Coleridge - Summary of Biographia Literaria

Coleridge.

1.     From Biographia Literaria.

a.     From Chapter 1.

                                               i.     Presents two critical aphorisms applied to poetic style.

1.     The greatest pleasure arises from those poems we return to.

2.     If it can be said better or the same as the language presented, it is considered defective in their diction.

                                              ii.     Excluded from the aphorisms are:

1.     The pleasure derived from mere novelty.

2.     The desire of exciting wonderment at the powers of the author.

                                            iii.     Great poetry should be original and use fantastic language.

b.     From Chapter 4.

                                               i.     Excellence means to represent familiar objects so as to awaken in the minds of others a kindred feeling concerning them.

                                              ii.     Fancy and imagination are two distinct things.

c.      From Chapter 13.

                                               i.     Imagination is considered primary, or secondary.

                                              ii.     Primary imagination is the living Power and prime Agent of all human perception.

                                            iii.     Secondary imagination is an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, and different in degree as primary imagination.

d.     From Chapter 14.

                                               i.     Two cardinal points of poetry.

1.     There is a power by exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature.

2.     There is a power by giving the interest of novelty by modifying colors of imagination.

                                              ii.     The writer’s intention is determines if a composition is poetry.

                                            iii.     The poem should move the reader forward by the pleasurable activity of the mind and from the journey itself, and not by mechanical impulse or the desire to finish it.