary imagination i s •a l l -
particularizing". Coleridge says of the two:
Observe the happy contrast between theall-generalizing mind of the mad knight, andSancho's al l -part icular iz ing memory.200
Imagination works slowly under the guidance of Shakespeare'e
genius presenting the work of imagination upon his characters anc
in them. The audience is prepared slowly for the terror that i s
pervading Hamlet's imagination. Coleridge points out the way in
which imagination operates:
197Ibid . , p. 125.
198Ibid . , p. 126.
199Ibid . , p. 120.
200Ibid . , p. 127.
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Compare the easy language of common l i fein which th is drama Hamlet opens, with thewild wayward lyr ic of the opening of Macbeth.The language is familiar: no poetic descript ions of night, no elaborate information conveyed by one speaker to another of what bothhad before the ir immediate perceptions. . . yetnothing bordering on the comic on the one hand,and no str iving of the in te l lect on the .other.I t is the language of sensation among men.201
Later in the play Horatio t ranslates the late individual specter
1nto thought and past experience and gains new courage. Hamlet's
inactivity is caused by an overbalance of imagination over
reason and in te l lect . In Hamlet Coleridge explains:
The effect of this overbalance of imaginationis beautiful ly i l lus t ra ted in the inward broodingof Hamlet--the effect of a superfluous act ivi tyof thought. His mind, unseated from i t s healthybalance, is forever occupied with the worldwithin him, and abstracted from external things;
~ ! s d r ~ ~ ~ ~ i ~ ~ I : d a w ~ ~ ~ s ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ n ; ~ a ~ ~ a ~ ~ = ~ i t ~ ~ ~ . ~ 5 2Action was not, therefore, consequent upon Hamlet's thought.
I t is the nature of thought to be indefini te ,while definiteness belongs to reali ty.203
Hamlet makes several attempts, however, to escape from this in-
ward thought. Although the scene which follows the interview
with the ghost maY have been censured as eccentric on the part o
Shakespeare's genius, nevertheless, Shakespeare understood that
201shakespearean Criticism, I , p. 20.
202Ibid . , I I , p. 273.
203Ibid.
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. . . af ter the mind has been stretched beyondi t s usual pitch and tone, i t must either sinkinto exhaustion and inanity, or seek re l ie f bychange. Persons conversant with deeds ofcruelty contrive to escape from thei r conscienceby connecting something of the ludicrous with
them, and by inventing grotesque terms, and acertain technical phraseology, to disguise thehorror of the i r practices.204
Further, imagination fuses the comic and the t ragic ele-
ments of Shakespeare's characters. Coleridge reconciles the two
The terr ib le , however paradoxical i t may appearwill be found to touch on the verge of theludicrous. Both arise from the perception ofsomething out of the common nature of th ings , - something out of place: i f from th is we canabstract danger, the uncommonness aloneremains, and the sense of the ridiculous i sexcited.2o5
This supposition Coleridge derives from experience. He says:
The close all iance of these oppositesappears from the circumstance tha t laughteri s
equally the expression of extreme anguishand horror as joy: in the same manner thatthere are tears of joy as well as tears ofsorrow, so there i s a laugh of te r ror as wellas a laugh of merriment.206
Coleridge does not believe tha t Shakespeare introduced humour in
his tragedies merely for comic re l ief nor .for the sake of
exciting laughter in his audienae, but because comedy heightened
the t ragic . His fools are introduced merely to make the passion
204Ibid . , p. 274.
205Ibid .
206Ibid.
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of the play stand out in bolder re l ie f and thus to intensify the
t ragic element. Miss Snyder observes on th is point: "The fusio
of the comic and t ragic may be jus t i f ied by the psychological
effect produced on the audience by the contras t , or again by a
real , dramatic interaction between the t ragic and comic charac
ter."207
The theory of the imagination served Coleridge as a theory
not only for analysis of dramatic character and the fusion of
comic-tragic elements in Shakespeare's plays, but also as an
agent that produced the atmosphere in them. I t i s the prime
function of the imagination "to spread the tone". Coleridge com
menta frequently upon the harmony and unity of Shakespeare's
plays; the unity that exists between the characters and the ir
background, the unity of thought and action.
. the highest and the lowest charactersare brought together, and with what excellence!
• the highest and the lowest; the gayestand the saddest; he i s not drol l in one sceneand melancholy in another, but often both theone and the other in the same scene. Laughteri s made to swell the tears of sorrow, and tothrow, as i t were, a poetic l ight upon i t ,while the tear mingles tenderness with thelaughter.208
The keynote of Shakespearean drama is to make the audience laugh
and weep in the same scene. Underlying th is thought i s the
fusion of the ideal and the rea l , the unity of a l l the elements
of l i f e .
207
208snyder, op.ci t . , p. 49.
_ ~ h a k e s p e a r e a n Critiaiam7
I I , pp. 1 6 9 ~ 7 0 .
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To sum up the importance of experience and imagination in
Coleridge's concept of a play, i t must be remembered tha t he
considered each equally important in i t s own WaY. Experience
and imagination function in a well-rounded out character; each
must be judged from the standpoint of i t s function in the play.
Coleridge saw in the average contemporary plaY a predominance of
the experiential side of nature and l i f e ; i t lacked that ideal ,
imaginative element. Life and nature to Coleridge were, as has
been noted, the "manifold in one.n209
Throughout his cri t icism of Shakespeare and the other
English poets, Coleridge uses the principle of the Reconciliation
of Opposites not only as a means of metaphYsical abstractions,
but also as a scheme of st ructural analysis. In introducing the
third phase of th is chapter, technique or method, the meaning of
which for Coleridge implies great genius, his own words are most
significant:
209A hs e,
• • . Method. • . demands a knowledge of there la t ions which things bear to each other,or to the observer, or to the state and apprehension of the hearer. In a l l and each ofthese was Shakespeare so deeply versed, thatin the personages of a play, he seems ' to mold
his mind as some incorporeal material al ter -nately into a l l thei r various forms. 1 Inevery one of his various characters we s t i l lfeel ourselves communing with the same humannature. Everywhere we find individuali ty: nowhere mere por tra i ts . The excellence of hisproductions consists in a happy union of the
op.c i t . , p. 20.
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universal with the part icular . But theuniversal is an idea. Shakespeare, there-fore, studied mankind in the idea of thehuman race; and he followed out that ideainto a l l i t s var ie t ies , by a Method whighnever fa i led to guide his steps aright.210
This method involves the Principle of the Reconciliation of
Opposites and resul ts when the passive impression received from
external things or rea l i ty i s balanced by the internal act ivi ty
of the mind in reflect ing and generalizing.
Coleridge would at t r ibute to Shakespeare two methods, the
psychological and the poetical . Thus far in this thesis an a t-
tempt has been made to bring out the psychology and philosophy of
Coleridge's master cri t ic ism. These play, l ikewise, a part in
his technique. Of the poet ical method he maintains that i t
. . • requires above a l l things a prepon-derance of pleasurable feeling: and where
the in terest of the events and charactersand passions is too strong to be continuouswithout becoming painful , there poet icalmethod requires that there should be what
~ ~ ~ l = ~ = ~ a ~ ~ ; ~ ~ ' ; h ~ ~ s ; ~ a ~ a ~ i l : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ l £ fIn th is statement Coleridge is defending Shakespeare against the
cr i t i cs . In a l l of Shakespeare's works Coleridge discerned
method, method in his moral conceptions, in his s tyle , and in thE
structure of his plays. With a tone of appeal to his hearers,
Coleridge bursts forth:
210Shakespearean Criticism, I I , Appendix, p. 344.
211Ibid . , p. 348.
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What shal l we say of his moral conceptions?Not made up of miserable clap-trap and the tagends of mawkish novels, and endless sermonizing;-but furnishing lessons of profound meditation tof ra i l and fa l l ib le human nature. He shows uscrime and want of principle clothed not with aspurious g r e a t n ~ ~ ~ of soul; but with a force ofin te l lect . • .
Othello, Lear, and Richard are instances of these moral pictures .
The t es t of greatness of Shakespeare's moral element in the p l a y ~is that the reader or spectator wil l ar ise
. a sadder and wiser man • . . 213
Shakespeare's
• sweetness of style . . . 214
Coleridge says, i s occasioned by the adaptation of language to tb
type of character presented:
Who, l ike him, could so methodicallysui t the overflow and tone of discourse to
character lying so wide apart in rank, andhabits , and peculiari t ies , as Holofernesand Queen Catherine, Falstaff and L e a r . ~ l 5
Of Shakespeare's fai lure to observe the unit ies , Coleridge comes
back to the fundamental ideas of his ent ire structure of cr i t i -
cism, when he says to the cr i t ics :
212Ibid.
213Ibid.
0 gentle cr i t i c ! be advised. Do not
t rus t too much to your professionalooxterityin the use of the scalping knife and tomahawk.
214Ibid.
215Ibid . , p. 349.
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Weapons of diviner mould are wielded byyour adversary: and you are meeting himhere on his own peculiar ground, theground of idea, of thought, and of inspira-t ion. The very point of this dispute i s
ideal . . . . unity, as we have ~ ~ g w n , i s
wholly the subject of ideal law.
In the matter of technique Coleridge holds every principle
or theory regarding form secondary to the importance of subject-
matter. However, Shakespeare's .works are not devoid of a l l laws,
for i t i s evident from the form of his plays that perfect judg-
ment coupled with genius shaped them. Coleridge admits thatShakespeare's plays reveal many differences from those of his
contemporaries but these differences are addit ional proofs that
Shakespeare showed true poetic wisdom: they are
• .• resul ts and symbols of l iving poweras contrasted with l i fe less mechanism, offree and r iva l original i ty as contradis-
tinguished from servile imitat ion, or moreaccurately, (from) a blind copying ofeffects instead of a ~ l ~ e imitation of theessentia l principles .
Coleridge does not disregard rules , for he admits that genius
must be governed by rules even i f they do nothing more than
.•• unite power with beauty.218
Genius i s such that i t acts creatively under laws of i t s own
making. In fact , he states that genius must embody i t se l f in
216Ibid.
217Ibid . , I , p. 223.
218Ibid.
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95
torm in order to be presented to another--in order to reveal i t -
self . The form, however, must not be predetermined upon the
matter, for the matter will determine the form.
Coleridge, borrowing from Schlegel, distinguishes two kinds
of form, mechanical and organic. Mechanical form is that which
is not necessarily caused by the purpose or function of matter,
but tha t which i s pre-determined as a wet clay moulded into any
shape. Organic form, on the other hand, i s innate; form grows o1
necessity out of matter:••• i t shapes as i t develops i t se l f fromwithin, and the fulness of i t s developmentis one and the same with the perfect ion ofi t s outward form. Such i s the l i f e , suchthe form.219
Understanding the fundamental principles of Coleridge's theory,
the student wil l see this as a supposition in his technique.
Coleridge's bel ief in the Divine in nature as natura naturans
makes i t logical tha t
Nature, the prime genial ar t i s t , inexhaustiblein d i v e ~ ~ e powers, is equally inexhaustible informs.2
Consequently, the forms of poetry, the expressions of thought,
will each have an original form--and this implies imitat ion. For
. . • each exterior is the physiognomy of thebeing within, i t s true image ref lected andthrown out from the concave mirror.221
219Ibid . , p. 224.
220Ibid.
221Ibid .
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To investigate the true nature and foundation of poetic proba
bi l i ty , i t is necessary that each form be examined as to what i t
is to serve: in other words, to study the end or aim of dramatic
poetry. Dramatic poetry i s not to present a copy, but an imita
tion of real l i f e . In order to bring about that "suspension of
disbelief" or, in other words, to create the atmosphere of i l l u
sion the dramatist must avoid anything tha t may dis turb, such as
harshness, abruptness and improbability. Shakespeare was there
fore careful to avoid these disturbing qual i t ies . Everything
was tempered to the feelings of h is audience.
Coleridge lays down no hard and fas t laws for the dramatist.
Perfectly in harmony with the subtle imaginative element in his
system of crit icism, Coleridge at t r ibuted to Shakespeare
Expectation in preference to surprise • . .
As the feel ing with which we s ta r t le a t ashooting s tar , compared with that of watchingthe sunrise a t the pre-established moment, suchand so low i s surprise compared with expectation.222
Coleridge points out several instances where Shakespeare prepares
his audience for the appearance of a character or a si tuat ion or
an incident . The audience i s made to re- l ive the experience.
The storm in The Tempest i s a preparation for what follows. The
ta le i t se l f serves to develop the main character of the play; the
heroine i s charmed into sleep in such a manner that Ariel ' s
222Ibid . , p. 225.
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.--97
entrance i s expected. Coleridge says:
. • • the moral feel ing called forth by thesweet words of Miranda, 'Alack, what troublewas I then to you! ' in which she consideredonly the sufferings and sorrows of her
father, puts the reader in a frame of mindto exert his imagination in favour of anobject so innocent and interesting.223
Again in speaking of the manner in which the lovers are
introduced, the same quality is noted:
The same judgment i s observable inevery scene, s t i l l preparing, s t i l l inviting,
ands t i l l
grat i fying, l ike a f inished pieceof music.224
This unity of feeling is a mark of Shakespeare's genius,
character is t ical ly manifested in Romeo and Ju l ie t . Art i s a
thing of growth and l ike a l l forms of growth i s slow. The
growth of the sunrise i s analogous to building meanings out of
truths that foreshadow them.
Most remarkable in technique i s the f i r s t scene of The
Tempest:
The romance opens with a busy sceneadmirably appropriate to the kind of dramaand giving, as i t were, the keynote to thewhole harmony .. I t prepares and in i t ia testhe excitement required for the entirepiece, and yet does not demand anything fromthe spectators, which the i r previous habitshad not f i t ted them to understand. I t i sthe bustle of a tempest, from which the rea lhorrors are abstracted; therefore, i t i s
223Ibid . , I I , p. 175.
224Ibid . , I I , p. 178.
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poet ical , though not in s t r ic tness , natural-(the dist inct ion to which I have so oftenalluded)--and i s purposely restrained fromconcentering the in teres t on i t se l f , but usedmerely as ~ ~ 5 i n d u c t i o n or tuning for what i sto follow.
Coleridge says of the second scene that it i s
. . . retrospective narration.226
Prospera's speeches before the entrance of Ariel excite immediat•
interest and give the audience a l l the information necessary for
the understanding of the plot . In th is scene in which Prospero
te l ls the t ruth to his daughter, there i s a reconcilement of the
possible repulsiveness of the appearance of the magician in the
natural , human feelings of the father. The moment chosen by the
dramatist to reveal the tenderness of Miranda for her father was
timely, for Coleridge notes:
. . .i t would have been los t in directcontact with the agi ta t ion of the f irs ' t
scene.22?
Another mark of dramatic sk i l l is shown in the introduction
of the subordinate character ' f i rs t . In Hamlet, he comments on
the King's speech:
225Ibid . ,
226Ibid . ,
227Ibid . ,
228
Ibid . ,
Shakespeare's a r t in introducing a most
i m p o r t ~ ~ ~ but s t i l l subordinate characterf i r s t .
I , p. 132.
p. 132.
P· 133.
p. 22.
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The play must have re l ie f , but that re l ie f must be gained
without destroying the atmosphere or unity of feeling. In Act I
scene i i , th is comment is found:
Relief by change of scene to the royalcourt. This ( re l ief is desirable) on anyoccasion; but how judiciotis that Hamletshould not have to take up the leavings ofexhaustion. . . 229
Moreover, the dramatist must not introduce many different
characters a t the same time in the same scene portraying them
suffering under the same emotions. Coleridge cr i t ic izes the incident in Act IV, scene v of Romeo and Ju l ie t , in which Ju l ie t
is supposed to be dead:
Something I must say on th is scene--yetwithout i t the pathos would have been ant ic i -pated. As the audience knew that Jul ie t isdead, th is scene is perhaps excusable. At a l levents i t is a strong warning to minor drama
t i s t s not to introduce a t one time manydifferent characters agitated by one and thesame circumstance. I t i s di f f icu l t to understand what effect , whether that of pity orlaughter, Shakespeare meant to produce--theoccasion and the characterist ic speeches areso l i t t l e in harmony: ex. grat ia , what theNurse says is excellently suited to the Nurse'scharacterA
3But grotesquely unsuited to the
occasion.G
Unity must be divers if ied. Of the dialogue in Act I I I , scene i i
Coleridge remarks:
One and among the happiest (instances) of
2 2 9 ~ . , P• 22.
230Ibid . , p. 11.
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Shakespeare's power of diversifying thescene while he is carrying on the plot.231
No mere irrelevant incidents must be introduced into the
plot . In Act IV, scene vi of Hamlet, a l e t te r is brought in ex
plaining the capture of Hamlet by the pira tes . On th is incident
Coleridge's comment is :
Almost the only play of Shakespeare, inwhich mere accidents, independent of a l l will ,form an essential par t of the plot.232
Character must dominate over plot . Nor does the main interest
of the play l i e in the story alone. Men in a l l the ir t ruth must
appear as men. For he says:
we should l ike to see the man himselr.233
But men are to be considered as l iving and the ir natures are to
be inferred by a round about method:
I f you take what his friends say, you maybe deceived--s t i l l more so, i f his enemies;and the character himself sees himself thro 'the medium of his character, not exactly as i tis .234
The dramatist, furthermore, must be consistent in the de
velopment of characters; they must be people who walk on the
11h1ghroad of l i fe" . Contradictions in habits , feel ings , emo-
t ions, in a character are not found in Shakespeare, for with him
231Ibid . , p. 30.
232Ibid. , p. 35.
233Earl Leslie Griggs, The Best of Coleridge (New York, 1934),
p. 342.
234Ibid . , p. 343.
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. . • there were no innocent adulteries; henever rendered that amiable which religionand reason taught us to detest ; he neverclothed vice in the garb of virtue, l ikeBeaumont and Fletcher, the Kotzebues of hisday: his fathers were aroused by ingrati tude,
235his husbands were stung by unfaithfulness. . .
This idea is in keeping with Coleridge's idea of reali ty and an
application of his concept of imitation. The dramatist must por
tray men and women whose affections are closely connected with
character portrayal and unity of feeling is the importance of
language. There are many instances in which Coleridge commentson the perfect harmony or adaptation of the language to the
character. This character is t ic he notes in Hamlet, in Lear and
in Macbeth. Although Coleridge advocated care and nicety in the
expression of a dramatist , he would never admire a pedantic
st i f fness or ar t i f ie ia l i ty of s tyle . In his lectures of 1811-12,
Coleridge defines poetry as
••• an a r t (or whatever better terms ourlanguage may afford) of representing, inwords, external nature and human thoughtsand affections, by the production of as muchimmediate pleasure in parts , as is compatiblewith the l a r g e ~ t sum of pleasure in the whole.236
Words were l iving for Coleridge; they were mediums through which
human affections were reproduced for others to enjoy. Pleasure
must accompany the poetic experience. This is the aim of poetry,
and each part of the poem must in i t se l f add to the composite
235Ibid. , p. 346
236
Shakespearean Criticism, I I , pp. 66, 67.
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pleasure of the whole. But th is pleasure the novelist also can
produce. However, the poet must cause th is pleasure in his
reader while conveying the t ruths of nature or he ceases to be a
poet. This pleasure i t i s the function of meter to create .
Meter must produce such pleasurable feeling where the feeling
seems to cal l for i t as an accompaniment. Passion gives to ex-
pression i t s meter, but i t must be passion excited by poetic
impulse or fervor. Coleridge, however, would have his reader
understand that the true poem although possessing pleasure and
beauty of the individual parts , must have a unified beauty--the
beauty of the whole. The poet must also have a greater sensi
bi l i ty , a warmer sympathy with the nature or the incidents of
human l i f e . The dramatist must create under spontaneous inspira
t ion. The poem thus created will possess l iving vi ta l i ty which
will give to the reader the same pleasurable feelings and
emotions under which i t was created by the poet. The reader wil
rel ive the poet ' s experience and assimilate the emotions and
feelings to himself.
Meter is closely re la ted with the passion that aroused i t
and, therefore, passion portrayed in prose may have a certa in
meter. The language of the poet must be an imitation and not a
copy of the human feelings and emotions or experiences of l i f e .
The pleasure
. will vary with the different modes ofpoetry; and that splendour of part icular
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l ines, which would be worthy of admirationin an impassioned elegy, or a short indig-nant sat i re , would be a blemish and proofof vi le tas te in a tragedy or an epic poem.2Z7
Indeed, Coleridge firmly asser ts that
. . • passion provides that neither thoughtnor imagery shal l be simply object ive, butthat the passio ver-a of humanity shal l warmand animate both.238
This l as t statement is what explains the language or
Shakespeare. Sometimes the language shows deep imaginative
power, sometimes i t i s purely fancy. Of Fielding, Coleridge
notes:
. . . in a l l his chief personages, Tom Jonesfor instance, where Fielding was not directedby observation, where he could not ass is thimself by the close copying of what he saw,where i t i s necessary that something shouldtake place, some words be spoken, some objectdescribed, which he could not have witnessed
(his soli loquies for example, or the interviewbetween the hero and Sophia Western before thereconcil iat ion) and I w i ~ l venture to say,. . . that nothing can be more forced and un-natural: the language i s without vivacity orsp i r i t , the whole matter i s incongruous andtotal ly dest i tute of psychological truth.239
On the other hand, Coleridge finds in Shakespeare's charac-
ters a perfect f i tness of language to the dramatis personae.
But his question i s : How was Shakespeare to observe the language
or Kings and Constables or those of high or low rank? I t was
237Ibid . , I , p. 164.
238Ibid . , p. 166.
239Ibid . I I , p. 135.- - '
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through observation with
the inward eye of meditation upon his ownnature.240
Thus for the time Shakespeare
became Othello, and spoke as Othello, insuch circumstances, must have spoken.241
The language thus spoken is the language of passion. In Romeo
and Ju l ie t the poet i s heard. Likewise, Capulet and Montague
are mere mouthpieces of Shakespeare. Shakespeare
not placed under circumstances of excitement,
and only wrought upon by his own vivid andvigorous imagination, writes a language tha t in-variably and intui t ively b e c o m e ~ the conditionand position of each character.242
Coleridge admits that there is a language that i s not descrip-
t ive of passion and which at the same time i s poetic . I t i s the
language of fancy. I t i s the language of the poet speaking
rather than that of the dramatist . But Coleridge would s tress
the fact that when a thought or expression i s not usual i t must
not necessarily be considered unnatural.
The dramatist
represents his characters in every s i tuat ionof l i fe and in every s tate of mind, and there
is no form of language that may not bein tro-
duced with effect by a great and judiciouspoet, and yet be most s t r ic t ly according tonature.243
240Ibid . , p. 136.
241Ibid.
242Ibid. , p. 137.
243Ibid. , p. 139.
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In the lectures of 1811-12, when discussing Hamlet,
Coleridge points out:
Here Shakespeare adapts himself so admirably
to the si tuat ion-- in other words so put himself into i t - - tha t , though poetry, hislanguage i s the very language of nature.. . . No character he has drawn, in the wholel i s t of his plays could so well and f i t lyexpress himself, as in ~ ~ 4 language Shakespearehas put into his mouth.
When language has meter added to i t , the pleasure derived
from i t i s doubled. In the Biographia Literar ia , Coleridge
explains a t length the origin and elements of meter.
Again Coleridge uses his principle of the Reconciliation of
Opposites when he gives the f i r s t cause or origin of meter as:
• . . the balance in the mind effected bythat spontaneous effor t which str ives tohold in check the workings of passion.245
Out of th is reasoning, two conditions necessary to effect recon
c i l ~ a t i o n present themselves:
Firat , tha t , as the elements of metre owe
the ir existence to a sta te of increasedexcitement, so the metre i t se l f should beaccompanied
2i6 the natural language of
excitement. ·
Butthese elements are brought about
by avoluntary act with the
aim of balancing emotion and delight and must be fe l t in the
metrical language. These two conditions must be reconciled:
244Ibid. , p. 193.
245Griggs, op.ci t . , p. 207.
246Ibid.
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There must be not only a partnership,but a union; an interpenetration of passionand of will , of s p ~ 2 ~ a n e o u s impulse and ofvoluntary purpose.
such an interpenetration creates picturesque and vivid language
which would be unnatural under circumstances other than those
accompanying th is poetic fusion. The reader expects picturesque
language because the emotion is voluntari ly encouraged for the
pleasure that ensues. But th is is conditional. Meter, moreover
is an indication of the pulse of the passion.' The very act of
poetic composition produces an unusual s ta te of excitement which
brings with i t a difference in language from the everyday prose
of experience. Thus,
Strong passions command figurativelanguage and act as stimulants.248
But the most essential function of meter, the one which brings
out the true essence of poetic power and that essential unity
inherent in nature and in the poet, Coleridge describes as
•.• the high spir i tua l inst inct of thehuman being impelling us to seek unity byharmonious adjustment and thus establish-ing the principle tha t a l l the parts of anorganized whole must be assimilated
24a the
more important and essential par ts .
Then, in perfect harmony with his entire system of thought,
Coleridge returns to the dist inct ion between copying and
247Ibid .
248Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. 206.
249Biographia Literar ia , I I , p. 56.
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CHAPTER IV
COLERIDGE'S CONTRIBUTION TO DRAMATIC THEORY IN HIS AGE,
HIS INFLUENCE ON SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM, AND
THE POSITION OF HIS DRAMATIC IDEAS IN RELATION TO
MODERN CRITICISM OF DRAMA
When Wordsworth wrote his defense in "The Preface of 1800 11
for the kind of poetry which The Lyrical Ballad$ gave to English
readers, both he and Coleridge were aware that old t rad i t.ions
were passing. The period of t ransi t ion was, however, not marked
by a radical change; i t was a continuation of the old with a
gradual coloring of the newer, more cosmopolitan dye of ut i l i -
tarianism. Crit ics began to view l i te ra ture not as l i te ra ture
apart from l i f e . Great national events, such as the French
Revolution, made l i te ra ture a medium for the more v i ta l thought
of the people. This at t i tude was seen in the theater .
Wordsworth gives a fa i r picture of the sp i r i t of the age in his
"Preface of 1800 11 in which with a note of disgust he condemns
England's sordid love for the "frantic" novel and the "German
tragedies." Life evinced a need for giving an out let to the new
impulses and aspirat ions stimulated by the French Revolution.
Consequently, with th is change in l i te ra ture cr i t ica l thought an
standards had to be readjusted. Crit ics began to t rea t l i t e ra -
ture as an out let for t ruth and knowledge and sought for the
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10
from the nature of man; ref lect ing minds wil lpronounce i t arrogance in them thus to announce themselves to men of lettersA as theguides of thei r taste and judgment.G55
False standards of crit icism grew out of the changing
standards of l i f e . The causes of false cr i t ic ism, Coleridge
alleges, were accidental and permanent. Chief among these acci
dental causes was the over-stimulation of mind brought on by
current events of pol i t ical s t r i fe . I t was an age in which e v e r ~one t r ied to play cr i t ic :
. . .the greater desire of knowledge, be t te r
domestic habits , which yet, combining withthe above, make a hundred readers where acentury ago there were one, a n ~ 5 g f everyhundred, f ive hundred cr i t ics .
The permanent causes of false crit icism arose from the
. general principles of our nature.257
Man is re luctant and indifferent to the cult ivat ion of his
thinking powers. He neglects the use of his own
inward experience in the in terpretat ion ofthe ar ts a n ~ 8 t a k e s too readily the opinionsof others.2
England was beginning to feel the necessity of breaking away
from a t radi t ion of meaningless rules . However, rules were not
entirely abolished, but the cr i t i c was becoming an interpreter
255I 4p . 4 .
256Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. 248.
257Ibid.,, I I , p. 57.
258Ibid .
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of society and of nature. He no longer stood apart from the
poet ' s work and looked a t i t as an isolated piece of ar t , but he
began to consider the poet as a human being who possesses a
temperament peculiar to himself as poet.
Coleridge admired the romantic drama, though he also
acknowledged the merits of the classical . He believed that the
modern reader could appreciate the merits of both i f he under-
stood the fundamental differences between the two. That is why
Coleridge points out in his Shakespearean Lectures the famouspassage in Plato ' s Symposium suggesting that i t i s natural to
genius to excel both in t ragic and comic poetry. I t i s for th is
reason that Shakespeare i s the ideal poet. Likewise, the minor
unit ies of time and place were accidents, mere inconveniences
that grew up with the Athenian drama. With equal freedom
Coleridge changes the principle of unity of action to unity of
homogeneity, proportionateness, and to ta l i ty of in teres t . Again,
he does not saY that Shakespeare's plays have Grecian symmetry,
but they do possess ar t i s t ic harmony.
In th is manner, Coleridge does not interpret by rules , but
seeks to rediscover the fundamental laws of poetic creation. He
uses the aids offered by Aris tot le in his Poetics, but he does
not feel bound to follow the Poetics because i t was written by
the great Aris tot le , or because i t was used by scholars and
cr i t i cs before him. Butcher finds that "formal method in the
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1 n262and essentia events . . . He approved of the minor unit ies
in principle, but realized that the realism which they were to
produce was diminished by the ir observance. With Johnson the
ar t i s t ic effectiveness of classical unity was so important to
him that he would not rel inquish that principle even when i t
fai led. The division of a play into acts was arbitrary to him.
He says of an act: II . it i s so much of drama as passes with-
out intervention of time or change of place. A pause makes a
new act . In every rea l , and therefore in every imitative action,the in tervals may be more or fewer, the res t r ic t ion of five acts
being accidental and arbitrary.tt263
Such were the opinions prevailing jus t before Coleridge's
time. Classic standards were being held simply because they had
always been norms. The condition of the stage at th is time was s
ref lect ion of the age. The half-hearted adherence to class ica l
standards and a leaning toward broader interpretations inf lu
enced, without a doubt, the dramatists. Professor Watson in his
discussion of the conditions of the stage a t the time of
Sheridan to Robertson says: If the drabness of the age ac-
counts for much. 11264 I t was a period of industr ial change and
' 'in l i terary realms Thackeray could only sneer a t the pretensions
262works, ed. by Hawkins (London, 1787), VI, p. 429.
263Raleigh, op.c i t . , p. 57.
264As quoted in Nicoll, op.c i t . , p. 75.
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pf the aristocracy, and Dickens in dealing with the mob had to
resort to false pathos and melodramatic etfects .• 265 The melo
~ r a m a of the period, then, was largely dependent upon the social
pircumstances. I t was not unti l this industrial unrest began to
~ d j u s t i t se l f that a higher type ot drama developed in England.
Playwrights, unable to adjust the stage in harmony with the
spir i t of the day, looked abroad to r inspiration. By this time
German drama found l i t t l e favor with English audiences. I t was
Paris that furnished inspiration. Fitzball in 1859 found drama•nearly a l l composed of translations.• 266 Although German drama
was popular in 1799, especially editions ot Kotzebue and Schille, ,
by 1819 these same editions were being sold at second-hand
bookstalls; nevertheless, individual attempts were being made to
edit anew the greater German masterpieces. The collected works
of Goethe and Schiller were being issued by larger publishers.
The renewed interest in Elizabethan l i terature is particu
larly characteristic of this time. This period, due to the
criticism of Coleridge, Schlegel and Hazlit t , and many others,
brought to the realization of English and German audiences the
profundity of Shakespeare. Shakespeare had not been forgotten
during the eighteenth century, but rarely did the cri t ic point
out the psychological depth manifest in his works. Rarely
265Ibid •............
266As quoted in Nicoll, op.c i t . , p. 76.
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before this time did dramatists try to imitate Shakespeare. The
modern poetic dramas of the time show an imitation of E l i z a b e t b a ~and Shakespearean imagery.
The contemporary novel became popular. The minor drama
t i s t s found in these novels the type of plots , characters, and
dialogues upon which hast i ly written plays might be bui l t . Such
adaptations led to careless str inging together of episodes and
i t i s this episodical character is t ic of the plays of the half
century that led to poor dramatic workmanship. This same care
lessness caused dramatists to neglect the bet ter works of France
and Germany. Often the force of the tale i t se l f , regardless of
poor opportunities for characterizat ion and higher stage
technique, caused i t to be selected. Incidents alone could make
an appeal to the average English audience.
This period produced a class of dramas which may be called
closet-dramas. No sure dist inct ion was made between the acted
and the unacted drama. Some dramatists such as Talfourd wrote
dramas with no thought of actual production on a stage, though
these plays met with popular favor. Others who wrote with ambi
tions for theatr ical success had the i r plays merely printed.
There was no se t classif icat ion along these l ines. Dramas of a
purely· poetic kind also prevailed. Some of our most famous poets
and prose writers wrote poetic dramas that were never produced o ~
the stage. Such men as Coleridge, Scott , and Byron fe l t the
Germaninf luence--fel t the urge to teach in
a direct mannerthe
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philosophy of German and English thought. The changing world
about them teemed with urges and impulses that displayed them-
selves in l i terature . Thus Coleridge's Osorio (1798) which was
rewrit ten and named Remorse was played a t Drury Lane in January,
1813. With Coleridge the consideration of passion came f i r s t
and only secondarily the adaptation of a passion to a person.
He real ized, however, that action is necessary to enliven the
long soli loquies. As Nicoll says, "Both for Coleridge and
Wordsworth i t is the abstract passion that counts, Wordsworth
writing his drama to prove the thesis that 11 sin and crime are apt
to s ta r t from their opposite qual i t ies" , and Coleridge, as his
l a te r t i t l e shows, dealing primarily with passion. 11 267
Miss Wylie has given a succinct summary of the chief marks
of the new crit icism when she s tates : "The new cri t ic ism, l ike
the old, declared tas te to be supreme; but now tas te is the in -
tui t ion of creative genius acting in unconscious harmony with
in te l lec tual law, and educating the world to f iner perception.
The recognition of th is higher law appears in the new st ress la id
on the sanity of genius. The poet, no longer the mere master of
knowledge or the victim of an overwrought sensibi l i ty , finds in
his own genius the law of perfect harmony. In this conception
i r regular i ty of l i fe i s as impossible as i rregulari ty of work.
Shakespeare's dramas were perfect because in them the imagination
267Op.ci t . , p. 192.
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and in te l lec tual facul t ies won a perfect balance and harmony of
expression.u2S8 I t was natural that with a growth in principles
in the new philosophy and an increasing in teres t in the his toric
at t i tude that the conceptions of the functions of crit icism must
change. The task of the new crit icism was to understand the new
relat ions of l i terature and l i fe "in the perceptions of thelaws
according to which genius works, and especially in the estab-
lishment of the principles of l i te rary judgment.n269 The need
for writing made Coleridge declare that the ultimate end ofcrit icism i s
• much more to establish the principlesof writing, than to furnish rules how topass judgment on what has been written.270
English cr i t i cs before Coleridge praised Shakespeare
grudgingly; none possessed the cr i t i ca l power that was worthy of
his subject. Whether i t was to Coleridge's advantage or dis-
advantage that he was born in an age when few cr i t ics might aid
him i s not within the scope of th is paper. The age lacked true
cr i t i cs ; there were no terms adequate to express the new a t t i -
tude toward emotions, feel ings, and characterist ics of l i f e .
Contemporary crit icism was of a general nature, and nothing
seemed to indicate that Coleridge's poems were viewed as
268Laura Johnson Wylie, Studies in the Evolution of English
Criticism (Boston, 1894), p. 184.
269Ibid.
270BiographiaLiteraria ,
I I , p. 62.
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.118
indicative of a new order in l i te rary endeavors. Graham says of
Coleridge's writ ings, 11 The Monthly Review discovered a certa in
amount of uncouthness and obscurity, and a tendency of extrava-
gance, but declared the Religious Musings reached the top-scale
of sublimity.n 271 Most of Coleridge's poems published before
1798 complied with the standard cr i ter ia of the eighteenth
century and, consequently, the tone of cri t icism toward them i s
for the most part favorable. From 1798 the aims and values of
Coleridge as a poet were constantly misunderstood, for "most ofthe reviewers took a l l the poems in The Lyrical Ballads to be
the work of one writer. They did not know what to make of the
"Ancient Mariner", and except for th is one had l i t t l e to say
about the poems contributed by Coleridge. Grsnam gives a true
estimate of the type of crit icism which was prevalent in
Coleridge's day when he says: "Blackwood's Magazine, which in
1817, in a thoroughly host i le and unjust review of the Bio
~ h i a Literaria had held the character as well as the work of
Coleridge up to scorn, because of his ' inveterate and diseased
egotism'·, and had published as la te as June 1819 a burlesque
thi rd par t of Christabel, suffered a sudden change of heart . In
October 1819 appeared an excessively f la t te r ing review, written
in such language as to make one suspect the motives that prompt
i t . Blackwood's crit icism was general and indiscriminative. I t
271Walter Graham, Publications of the Modern L a n g u ~ e Associa
t ion, "Contemporary Critics of Coleridge, theP o e t ~
38:278,(July, 1923).
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was the old crit icism of rules ra ther than tha t of interpreta-
t ion and impression. 11 272
Coleridge realized fully the injust ice of such cri t ic ism.
During the course of his lectures he stressed the importance of
the use of words in crit icism when he says that one cause of
false cri t icism i s
. • • the vague use of terms and therein thenecessity of appropriating them more s t r ic t lythan in ordinary l i fe . . . 273
A fascinating study in Coleridge's body of cri t icism i s the
study of his cr i t i ca l terminology. I t is evident from his
writings that the heritage of the f i f teenth and sixteenth centu-
r ies he made his own. Originally, many terms were technical
terms used in the ar t s , craf ts , and sciences. Later, toward the
end of the sixteenth century, comparisons of ancient and modern
works began to appear. The noun 11 cr i t ic 1 and the adject ive
11 cr i t i ca l 11 were f i r s t terms ordinari ly used in medicine. Terms
of philosophy and psychology were established during the seven-
teenth century, the age of reason. During the age of classicism,
England imported cr i t i ca l terms from I ta ly and France. The
eighteenth century, the age of "Romantic Unrest employed, though
i t did not originate, the faci le terminology of connisseurship,
the notions of amusing and picturesque, but more seriously
272Ibid . , p. 283.
273shakespearean Criticism, I , p. 248.
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expanded these terms dealing with the processes of ar t i s t ic
creation and original i ty which just i fy the pre-Romantic period
as a period of decadence ra ther than a triumphant culmination of
the la ter eighteenth century.n274
Most of Coleridge's inventions in cr i t i ca l terminology were
the resu l t of a defini te aim a t more precise expression. I t was
the precision and logic of terms that made Scholastic reasoning
and diction appeal to him. The terms "objective" and "subjec
tive" had occurred occasionally as remnants of Scholastic use
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . When Kant's
philosophy indicated the need for greater discrimination in the
explanation of i t s doctrines, the terms "objective" and
"subjective" came into use. Isaacs states tha t "to Coleridge's
example in 1817 is due entirely the widespread adoption of these
indispensable terms. 11 275 One of the most interesting words that
Coleridge derived from the German is "aesthetic". Isaacs says
that Coleridge was "the ear l ies t English l i te rary cr i t i c to con
cern himself with an aesthetic system.n276 Most of Coleridge's
contributions are no longer used in cr i t ic ism. A few of these
terms are busyness, credibilizing, presentimental, expectabil i ty,
novellish, poematic, esemplastic, and interaddit ive. Among the
274J. Isaacs, 11 Coleridge's Crit ical Terminology", English Association, Essays and Studies, 21:87. Oxford, 1936.
275Ibid . , p. 92.
276
Ibid . , p. 95.
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more important phrases which Isaacs l i s t s as real contributions
to English cr i t ica l terminology are to ta l i ty or in teres t ,
mechanical ta len t , aesthetic logic , accrescence or object ivi ty,
real- l i fe diction, technique of poetry, undercurrent of feel ing,
and poetical logic. 277 Of Coleridge's use of the term
"polari ty", Isaacs says: "when Coleridge speaks in 1818 of
'contemplating in a l l Electrical phenomenon the operations of a
Law which runs through a l l Nature, viz . , the law of polar i ty , or
the manifestation ofone power
by opposite forces ' , we areup
against a serious and complicated problem. Firs t of a l l by his
underlining of the word, i t i s clear that Coleridge i s ei ther
proud of his invention of i t , or regards i t as a s ignif icant and
careful use; secondly; the work i s a valuable contribution to our
cr i t ica l armoury and i t s uses have not yet been exhausted; the
Q.E.D. can find no ear l ie r use of the term in this special shade
of usage; •• . the fact that th is use i s a subtle and thought
out t ransference of a known term to the great central problem of
Coleridge's cr i t ica l researches into the esemplastic power, the
coadunating faculty, and the problem of multeity in unity, gives
an emotional significance of the highest order to th is otherwise
cold technical term. 11 278 Coleridge "was actuated by ' the in-
st inct ive passion in the mind for one word to express one act of
277Ibid. , p. 98.
278Ibid . , p. 87.
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feel ing ' , a passion shared by Flaubert.n279 By his at t i tude
Coleridge stimulated the establishment of dis t inc t meanings of
terms which influenced even nineteenth century thought.
Although Coleridge wrote exquisite poetry af ter 1799, his
in teres t was centered in aesthetics and philosophy. He was very
fragmentary and, consequently, never finished his many projected
schemes. The only finished work was the t ranslat ion of
Wallenstein. Miss Helmholtz claims that " if he had not taken up
the role of public lec turer , i t i s safe to say that England wouldbe without a body of l i te rary crit icism of which the vi ta l in
fluence or thought-engendering power cannot be questioned.n280
I t was through the influence of Sir Humphrey Davy tha t
Coleridge delivered his lectures at the Royal Inst i tut ion in the
winter and spring of 1808. Henry Crabbe Robinson has preserved
these lectures in his Diary and two le t te rs which he wrote to
Mrs. Clarkson. I t i s necessary to remember that Coleridge had
to attack neo-classical prejudices which kept Shakespeare from
his true place among dramatists. In his Lectures of 1811-12,
Coleridge states defini te ly his purpose:
I t has been stated from the f i r s t that one ofmy purposes in these lectures i s to meet andrefute popular objections to part icular p o i n t ~ 8 1in the works of our great dramatic poet . . .
279As quoted in Isaacs, o p . c i ~ . , p. 90.
2 8 ~ e l m h o l t z , op.c i t . , p. 291.
28lshakespear.ean Criticism, I I , p. 184.
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Such was the task Coleridge undertook with the help of
l ibera l English and German cri t ic ism. He singled out Dr.
Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare as a target and frequently re -
turned to the subject. Among the smaller points of defense for
Shakespeare which ear l ie r cr i t ics had condemned was Shakespeare's
use of puns and conceits. The neo-classical ra t ional is t con
demned Shakespeare's exuberant fancifulness for in "serious
drama i t offended his sense of decorum.u282 Coleridge himself
was serious minded and was not entire ly in sympathy with the
comic in the serious drama, but explains them by saying that thej
were Elizabethan custom.
Another prevailing note of eighteenth century manners was
the sentimental. movement on decorum among the English middle
class who attr ibuted coarseness and immorality to Shakespeare.
But as Raysor says of Coleridge in this respect , "his character
i s t ic philosophical arguments were more appropriate in discussing
Shakespeare's morality than in defending his puns. 11 283 However,
because of insuff ic ient knowledge of Shakespeare's period,
Coleridge seemed to be ignorant of the fact that Shakespeare
purif ied his sources. Coleridge believed that Shakespeare's
282Ibid . ,
283Ibid.,
284Ibid. ,
essentia l purity i s evident in his wholetreatment of love, which is the supreme test .284
I , p. xxxiv.
p. XXXV.
P·xxxiv.
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would credi t Coleridge for his rebut ta l , af ter
of the curious cr i t ic ism that Shakespeare was in-
to Fletcher in representing women characters and the
The central controversy which interested eighteenth century
was Shakespeare's violation of the unit ies. Raysor says
"· in defending Shakespeare's violation of the unit ies
. • he brought forward arguments which have probably had a
his tor ica l influence upon Shakespearean histor ical
than anything else which he ever wrote, except his in -
of Hamlet."286 In the study of the unit ies , how
Coleridge was anticipated by Kames and Lessing.
had an argument of h is own, which i s more important
nd more original than any other which he had used. 11 287 This
appears in the Literary Remains bearing a 1805 water-
Coleridge saw that the imagination had a part to play upon
"The orthodox defence of the three unit ies was the
theory of l i t e r a l delusion which Dr. Johnson ridiculed
devastating power. But in the heat of debate Johnson em
too strongly the contrary view that 'a play read effects
85William Richardson, Professor of Humanity a t Glasgow, gives anof Shakespeare's women in Essays on Shakespeare's
Character of Sir John Falstaff and on his Imitation ofCharacters, (London, 1789). -
Shakespearean· C r i t i c ~ s m , I , p. xxxvii i .
7Ibid .
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the mind l ike a play acted' .u288 Johnson in his Preface to
Shakespeare concludes that dramatic performances are unreal.
Raysor says: "This i s surely as extreme as the doctrine which
Dr. Johnson destroyed, for i t recognizes only the rat ional and
not the imaginative sta te of the audience. There i s no rat ional
in a dramatic action, l ike that assumed in the term
' delusion ' , but there is an imaginative bel ief , which may be de-
scribed as an ' i l lus ion ' , almost l ike that of dreams.n289
Theproblem of dramatic i l lusion had been
asubject of dis-
cussion. Coleridge's interpretation of dramatic i l lusion i s 11 a
s ignif icant achievement of l i te rary cr i t ic ism, because i t
for the f i r s t time a simple and obviously sound explanation
f a problem on which cr i t i cs had been confused for more than a
and a half.n290 Although Farquhar, Kames. Herder,
and Schlegel realized to a degree the at t i tude of the
toward the play, Coleridge went far beyond these cr i t ics
n the extent and precision of the explanation. "His explanation
f dramatic i l lusion is his own contribution to the controversy
the uni t ies , and i t represents the character ist ical ly subtle
nd accurate psychological analysis in which Coleridge surpassed
8Ibid . , p. xxxix.
Ibid.
0Ibid.
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a l l his English and German predecessors in Shakespearean cr i t i -
cism. u291
Coleridge borrowed from S c ~ l e g e l the argument which played
a prominent part in his Shakespearean cri t ic ism. This argument
is the dis t inct ion between Greek classical and Shakespearean
romantic drama. His chief dist inct ion was that "even though
Greek tragedy appealed part ly to the reason, it was forced to
accommodate i t se l f to the senses, while romantic drama appealed
direct ly to the reason and imagination.n292 His explanation of
the argument indicates that the dramatist must be allowed freedon·
in the use of the unit ies :
The reason is aloof from time and space;the imagination has an arbitrary control overboth; and i f only the poet have such power ofexciting our internal emotions as to make uspresent to the scene in imagination chiefly,he acquires the r ight and privi lege of usingtime and space as they exist in the imaginationobedient only to the laws which the imaginationworks by.293 .
The ant i thesis between romantic and classic affects not
only the three unit ies but every phase of dramatic method.
"Shakespeare's profound interest in individual personali ty, over
and above ·the needs of the action and sometimes perhaps at the
expense of the action; the r ich lyr ica l suggestiveness of his
291Ibid . , p. xxxix-xl.
292Ibid . , p. x l.
293Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. 198.
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style; and above a l l , his modern natural is t ic impartial i ty
toward l i f e , his refusal to mould the chaos of experience into a
defini te moral meaning--all these set h is dramatic genius in
opposition to that of the Greeks and associate i t with the spir i i
of modern romanticism and naturalism.u294
Coleridge generalized h is defense of Shakespeare by proving
that Shakespeare's a r t was equal to his genius. In the discussior
of th is problem Coleridge introduced much into English crit icism
that was la te r to become essential in the study of English l i t e r -
ature. Criticism of Shakespeare's plots disappeared with the
disregard of the three unit ies and character-analysis became a
popular method of dealing with his plays. This character ist ic
was due to the love of personal individuali ty which merely em-
phasized ideas that were la tent in neo-classical cr i t ic ism. The
method of character-studies was established by the end of the
eighteenth century.295 Coleridge was not the f i r s t to use the
method of character-analysis . His at t i tude shows the general
sympathetic tone of the eighteenth-century cr i t ics who selected
the beauties, rather than the faul ts of Shakespeare's ar t .
and, through Addison, Longinus possessed an emotional ana
imaginative sensitiveness which foreshowed the romantic point of
view. Coleridge never fe l l into 11 the extreme romantic relativisili
94Ibid . , p. xl i .
95cr. Nichols-Smith, Eighteenth-Century ~ s s a y s on Shakespeare,"Introduction", p. xxxii-x:x.xviii.
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of some of his followers, never questioned the possibi l i ty and
value of general principles of crit icism •••• Relativism seems
to be an essential characterist ic of romantic cri t ic ism, because
of i t s love of the immediate aesthetic impression and i t s dis-
t rus t of a l l fixed standards; but in th is regard Coleridge was
not romantic.n296 His at t i tude toward the romantic movement was
shown in his insistence on a sympathetic cri t ic ism. In the neo-
classical theory certain standards were applied impart ial ly to
a l l l i terature and "by balancing beauties and faults",297 es-
tablished i t s l i terary worth. Crit ics maintained th is unsympa-
the t ic at t i tude up to the time of Addison when there was a
protes t against i t . Although there was a great deal of l ibera l
cri t icism in the las t quarter of the century a break was not
brought about unt i l Coleridge and his contemporaries came. On
the other hand, "in the ir anxiety to avoid the dogmatism of thei r
predecessors the romantic cr i t ics hurried to the other extreme
and in i t ia ted a worship of Shakespeare which confined crit icism
to appreciation, without leaving room for standards of judgment.
In one f l ight of rhetoric Coleridge permitted himself to say
that 'Shakespeare. . . never introduces a word, or a thought, in
vain or out of place: i f we do not understand him, i t i s our
faul t or the faul t of copyists and topographers' ; and his general
296Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. xlvi .
297Ibid.
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policy in defending Shakespeare against the cr i t ics of the
eighteenth century was to admit absolutely nothing.n298 This is
one of the many deficiencies of Coleridge's cri t ic ism.
His opposition to neo-classical cr i t ics marks the beginning
of the new school of Shakespearean cri t ic ism. "If h is lectures
and marginalia sometimes seem sentimental, that i s the defect of
the i r vir tue, of the constant moral reflectiveness which gives
them the i r characterist ic elevation and dignity, and the i r r ich
ness in humane wisdom.n299 But Coleridge never subst i tutes his
own impressions for the work of a r t under hand. His greatest
resource was in the psychological analyses and although he
possessed the strong romantic strain he also possessed keen
powers of analysis. Raysor says: " I t i s th is side of Coleridge's
genius which makes him seem so much less the type of romanticism
than Lamb or Hazl i t t or Pater, the great impressionists.u300
The psychologist and the poet appear together in most of
Coleridge's cri t icism, but the more detai led and br ief comments
convey the true poet ' s delight . Many of his aesthetic notes are
found in his cri t icism of the eight selected plays and even
there they may be los t to the casual reader because11his poetical
sensit iveness appears chiefly in the imaginative depth and
298Ibid.
299Ibid. , P· 1.
300Ibid . , P· l i .
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delicacy of his psychological analyses, and in his style . 11 301
I t i s the poet in Coleridge that made him superior to his
English predecessors and even to Schlegel. This character is t ic
of Coleridge as a cr i t i c is summed up by Legouis and Cazamian
thus: " I t i s , however, in l i terary cri t ic ism that his achieve
ment i s the most last ing. No one before him in England had
brought such mental breadth to the discussion of aesthet ic
values. His judgments are a l l permeated by a trend of thought
that is strongly under the influence of great doctrinal pre
conceptions; even in this domain he is the metaphysician. The
well-known differentiat ion between imagination and fancy which
Wordsworth interpreted af ter his own fashion, i s a way to laying
stress upon the creative act ivi ty of the mind, opposed to the
passive association of mental pictures; but for Coleridge i t has
a mystical significance. . . . His remarks on Shakespeare show
a sound in tui t ion of the profound unity of dramatic ar t . Accus
tomed as he is to reach the heart of things, to f ind there the
same v i ta l impulse which animates his own thought, and to see
this secret of l i fe produce what becomes the apparent world of
the senses. Coleridge i s thus able to discern with an unerring
insight the paths along which a central impulse has radiated, so
to speak, towards a l l the fundamental ideas, aspects and
01Ibid . , p. lx .
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characterist ics of a work.n302
Of Coleridge's contemporaries much that would be of i n t e r e s ~could be written but th is discussion must confine i t se l f with
those who are most closely associated with Coleridge, not only
in the intimacy of his l i fe but also with his l i terary endeavors
A study of Coleridge would be incomplete without reference to
the most potent influence in his intimate l i f e . His re la t ion-
ship with Wordsworth i s an outstanding friendship in the history
of English le t te rs . Coleridge, on his side, worshipped
Wordsworth and called him
the only man to whom at a l l times and in a l lmodes of excellence I feel myself inferior.303
Coleridge's f inest crit icism is in his famous essay on
Wordsworth in the Biographia Literar ia . Although Coleridge
praises Wordsworth, he "has nothing to say about the core ofWordsworth's genius. 11304 Their influence upon each other was
considerable; Wordsworth had the stronger nature, more enduring
and, consequently, he exerted the greater influence. Not only
did the two men themselves dif fer , but in a l l the circumstances
and motives of the ir l i te rary and cr i t i ca l endeavors they dif-
fered as well. Wordsworth wrote his Preface to Llrical Ballads
302Emile Legouis and Louis Cazamian, A History of English
Criticism (New York, 1930), pp. 1046-1047.
303As quoted in Hugh Kingsmill, The English Review, "Samuel
Taylor Coleridge", 59 (July, 1 9 3 ~304Ibid.
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while he was s t i l l young and possessed poetic genius; Coleridge
wrote the Biographia Literar ia when his poetic genius had waned
and youth had also departed.
Although the Biographia Literar ia i s the principal document
in which Coleridge reveals his loss, "Dejection: an Ode 11 i s a
passionate self - revelat ion. The tone of sad regret contrasts
with Wordsworth's Prelude:
There was a time, though my path was rough,This joy within me dall ied with distress ,And a l l my misfortunes were but as the s tuffWhence Fancy made me dream of happiness:For hope grew round me, l ike the twining vine,And f rui ts and fol iage, not my own, seemed mineBut now aff l ic t ion bows me down to earth:Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;But oh! each vis i ta t ionSuspends what nature gave me a t my bir th ,My shaping sp i r i t of imagination.For not to think of what I needs must fee l ,But to be s t i l l and pat ient , a l l I can;
And haply by abstruse research to stealFrom my own nature a l l the natural manThis was my sole resource; my only plan:Ti l l that which sui ts a part infects the whole
0nd now is almost grown the habi t of my soul.3 5
Coleridge had a remarkable abi l i ty to inspire friendship anc
devotion. Soon af ter his entrance into Chris t ' s Hospital, he
formed a friendship with Charles Lamb which lasted unt i l his
death. Since they were of opposite temperaments, they stimulated
each other. Coleridge possessed the stronger in te l lect , yet the
l ight humor of Charles Lamb acted as an inspiration to his
305samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Complete Poetical Works, ed. byE. H. Coleridge (Oxford, 1912), I , p. 48.
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philosophical musings. Lamb had the greater degree of sustained
effor t . He was an excellent l i te rary cr i t i c . Griggs says of
him, 11 he often shared his l i terary discoveries with Coleridge,
whose in teres t in the Elizabethan dramatists, perhaps, can be
partly at t r ibuted to Lamb. 11306 Coleridge was undoubtedly the
most br i l l ian t man of his day but he was inconstant and irregular
and always in need of encouragement. Charles Lamb often drew
from Coleridge his best l i terary endeavors.
To Byron Coleridge appealed when his financial status was
low. "The contact between Coleridge and Byron was br ief , the ir
correspondence being confined to the period between Easter 1815
and April 1816, the time a t which Byron finally departed from
England. I t i s known that in 1812 Byron interceded with the
managers of Drury Lane for the production of Coleridge's Remorse
and that he attended a t least two of Coleridge's lectures in
1811 and 1812; but the i r personal intercourse apparently did not
extend beyond those incidents and the exchange of a few
le t te rs . 11307 His f i r s t l e t t e r to Byron was a t Eas.ter, 1815.
Coleridge wrote i t when he was t rying to finance his son
entrance at Oriel. In the f i r s t l e t te r he asked Byron
to intercede for him a t the publishers. The works tha t he
6Griggs, op.c i t . , p. xvi i i .
7Griggs, "Coleridge and Byron 11, Publication of the Modern
Association, 45:1085 (1930).
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wished to publish were various poems not contained in Lyrical
Ballads, the second edit ion of his Juveni le Poems, and the
Remorse308
which he had enlarged with some revisions in plot and
character. Besides these were a proposed general Preface and a
par t icu lar Preface to the "Ancient Mariner." Again in October,
1815, Coleridge wrote:
All my le isure Hours I have devoted to theDrama, encouraged by your Lordship's adviceand favourable opinion of my comparativepowers among the t ragic Dwarfs, which exhausted Nature seems to have been under thenecessity of producing since Shakspear.Before the th i rd week in December I sha l lI t rus t be able to transmit to your Lordshipa Tragedy, in which I have endeavoured toavoid the faul ts and deficiencies of theRemorse, by a bet te r subordination of thecharacters , by avoiding a duplici ty ofIn teres t , by a greater clearness of Plot ,and by a deeper Pathos. Above a l l , I havelabored to render the Poem a t once t ragic
and dramatic.309
Dire necessi ty made Coleridge real ize that modern drama re -
quired more than character-analysis . I t needed plo t , and a
simple in teres t together with a deeper feel ing. Necessity drove
him to attempt drama-writing although his sympathies were not
with the acted play. In the same l e t t e r Coleridge comments on
his proposed plan of writing his tor ical plays:
08In her ar t ic le , "Wordsworth's Relation to Coleridge's Osorio",
Hamilton points out connections between Osorio and threecharacter is t ic poems by Wordsworth-- 11 The Id io t Boy 11 , "The Blind
Boy", and 11 Ruth. 11
09Griggs, 11 Coleridge and Byron", p. 1089.
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During my stay in London I mentioned to Mr.Arnold or Mr. Rae my intention of presentingthree old plays adapted to the present stage.The f i r s t was Richard the Second--perhaps themost admirable of Shakespeare's his tor ica lplays, but from the length of the speeches,
the entire absence of female Interest , and(with one splendid exception) i t s want ofvisual effect the leas t representable in thepresent s tate of postulate of the stage.310
Here i s Coleridge's more pract ical idea concerning the stage.
I t was more of a condescension than his sincere views on essen-
t i a l s of true drama. Two other intended adaptations are
mentioned:
. . . The second play which I mentioned toMr. Arnold, and I believe to Mr. Rae, was
B and F 's Pilgrim--this I had determinedto rewrite almost entirely , preserving theoutl ine of the Plot ; and the main charactersand to have la id the scene in Ireland; andto have ent i t led i t Love's Metamorphoses . . • .
But the third was that , on which I not onlyla id
the greateststress,
andbui l t most
hope, but which I have more than half written,and could complete
3t£ less than a month, was
the Beggar's Bush.
Of the l as t play Coleridge, character is t ic of his love of preach
ing, says:
. I was struck with the application ofthe Fable to the Present Times.312
Zapola, a romance, was rejected by the Drury Lane
310Ibid.
311Ibid . , p. 1090.
312Ibid.
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Committee, but was published in 1817. Remorse was presented at
Drury Lane in 1813 with considerable success. The research of
Professor Griggs in 1937 brings to l ight a fragment of an un
published play. Griggs sees in the Diadeste evidence of a
str iv ing on the part of Coleridge to 11 bend h is genius to the
demands of the contemporary theater.n313 I t contains the
Eastern set t ing and the character is t ic romantic extravagance of
the early nineteenth century. Griggs says of Diadeste: 11 The
value of this fragment l ies f i r s t in what i t shows of Coleridge'e
dramatic tendencies and second in i t s occasional poetic l ines.
Throughout his l i f e Coleridge hoped for dramatic success as a
means of emancipating himself from the slavery of hack-writing;
but except for Remorse his attempts were abortive. . •• I am
unable defini tely to date the fragment. The handwriting resem
bles that of the years 1812-20; and very probably the piece was
written when success of Remorse (1813) suggested dramatic writing
as a means of financial independence. 11314
Coleridge's relationship with Hazli t t i s one of influence.
The question of Hazl i t t ' s relat ion to Coleridge and his in
debtedness is evident from the words of Hazli t t himself. In his
lectures on "The English Poets 11 Hazli t t says of Coleridge that he
i s "the only person from whom I ever learnt anything.n315 In
313Modern Philology, 11 Diadeste, a F r ~ m e n t of an Unpublished Pla;yby Samuel Taylor Coleridge", 34:377 {1937).
314Ibid., p. 378.
315wm. Hazli t t , Works, "Lectures on the English Poets11
,
V, p.l67
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a paral le l in Principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites. But
Miss Schneider observes, "his Hazli t t ' s ear l ies t account of
the faculty borrows interest from the fact that i t preceded by
some years the ear l ies t published remarks on the subject by
Wordsworth and Coleridge. 11319 I t was with the aid of Hazli t t ' s
"br i l l ian t but re luctant and contemptuous discipleship that
Coleridge's lectures in i t ia ted and established the great t radi-
t ion of English Shakespearean criticism.tt320
Characteristic of the romantic c r i t i c , Coleridge t reated
Shakespeare's plays as closet-drama. Raysor affirms regarding
Coleridge's cri t ic ism, "Though Coleridge was capable of excellent
technical dramatic cri t ic ism, his primary point of view as a
cr i t i c was not dramatic but l i terary.t t321 In the Tomalin Report
of the Third Lecture of 1811-12 Series, Coleridge is represented
as having stated defini tely his mode of reasoning: "In speaking
of the dramas of Shakespeare, Coleridge said he should be in
clined to pursue a psychological rather than a his tor ica l mode
of reasoning. 11 322 I t is consequent upon this fact tha t the many
conventions of the drama were of secondary importance. 11 Like
Lamb and Hazl i t t , he did not hesitate to say that he preferred
reading Shakespeare to seeing his plays performed on the stage.
319Schneider, op.c i t . , p. 99.
320Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. lx i .
321Ibid . , p . l i v .
322Ibid . , I I , p. 96.
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Closet-drama i s not an anomaly in ar t , as we have sometimes
heard, but i t is certainly not animated by the purposes of
Shakespeare. The resul t of such crit icism i s always to subordi
nate plot to character, that i s , to cr i t ic ize plays as i f they
novels, and to forget the numerous conventions of the drama
or the sake of psychology. With the best modern natura l is t ic
as for example with Ibsen, this i s possible; but not with
Shakespeare f i l led his plays with condensed mean-
which can be fully comprehended only by means of detailedbut his central intention was not esoteric. The dramatist
o writes with fu l l knowledge of the theater , and with actual
on the stage as his f i r s t and chief objective--and
th is i s the case with Shakespeare--must adapt the general
of the play to the comprehension of the groundlings, and
as l i t t l e regard for the paradoxes and hidden meanings beloved
f scholars and cr i t ics .n323
A deficiency of Coleridge's crit icism i s his lack of his
knowledge. Although Coleridge was a "vigorous exponent
f the his tor ica l point of view toward Shakespeare 11 ,324 he was
often l imited by his actual knowledge of Elizabethan drama
was wide but not always accurate nor detai led. Coleridge
the plays of Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger
23Ibid . , I , p. lv .
24Ibid.
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140
as i s evident from his frequent successful comparisons of these
dramatists with Shakespeare. In his desire to prove that
Shakespeare was superior to his age, Col.eridge seems to set
Shakespeare up as "a f inal cr i ter ion of the drama.n325
Coleridge's f ie ld lay in psychological analysis, the best
of which i s his study of Hamlet. "At every turn of his acute
psychological analysis , he generalizes his perceptions of univer
sal qual i t ies in human nature, which may be read, as in the
analysis of Edmund's shame, which generates the gui l t . . . with
out the need of reference to Shakespeare's plays. u326 Coleridge's
analysis of Hamlet i s , as Raysor sta tes, "probably the most in -
f luent ia l piece of Shakespearean crit icism which has even been
produced. 11 327 Miss Snyder, in a more detailed study of
Coleridge's crit icism, asserts , "Coleridge's l i te rary crit icism
owes much of i t s significance to keen psychological analysis.tt328
There i s evident in much of his crit icism anticipations of our
modern psychological point of view. He discusses characters
rather in terms of v i ta l act ivi ty than states facts about their
external actions. This i s the tendency of the modern psycholo
Many of Coleridge's comments show that he t r ied 11 to do
325Ibid . , I , P· xlv.
26Ibid . , I , p. 1.
27Ibid . , I , p. l i i .
28Modern Language Notes. "A Note on Coleridge's Shakespearean
Criticism", 38:23-33, (1923) .
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141
away with philosophic dualism, to prove to himself that extremes
do meet, to reconcile opposites. This i s entirely natural for
the contemporary thought tendency referred to i s real ly the
modern, psychological rather than metaphysical, way of resolving
dualism. I t shows i t se l f as the attempt, now to explain the ob
jective or external-- real i ty as grasped by the in te l lect - - in
terms of vi ta l act iv i ty ; now to explain the conscious in terms
of the subconscious; and now to explain the pathological in t e r m ~of the normal, and the destructive in terms of the constructive
or creative. 11 329 Many of Coleridge's comments f ind paral le ls in
the f ie ld of modern psychology, especially that of abnormal
psychology. When Coleridge describes Shakespeare's characters
as 11 the representat ives of the inter ior nature of humanity, in
which some element has become so predominant as to destroy the
health of the mind 11,
330 he i s anticipating modern psychologists.
"This very statement", Miss Snyder points out , 11 i s 'a significant
anticipation of the view of one of our contemporary psychologiste
who note that among others Iago, Richard I I I , Macbeth, Hamlet,
Anthony, and Timon can a l l be studied l ike patients suffering
from neuroses•." 331
Again and again Coleridge manifests a tendency to use
329Ibid . , p. 23.
330As quoted in Snyder, "A Note on Coleridge's Shakespeareancr i t ic ism," p. 25.
331Ibid . , p. 25.
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142
Shakespeare's characters as means to propound his theory and as
such his crit icism loses in dramatic value. As a dramatic
cr i t i c he offers very l i t t l e that i s of pract ical value to the
stage cr i t i c . His mass of cr i t i ca l matter may serve as a text
of crit icism to the l i te rary student.
With a l l Coleridge's deficiencies even the most fast idious
acknowledge him a master cr i t i c . Raysor, who perhaps has
the best comprehensive study of him, summarizes Coleridge's
in these words:11In rich ethical reflectiveness, in
sensit iveness of poetic imagination, and above a l l , in
insight into human nature, Coleridge is a cr i t i c worthy
f his place a t the head of English crit icism of Shakespeare.
greates t of English creative writers received his due t r ib
te from the greates t of English cr i t ics . 11 332
The story of Coleridge's private l i f e i s one of weakness
nd fai lure. No other man of h is time possessed greater gi f t s
he did, yet he was his own greatest enemy. His was the
born of suffering: while his body succumbed to mortal
his soul ever hungered af ter eterni ty . There are
who condemn Coleridge a dreamer, a fai lure; theirs is a
that bears deeper penetrat ion. Paradoxical as i t may
out of the fa i lure of his l i f e - - i f i t be so--sprang a new
in English poetry and crit icism.
32Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. lx i .
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CONCLUSION
Coleridge attempted to bridge the gap between the world of
rea l i ty and the world of ideal i ty . He was torn between sent i
mentalism and materialism, but managed, unlike Blake, to
staoi l ize his explorations through a discipline that was almost
incompatible with his original genius. In Coleridge's body of
crit icism there i s a balance of the old with the new. He was
imbued with the ideas of Plato and the Cambridge Platonis ts and
the German t ranscendentalists; therefore, eighteenth-century
made no appeal to him. He looked with skepticism
the idea l i s t ' s theories. The universe that exis ts outside
f man i s not the l imit of man's experience. Mind's creative
can not adquately explain the existence of apparent
Coleridge constructed his whole philosophical system
the theory that mind has a being because i t recognizes i t -
Mind i s object and subject at one and the same time.
possesses a faculty and a state of being. Since se lf -
man to recognize what i s within as well as
is without, the reason i s independent of the senses. Be
mind and sense, therefore, Coleridge recognizes a higher
n d a lower reason; the f i r s t is the divine or spir i tua l ; the
i s the power of intel lectualizing on the material that i s
the senses. Below the two is the understanding, a
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145
b e c o ~ e s self-conscious and thus derives the nature of the uni
verse. Within man himself, man finds the divine. In th is way
the reason r ises to genuine universals , to eternal t ru ths .
Thus far Coleridge's ideas were similar to Kant's . Kant
believed that the human mind could not arr ive at a knowledge of
God. Coleridge leaned toward a mystical interpretation of the
universe; consequently, in his system of thought Christ ianity
harmonized with phiiosophy and the essential doctrines of
Christ ianity were eternal truths of the reason . The God whomthe reason thus recognized was active throughout the universe.
t was God who had created in everything--in nature, in man, in
society, past and present-- i t s essent ia l idea and man's reason
find in each i t s purpose and destiny.
When Coleridge says that Shakespeare i s a dramatic poet, he
that the poet himself does not speak or appear in his own
but carries on the action by agents who display, not the
individual thoughts and ideas, but universals embodied in
and types. Characters grow out of the natura
the l iv ing, divine nature of the universe.
There is a war between the creative power and the in te l lec
energy. In the drama Coleridge conceived of these two as
They may be considered as opposite analytical tend
that waylay the outburst of language. I t i s in the
of the two that Shakespeare's power as a dramatist l i es ,
nd in that fusion we find the keynote of Coleridge's idea of the
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The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited byW. G. T. Shedd. In seven volumes. New York, 1884.
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The thesis "Coleridge's Idea of' the Drama as a Basis
of His Shakespearean Criticism, 11 written by Sister Virgina
See.bert,s.c., has been accepted by the Graduate School
with reference to for.m, and by the readers whose naL•es
appear below, with reference to content. I t is therefore
accepted in partie.l fulfilment of the requirements for the