Critical note on Coleridge's theory of imagination
P-105 Assignment
Name-Kishan Jadav
Topic :- critical note on Coleridge's theory of imagination
Roll no-11
Enrollment no-3069206420200008
Email id- jadavkishan55555@gmail.com
Batch-2020-22 (MA Sem-1)
Submitted to- S. B. Gardi Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Critical note on Coleridge's theory of imagination
Introduction:-
Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] was a great poet, but he is also a great critic. He is one of the greatest of poet-critics that England has ever produced. S.T. Coleridge has been considered the leading literary critic of the Romantic Age. He is the first critic whose critical aspects are based on philosophy. His important critical observations are found in his works like 'Biographia Literaria', 'Lectures on Shakespeare', 'The Talle Talk',..etc. He was the first critic who resolved the age old problem of form and content of poetry. He was a genius and when he inspired, and when the mood was upon him, he could create works of the highest order, but he was incapable of sustained and persistent labour.
His Definition on poetry:
Poetry, according to Coleridge, is the product of imagination working on the objects of life and nature. It is an activity of imagination, idealizing the real and realising the ideal. As colours are to the art of painting, words are to the art of writing poetry.
Theory of Imagination :-
His greatest and most original contribution to literary criticism is his theory of imagination. Addison and examined the nature and function of imagination, had Wordsworth, too, had developed his own theory on the subject. But all previous discussions of Imagination look superficial and childish when compared with Coleridge's treatment of the subject. He is the first critic to differentiate between Imagination and Fancy, the first literary critic to distinguish between primary and secondary Imagination. Through his theory of imagination he revolutionized the concept of artistic imitation. Poetic imitation is neither a servile copy of nature, nor is it the creation of something entirely new and different from Nature. Poetry is not imitation, but creation, but it is creation based on the sensations and impressions received from the external world. Such impressions are shaped, ordered, modified, and opposites are reconciled and harmonized, by the imagination of the poet, and in this way poetic creation takes place. Stray’s remarks on literature and literary theory are scattered all over his prose works as, The Friend, Table Talks, Letters, Aids to Reflections, Confessions of an Inquiring spirit, Animal Poteau and Sibylline Leaves. Coleridge has dealt with the problem of imagination and fancy seriously because he was highly under the spell of Wordsworthian poetry. He says :
“ Milton had highly imaginative, Cowley a very fanciful mind.”
According to Coleridge imagination is a more creative mental power than fancy. He categorises imagination into two; Primary imagination and Secondary imagination.
(I) Primary imagination:
Primary imagination is the power of receiving impressions from the external world through the senses. It is the power of perceiving the object of sense both in their parts and is a whole. It is universal possessed by all. It enable the mind to from a clear a picture of the object perceived by the sense. It is an act of Mind when the mind is confused with irregular method, and the primary imagination in enable the mind to perceive unity of system.What Coleridge designates as the primary imagination is roughly equivalent to what Kant views as the reproductive imagination: it operates in our normal perception, combining the various data received through the senses into a unifying image, which can then be conceptualized by the understanding. In this role, imagination is an intermediary faculty, uniting the data of the senses with the concepts of the understanding. Even in this primary role, however, imagination as formulated by Coleridge evokes a wider, cosmic context: the very act of perception “repeats” on a finite level the divine act of creation. In other words, human perception actively recreates or copies elements in the world of nature, reproducing these into images that can be processed further by the understanding. The imagination in this primary capacity helps us to form an intelligible perspective of the world; this understanding, however, is fragmentary: we do indeed perceive God’s creation but in a piecemeal, cumulative fashion. Moreover, there is no originality in the primary imagination: like Kant’s reproductive imagination, it is bound by what we actually experience through the senses as well as the laws for associating these data.
(I) Secondary Imagination:
Secondary imagination may be possessed by others. It is the peculiar and distinctive Faculty of the artist that makes the artistic creation possible. The secondary imagination is a more active and conscious in its working. It works upon what is perceived by the primary imagination. The raw-material of the secondary imagination is the sensation and the impression supplied by primary imagination.It is the secondary imagination which is poetic: like Kant’s productive or spontaneous imagination, this is creative and forms new syntheses, new and more complex unities out of the raw furnishings of sense-data. As Coleridge indicates in the passage above, it breaks down the customary order and pattern in which our senses present the world to us, recreating these into new combinations that follow its own rules, rather than the usual laws of association. Coleridge also stresses in this passage the voluntary and controlled nature of the secondary or poetic imagination; whereas the primary imagination operates in an involuntary manner in all people, the secondary imagination belongs to the poet and is put into action by the “conscious will.” Nonetheless, this poetic imagination is still dependent for its raw material on the primary imagination: Coleridge is careful to state that the two types of imagination differ not in kind but only in degree. The secondary imagination must exert its creative powers on the very perceptions supplied by the primary imagination; it cannot operate independently of them. Another way of putting this might be to say that even the creative poetic imagination is ultimately rooted in our actual perceptions of the world: it cannot simply create from nothing, or from the insubstantiality of its own dreams. For, ultimately, the secondary imagination is perceiving the world at a higher level of truth, one that sees beneath the surface appearances of things into their deeper reality, their deeper connections, and their significance within a more comprehensive scheme that relates objects and events in their human, finite significance to their symbolic place in the divine, infinite order of things.
By an effort of the will and intellect, the secondary imagination selects and orders the raw material and then into object of beauty. That is called Essemplastic imagination which means a shaping and modifying power. It is an active agent which dissolves, diffuses and dissipates in order to recreate.As for as the creation of poetry is concerned the function of secondary imagination is very important because it is the power that harmonious and reconciles opposites. Coleridge calls it magical synthetic power.The essential difference between the primary and secondary imagination is that the first is the universal faculty found in all human beings and it is a conscious act of a mind while the second is completely depend on the human will. Intellects etc. it is conscious use of primary imagination. Thus, it is a creative faculty and that help the poet to create an excellent piece of art. It is a shaping spirit unifying and creative faculty, the beautiful and beautiful making power.
Fancy:
Coleridge regards fancy to be the inferior to imagination. It is according to him a creative power. It only combines different things into different shapes, not like imagination to fuse them into one. According to him, it is the process of “bringing together images dissimilar in the main, by source”. It has no other counters to play with, but fixities and definites. Fancy, in Coleridge’s eyes was employed for tasks that were “passive” and “mechanical”.Fancy puts dissimilar things together but does not link them. Fancy deal with the concept of association and imagination with assimilation. The difference between fancy and imagination is that one is the combinatory while the other is a unifying power. That is like the difference between delirium and mania. Fancy is related with talent in imagination with genius. The another difference between them is like mixture and compound.
The distinction between Fancy and the Imagination:
The distinction made by Coleridge between Fancy and the Imagination rested on the fact that fancy was concerned with the mechanical operations of the mind while imagination on the other hand is described the mysterious power. “The Primary Imagination” was for Coleridge, the “necessary imagination” as it makes images and impressions of what it receives through the senses. It represents man’s ability to learn from nature. The over arching property of the primary imagination was that it was common to all people. Whereas “The Secondary imagination” on the other hand, represents a superior faculty which could only be associated with artistic genius. A key and defining attribute of the secondary imagination was a free and deliberate will.
Conclusion:
Thus imagination creates new shapes and forms of beauty by fusing and unifying the different impressions it receives from the external world. Whereas Fancy is a kind of memory; it randomly brings together images, and even when brought together, they continue to retain their separate individual properties.Coleridge’s view of imagination may be somewhat indebted to Kant, to Schelling, who identified three levels of imagination (perceptual, philosophical, and artistic).
Citation:
Albert, Edward. “A History of English Literature.” 2000, Oxford University Press, London, p.664.
Brett, R. L. "Coleridge’s Distinction between Fancy and Imagination." Fancy & Imagination, 2017, pp. 31-53.
Coleridge, Samuel T, James Engel, and Walter J. Bate. Biographia Literaria. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Print.
Long, William J. English Literature. Delhi: AITBS PUBLISHERS,INDIA, 2019.
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