Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Wordsworth drew inspiration from
everyday life
 Coleridge dealt with incredible events in
to make them credible.

HOW?
Through an alternation of real and unreal
elements
The real elements
to give a sense of credibility to
the story without weakening the
sense of supernatural mystery.
A combination of..
the supernatural
 Dream-like elements
 Ancient mariner
 Mysterious forces
 Albatross
 Unearthly creatures
And the commonplace:
 visual realism
 The hill
 The lighthouse
 The church
 The sun
Musicality
he makes use of special sounds,
words and devices ( alliteration,
assonance, onomatopoeia, internal
rhyme, unequal lines, repetition…) in
order to create the unreal atmosphere
of his best work
an archaic language
to make more credible the supernatural
and to enrich its language with the use
of :
 Onomatopoeia
 Alliterations
 repetitions.
Language of poetry should not be the
language of prose.

IMAGINATION
divided into 2 types:

PRIMARY

SECONDARY
Primary






It is common to all human beings
Through it we perceive the world around
us
it works through our senses
but it goes beyond the simple perception
of objects
it enables man to form concepts
to join the world of thought with the world
of things

The imagination then I consider either as
primary or secondary. The primary imagination I
hold to be the living power and prime agent of
all human perception, and as a repetition in the
finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the
infinite I AM. The secondary I consider as an
echo of the former, co-existing with the
conscious will, yet still as identical with the
primary in the kind of its agency, and differing
only in degree, and in the mode of its operation.
It dissolves, diffusses, dissipates, in order to recreate' or where this process is rendered
impossible, yet still, at all events, it struggles to
idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital , even
as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed
and dead
Secondary Imagination

is the poetic vision
 It dissolves in order to re-create new
worlds, something completely different, to
rise above the data of experience.
 During a state of ecstasy, images do not
appear isolated, but associated according
to laws of their own, which have nothing
to do with the data of experience.
 The mind creates a new reality which has
only a superficial relationship with the
material one.
What’s a poem ?
 not
a reproduction of things existing in the
objective world
but
 a new world regulated by its own laws and
with an independent existence.
 the vision of the world is always original
and unique since the mind doesn’t
reproduce or imitate the natural world, but
uses new categories of thought.
Fancy


It is inferior to Imagination
it is a kind of mechanical and logical
faculty which enables a poet to associate
metaphors, similes and other poetical
devices.
 W. and C. despise fancy and exalt
Imagination.
 For Wordsworth Imagination modifies the
data of experience ( through recollection
in tranquillity , half create)
 for Coleridge Imagination transcends the
data of experience and “create”.
Fancy

Fancy, on the contrary, has no other
counters to play with but fixities and
definites. The fancy is indeed no other
than a mode of memory emancipated
from the order of time and space, and
blended with, and modified, by that
empirical phenomenon of the will which
we express by the word choice . But
equally with the ordinary memory it must
receive all its materials ready made from
the law of association.
SUPERNATURAL



He was attracted by the mystery behind
the world of appearances
the supernatural becomes a metaphor
for human experiences which the
material world alone can not represent
to express this metaphor he uses the
language of images.
NATURE








Coleridge and Wordsworth distinguished
clearly their tasks in
“ natural”
“ supernatural”
a tendency towards the real
a tendency towards the transcendental
With a perfect balance they expressed the
tension between the real and the visionary
which
W. resolved in favour of nature
C. in favour of supernatural.
Coleridge doesn’t find consolation
and happiness in nature
the contemplation of nature was always
accompanied by the awareness of the
presence of the ideal in the real.
 his Christian faith did not allow him to
identify nature with the Divine
 The material world is the projection of
the “real” world of ideas.
