Samuel Taylor Coleridge [Coleridge - Biographia Literaria

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Title: Biographia Literaria

Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6081][Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule][This file was first posted on November 3, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA ***

This eBook was prepared by: Tapio Riikonen, tapri@kolumbus.fi(Please let me know what kind of errors and formatting issuesyou found in the text.)

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I Motives to the present workReception of the Author's first publicationDiscipline of his taste at schoolEffect of contemporary writers on youthful mindsBowles's Sonnets- Comparison between the poets before and since

II Supposed irritability of genius brought to the test of factsCauses and occasions of the chargeIts injustice

III The Author's obligations to Critics, and the probable occasionPrinciples of modern criticismMr. Southey's works and character

IV The Lyrical Ballads with the PrefaceMr. Wordsworth's earlier poemsOn Fancy and ImaginationThe investigation of the distinction important to the Fine Arts

V On the law of AssociationIts history traced from Aristotle to Hartley

VI That Hartley's system, as far as it differs from that of
Aristotle, is neither tenable in theory, nor founded
in facts

VII Of the necessary consequences of the Hartleian TheoryOf
the original mistake or equivocation which procured its
admissionMemoria technica

VIII The system of Dualism introduced by Des CartesRefined
first by Spinoza and afterwards by Leibnitz into the
doctrine of Harmonia praestabilitaHylozoismMaterialism
None of these systems, or any possible theory of
Association, supplies or supersedes a theory of
Perception, or explains the formation of the Associable

XI Is Philosophy possible as a science, and what are its conditions?Giordano BrunoLiterary Aristocracy, or the existence of a tacit compact among the learned as a privileged orderThe Author's obligations to the Mystics- To Immanuel KantThe difference between the letter and The spirit of Kant's writings, and a vindication of Prudence in the teaching of PhilosophyFichte's attempt to complete the Critical system-Its partial success and ultimate failureObligations to Schelling; and among English writers to Saumarez

X A Chapter of digression and anecdotes, as an interlude preceding that on the nature and genesis of the Imagination or Plastic PowerOn Pedantry and pedantic expressions Advice to young authors respecting publicationVarious anecdotes of the Author's literary life, and the progress of his opinions in Religion and Politics

XI An affectionate exhortation to those who in early life feel
themselves disposed to become authors

XII A Chapter of requests and premonitions concerning the perusal
or omission of the chapter that follows

XIII On the Imagination, or Esemplastic power

XIV Occasion of the Lyrical Ballads, and the objects originally proposedPreface to the second editionThe ensuing controversy, its causes and acrimonyPhilosophic definitions of a Poem and Poetry with scholia

XV The specific symptoms of poetic power elucidated in a
Critical analysis of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, and
Rape of Lucrece

XVI Striking points of difference between the Poets of the present age and those of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuriesWish expressed for the union of the characteristic merits of both

XVII Examination of the tenets peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth Rustic life (above all, low and rustic life) especially unfavourable to the formation of a human diction-The best parts of language the product of philosophers, not of clowns or shepherdsPoetry essentially ideal and generic The language of Milton as much the language of real life, yea, incomparably more so than that of the cottager

XVIII Language of metrical composition, why and wherein essentially different from that of proseOrigin and elements of metre Its necessary consequences, and the conditions thereby imposed on the metrical writer in the choice of his diction

XIX ContinuationConcerning the real object, which, it is probable, Mr. Wordsworth had before him in his critical prefaceElucidation and application of this

XX The former subject continuedThe neutral style, or that
common to Prose and Poetry, exemplified by specimens from
Chaucer, Herbert, and others

XXI Remarks on the present mode of conducting critical journals

XXII The characteristic defects of Wordsworth's poetry, with the principles from which the judgment, that they are defects, is deducedTheir proportion to the beautiesFor the greatest part characteristic of his theory only

XXIII Critique on Bertram

XXIV Conclusion

So wenig er auch bestimmt seyn mag, andere zu belehren, so wuenscht erdoch sich denen mitzutheilen, die er sich gleichgesinnt weis, (oderhofft,) deren Anzahl aber in der Breite der Welt zerstreut ist; erwuenscht sein Verhaeltniss zu den aeltesten Freunden dadurch wiederanzuknuepfen, mit neuen es fortzusetzen, und in der letzten Generationsich wieder andere fur seine uebrige Lebenszeit zu gewinnen. Erwuenscht der Jugend die Umwege zu ersparen, auf denen er sich selbstverirrte. (Goethe. Einleitung in die Propylaeen.)

TRANSLATION. Little call as he may have to instruct others, he wishesnevertheless to open out his heart to such as he either knows or hopesto be of like mind with himself, but who are widely scattered in theworld: he wishes to knit anew his connections with his oldest friends,to continue those recently formed, and to win other friends among therising generation for the remaining course of his life. He wishes tospare the young those circuitous paths, on which he himself had losthis way.

Motives to the present workReception of the Author's firstpublicationDiscipline of his taste at schoolEffect of contemporarywriters on youthful mindsBowles's SonnetsComparison between thepoets before and since Pope.

It has been my lot to have had my name introduced both inconversation, and in print, more frequently than I find it easy toexplain, whether I consider the fewness, unimportance, and limitedcirculation of my writings, or the retirement and distance, in which Ihave lived, both from the literary and political world. Most often ithas been connected with some charge which I could not acknowledge, orsome principle which I had never entertained. Nevertheless, had I hadno other motive or incitement, the reader would not have been troubledwith this exculpation. What my additional purposes were, will be seenin the following pages. It will be found, that the least of what Ihave written concerns myself personally. I have used the narrationchiefly for the purpose of giving a continuity to the work, in partfor the sake of the miscellaneous reflections suggested to me byparticular events, but still more as introductory to a statement of myprinciples in Politics, Religion, and Philosophy, and an applicationof the rules, deduced from philosophical principles, to poetry andcriticism. But of the objects, which I proposed to myself, it was notthe least important to effect, as far as possible, a settlement of thelong continued controversy concerning the true nature of poeticdiction; and at the same time to define with the utmost impartialitythe real poetic character of the poet, by whose writings thiscontroversy was first kindled, and has been since fuelled and fanned.