Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge Chapter XIV fr. BiographiaLiteraria (1817)

2. Context • Written in 1815, published 1817 • Largely focuses on Coleridge’s views of poetry but also on literature in general as well as other major topics like philosophy and religion • Chapter XIV, specifically, offers his views on WW’s Preface and the criticism received by Lyrical Ballads

3. Regarding Lyrical Ballads • Tells us that he and WW agreed that poetry has two motives: • Appeal to reader by focusing on truth in nature • Use the imagination to make the ordinary new • Also agreed it has two foci: • Supernatural / mystical (Coleridge) • Ordinary life (Wordsworth)

4. Response to Criticism • Recognizes that WW created controversy with his new style of poetry. (Coleridge, himself, remained fairly uncriticized because his poetry wasn’t that different from tradition.) • Asserts that people have been talking about WW’s poems, and the Preface, for years so clearly it was valuable and worthy of study. (See last paragraph on page one of XIV.)

5. He has remained silent too long! • Views of a Poem • Just rhyming doesn’t make a poem • Poems need to be broken down and appreciated for their parts, then put back together and appreciated for the whole • Need to have unity in style, form, subject, etc. • Views of Poetry itself • True poetry creates the union of pleasure and truth • Good poetry moves the reader through the poem because it excites the mind

6. Final Thoughts • Poetry speaks to the soul of man • Poetry has magical qualities developed through the Imagination of the poet and the reader • Poetry is great because it captures nature, but poetry could never be as great as nature