Coleridges Idea of the Drama as the Basis of His Shakespearean C

7/28/2019 Coleridges Idea of the Drama as the Basis of His Shakespearean C

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/coleridges-idea-of-the-drama-as-the-basis-of-his-shakespearean-c 1/162

Loyola University Chicago

Loyola eCommons

Master's Teses Teses and Dissertations

1938

Coleridge's Idea of the Drama as the Basis of HisShakespearean Criticism.

Virgina Seabert Loyola University Chicago

Tis Tesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Teses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in

Master's Teses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please [email protected].

Tis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Aribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Copyright © 1938 Virgina Seabert

Recommended CitationSeabert, Virgina, "Coleridge's Idea of the Drama as the Basis of His Shakespearean Criticism." (1938). Master's Teses. Paper 350.hp://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/350

http://ecommons.luc.edu/

http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses

http://ecommons.luc.edu/td

mailto:[email protected]

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/





mailto:[email protected]

http://ecommons.luc.edu/td

http://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses

http://ecommons.luc.edu/



COLERIDGE 18IDEA OF THE DRAUA

AS THE BASIS OF HIS SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM

A T h e s i s

Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School

of

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY

In Part ial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Master of Arts

With English as Major Subject

by

Sister Virgina Seabert, S.C.C.

Chicago, I l l inoisNovember, 1938



C 0 N T E N T S

Chapter

Introduction

I Various Factors That Influenced

Page

i i

Coleridge's Dramatic Theory 1

I I The Fundamental Principles of Coleridge'sDramatic Criticism 23

I II Application of Coleridge's Basic Theories,Philosophical and Aesthetic, to HisCriticism of Shakespeare's Plays 55

IV Coleridge's Contribution to DramaticTheory in His Age, His Influence on

Shakespearean Criticism, and thePosition of His Dramatic Ideas inRelation to Modern Criticism of Drama 101

Conclusion

Bibliography

134

139



i i

tudes in the t radi t ions of Shakespearean cri t ic ism. His ideas

of dramatic ar t influenced the works of such cr i t ics as Lamb,

Hazl i t t , DeQuincey, and Leigh Hunt. In changing the t radi t ion

of dramatic criticism Coleridge threw out seminalideas regarding

drama that function even in modern interpretat ions of dramatic

character. No student or Shakespeare's plays can be indifferent

to Coleridge's rich findings; no student of criticism can fully

appreciate modern crit icism on drama without a knowledge of

Coleridge's basic ideas of drama.

In matters of form and style Coleridge, together with

Wordsworth, was responsible for an entirely new approach in

crit icism. Throughout the period of classicism, men were con-

tent to view the resul ts of genius, the results of aesthetic and

l i terary thought, rather than the urges, the original impulses,

and the psychological powers and processes tha t created those

resul ts in ar t . The romantic shared the ar t i s t ' s delight in the

creative act i t se l f in a l l i t s changes and moods. The magic

urge of the poet was captured and bound in the fe t ters of a

charming freedom, to be studied, analyzed, and admired. Thus

Coleridge dared to hold imagination in his hands and make i t

exhibit not only i t s outer charms, but also i t s being and

ssence.

Those evidences have been culled from the mass of

Coleridge's Shakespearean cri t icism which show his basic idea of



i i i

unity, the "manifold in one", the sublimation of the many into

one and the expression of this idea as used by the dramatist ,

Shakespeare.

The writer is deeply indebted to Dr. Morton Dauwen Zabel

of Loyola University, Chicago, for suggesting the study and

lending kind encouragement to carry i t to completion.



COLERIDGE 1S IDEA 01" THE DRAMA

AS 'l'WJ: :BASIS OF HIS SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICIS)I



CHAPTER I

VARIOUS FACTORS THAT INFLUENCED COLERIDGE'S DRAMATIC THEORY

Coleridge as poet and philosopher stands silhouetted against

the background of his age, a pivotal figure in whom is concen

trated the best of the ancient cri t ics and from whom radiates the

best of the romantic elements. The slow-growing influences of

romanticism played an important part in the formation of

Coleridge's cri t ical facul t ies . He is a true romantic whose

poetic genius enabled him to ref lect upon the process of poetic

creation and analyze the workings of a poet 's mind. I t was this

power that sublimated the poet in the cr i t ic . Very often, es

pecially during the early period of his poetic fervor, "the

magic, that which makes his poetry", 1 was "but the f inal release

in a rt of a winged thought f lut tering helplessly among specula

tions and theories; i t was the 'song of releaae•."2

Various factors united to form the mind of Coleridge. One

of the primary influences that shaped his thought is the natural

curiosity of his intell igence. His early education, with a l l i ta

attendant desires to see the "Vast", to know the great powers

that lay hidden in the universe, early lead his mind to philosophy

1Arthur Symons, The Romantic Movement in English Poetry (London,1909) ' p . 30 .

2Ibid.



2

Fowell has aptly said that "the history ot his development is the

gradual substi tution ot dream to r logic."3 At an early age,

coleridgers t ru i t tu l imagination began to project i t s e l t . I t

showed i t se l f in his games, in his dramatizations of the stories

~ e read. Coleridgers eight years a t Christrs Hospital in London,

with their hours ot loneliness and inner reflections, were years

in which his native love for the inf inite and mysterious was fos-

tered. Early in the f i r s t volume of the Biographia Literaria

there is a note of longing for the unknown and the inf in i te .

In my friendless wanderings on our leave-days (for I was an orphan and had scarcelyany connections in London) highly was I de-l ighted, i t any passenger, especially i f hewere drest in black, would enter into conversa-t ion with me. For I soon found the mtans ofdirecting i t to my tavorite subjects.

These favorite subjects were the truths of metaphysics.

Coleridge gives expression to what the pursuit in metaphysics and

speculation had meant to him.

But i t in at tar time I have sought a refugefrom bodily pain and mismanaged sensibil i tyin abstruse researches, which exercised thestrength and subtlety ot the understandingwithout awakening the feelings ot the heart;s t i l l there

was along and blessed interval ,

during which my natural facult ies were allowedto expand, and my original tendencies to de-velop themselves.5

3A. E. Fowell, The Romantic Theory ot Poetry (New York, 1926),p. 80.

4Ed. by J . Shawcross (Oxtord, 1907), I , p. 10. All subsequentquotations trom the Biographia Literaria are taken trom thisedition.

5Ibid.-



3

These "tendencies", characteristic of every true poet, were to

him "fancies, and the love of nature, and the sense of beauty in

.forms and sounds • "6

Here also, a t Christ 's Hospital, Coleridge gave evidence of

the romanticism that was to dominate his la ter l i fe . He ap

praised Pope's poetry as having merit, though to him i t lacked

the disjointed harmony of classic poetry--that "unity", that

"harmonious whole" which was to play so great a part not only in

Coleridge's own philosophy but also in his aesthetic.The natural tendencies of·his poetic power, together with

the severe mental training received under Bowyer a t Christ 's

Hospital, made the young Coleridge realize that "poetry, even

that of the lof t ies t , and seemingly, that of the wildest odes,

had a logic of i t s own, assevere as that of science; and more

difficul t , because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on

more and more .fugitive causes."7 These were prophetic words.

They told the poet 's task, the l i fe ' s task of finding and ana

lyzing "the .fugitive causes" o.f poetry and poetic activi ty.

Fortunately .for Coleridge the beauties of his native home a t

Ottery St. Mary had supplied this boy who thirsted for beauty

with a store of memories to cloak the squalor at Christ 's

Hospital. Mere dry speculation did not sat isfy Coleridge. To

6Ibid.

7Ibid. , p. 4.-



---------------------------------.4

him English philosophy was a contradiction, for possessing grea1

warm emotions, he could not think of Mind as merely a playground

tor physical forces. Materialistic ideas did not function in

his actual l i te . How account, then, tor the wonders of sky

and earth?

That ful ler understanding of the 'object• and •subJect•

problem which grew out of his philosophy of nature l ies hidden

in one of his early poems.

On the wide level of a mountain's head,I know not where but 'was some faer-r place,Their pinions, ostrich-like, tor sails out-

spread ·Two lovely children ran an endless race;

A. s is ter and a.brother!hat tar outstripped the other

Yet ever runs ahe with reverted face,And looks and l istens for the boy behind:

For he, alas, is bl1adtO'er rough and smooth with even step

he passedAnd knows not whether he be f i rs t or last!S

Here Reality is symbolized by the blind brother; Imagination is

the sister . Professor Brandl sees in this allegory a prophecy

of Coleridge's own l i te-- that with philosophy alone the poet

could not be satisfied. All these early experiences at school

and in his own mind and heart formed a firm foundation tor his

future philosophical and aesthetic growth.

Versed in classic lore, Coleridge l e f t Christ 's Hospital

in 1790. He was acquainted with Milton, Gray, and Spenser, yet

aReal and Imaginary•, The Poetical Works of S.T.Coleridge,

ed. by Derwent Coleridge (Boston,l87l),I, p.6. Generally referred to as the Osgood edition.



5

tul ly cognizant of the peculiar deficiencies of each, though he

himself had not yet the power to define them. The following

year Coleridge enjoyed freedom from the restraint of teachers,

and his love of the inf inite and unknown was put into green pas

tures. Here he fed upon the philosophies of Voltaire and Hume,

strengthening his already assimilated views on association. The

Law of Association as Coleridge saw it "established the contem

poraneity of the original impressions" and "formed the basis of

a l l true psychology".

9He acknowledges his indebtedness f i r s t tc

Aristot le . Detailed explanations in the Biographia Literaria

show the at t i tude Coleridge bore towards Aristot le 's idea of the

general law of association and that of Hartley. The Law of

Association is fundamental in Coleridge's philosophy; i t proves

and develops the very logic and t ruth of his "faculty divine".

To Aristot le 's theory regarding the association of ideas in the

mind Coleridge's ow.n principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites

harks back.lO Aristot le 's theory of the occasioning causes of

ideas in the mind held a foreshadowing of Coleridge's own princi

ple of the Reconciliation of Opposites. Hartley's theory of

association, on the other hand, shows a lack of logical reason

ing. There was evident some detachment in his logic which made

9Biographia Literaria , I , p. 67 • .

10~ . , p. 72. Shawcross l i s t s the five agents Aristotle enu-merates in the association of ideas: 1) connection in time,whether simultaneous, ireceding, or successive; 2) vicinity or

connection in space; 3 interdependence or necessary connection,as cause and effect; 4 l ikeness; 5) contrast .



6

i t purely physical and material is t ic . Coleridge draws out a t

length Hartley's fallacious theory.11 In Plato, however,

Coleridge was fascinated by the idea of intuit ive idealism, and

in Aristotle, by the scientif ic realism. Similarly, Coleridge

saw no real divergence between Plotinus and these philosophers.

In none of these philosophers did religion function. To the

romanticist religion was of primary interest ; therefore, with

Coleridge the spir i tual element, not necessarily doctrinal.re-

ligion but the love of the inf in i te , must find a place in hisphilosophy. He searched for this spir i tual element and found i t

in the mystics. The mystics fascinated him because in them he

found the keynote of his own mind. The appeal of the mystics,

especially that of Plotinus, was the appeal to his imagination.

Even during his early l i fe , Coleridge i s beginning to build up

the conception of God and Nature as one. He i s groping for a

unity of the spir i tual and the material; behind the material he

tried to find the spir i tual .

That Coleridge was early acquainted with the works of Plato

and Plotinus is evident from the fact that Taylor's translation

was in his hands. 12 As indicated before, Coleridge began his

speculations on the nature of beauty in Christ 's Hospital. The

influence of Plotinus never l e f t him. He himself says

11Ibid. , PP· 72 ft.

12Ibid.-



7

A ~ t e r the dry teachings o ~ Boyer, and o ~the modern Philosophy, these visionary

13ideas tasted l ike a pleasant antidote.

Brandl observes that "his ~ a n c y took ~ r o m that time a mystico

theological direction, which he never a ~ t e r entirely threw o ~ ~ ;in so ~ a r remaining his l i ~ e long a Platonist--or rather a

Plot inist ."14 The world i s ideal and rea l , Plotinus reasons,

and this unity o ~ the ideal and real i s God. The mystic believef

that man and nature are derived ~ r o m God, yet in the essence 9 ~

their being are capableo ~

unity with the divine source. Man maJlook out and know the universe only through his senses; he may

~ e e l conscious o ~ himBelf as an individual being. So, Coleridge

would say, man sees the world as "a multitude of l i t t l e things",

the material "mechanically directed", and "knows nothing of

Reality.•115 Man might withdraw into his consciousness and thus

rel ive the original divine l i fe of his existence. He could be

come one with the divinity and consequently, being a part of that

divinity, know i t . T h e r e ~ o r e , in that state Nature would appear

f i l led with spir i tual l i f e .

Although mysticism o f ~ e r e d the solution which materialism

and atheism fai led to o f ~ e r him, Coleridge remained unsatisfied.

True, his imagination was s t i l l ed , but he could not f i t into thif

system of thought experience and the facts of observation. When

13Ibid.-

4Alois Brandl, Samuel T. Coleridge and the English Romantic

School (London, 1887), p. 43.15

Powell o o . c i t . ~ p p . 8 2 - ~ . - - · - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ·



8

he t r ied to harmonize these ideas with his general scheme of

reasoning, he found quali t ies in individual poems which were

characterist ic of the ar t i s t or poet. In other words, something

of the poet or ar t i s t coloured the a r t product. The experience

to Coleridge was identical with some transcendent and universal

real i ty and therefore had objective existence. He believed that

the poet 's heart and in te l lect should be "intimately combined

and unified with the great appearances of nature and not merely

held, in the shape of formal similes."1

6 These ideas were form--ing in Coleridge's mind between the year 1795 and 1798 and

appear in the poetry of this period. The note of similari ty be

tween Plotinus 1 Ennead and Coleridge's "The Eolian Harp" i s

obvious. The predominant thought of his poetry a t this time is

"Nature representing the chief means of intercourse with the

One."17 The One, as understood by Plotinus, is the ultimate

source of nature, but nature as cold "because Mind in her is

darkened by Matter.ul8

Coleridge revels in the idea of his oneness with nature.

He takes the power of intercourse for granted and believes that

with this power he can lay bare real i ty . But just how this is

to be done he does not yet question. The divine l i fe is a

16As quoted in Powell, op.ci t . , P• 84.

17Ibid.

18Ibid.



9

radiation of

• • • the one l i fe in us and abroad,Which meets a l l motion and becomes i ta soul,A l ight in sound, a sound-like power in l ight ,

19

Rhythm in a l l thought, and joyance everywhere;

and this divine presence is alive, containing in it a l l being in

spite of organism of nature.

And wh.a t i f a l l animated natureBe but organic harps diversely framed,That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweepsPlastic and vast, one intel lectual b r e e z ~ 0At once the Soul of each and God of a l l .

Thus what Coleridge feels in the presence of nature is that

transcendent l iving Reality.

The essential development of Coleridge's thought leads

naturally to the next great factor that influenced his l i fe and

theory. I t i s his friendship with Wordsworth. In Wordsworth he

found a man, a poet in whom his philosophical theory was exempli

f ied. What a tremendous factor this friendship played in the

development of Coleridge's mind can be traced in the Lyrical

Ballads and Coleridge's own analysis of experience and the

imagination.

Gradually Coleridge's poetic powers waned. The heat and

excitement of the contemporary events in England and France were

19"The Eolian Harp", Osgood edition, p. 285.

20Ibld.



10

~ r o b a b l e causes. Professor ~ r a n d l says of the two poets that

"what they composed after the Lyrical Ballads is in many re-

spects beautiful and great, but i t opened no new paths being

only a further application of the art each had acquired.• 21

Coleridge realized that nature would not act by herself; his

own powers reflected this fact . Moreover, his poetry gives vent

to the feeling that his faith in nature must be modified. Man,

he realized, must have some part in the creative process. In

tact , his own moods varied when in communion with nature. Some-times nature solaced and rejoiced him; a t other times, she

created a feeling of despair in him. His "Ode: Dejection" ex-

presses well this conviction.

~ 1

. • • we receive but what we giveIn our l i fe alone does Nature l ive;

. . • from the soul i t se l f must issue forthA l ight , a glory, a fa i r luminous cloud

Enveloping the earth.

• • •

I may not hope trom outward forms to winThe passion and the l i t ~ ! whose fountains

are within.

There are those who maintain that Coleridge plagiarized

QE.cit. , p. 21!.

~ 2 " 0 d e : Dejection,• Osgood edition, p. 29.



11

schlegel,23but before German p ~ i l o e o p h y could augment his

goodlY store of thought, his mind had already formed a solution

tor the imaginative element. Coleridge was a close observer;

hie intuit ional experience with nature was at times capable of

very intimate communion. In his Anima Poetae there are descrip-

tions of such experience, but he fe l t the need of a symbolic

language with which to disclose this experience.

In looking at obJects of Nature while Iam t ~ i n k i n g , as at yonder moon dim-glimmering

through the dewy window-pane, I seem ratherto be seeking, as i t were asking tor, asymbol1c.language tor something within methat always .and tor21er exists, than observinganything new • • •

He continues breaking away from every materialist ic idea of the

creative force in mind,

• • • yet s t i l l I have always an obscure

feeling as i f that new phenomena (sic)were the dim awakening of a f o r g ~ ! t e n orhidden truth ot my inner nature.

~ o w could he reconcile his own mind with the forms and phenomena

of nature? In Kant, Coleridge found one form ot solution. Al-

though he followed Kant in his reasoning, he could not restrain

himself from the pantheistic ideas as found in Plotinus and, as

23ror a full account of the parallel passages in Schlegel andColeridge, see A.A. Helmholtz, 1The Indebtedness of SamuelTaylor Coleridge to August Wilhelm von Schlegel•, Philological~ d Literary Series (Madison,l907), III , p.291.

24Anima Poetae, ed. by Ernest H. Coleridge (Boston,l895),p.l36.

25 Ib1d.-



--------------------------------------------------------------,12

a consequence, his reasoning was that of the imagination rather

than that of logic. Coleridge f i rs t became interested in Kant

through criticism. The view Coleridge took of the sublime and

beautiful (1799) was similar to that of Kant. Sensual opinions

were held concerning these two aspects of aesthetic. Coleridge

opposed Burke who had endeavouredto identify the.beautiful with

the agreeable, and the sublime with terror and pain (1757). He

did not believe the sublime to be connected with terror but

rather with beauty; and that i t operated not on the powers of

the body, but on those of the soul, by bringing about a. 1 suspen-

sion of the power of comparison.• This opinion coincides with

the Kantian theory as expressed in the Kritik der Urtheilskraft

which places the sublime and beautiful together.

Much might be said on Kant's influence on Coleridge's

aesthetics; however, Coleridge did not remain with Kantian views

and, therefore, much of his theory is original in the sense of

application. He did derive from Kant the idea .that the mind is

•a faculty of thinking and forming Judgments on the notices fur-

nished by the sense.•26 Thus, in regard to the understanding,

Coleridge derived a hypothesis, but Kant's idea of reason found

no sympathy in Coleridge's system. The idea of reason as pro-

posed by Kant was that of a •regulative" faculty; Coleridge

formulates the idea of a law of the mind which brings with i t a

26Samuel T. Coleridge, The Friend (London,l844), !,section I ,

essay 3, p. 240.



13

~ e e l i n g of necessity. He speaks of the 1 ideas of the soul, of

t ree-will , of immortality and of God. 1 27 Kant 1 s' influence is

responsible for giving Coleridge a definition of the l imitations

pt the u n d e r s t ~ d i n g but, as is the case with many other ideas,

Coleridge worked upon the idea changing i t considerably. He ad

mits the influence of Kant.

The writings of the. i l l u s t ~ i o u s sage .o.fK6fi1gsberg, • • • invigorated and disciplinedm1 understand1ng.28

Coleridge hints in the Biographia Literaria that Kant believed

but did not reveal the fact that there is a power which has some

intimate experience with supersensible reali ty.

In 1798, at the age of twenty-six, Coleridge entered G e r m a n ~~ i t h the intention of studying German writers and their l i tera-

ture. With what enthusiasm he mingled with German common people

as well as with the learned men of the country appears in his

~ e t t e r s to the Wedgewoods (Satyrane 1 s Letters).

Through streets and streets I pressed onas happy as a child, and, I doubt not, with achildish expression of wonderment in my busyeyes, amused by the· wicker w a g g o n ~ ~ amused bythe sign-boards of the shops. • •

While dining in a German restaurant, Coleridge is reminded

by the 1pippins and cheese• of Shakespeare, not, however, to see

2 7 ~ . , I , essay 15, p. 147.

28Biographia Literar1a,I, p. 99.

29 Ibid. , I I (Second Satyrane Letter), p. 152.-



- ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .14

a Shakespearean play, but, as he says,

Shakespeare put i t in my head to go to theFrench comea.y.30

And the play seemed worse to him than the English plays for he

adds

Bless me! why 3i is worse than our modernEnglish plays.

How much worse is difficul t to te l l . The English stage a t

this time produced "inart ist ic , genuinely ca·reless.•32 drama.

:Much dramatic l i terature was modelled af ter the style of the

Elizabethans. There was slavish imitation of o h a ~ a c t e r and plot ,

one reason probably for the lack of progress on the modern

English stage. Thus, Coleridge is turned away from the modern

stage with disgust. Here, in Germany, he sees the same type of

drama as that which is being produced on the English stage. The

description which he gives of this particular German play might

~ e characteristic also of the contemporary English stage.

The f i r s t act informed me, that a courtmartial is to be held on a Count Vatron whohad drawn his sword on the Colonel, his brotherin-law. The officers plead in his behalf - invain! His wife, the Colonel's s is ter , pleadswith most tempestuous agonies - in vain! Shefa l ls into hysterics and faints away, to thedropping of the inner curtain! In the secondact sentence of death is passed on the Count -his wife, as frantic and hysterical as before:

30Ibid. , p. 157.

31Ibid.

~ 2 A l l a r d y c e Nicoll,A

History of Early Nineteenth CenturyDrama-~ 8 0 0 - 1 8 5 0 (New York, 1930), I.L...E..:.__Jj2.::....---·_.· - - - - - - - - - - - - •



15

more so (good industrious creature!) she couldnot be. The third and las t act, the wife,s t i l l frantic, very frantic indeed! the soldiersJust about to f i re , the handkerchief actuallydropped; when reprieve reprieve! is heard frombehind the scenes: and in comes Prince somebody,pardons the Count, an4 the wife i s s t i l l frantic,only with Joy; that was allt33

A l i t t le hint of what the reader might expect of Coleridge la ter

when he has launched upon his dramatic criticism is found in the

remark,

• • • for such is the kind of drama which is

now substituted everywhere for Shakespeare•••

34To Coleridge such a play was not art but bombast and exag

gerated acting. Many causes led to productions of this sort .

Playhouses were large, acoustics and l ighting poor, and as a re

sult dramatic effort had to be exaggerated and spectacular.

Players shouted their l ines, while directors bellowed orders.

Coleridge, for whom thought was everything, turned with disgust

from the modern play.

In Germany, Shakespearean productions were on a higher lev

el. Coleridge himself has given the atti tude of the English

people toward Shakespeare:

The solution of this circumstance must besought in the history of our nation: theEnglish have become a busy commercial peopleand they have unquestionably derived from thispropensity many social and physical advantages:

33Biograph1a Literaria, I I (Second Satyrane Letter), pp.l57-8.

~ 4Ibid.-



~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ,16

they have grown to be a mighty empire.35

~ h i S accounts for their lack of speculation. But the very sub

ject condition of the Germans Coleridge attributes as the cause

pf' their progress in philosophy and speculation. He says on thit

~ o i n t :• • • the Germans, unable to distinguish themselves in action, have been driven to speculation: a ll their feelings have been forced backinto the thinking and reasoning mind. To do,with them is impossible but in determining whatought to be done, they perhaps· exceed every

people of the globe. Incapable of acting outwardly, they have acted internally: they f i r s tset their spir i ts to work with an energy ofwhich England produces no parallel, since • • •the days of.Elizabeth.36

Professor Brandl says that conditions in Germany made possi·

ble the deep apj>reciation of Shakespeare for 1 many of the prince•

~ d princelings who ruled i t Germany maintained theatres in

their residences; this was perhaps the·only note-worthy service

~ o n e to Germany by the 1 Xleinstaaterei 1 • The wealthier towns

~ o l l o w e d suit and buil t theatres of their own. The people,

tired of sermons, and unable to take an interest in politics or

sports sometimes even forbidden to travel, flocked to the per

itormances.•37

35Thomas Middleton Raysor, Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism

(Cambridge, 1930), II , pp. 164-5.

~ 6Ibid., p. 165.-

7Alois Brandl, 1Shakespeare and Germany•, Third Annual

Shakespeare Lecture,Proceedings of the British Academy (July 1,~ 9 3 0 \



17

rurther, he points out the chief difference between the temper of

the German people and that of the English: "to be successful a

plaY had to be poetical , had to contain a body of thought, and

had to be clothed in fine rhetoric; for the average German,

though a poor poli t ician, had by his good schools, become an in-

te l l igent person, had a satchelful of solid knowledge on his back

and would not be sat isf ied with superficial farces and operettas;

he wanted to be amused intel l igent ly.• 38 Such qualifications of

a l i terary drama could be found in the plays of Shakespeare.

This demand was answered by Lessing and numerous other transla-

tors. Each o f the German translators borrowed a particular t ra i t

of Shakespeare's drama. Thus, Lessing copied his blank verse;

Goethe copied the lawless structure or the Histories. Shakespeare

was studied with great interest in Germany, for the German people

•want to be shown l i fe , as intense l i fe as possible, which will

enable them to pass, while reading, through a l l the experiences

of the persons described, as i f they were experiences of their

own.n39 I t was this note in the German philosophers that ap-

~ e a l e d also to Coleridge. Here was the essence of real drama.

What Coleridge derived from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason,

was grounds for his belief in a noumenal real i ty, a basis for his

~ i d .3 9 ~ i d .



18

idea ot the imagination. Professor Muirhead believes that 1 i t

was tor just such an extension or i t s functions that Coleridge

was looking."40 Evidently, Coleridge had some idea already

rormed as to this faculty in the mind. Consequently, when he

came upon other works or the Germans, he round the same philoso

phY and seized upon i t eagerly. Schelling had sought to show

that nature was not the creation or mind, but that i t was mind in

an unconscious torm. In Schelling's scheme •Nature in the nar-

rower sense ot which science speaks is not the thing-in- i tself .

Natural science abstracts trom the meanings which Nature

symbolized and takes i t as something·merely t in i te . •41 Coleridge

assimilated Schelling's idea and reenforced his whole basis or

aesthetic on the differences between what he cal ls the natura

~ ~ a t a and the natura naturans. Schelling says: "For, as i t

is in the work or art that the problem or the division which

philosophy makes between thought and thing finds i t s solution: in

this the division ceases, idea and real i ty merge in the individ

ual representation. Art thus et tects the impossible by resolving

the inf ini te contradiction in a f in i te product - a result i t

~ c h i e v e s through the power or the "productive intuition" we cal l

•rmagination•.42

~ 0John H. Muirhead, Coleridge as Philosopher (New York, 1930),

~ · 200.

~ 1 A s quoted in Muirhead, ~ c i t . , p. 202.

~ 2 I b i d .



- ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~19

This idea was exactly what Coleridge had been formulating

in his own mind and here in Schelling i t was strengthened. But

Coleridge went further than Schelling. Professor Muirhead says

that these ideas were not only important as the foundation of a

•true theory ot art in general and of poetry in particular" but

that "they needed to be adapted to the personalist ic metaphysics,

which he sought to substi tute to r the pantheistic impersonalism

of Schelling." 43 Coleridge held that the sense ot beauty is a

torm of personal communication with the spi r i t revealed in nature

~ n d art as a medium or as an interpreter of the l i fe of nature.

Therefore, viewed in i t s general scheme as a combination of

philosophy and the idea of the ar t is t ic imagination, there seems

to be no direct borrowing from Schelling. Coleridge's defense ot

~ i m s e l t against the attacks ot plagiarism made by Professor James

Ferrier44 is interesting in the l ight of what Professor Muir-

~ e a d has said, "Coleridge need not have been directly indebted to

~ c h e l l i n g . 1145

Professor Brandl says in this regard: 1 From no one did

~ o l e r i d g e learn more than from Schelling, and no one would have

had a greater right to complain; instead of which, Schelling re-

joiced over his English pupil, owning even his obligations to him

43Ibid. , p. 203.

44Ct. Helmholtz, op.ci t . , p. 291.

45Op.cit . , p. 203.



-20

in the Essay on Prometheus, where Coleridge in one happy word

•tautegory 1, defined the distinction between mythology and alle-

gory which Schelling had only reached in a roundabout way.n 46

In general, the contact that Coleridge had with German

dramatists and philosophers seems to be more l i terary than othel-

wise. To ignore entirely the influence of such men as Lessing,

Schiller and the Schlegels would be to understand but half of

Coleridge's development. How much of the German thought in

philosophy and art can be said to have actually functioned in

Coleridge's best crit icism is diff icul t to determine. Coleridge

assimilated the German philosophy and aesthetic making i t so

much a part of his thought that distinction is at times hard to

make. One of the chief characteristics, that of subtle cri t ical

analysis, was a resul t of the philosophical training through his

study of Xant and Schelling.

Coleridge pays a great tr ibute to Lessing in his B i o g r a p h i ~Literaria, but Raysor would at t r ibute this •weight on the wings

of the Greek poets" (Shakespeare's apparent i rregulari t ies) to

Schlegel rather than to Lessing." Moreover, Coleridge seems to

imply that he •reconciled the admiration of Shakespeare with

Aristotelian p r i n c 1 p l e s ~ , 4 7 but in his actual criticism of

Shakespearean plays he makes a distinction between Shakespearean

46Op.cit. , p. 391.

47

Raysor, op.c i t . , I , Introduction, p. xxvi.



- ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ,21

and Greek drama. Raysor says regarding the argument of the

unities "· .• i t is fairly probable that he learned from

~ e a s i n g rather than from Kames the argument that the unities of

time and place depend upon the chorus. This and the general

emphasis upon Shakespeare's art are probable influences from

Lessing. "48

In regard to Schiller various opinions are held. Miss

Helmholtz says that "Schiller 's influence belonged principally to

Coleridge's ear l ier years and suffered a speedy eclipse."49

Dunstan, on the other hand, finds a similari ty in their inter-

~ r e t a t i o n of the drama. According to Dunstan, Coleridge derived

from Schiller his distinction between ancient and modern poets

and also many ideas regarding the dependence of genius on public

taste, the comparison between Greek and Gothic architecture, and

the ' imitation of nature."

Among the lesser influences is Herder. His influence may be

~ e g a r d e d as that of atti tudes towards the various Shakespearean

~ r i t i c s . In this his influence is similar to that of Schiller.

~ o Schiller we must at t r ibute the greater influence. I t is not

~ e f i n i t e l y known when Coleridge became acquainted with Schil ler 's

~ s s a y On Naive and Sentimental Poetry, but the influence that i t

~ d in Germany in 1799 makes i t probable that Coleridge read i t

8 I b i d .~ 9

.Qp.cit., p. 290.



------------------------------------------------------------,22

while he was at Goettingen. In this essay Schiller makes the

distinction between the naive and t h ~ sentimental. This same

dist inction is called in Schlegel's lectures the classic and the

romantic. Coleridge, therefore, may have been familiar with the

distinction before reading Schlegel 's lecture. The idea of

dramatic i l lusion may have been borrowed from Herder's book,

Von Deutscher Art und Kunst.

The greatest influence upon Coleridge's Shakespearean

criticism is that of Schlegel. Although Raysor stresses the in-

fluence of Schlegel, nevertheless, he says "· •• t is almost

certain that the great influence of Schlegel confirmed and de-

veloped rather than suggested many of Coleridge's ideas. They

had both studied Kant, Lessing, Herder, Schil ler, and perhaps

Richter, and had both been students a t Goettingen under Heyne.

They were both romantic cri t ics in conscious revolt against the

criticism of the previous age, particularly that of Dr.Johnson.

Their common background and common subject made coincidences

not merely probable but inevitable."50

Miss Helmholtz has l is ted in detai l the passages that are

parallel in the two ori t ics . 51 In these parallel passages

Coleridge makes definite mention of points which Schlegel merel7

suggests as principles of criticism. Since, too, Coleridge did

50Op.cit . , I , Introduction, p.xxx.

51Op •c it • , p • 297 •



-23

IInot see Schlegel 's lectures nor his Vorlesungen uber dramatische

Kunst und Litteratur unt i l af ter the eighth lecture of the

series of 1811-12, i t is possible to conclude that what C o l ~ d g esaYs concerning certain passages was already possessed of a l l

the 11 main and fundamental ideas applied by Schlegel before he

had seen a page of the German cr i t ic ' s work."52

However, in the

interpretation of character Coleridge had nothing to learn from

Schlegel. Dunstan definitely states that 11 from Schlegel

Coleridge learnt nothing. Where he agrees with Schlegel, he is

stating views he held long before Schlegel 's lectures were de

l ivered. His whole debt, i f debt i t can be called, is found in

the adoption of a phrase here and there. Schlegel suggested no

fundamental principle and no application of fundamental princi-

1 1153P e. Of a l l these influences, Raysor says: "They frequently

affect Coleridge's statements of general principles of poetry and

Shakespearean cri t icism, but almost never affect his detailed

criticism of part icular plays. Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Othello,

~ o m e o and Jul ie t , The Tempest, Love's Labor's Lost, and Richard

~ h e Second were the plays which Coleridge emphasized. His

~ s y c h o l o g i c a l and aesthetic criticism of these plays, his essay

pn Shakespeare's poetry in Biographia Literar1a, and on

52Ibid.-~ 3A. C. Dunstan, "The German Influence on Coleridge", Modern

~ a ~ u a g e Review, 18:201 (July, 1922).



24

Shakespeare's method in The Friend, - these are the highest a t-

54tainments of his Shakespearean cri t icism."

I t is well to bear in mind that the German philosophers as

well as the English were Coleridge's teachers only in aesthetics.

In cri t icism of an actual work of art Raysor asser ts , 11 he

Coleridge was as original as a cri t ic may well be. His origi

nality and power were irregularly displayed because they were

frequently null i f ied by his tragic weakness of body and wil l .

But he should not be judged by his worst, or even by his average;

in crit icism, as in poetry, he should be read for his best

achievements. These do not depend upon plagiarism or even upon

the influence of others. They are the products of h is own

superb genius."55

With these cr i te r ia in mind a consideration of the funda

mental principles of Coleridge's dramatic crit icism follows.

54Op. c i t . , I , I-ntroduction, p. x.xxii.

~ 5Ibid. , p. xxxi i i .



CHAPTER II

THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF COLERIDGE'S

DRAMATIC CRITICISM

Fragmentary as Coleridge is in his principles of crit icism,

the body of his work presents a unity of thought readily t race-

able in his philosophy and in his aesthetic . Everything which

played upon his feelings, emotions, or in te l lect has been fused

into one great power. Coleridge, in spite of a l l his analytic

powers, remains ever a true romanticist .

A distinguishing mark of the romantic period is the freedom

of the individual imagination, the power that is usually asso-

ciated with mere caprice. Yet, a t the very height of development

in the romantic period, Coleridge comes forth with a philosophy

of the imagination that says that freedom of the imagination does

not mean a power that is lawless and tangential . I t is a power

that acts as a guiding s tar , as i t were, to the poet to find and

follow great law. The idea of the imagination during th is period

wasone of great significance. I t came to be considered the

~ e c u l i a r note of divergence between classicism and romanticism.

Coleridge's own great gi f t of imagination gave not only a unique

~ e a u t y to his own poetry, but len t also to his interpretat ion of

this faculty a power which few other cr i t ics have surpassed.

The age i t se l f with i t s seething act ivi ty stimulated his



.-

26

imagination. Fundamental questions arose in his mind concern-

ing the changes in the social and pol i t ical order. The age in

general was alive with the sense of change. In his early poems

Coleridge shows how social and pol i t ical happenings with their

various influences pressed in upon him. In his Religious

Musings, he seems to be probing for an explanation of the u l t i -

mate problems of l i fe . This bewildering "manifold" he wishes to

draw together; he would find some power from within that would

unifY both the pressing circumstances with their impressions

without and the crowding thoughts from within. Coleridge's

theory of the imagination in which his entire philosophic

thought might be concentrated was to give this unity within the

universe; a unity in this world of "manifold experience" and thiE

"world of l i t t l e things." This unity Coleridge wished to dis-

cover within himself. Mere delight in the •vast" and the "Whole"

seemed to sat isfy him in his childhood, but i t must be remembered

that the philosophy of Plotinus was implanted in him a t a time

when thought experience and impact had creative power. Thus, the

core of Plotinus 's mysticism became the very condition of

Coleridge's thinking. I t was the philosophy, also, of Plotinus

that helped him supplement and correct modern philosophers when

he fe l t that he could not follow them further. Being a true

child of the romantic age, Coleridge needed a solution in terms

~ f the spir i t to the problem of the many and the One, the rela-

~ i o n of the eternal to the shif t ing, changing temporal.



~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - .28

the mind of man became Coleridge's whole metaphysical system and

round i t s ful les t expression in his theory of the imagination.

The theory of the imagination, however, is preceded by the

theory of the act of knowledge or, as Coleridge cal ls i t in the

~ o g ! a p h i a Literar ia, the "coalescence of the Object with the

subject. 056 But Coleridge ins is ts upon an "Inner Sense" tha t

cannot have i t s direction determined by any outward object .

Here, Coleridge, very much l ike Blake with his idea of the mani

fold visions of men, says that the Inner Sense "has i t s directiordetermined for the greater-part by an act of freedom. 11 57 As a

result , Coleridge argues that these successive stages of the

operation of the Inner Sense are stages that cannot be attained

equally by al l . There must be a certain act of contemplation,

an in i t i a l act , not mere apprehension. Coleridge denies, there

fore, to the Esquimau or New Zealander th is kind of imaginative

power for , as he says, "the sense, the inward organ for i t , is

not yet born in him.n 58 There must be a "realizing intuition"

which exists in and by the act that "affirms i t s existence, which

is known because i t i s , and i s , because i t is known. 11 59 There-

56Ibid. , p. 175.

57Ibi.9:., p. 172.

5 8 ~ i o g r a p h i a Literar ia, I , p. 173.

59I . A. Richards, Coleridge on Imagination (London, 1934),

p. 46.



~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - · - - - - - - - - .29

tore, when Coleridge says:

The postulate of philosophy and at thesame time the tes t of philosophic capacity,is no other than the heaven-descended KnowThyself . • . as philosophy is neither ascience of the reason or understanding only,not merely a science of morals, bM8 thescience of BEING altogether. . .

he makes an act of the direction of the Inner Sense an act of

the Will. Coleridge's "Know Thyself" is merely a technique; his

theory of knowing is a kind of making, a bringing into being

what is known. Thus, the postulate,11Know Thyself" is this

coalescence of the Subject with the Object. By Subject

Coleridge means the Self or the Intell igence and the sentient

knowing Mind: by Object he means Nature, or what is known by the

Mind in the act of knowing. The coalescence of the two is that

knowing. He is very specific in his explanation of what he

means by Subject and Object:

Now the sum of a l l that is merely object ive we wil l henceforth cal l Nature, confiningthe term to i t s passive and material sense, ascomprising a l l the phenomena by which i t sexistence is made known to us. On the otherhand, the sum of a l l that is subjective, we maycompreg!nd in the name of se l f or intell igence

For the sake of clearness, dist inct ion i s made between the self

that known, i t s knowing, i t s knowledge and what i t knows, but in

60Biographia Literaria , i , p. 173.

61Ibid.



.....

30

real i ty , this dist inction does not exis t , for when the act of

the realizing intui t ion is developing i t se l f these dist inctions

are not to be found. Coleridge r ises to the height of his

philosophy when he says:

.•• the phaenomena (the material) mustwholly disappear, and the laws alone (theformal) must remain. Thence it comes,that in nature i t se l f the more the principleof law breaks for th , the more does the huskdrop off , the phaenomena themselves becomemore spir i tua l and a t length cease al together in our consciousness.62

Thus, in the products of knowing we may distinguish Subject and

Object. A di.vision is made between the two merely to make a

discussion of each possible.

Coleridge t rea ts feelings, thoughts, ideas, desires,

images, and passions as forms of the act iv i ty of the mind, not

as "products as opposed to the processes which bring them into

being. 11 63 Thus Professor Richards explains i t : "Into the

simplest seeming 'datum' a constructing, forming act ivi ty from

the mind has entered. And the perceiving and the forming are

the same. The Subject (the self) has gone into what i t per-

eeives, and what i t perceives i s , in th is sense, i t se l f . So the

object becomes the subject and the subject the object . And as

to understand what Coleridge is saying we must not take the

62Ibid . , pp. 1?5-6.

63Richards, op.c i t . , p. 56.



31

subject as something given to us; so equally we must not take

the subject to be a mere empty formless void out of which a l l

things mysteriously and ceaselessly rush to become everything we

know. The subject is what i t is through the objects i t has

been."64

Upon such a process Coleridge bases his theory of the

Imagination. I t is in the Biographia Literaria that Coleridge

makes a distinction between a primary and a secondary imagina-

tion:

The Imagination then, I consider eitheras primary, or secondary. The primary Imaginat ion I hold to be the living Power and primeAgent of a l l human Perception, and a repetit ionin the fini te mind of the g ~ e r n a l act of creation in the inf ini te I AM.

That is , the Self is active in the f in i te , working in the Inf i

nite, the •realizing intuit ion." This primary imagination is ,

therefore, a faculty that enables man to differentia te his own

consciousness from the sensible world without; i t makes a

declaration of i t s individual existence, dist inct from a l l else.

The f i r s t sphere of activity, divine act ivi ty, is the mind or

rational spir i t , in which the sublime unity differentiates i t -self into the duality of thought and being, in other words, into

that of consciousness and i t s objects.

64Ibid.

65Shawcross, o p . o i ~ . , I , p. 2 0 2 ~



32

The primary imagination is merely the experience imagina

t ion, the normal perception that brings to us the ordinary world

of sense. Professor Richards describes i t as the power that

produces to our senses "the world of motor-buses, beef-steaks,

and acquaintances, the framework of things and events within

which we maintain our everyday existence, the world of the

routine satisfaction of our human exigences.n66 This form of

imagination Coleridge would at t r ibute to every human being.

The greater of the two forms of imaginationis ,

of course,the secondary imagination. This he considers

. the echo of the former, co-existing withthe conscious will , yet s t i l l as identical

67with the primary in the kind of i t s operation.

Therefore, creation is going on in the mind, but i t i s a creatio

directed by the will .

Coleridge goes on to describe the function of the secondary

imagination:

I t dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, inorder to recreate; or where this process isrendered impossible, yet s t i l l at a l l eventsi t struggles to idealize and to unify. I tis essential ly vi ta l , even as a l l objects(as objects) are essent ia l ly fixed and dead.68

The secondary imagination re-forms the world, takes the

66Op.cit . , p. 56.

67Biographia Literar ia, I , p. 202.

68Ibid.



33

commonplace things of this world and transfigures them, invests

them with other values than those s tr ict ly necessary for the e x ~gencies of l i fe . I t is the magic power that changed the boyhood

scenes of Coleridge into fairy-lands and the sky of stars into a

treasure-chest of jewels. I t idealizes wherever this is p o s s i b ~raising the routine of l i fe into something having values other

than those of bare necessity.

Professor Richards explains i t thus: "Every aspect of the

routine world in which i t is invested with other values than

those necessary for our bare continuance as living beings: a l l

objects for which we can feel love, awe, admiration; every

quality beyond the physiology of sense-perception, nutri t ion,

reproduction, and locomotion; every awareness for which a

civilized l i fe is preferred by us to an uncivilized.69 The

secondary imagination is , therefore, a God-like act ivi ty, for

with i t man can contemplate the universe, discover the laws that

emanate from this divine central energy and can, moreover,

assimilate the laws that he may use to govern his own creative

art , enabling him to get into his own creation the balance,

beauty, and harmony that is found in nature. Nature, Coleridge

believes, is continually creating, shaping according to that

divine law prevailing in the universe. The genius of the ar t i s t

or poet l ies in his power to divine the correspondence between

69 ~ i t . , p. 58.



34

the power that i s working in him and in the world without--to

see the correspondence of this nature which serves as his back

ground and himself. Such is the imagination and genius of the

great poets and ar t i s t s . With this imagination, the ar t i s t

operates, shapes, creates with the Creator. He i s sense-bound,

yet free in an inf ini ty and eternity of thought.

Shawcross says: "The dist inction here drawn is evidently

between the imagination as universally active in consciousness

(creative in that i t externalizes the world of objects by oppos

ing i t to the self) and the same faculty in a heightened power

as creative in a poetic sense. In the f i r s t case our exercise

of the power i s unconscious: in the second the will directs ,

though i t does not determine, the act ivi ty of the imagination.

The imagination of the ordinary man is capable only of detaching

the world of experience from the self and contemplating i t in i t

detachment; but the philosopher penetrates to the underlying

harmony and gives i t concrete expression. The ordinary con-

sciousness, with no principle of unification, sees the universe

as a mass ot part iculars: only the poet can depict this whole as

reflected in the individual parts .n 70

?Q

Fancy, Coleridge defines as power inferior to imagination:

Fancy, on the contrary, has no othercounters to play with, but f ix i t ies anddefini tes . The fancy is indeed no other

Op.ci t . , Introduction, pp. lxvi i - lxvi i i .



~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~35

than a mode of memory emancipated from theorder of time and space; while i t isblended with, and modified by that empirical phenomenon of the will , which we expressby the word Choice. But equally with theordinary memory, the Fancy must receive a l li t s materials ready made from the law ofassociation.71

But this association is "fixed and dead"; the connection is

mechanical instead of organic. Fancy, moreover, plays with the

mere images or impressions of the sense, but imagination deals

with intuit ions.

Coleridge says in Biographia Literaria:

Milton had a highly imaginative, ~ o w l e y ,a very fanciful mind.72

The comparison is explained elsewhere:

You may conceive the difference in kindbetween the Fancy and the Imagination i n ~ sway, that i f the check of the senses and the

reason were withdrawn, the f i rs t would becomedelirium, and the las t mania.73

When fully checked by the senses and the reason, the mind in i t s

normal state uses both fancy and imagination. Discussing

Wordsworth's account of the two powers Coleridge clar i f ies the

function of each:

I am disposed to conJecture, that heWordsworth has mistaken the co-presenceof fancy and imagination for the operation

7 1 ~ . , I , p.202.

?2Biographia Literaria, I , p. 62.

?3Table Talk and Omniana, ed. by T. Ashe (London,l884),p.291.



~ - - - - - - - - - - ~36

ot the l a t te r single. A man may work withtwo different tools at the same moment;each has i t s share in the work but the workeffected by each is very different. ?4

The same thought Coleridge states elsewhere in the following

passage:

Imagination must have fancy, in tactthe higher intel lectual powers can only actthrough a corresponding energy of the lower.?5

Indeed, the 0 counters 1 with which fancy plays a r ~ in themselves

images brought about by ear l ier acts ot perception--they have

been formed by ear l ier acts ot imagination but, when fancy only

is at work, these images are not being re-formed nor integrated

nor coadunated into new perceptions. To distinguish imaginatio

as a power that brings into one--an esemplastic power--and fane

as an assembling, aggregating power, a distinction must be drawn

trom examples. In several places Coleridge cal ls fancy

••• the faculty of bringing together imagesdissimilar in the main by one point or moreot likeness distinguished• .• 6

A further distinction is found in Biographia Literaria:

These images are fixi t ies and definites •••they remain when put together the same aswhen apart.??

In Table Talk, Coleridge speaks of the relation ot images thus

74Biograpbia Literaria, I , p. 194.

75Table Talk (April 20, 1833), p. 185.

76aaysor, op.ci t . , I , p. 212.

77

Vol. I , p. 202.



37

conceived as having

. . . no oonnexion natural or moral, but areyoked together by the poet by means of someaccidental ooinoidence.78

The images are put together by the activi ty of choice which is

really the experience imagination. I t is the act ivi ty of

"selection from among objects already supplied by association,

a select ion made for the purposes which are not then and therein

being shaped but have been already fixed." 79

Therefore, fancy conceived in this manner is merely an ao-

t ivi ty of the mind which Hartley's associationism suggests.

Images, whether notions, feel ings, desires, or at t i tudes eon-

oeived in this connection are merely accidental l inks, oontribut

ing nothing to the furtherance or growth of the image. The mind

sees the image apart from the emotion thus embodied. Richards

has explained Shakespeare's l ines from Venus and Adonis:

Full gently now she takes him by the hand,A l i ly prison'd in a goal of snow,Or ivory in an alabaster band;So white a friend engirts so white a foe80

as "Adonis' hand and a l i ly are both fa i r ; both white; both

perhaps, pure (but th is comparison is more complex, since the

l i ly is an emblem of the purity which, in turn, by a second

78(June 23, 1834), p. 291.

?9Richards, op.ci t . , p. 76.

80As quoted in Richards, op.oi t . , p. 77.



38

metaphor i s l en t to the hand). But there the l inks stop. These

additions to the hand via the l i ly in no way change the hand (or,

incidentally, the l i l y ) . They in no way work upon our percep

tion of Adonis or his hand.n81

But when Shakespeare says:

So white a friend engir ts so white a foe82

he i s r is ing to the imaginative fo r the l ines bear a second sene

and with the second sense "there comes a reach, a percussion to

the meaning, a l ive connexion between the two senses and between

them and other parts of the poem consiliences and reverberat ions

between the feelings thus aroused."83

Then note the purely imaginative in :

Look! how a bright s tar shooteth from the skySo gl ides he in the night from Venus' eye.84

Coleridge says of the above l ines :

How many images and feelings are herebrought together without effor t and withoutdiscord--the beauty of Adonis--the rapidi tyof his f l ight-- the yearning yet helplessnessof the enamoured gazer--and a shadowy idealthrown over the whole.85

Richards explains Coler idge's in terpreta t ion of Shakespeare's

8lcf . Richards, ~ c i t . , p. 81.

82Ib id .

83Ibid.

84Ibid.

85Raysor, Shakespearean Criticism, 1 , p. 213 .



39

l ines in deta i l when he says: •Here in contrast to the other

case, the more the image is followed up, the more l inks of

relevance between the units are discovered. As Adonis to Venus,

90 these l ines to the reader seem to l inger in the eye. Here

Shakespeare i s real izing, and making the reader real ize--not by

anY intensity of effor t , but by the fulness and self-completing

growth of response--Adonis' f l ight as i t was to Venus, and the

sense of loss , of increased darkness that invades her.•86 The

meanings of each word are brought together and as these meanings

"come together, as the reader 's mind finds cross-connection af ter

cross-connection between them, he seems in becoming more aware of

them, to be discovering not only Shakespeare's meaning, but some-

thing which he, the reader, i s himself making. His understanding

of Shakespeare i s sanctioned by his own act ivi ty in i t .n87

I t is this that makes Coleridge see in Shakespeare a true

poet

. . • inasmuch as for a time he has made youone--an active creative being.88

Coleridge does not infer that these powers, imagination and

fancy,are

withouta guide.

Theremust be,

hebelieves,

an organ

that brings the spir i tual into play; there must be a medium

86Richards, op.c i t . , p. 83.

87.!&9: . ' p . 84 .

88As quoted in Richards, op.ci t . , p. 84.



40

between the sensuous and the supersensuous. This medium is

reason. Understanding is a power that can merely classify

phenomena and can regard the unity of things only in the ir

l imits . I t t ranslates abstract notions into language, but i t is

a language that is s ta t ic and merely picturesque. When the in-

dividual i s regarded as having i t s being in the universal ,

symbols must become the mode of expression. Shawcross summarize

well this thought: "· . . the faculty of symbols is none other

than the imagination, ' the reconciling and mediatory power, whic

incorporates the reason in images of the sense, and organizes, as

i t were, the fluxes of the sense by the permanent and se lf -

circling energies of the reason•. To reason, therefore, the

organ of the ' intui t ion and the immediate spir i tual consciousness

of God', imagination is related as interpreting in the l ight of

that consciousness the symbolism of the visible world. For of

the symbol i t is further characterist ic ' that i t always partakes

of the reali ty which i t renders in te l l ig ible: and while i t enun-

iates the whole, abides i t se l f as a l iving part in that unity of

hich i t is the representative•.89 Understanding is the lesser

f the two powers. I t can have to do with the things of the

enses, the detai ls of the things around us. Materials are sup-

lied to i t by the senses.

Upon the basis of the creative power of the secondary

9Biographia Literaria , . I , Introduction, p. lxx i i i .



41

imagination, Coleridge describes the poet as bringing

. . . the whole soul of man into act iv i ty .90

aut, i t must be remembered, the poet does th is ,

. . .with the subordination of i t s facult ies

to each other, according to their relat iveworth and dignity.91

out of this theory of the imagination grows one of Coleridge's

most characterist ic and powerful principles of cri t icism. He

continues:

This power, f i r s t put in action by thewill and understanding, and . retained underthe ir irremissive, though gentle and unnoticed, controul ( laxis effertur habenis)reveals i t se l f IN THE BALANCE OR RECONCILIA-

TION OF OPPOSITE OR DISCORDANT QUALITIES: ofsameness, with difference; of the general,with the concrete; the idea, with the image;the individual, with the representat ive; thesense of novelty and freshness, with old andfamiliar objects; a more than usual state of

emotion, with more than usual order; judgmentever awake and steady self-possession, withenthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement;and while i t blends and harmonizes the naturaland the ar t i f i c ia l , s t i l l subordinates a r t tonature; the manner to the matter; and ouradmiration 6 ~ the poet to our sympathy withthe poetry.

The principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites must be

distinguished from a superfic ia l ly similar formula which seems

to have been i t s forerunner, namely, the formula as a combinatio

90Ibid. , I I , p . 12.

91!£g .

92Ibid.



42

of ins truct ion-del ight . In the Instruction-Delight theory,

poetrY was conceived of as a real reconciler of delight. Poetry

was a medium for ins truct ion. Writers made art the union,

therefore, of various pairs of opposites. Poetry was considered

either good or bad according to the degree of the combination of

delight and instruction. However, the in teres t in poetry was no

centered in the result ing reconciling concept, but in the beauty

and in terest of one of the terms, one of the opposites in i t se l f .

Up to the time of the sixteenth century, poetry was the handmaid

of theology and philosophy. Consequently, such things as

morality, t ruth, delight and instruction were conceived of so

narrowly that there resulted merely a compromising combination,

and not a transformation such as i s the meaning of a rea l recon

cil iation. The principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites

could function only when formal morality had been removed from

l i terature and had given place to aesthetic and philosophical

considerations.

This in terest manifested i t se l f during the early nineteenth

century. With new values being put on a r t and the absolute i t

expresses, "almost everything else that was considered a t a l l in

this connection was reduced to that s ta te of relat ive indif

ference characterizing the formula of anti thesis . Rest and

motion, the vi ta l and the formal, man and nature, a l l were the

logically opposed constituents of the defini t ion. Yet in as far

as they were reconciled, the ir meanings were raised (through the



43

sense of this new value) to a higher plane. The principle sig

nified an almost supreme in terest in art.u93

In spite of great social and economic unrest that showed

i t se l f especially in the French Revolution and in various other

ways, there was, during the early nineteenth century, a specula

tive and ideal is t ic consciousness that had transcended moral and

religious confl ic ts and which could accept the universe as a

whole. For such consciousness ar t had become as big as the uni-

verse.

There are two kinds of union of Opposites. To formulate ar

as the union of such logical opposites as Rest and Motion, the

One and the Many or Man and Nature is obviously a very different

thing from saying that opposition, symmetry or contrast is a

fundamental structural principle of ar t . In the one case there

is an anti thesis consisting of terms that are logically opposed,

that i s , terms whose meanings are opposed; there is no attempt to

reflect any st ructural opposition evident in the work of ar t . In

the other case, there is opposition without a doubt, but the

terms have no logically opposed meanings, they are identical

nits opposed only spat ial ly; the opposition is the scientif ica

real opposition of the actual structure. Furthermore, there is

the logical anti thesis in which the terms have meaning or con

tents, and on the other hand, the mechanical opposition which is

(3Alice Snyderi The Principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites

Ann Arbor, 19 8), p. 7.



45

at once and as one--no division, no change,no anti thesis!94

This kind of dist inction would, as can be seen, f i t into

hiS scheme of imagination. I t was his fundamental idea of the

universe, as a unity composed of many--the same fundamental idea

of the universe that permeated by the divine Intell igence mani

fests i t s e l f in these various anti theses. Unity in variety,

similitude and dissimil i tude express the inner law, the l iving

dynamic forces shaping matter into form. Alice Snyder says in

speaking of th is principle in Coleridge's scheme of crio1tism:

•I t matters l i t t l e which way we put i t : the temper of his specu

lative thinking strongly colored his use of th is principle; or

the principle had so insinuated i t se l f into his thinking that i t

to some degree determined his philosophical temper. The con-

siderat1on of the one i s pract ical ly essent ia l to an interpreta

tion of the other.n95 Whenever the mystic concept i s experienced

n some concrete manifestation, Coleridge describes i t with a

inal i ty that takes i t for granted that i t i s understood by his

eader and he gives no pract ical working out of the principle.

In the study of Coleridge's cr i t ic ism, i t is necessary to

eep always in mind the fact that Coleridge had a real concern

or the medium of experience manifestations--words. To him words

4samue1 Taylor Coleridge, Anima Poetae, ed. by E. H. ColeridgeBoston, 1895), p. ?1.

5Qp.ci t . , p. 12.



46

bad vi ta l meanings. He recognized that words had a l i fe of

their own. The whole body of his aesthetic and l i terary cr i t i -

cism shows the importance that he attached to the idea that be

bind a word is the deepest realism. Miss Snyder gives his

att i tude toward verbalism when she writes: "A theoret ical ins is

tence upon inclusiveness, in spheres, and a temperament that

round in abstract metaphysical ent i t ies , in mere words, real

emotional values of almost enervating ultimateness made i t natu-

ral that Coleridge should pin his fai th to the principle of the

Reconciliation of Opposites. And i t is natural , that he should

employ the logical form of this principle, in which the opposites

to be reconciled are words and philosophical concepts rather than

the forces and elements of a mechanically construed universe.

The principle in thi's form serves primarily to define that which

is posit ively inclusive and absolute; at the same time i t gives

room for a l l the negations, oppositions and double meanings that

must arise in any fundamental dealing with words and metaphysical

concepts. 1196

All of Coleridge's sense experiences come to him in terms of

the great elemental sense contrasts . His Anima P o e t ~ would seem

to a reader who was unaware of Coleridge's love of these sense

elements in contrast , a book of enigmas. In everything in nature

e sees this confl ict of elements. Thus he speaks of one of his

6_Qp. c i t . , p. 16.



4?

sense experiences:

In the foam-islands in a f iercelyboiling pool, a t the bottom of a waterfa l l , t ~ ~ r e is sameness from inf in i techange.

And again as he looks at the world i t becomes to him the expres

sion, half metaphysical, half concrete, of unity and variety:

And again:

Oh, said I , as I looked a t the blue,yellow-green and purple-green sea, witha l l i t s hollows and swells, and cut-glasssurfaces--oh, what an ocean of lovelyforms! And I was vexed, teased that thesentence sounded l ike a play of words!That i t was not. The mind within me wasstruggling to- ixpress the marvellous dist inctness and unconfounded personali ty ofeach of the millions of forms, and yet theindividual unity in which they s u b s i s t e d . ~ 8

The ribbed f lame--i ts snatches of 1m-patience, that half seem and only ~ to

baffle i t s upward rush, -- the eternal unityof individual i t ies whose essence is inthe i r d 1 s t 1 n g u 1 s h a b l e n e s s ~ even as thoughtand fancies in the m i n d . 9 ~

His very fondness for words that carry metaphysical concepts,

these pairs of opposites, formed the natural formulae for

Coleridge to use in defining any and every experience or phe-

nomena.

The Principle of Reconciliation of Opposites, therefore, is

9?Anima Poetae, p. 100.

98Ib1d.

99Ib1d.



______better than any monistic theory to "reflect the t ruths of actual

conditions as well as the ideal to be at ta ined through their

union."lOO Coleridge saw that the principle of the union of

opposites could be applied to any experience, i t was a "univer

sallY valid form of analysis; but i t was also conceived as a

standard or norm--an ideal which was not always realized.wlOl

During the early nineteenth century art was beginning to be

recognized as a medium between the universe and man. But

Coleridge realized the s t i l l undefined relationship of the

imagination to ar t . Professor Muirhead points out that

Coleridge's defini t ion of the poet described in perfection was

buil t up, as i t were, intent ional ly by Coleridge. The student

must not forget "· . . the devastation which the emaciated ac

counts current in Coleridge's time of the work of the imagination

ad spread in men's minds upon the whole subject, and the neces-

an energetic assertion of the presence of the element of

assion combined with penetrative reflect ion, fundamental sanity

of judgment, and a form of expression tha t would give some sense

of the inner harmony of the material presented to the mind and

herewith of the essential t ruth of the presentation."l02

Coleridge was constantly subjecting l i fe to intense analysis

00snyder, op.ci t . , p. 26.

01Ibid.

02Muirhead, op.c i t . , p. 209.



49

and was frequently posit ing the various elements of l i fe as

unions or opposites. Following logically upon his view of the

universe as a universe of unity embracing the inner and outer

senses and of a Divine that emanated i t se l f through a l l ap

pearance to the soul of man, then there must be some kind of

reconcilement between the inner world of sense and the outer

world of nature.

Upon this basic concept of the universe, Coleridge con

ceives of beauty.To

him the beauty of the visible world was adirect expression of the divine l i fe : the very mind of the

Creator expressed i t se l f to sense, therefore. Enjoyment of

beauty, although i t has a physical element, does not originate in

or stop with the senses, which are but physical media of appre-

The idea of unity as essential to beauty runs throughout

of Coleridge's aesthet ic . In a general statement he says

The beautiful , contemplated in i t s essentials ,that i s , in kind and not in degree, is tha tin w ~ 0 g h the many, s t i l l seen as many, becomesone.

One of the best examples that i l lus t ra tes his definition of

he multeity in unity i s that of the coach-wheel. He does not

pare deta i l s to make himself understood. Thus he says:

03

An old coach-wheel l ies in the coachmaker'syard, disfigured with ta r and di r t (I purposely

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary,

. by T. Ashe (London, 1885), p. 20.



50

take the most t r iv i a l instances}:-- I f I turnaway my attention from these, and regard thefigure abstract ly , "s t i l l " , I might say tomy companion, "there i s beauty in that wheel,and you yourself would not only admit i t , butwould feel i t , had you never seen a wheel be

fore. See how the rays proceed from thecentre to the circumferences, and how dif ferent images are dist inct ly comprehended a tone glance, as forming one whole, and eachpart in some harmonious relat ion of each toal l . l04

Constantly throughout his crit icism of Wordsworth and the other

dramatists, the echo of Hharmonious re la t ion of each to all" i s

heard. But more specif ical ly , beauty involves the will and the

intel l igence and again Coleridge comes back to the object-subject

idea. Viewed as a product of the will , beauty has seven condi

tions or character ist ics . Knowledge of them i s essential to a

full understanding of many of his statements about the characters

of Shakespeare's plays, as well as the basic reasoning for his

criticism of Wordsworth and the other poets. These characteris-

t ics are:

1. The universal condition of Beauty in thebeaut i ful or the beautiful or beautyexciting object i s , that the Form of th isObject shall appear to be a product of anin te l l igent Will, not wholly or principally

as intell igence, but as Living Will causat ive , or rea l i ty : in other words, of Willin i t s own form as Will.

2. But Will may exis t in a form in which theIntell igence is not only subordinate butla ten t - - i .e . implied and to be inferred,

104Ibid. , p. 17.



51

but not evident. In this sense i t i s ,that Life is a Will, a form of Corollary.The f i r s t is seen or fe l t with greatestfaci l i ty or rather i t is only seen withpleasurable faci l i ty when i t exists inconnection and in combination with the

second. Therefore every beautiful Objectmust have an association and a Life-- i tmust have Life in i t or at t r ibuted to i t - Life or Spontaneity, as an action of VitalPower.

3. The Beautiful, which demands the Spontaneous,forbids the arbitrary and as partaking ofthe arbi t rary, the accidental . For the arbi t rary is an exclusion of Intell igence.But

the Willcan

not appear in i t sown

formwithout Intell igence, contained though subordinated. Hence Life and Spontaneity wil lnot of themselves but only as Secondaries,constitute the Beautiful.

4. . •• The Manifold must be melted into theOne, and in a ll but the lowest or simplestProducts must be fe l t in the resul t ratherthan noticed--a beautiful Piece of Reasoning-not beautiful because i t is understood as

true; but because i t is fe l t , as a t ruth ofReason, i . e . immediate with the faculty ofl i fe .

5. . •• There must be a f i tness , indeed, for tobe unfi t is to contradict Intell igence orReason which are to be implied not opposed.

6.... Design must exis t in the equivalence ofthe resul t , Virtual Design without the senseof Design.

7• . . . The Fitness must not be a conspirationof component but of constituent Parts, notof parts put to each other, but of dis t inctbut indivisible parts growing out of a common

Antecedent Unity, or productive Life and Will.I t must be an organic not a mechanic f i tness. l05

105T. M. Raysor, "Unpublished Fragments on Aesthetics by S. T.

Coleridge", Publications of the ModernL a n ~ u a g e

Association,22:529-30 (October 1925 .



52

All this the poet or ar t i s t can do by penetrating into the in

most divine l i f e of nature, which is one with the divine l i fe in

hiS own soul, and he i s able to share i t . The creative act ivi ty

of the divine mind awakens in his soul a corresponding creative

activity. The poet or ar t i s t achieves form in his product by

working as nature works through inner law. The divine law,

operating at the heart of nature, operates also in the mind of

the poet. But the nature tha t the poet must imitate, not copy,

is the naturea t

work, the natura naturans, not the natura

naturata. Coleridge always advocates freedom for the ar t i s t .

Again, there is the idea of unity and harmony in his con-

ception of ar t . Art, for Coleridge, i s the

middle quality between a thought and a thing,. . . the union and reconciliation of thatwhich is nature with that which is exclusively

human. I t is the figured language of thought,and is distinguished from nature by the unityof a l l the parts in one thought or. idea. l06

How logically Coleridge's entire body of aesthetic and

philosophy adheres! After he has explained his meaning of imi

tation as "two elements perceived as co-existing 11 ,107 he t e l l s

us:

106

107

These two constituent elements are likenessand unlikeness, or sameness and difference,

Miscellanies, "On Poesy or Art 11 , p. 44.

Ibid. , p. 45.



53

and in a l l genuine creations of ar t theremust be a union of these disparates.l08

I t is the function of the ar t i s t or poet to balance and imitate

nature provided

there be l ikeness in the difference,difference in the likenessA and a recon-cilement of both in o n e . l O ~

This involves the technique of ar t . But the ar t i s t must fully

understand that he i s to imitate not copy. Coleridge stresses

again the meaning of beauty when he says:

We must imitate nature! yes, but what innature,--al l and everything? No, the beauti-fu l in nature. And what then is the beautiful?What i s beauty? I t i s , in the abstract , theunity of the manifold, the coalescence of thediverse; in the concrete, i t i s the union ofthe shapely (formosum) with the vi ta l . 10

However, Coleridge i s anxious that his hearers remember that we

must not copy mere nature, the natura naturata. With a feeling

of disgust , he recal l s Ciprani 's pictures which as he says

.• . proceed only from a given form.111

With precision he says:

Believe me, you must master the essence, thenatura naturans which supposes a bond betweennature in the higher sense and the soul ofman.ll2

108Ibid.

109Ibid . , p . 46.

110Ibid.

111Ib1d.112-Ibid.



54

What place does the moral element play in Coleridge's

aesthetic? He defini tely says that nature 's wisdom is co-

instantaneous with the plan and the execution; nature has no

moral responsibili ty:

• .• the thought and the product are one,or are given at once; but is no ref lex act ,and hence there is no moral responsibili ty. 113

aut i t is for the genius in man to make a choice; he is capable

of ref lect ion and enjoys freedom:

Inman

there is reflexion, freedom, andchoice; he i s , thi1tfore , the head of thevisible creat ion.

And in his characterist ic manner, Coleridge describes the

"mystery" of the Fine Arts:

The objects of nature are presented,as in a mirror, a l l the possible elements,steps, and processes of in te l lec t antece-

dent to consciousness, and therefore to thefu l l development of the in te l l igent ia l act;and man's mind is the very focus of a l l therays of in te l lect which are scatteredthroughout the images of nature . l l5

With a l l ground fully prepared for the poet , i t is then through

freedom and choice that the poet must

place these images, to tal ized, and f i t ted

to the l imits of the human mind, as toe l ic i t from, and to superinduce upon, the

113Ibid . , p. 47.

114Ibid.

115Ibid.



55

forms themselves the moral r l l ~ e x i o n s towhich they approximate• . .

Coleridge supposes, therefore, that every piece of a r t should be

imbued with a moral beauty, not moral in the sense of doctrinal

religious morality, but a natural quali ty which i s at t r ibuted to

man's in te l lec t ra ther than to his animal nature, the sensuous

appetites. For he says that i f a moral feeling is associated

with the pleasure

. . . a larger sweep of thoughts wil l be

associated with each enjoyment, and witheach thought will be associated a numberof sensations; and consequently, eachpleasure wil l become more the pleasure ofthe whole being.ll7

Romanticism i t se l f would put a moral value upon ar t . To

the romanticist , the "inner" consciousness is the essence of per-

sonality. Since i t is a part of the great oneness in nature, an

integral par t , therefore, of the sp i r i t of God, consequently, i t

is spir i tua l . The romanticist 's view of nature is nature not

primarily a part of the external and objective real i ty , but

nature as the outer or sense-form of the "inner" or spir i tua l

real i ty . Thus: "The ' inner ' being, in a l l and in any of i t s

terms, including Vernunft, finds i t s complete embodiment in

'Nature'. And in the same manner in which the individual ' soul '

or ' sp i r i t ' is an in tegral part of the ' soul ' or ' sp i r i t ' of God,

116Ibid.

p . 41.



56

the over-soul, each individual 'na ture ' i s an in tegral part of

the universal nature. Likewise, the absolute primacy of the

universal or divine sp i r i t in i t s relat ion to universal nature

is repeated in the primacy of each individual sp i r i t in relat ion

to i t s individual nature. Nature i s thus the symbol of the soul .

Romanticism is nature animism. I t follows from th is that

•nature' offers the complete and suff icient tangible evidence of

the soul. The laws of nature, therefore, must be the laws of the

inner being. Nature embodies and manifests a l l the fundamental

!!uths , motives, and standards of conduct." 118 Therefore, there

is no need for objective doctr inal standards. There i s identi ty

between organic functions and sp i r i tual emotions. To the mind of

the romanticist , in tegr i ty i s "· •. the quali ty of only those

acts which are the immediate resul tants of the spontaneous push

of the to ta l i ty of his nature. This to ta l i ty is beyond the ana-

ly t ic understanding, a mystic force, amenable only to the imme-

diate apperception and expression of the soul. I t s specif ic

manifestation is i t s indissoluble spontaneous oneness of impulse.

Only in complete loyalty and obedience to spontaneous impulse

does the Romanticist acknowledge and follow supreme law of his

and in tha t of universal being. In th is sense in tegr i ty to him

is complete naturalness. The Romanticist denies original s in; he

118 "Martin Schutze, HRomantic Motives of Conduct in Concrete

Modern Philologl, 16:282 (1918-1919).



-------------.57

asserts original godliness.ull9 The laws that nature gives are

the only norms, therefore, and "the supreme authority and in

tegrity of impulse implies freedom from external, objective,

mediate motives or standards of t ruth and conduct. 11 120 The

mystery l ies in making

. . . the external internal , the in ternalexternal , . . . nature thought and thoughtnature . . . 121

Another keynote of Shakespeare's genius in the creation of

characters, Coleridge found was that

To the idea of l i fe , victory or s t r i feis necessary; as vir tue consists not simplyin the absence of vices, but in the overcoming of them.l22

The ar t i s t or poet must, furthermore,

. . . eloign himself from nature in order toreturn to her with fu l l effect . . . • He must

out of his own mind create forms according tothe severe laws of the in te l lect , in order togenerate in himself that co-ordination offreedom and law, that involution of obediencein the prescr ipt in the impulse to obey, whichassimilates h i m 1 ~ g nature and enables him tounderstand her.

But in te l lect alone does not consti tute a guide in the

technique of the poet. To in te l lect , Coleridge would add

119Ibid. , p. 283.

120Ibid.

121Miscellanies, p. 41.

122Ibid . , p. 52.

123

Ibid . , p . 48 .



~sensibili ty. I t i s , he says, a •component part of genius.•124

In his lectures of 1811-12, he defines taste as

• • • an attainment af ter the poet hasbeen disciplined by experience, and hasadded to genius that ta lent by which heknows what part of his genius he canmake acceptable and in te l l ig ible to the

125portion of mankind for which he writes .

professor Muirhead writes on this point: 1 I t is a merit in eon

temporary writers on 1Taste 1 to recognize the place in a r t of

the emotional response which they called "sensibi l i ty" . Their

mistake was to interpret this as a form of self-feel ing. On a

view l ike Coleridge's the whole emphasis fe l l upon depth of

teeling, but i t was feeling for a .world in which the sel f in any

personal sense no longer occupied a place, but might be said,as

in love, to have 'passed in music out of sight• .• l26

Those who would appreciate the depth and subtlety of

Coleridge's philosophy ot beauty and his system of the a r t of

crit icism, must remember that philosophy and the principles of

crit icism which Coleridge is concerned with are, it is true,

concerned with theory, but 1 since the theory is of l i fe in a l l

i t s departments, it is concerned with will and feeling as well a

with in te l lec t . •127 All experience in that theory of l i f e ; mor

124Biographia Literar ia , I , p. 30.

125Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism, ed. by T. M. Raysor,

II, p. 129.126

Op.eit . ,pp. 213-14.

12?Muirhead, o . c i t . , p . 213-14.



59

aesthetic , in te l lectual , is dealt with throughout Coleridge's

criticism of Shakespeare and other English poets . Just how

these principles of crit icism are used by Coleridge in his in ter

pretat ion of the Shakespearean play will be the subject of the

next chapter.



CHAPTER III

APPLICATION OF COLERIDGE'S BASIC THEORIES,

PHILOSOPHICAL AND AESTHETIC,

TO HIS CRITICISM OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS

The application of Coleridge's philosophical and aesthetic

theories as found in the mass of his cr i t i ca l works is both com-

plex and i l lus ive . Coleridge's master mind possessed two great

powers, the power of penetrating the work at hand and, l ikewise,

the power of cull ing from the work the very reasons and causes o

i ts being. These two powers fuse in the great cr i t i c , making i t

hard at times to distinguish between the philosophic and purely

aesthetic principles , and unt i l the reader has "got the habit" ,

as Miss Snyder aptly puts i t , Coleridge may baffle even an ad

mirer.

The subject-matter of his crit icism yields i t se l f to three

phases which, although t reated separately, are a composite of

Coleridge's ar t . What part does experience play in the building

up of the Shakespearean play? What function has the theory of

the imagination in the essence of Shakespearean drama? Does

Coleridge allow for a rea l technique in the development of the

Shakespearean drama? I t must be remembered that Coleridge was

not a professional theater man. This fact is apparent in his ap

roach to Shakespearean drama. The l i terary quali t ies of the



61

Shakespearean play were to Coleridge of far more interest and

1mportance than the dramatic elements. As a consequence, there

18 very l i t t l e comment on plot structure and popular appeal among

h1S cr i t i ca l works. English audiences were t i red of pompous

k1ngs and queens, and sought in the drama the things that touched

their more commonplace l ives.

Subjective poet that he was, Coleridge saw in Shakespeare a

great prober of the human soul. Coleridge was an ideal is t who

read in Shakespeare's plays hisown

inner musings on that innerl ife of reali ty so dear to him. Hazli t t and Lamb, his intimate

and contemporaries, in whom he sought affirmation of his

wn theories , were vague in determining what ought to consti tute

Hazli t t would admit that drama was more than a panorama

f actions. Lamb would judge a play good i f i t possessed a few

of lyr ica l grandeur. Coleridge, representat ive of the

cr i t i cs , "over-stressed the abstract , and as a conse-

uence those concrete elements which are of such importance in

neglected." 128

The periodicals of the day evidence the sp i r i t of discontent

complaint that arose among the professional active theater

This note of discontent was shown in the London

in which the cri t ic writes: "Action is the essence of

i t s definition: business, bustle , hurly and combustion

op.ci t . , pp. 65-66.



62

dire, are indispensable to effective drama• . • . But (address

ing the dramatist) you seem to think that the whole virtue of

tragedy l ies in i t s poetici ty. . . . At any rate i f you don't

think thus, you write as i f you did. • . . In short, your actio

is nothing and your poetry everything.nl29

In the second of the "Satyrane Letters" Coleridge has given

us the at t i tude of the ordinary theater-goer toward the drama of

the day and that of the idea l i s t ' s conception of i t . In an

imaginary conversation the cit izen defends the modern type of

drama by saying that i t i s f i l led "with the best Christian

morality.n130

To which the idea l is t answers that i t is "that

part of Christian morality which can be practised without a

single Christian vir tue , without a single sacrif ice that is

really painful." 131 The idea l is t avers that the s terl ing con

f l icts of an Antony or a Caesar are the essence of dramatic ac-

tion. Against this remark the defendant argues that the ordinary

citizen of London or Hamburg has not much contact with kings or

ueens; and besides, he knows just how such stor ies turn out, for

hey are stor ies known to a l l . This knowledge of the story de

racts from the interest and curiosity of the audience. The

argues that i t is "the manner and the language, the

30Biographia L i t e r a r i a ~ I I , .p. 160.

31Ibid.



63

situations, the action and reaction of the passions 11 132 that

should hold the audience's attent ion. The pract ical minded

cit izen says that he is interested in his "friends and next-door

neighbours--honest tradesmen, valiant tars , high-spir ited half

paY officers , philanthropic Jews, etc.n 133 These types are not

such, the idea l is t argues, tha t can perform "actions great and

interesting. 11134 He asks the cit izen what such characters can

do that is real ly noteworthy. The at t i tude of the average con

temporary produceris

evident in thec i t i zen ' s

reply:

11 what is

done on the stage is more striking than what is acted.ul35 To

Coleridge's romantic mind such characters styled as "friends and

next-door neighbours" could not be associated with that "sub-

limest of a l l feelings, the power of dist inction and the con

trolling might of heaven which seems to elevate the characters

which sink beneath i t s i r resis t ib le blow.ul36 These were "mere

:t'ancies 11 137 to the London play-goer who finds in the play a por

trayal of his own l i fe of action with this difference--in the

33

a l l turns out exactly as he desires.

With a note of disgust Coleridge then sums up the reasons

the popularity of contemporary plays:

Ibid. , p. 162.

34Ibid.

35Ibid . , p. 163.

36Ibid.



64

.•• the whole secret of dramatic popularityconsists •.• in the confusion and subversionof the natural order of things, the ir causesand effects; in the excitement of surprise, byrepresenting the qual i t ies of l iberal i ty , re-

138fined feel ing, and a nice sense of honor . .•

Poetry in Coleridge's mind is always identif ied with

philosophy. I t is when he is dealing with concrete criticism of

works of a r t that he seems to forget that he is dealing with

abstract thought. Like Aristot le , Coleridge believed that the

aim of poetry should represent the universal through the part iou

lar to give a concrete and l iving embodiment to a universal

truth. This universal of poetry is not an abstract idea. I t is

part icularized to sense; i t comes before the mind clothed in the

form of the concrete, presented under the appearance of a l iving

organism whose parts are in vi ta l and st ructural relat ion to the

whole. Butcher concludes in his Aris tot le ' s Theor of Poetr

Fine Art 139 that although Coleridge adhered to Aris tot le ' s

theory in many respects , he, nevertheless, was careful to explain

that poetry as poetry is essential ly ideal . He himself s tates

this in the Biographia Literaria:

I adopt with fu l l fai th the theory ofAristotle that poetry as poetry is essen-t ia l ly ideal , that i t avoids and excludesa l l accident; that i t s apparent individ-ual i t ies of rank, character, or occupation,must be representative of a class; and thatthe persons of poetry must be clothed withgeneric at t r ibutes , with the common a t t r i -

~ 8 ~ . , p. 164.139

P. 183.



65

butes of the class; not such as one giftedindividual might possibly possess, but suchas from his si tuat ion,

148 is most probable

that he would possess.

His at t i tude on this subject of universal and part icular is :

Say not that I am recommending abstrac-t ion, for these class characterist ics whichconstitute the instruct iveness o.f a characterare so modified and part icular ized in eachperson of the Shakespearean drama, that l i fei t se l f does not excite more dist inct ly thatsense of individuali ty which belongs to realexistence. . . . Aristotle has required ofthe poet an invo*ution of the universal inthe individua1.l 1

The differences are

. . . in geometry i t i s the universal t ruth,which is uppermost in the consciousness; inpoetry the i n d i v i ~ ~ ~ l form, in which thet ruth is clothed.

One is inclined to think that Coleridge here supposes the uni-

versal to be a single abstract t ruth. I t is a l l the truths that

are held within bounds of the individual. He stresses the fact

that although the poet i s dealing with the part icular , the "con-

crete fact which the poet uses is so changed that the universal

is represented by i t . "143

At times Coleridge's praise of poetic qual i t ies , his appre-

Ciation of unity, poetical imagery and harmony does not seem to

140Biographia Literar ia , I I , p. 33 . .

141Ibid.

142Ibid.

143As

quoted in Butcher, op.ci t . , p. 393.



66

agree with his theory of the imagination. He conceives of

poetry as identif ied with philosophy when he views poetry thus

connected with philosophy as a sublime experience whose expres

sion is more or less independent and i r relevant to him. Ex-

perience of this nature is the f i r s t step in the poet 's creat ive

process; the imagination then becomes as Coleridge himselfsays i

the Anima Poetae

. . • the laboratory in which the f ~ ~ u g h telaborates essence into existence.

Experience is considered as a form of self-expression.

Coleridge distinguishes between observation and medttation. The

creation of characters on the part of Shakespeare was in some

sense self-expression; i t was meditation of his own nature and

then a reproduction, for he says:

. . . he had only to imitate certain partsof his own character, or to exaggerate suchas existed in possibi l i ty , and they were a t

once true to nature . • . some may think themof one form, and some of another; but theyare s t i l l nature, s t i l l Shakespeare, and thecreatures of his meditation.l45

Experiences within the poet Shakespeare afford the patterns , as

i t were, that convey the universal in l i f e . The poet f i r s t medi

tates upon the universal and then recreates i t and concentrates

i t in the individual. In his "Essay on Method" Coleridge says:

144p. 186.

145Powell, op. ci t . , p. 110.



67

• • • the observation of a mind, which,having formed a theory and a system uponi t s own nature, remarks a l l things thatare examples of i t s t ruth, and, above a l l ,enabling i t to convey the t ruths ofphilosophy, as mere effects derived from,

what we may cal l , the outward watchingsof l i fe . l46

Characters in Shakespeare's plays were regarded by Coleridge as

•representations of abstract conceptions.ul47 Thus the univer-

sal became an idea. Of the idea Coleridge says

Shakespeare, therefore, studied mankind in

the Idea of the human race.l48This statement i s basic in his psychological method. Shake-

peare's drama then became "the vehicle of general truthnl49 and

a ll his characters have the primary purpose of expressing this

truth. Genius works by laws, not only those which regulate the

outer form of the poem or entire drama but others which are de-

pendent upon the

. . • external objects of sight and sound.l50

Shakespeare is a great dramatist simply because he possesses

knowledge of law

146s. T. Coleridge, "Essay on Method," The Friend (London, 1887),

p. 36.

147Powell, op.ci t . , p. 111.

148~ s quoted in Raysor, Shakespearean Criticism, ii, p. 344.

149Ibid.

150~ s quoted in Powell, op.c i t . , p. 113.



-.... - - - - - - - - - - .68

. . • in the delineation of character, inthe display of Passion, in the conceptionsof Moral Being, in the adaptations ofLanguage, in the connection and admirablein ter texture of his ever- interest ing Fable. 151

.Art becomes then a "form of knowledge", a 11 store-house for b i t s

of rea l i ty" , 11 facts of mind". Shakespeare possessed th is " s t o r e ~house" fo r he knew the essent ia l 11 rea l i ty of things and deep

t ruths underlying human l i f e . 11 152 Shakespeare's poetry gained

Coleridge's admiration and eulogy not for the beauty of the

poetry i t se l f , but because Coleridge found init

these laws and

truths underlying l i f e i t se l f . The characters of Shakespeare's

plays exemplified the many experiences of rea l l i f e . Shawcross

summarizes a few instances of these when he says: "Constance's

personification of grief , in King John, i s jus t i f ied on the

ground tha t Coleridge had _heard a rea l mother ut te r similar

words--and that the passage therefore represented a ' f ac t of

mind 1 • 11153 In a similar way Shawoross says: "The character of

Romeo draws Coler idge's disser ta t ion upon the nature of love.ul54

"Wordsworth's Betty Foy i s an impersonation of ins t inct

abandoned by jud.gment. 11155 But such a theory natural ly led

151Ib id .

152Biographia Literar ia , I I , p. 350.

~ 5 3 I b i d . , I I , p. 36.

5 4 I b i d .5 5 I b i d .



69

Coleridge to look for a concept in every poem. The concept or

the reason for which the poem existed or from which i t was born,

,as an experience, a "fact o f mind", a "form of being." In this

case the experience is not regarded as emotional experience of

an individual, but as a peering into the very nature o f the uni

versal . This is Coleridge in theory. When he puts aside this

theoret ical at t i tude , his idea assumes emotion and passion. In

the hands of a poet experience is transformed into more vivid

real i ty by means of the poet 'sown

act of creation. Passion be

comes necessary before the experience becomes an experience of

the poet. The stronger the state of emotion becomes, the more

vivid the reflect ion becomes. This experience Coleridge called

the primary imagination. The poet whose sensibi l i ty is excited

by the beauty of the world about him adds to the object or ex

perience his own sympathetic emotion which arises in him during

the act of creation. When these experiences which are aroused or

created by nature, or when the passions, or the various accidents

of human l i fe are expressed in ordinary language by the man who

does not possess genius, that expression Coleridge would not con

sider a poem. To the powers of observation or the pure experi

ence something must be added: there must be a

. . . pleasurable emotion, that peculiars tate and degree of excitement, which arisesin the poet himself in the act of composit ion;--and in order to understand th is , we

must combine more than ordinary sympathy withthe objects, emotions, or incidents con

templated by the poet, consequent on a more



70

than common sensibi l i ty , with a more thanordinary act ivi ty of the mind in l S ~ p e c tof the fancy and the imagination.

Consequent upon this Coleridge says

. . . a more vivid reflection of the i s ~ t h sof nature and of the human heart . . .

is produced. The t ruths of nature and the human heart are the

experiences, the s tuf f of the poet 's imagination. Experience is

the

framework of object iv i ty , that defini tenessand art iculat ion of imagery, and that modification of the images themselves, withoutwhich poetry becomes f lattened into meredidactics of practice or e v a p o r a t ~ d into ahazy, unthoughtful, day-dreaming.l58

To this Coleridge would add the great secondary imagination

which superimposes or rather 11 fuses 11 passions which give a new

l i fe to the experience:

. .• passion, provides that neither thoughtnor imagery shall be simply object ive, butthat the passio vera of humanity shall warmand animate . • . 159

the images of the primary imagination. The poet with the aid of

the secondary imagination produces some new phase of the image

or thought of the primary imagination. Coleridge would have us

believe that in the state of emotion attendant upon creative

156Shakespearean Criticism, I , l!l· 163 . .

157Ibid.

158Ibid. , p. 166.

159

Ibid.-



71

genius, the poet stresses the individual experience hidden in

the universal experience of mankind. Poetry i s experience; i t

is experience of a rare individual. I t i s from th is point of

view that Coleridge cr i t ic izes Shakespeare, and from which

Shakespeare selects from history the individual characters that

possess that rare experience. Coleridge stresses more the ex-

perience than the idea. His definit ion of poet implies that the

secondary imagination i s the power that can recapture l iving

experiences:

The poet . . . brings the whole soul of man

into act iv i ty , with the subordination of i t sfacult ies to each other, according to the irrelat ive worth and dignity. He diffuses atone and a sp i r i t of unity, that blends, and(as i t were) fuses, each into each by thatsynthetic and magical power, to which we haveexclusively appropriated the name of imagina-t ion. This power, f i r s t put in action by the

wil l and understanding, and retained undertheir irremissive though gentle and unnoticedcontrol (laxis effer tur habenis) reveals i t -self in the balance or r e c o n c i l i a t i o n 1 ~opposite or discordant qual i t ies •• . -

Coleridge places experience a t the base of a l l true drama.

Every man's experience i s universal yet individual. The drama-

t i s t is not merely an observer; he probes the very root of the

experience, t races i t to the individual in the human being.

Therefore, to do th is the poet must meditate in order to dis-

tinguish passion from general t ruths when creating characters.

The characters of the play must contain a "living balance" for ,

as Coleridge maintains,

!60Biog.z=aohia LiterariA II n. 12.



72

The heterogeneous united as in nature. Mistakes of those who suppose a pressure orpassion always act ing-- i t i s that by whichthe individual is distinguished from o!g!rs ,not what makes a separate kind of him.

consequently, i t i s not the poet 's business to analyze and

cri t ic ize the affections and fai ths of men. He must not in ter

pret in the l igh t of his own affections, but must ask, "Are thea

affections and emotions and truths true of every human nature? 11

This i s the cri ter ion by which Coleridge would tes t the genius o

Shakespeare or any other playwright. That Coleridge believedthat Shakespeare's characters were ideal and the creatures of

meditation is t rue, yet he maintained also that

• . • a jus t separation may be made of thosein which the ideal i s most prominent--wherei t i s put forward more intensely--where we aremade more conscious of the ideal , though int ruth they possess no more nor less ideal i ty;

and of those which, though equally idealised,the drsusion upon the mind i s of the i r beingreal . 2

The characters of Shakespeare's plays, as characters in rea l

l i fe , differ . I t is sometimes the real that i s disguised in the

ideal; sometimes the ideal hidden by the rea l . This difference

is obtained by the poet through his use of the different powers

or mind employed in the creation and presentation of character.

Among the real Coleridge class i f ies Shakespeare's his torica

161Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. 228.

162Ibid . , I I , p. 168.



?3

p l a Y S ~ In his tor ica l plays Coleridge required the following

essential characterist ics:

In order that a drama may be properlyhis tor ica l , i t is necessary that i t shouldbe the history of the people to whom i t i saddressed. In the composition, care mustbe taken that there appear no dramatic 1m-probabil i ty, as the reali ty is taken forgranted. I t must, l ikewise, be poetical; - that only, I mean, must be taken which isthe permanent in our nature, which i s common

163and therefore deeply interest ing to a l l ages.

The essent ia l unity basic in Coleridge's concept of drama i s not

gained in the his tor ica l play by the fusing of the ideal in the

real but i s

. . . of a higher order, which connects theevents by reference to the workers, gives areason for them in the motives, a ~ ~ presentsmen in the ir causative character. 4

Coleridge further distinguishes between the a r t that i s created

by the experience imagination and that which i s created by the

higher power and evinced by the secondary imagination when he

says pointedly:

163Ibid . ,

164Ibid . ,

165Ibid . ,

The dist inct ion does not depend on thequantity of his tor ica l events compared withthe f ict ions, for there i s as much history inMacbeth as in Richard, but in the relat ion ofthe history to the plot . In the purelyhis tor ica l plays, the history informs the plot ;in the mixt i t directs i t ; in the res t , as

M a c ~ ~ ' Hamlet, Cymbeline, Lear, i t subservesi t .

I ' p. 138.

P· 139.

P· 143.



74

his tor ica l plays characters are not introduced

. . . merely for the purpose of giving agreater individuali ty and realness, as inthe comic parts of Henry IV.

1by presenting,

as i t were, our very selves. 66

Regarding the presentation of the character of Richard I I ,

Coleridge indicated tha t Shakespeare exercised the power of the

primary imagination:

Shakespeare has presented th is characterin a very peculiar manner. He has not madehim amiable with counter-balancing faul ts ;but has openly and broadly drawn those faul tswithout reserve, relying on Richard's disproportionate sufferings and gradually emergentgood qual i t ies for our sympathy; because hisfaults are not posit ive vices, but soringentirely from defect of character . lo7

Coleridge jus t i f ies Shakespeare's use of the pun in the his tor i -

cal drama by saying that i t is

•.• the passion that carries off i t s excessby play on words, as natural ly and, therefore,as appropriately to d f ~ ~ ' as by gesticulat ion,looks, or tones.

a ll of which are necessary adjuncts to the play. For a l l these

things belong, he reasons very logical ly,

166Ibid.

. . . to human nature as human, independent ofassociations and habits from any part icular

rank of l i fe or mode of employment; and16a th isconsists Shakespeare's vulgarisms •••

167Ibid . , p. 149.

168Ibid.

169Ibid.



75

•hiCh have a definite place in the dramatic dialogue, for they

have a place in the human existence of man. In the analysis of

Richard I I Coleridge gives his definition of his tor ical drama,-. . .

the events are a l l his tor ica l , pre-sented in thei r resul ts , not produced byacts seen, or f ~ a t take place before theaudience. . .

The main object of the his tor ical drama is to

• familiarize men to the great f " e s ofthe country, and excite patriotism.

Free will and fate form the elements of histor ic drama.

Coleridge would at tr ibute to Shakespeare good judgment in the

introduction of accidents thus making them drama, not pure

history. However, in general he does not believe that accidents

are allowable in romantic or ideal drama.

An histor ic play would not require the same genius as

romantic play. As regards experience in Shakespeare's plays,

Coleridge notes,

. . . he shows us the l i fe and principle ofeach being with organic regularity. l72

The person of the boatswain in the f i r s t scene of !Qe Tempest is

an example of experience without the coloring of the poet 's

imagination. When danger threatens, the boatswain throws off

the feelings of reverence toward Gonzalo and shouts a t him,

170Ibid . , p. 142.

1?1! l l i · ' p . 153.

17

2Ibid. , I I , p. 170.



76

Hence! What care these roarers for the nameof King?

To cabin: silence! trouble us not.l73

After this vulgar speech Gonzalo does not moralize nor comment

on the boatswain's language. He soliloquizes and t r ies to com-

tort himself by meditation on the i l l expression of the boat

swain's face. Coleridge sees in this instance the language of

men such as would be actually used under similar circumstances.

Characters thus drawn are real--they are the embodiment of l i fe

and i t s experiences. In Miranda's exclamation upon seeing theship a t a distance dashed to pieces there is the feel ing of

sympathy with her fellow beings:

0! I have sufferedWith those that I saw suffer: a brave vessel ,Who had, no doubt, some noble creatures in her,Dash'd a l l to pieces. l7 4

I t is important in the study of Coleridge to remember that

to him poetry possesses vi ta l rea l i ty whose essence is the in

timate experience of the poet . For this reason Coleridge t r ies ·

to recreate the poet 's mood within himself and then analyzes that

poet 's expression as a l iving experience.

When Coleridge combines the idea of experience and creative

imagination, a piece of a r t is produced. But mere raw experi

ence, such as contact with l i fe affords, is not a r t in i t se l f .

I t must be recreated, infused with spir i tua l values. The

173Ibid . , p. 171.

174Ibid . , p. 172.



??

presentation of l i f e ' s experience requires the aid of the

audience. This aid will be obtained, Coleridge bel ieves, by the

theory of dramatic i l lusion.

In accord with his theory of dramatic ar t , Coleridge views

the stage not as a permanent mechanical structure. To him:

A theatre, in the widest sense of the word,is the general term for a l l places of amusementthro ' the ear or eye in which men assemble inorder to be amused by some entertainment pre-sented to a l l a t the same time . . • The most im-portant and dignif ied species of th is genus i s ,doubtless, the stage {res theatra l is his t r ionica) ,which, in addition to the generic defini t ionabove given may be characterized (in i t s Idea, oraccording to what i t does, or ought to , aim at)as a combination of several or of a l l the finearts to an harmonious whole having a dis t inct endof i t s own, to which the peculiar end of each ofthe component par ts , taken separately, i s madesubordinate and subservient, that namely, ofimitating Ideal i ty {objects, f ~ ~ i o n s , or passions)under a semblance of rea l i ty .

This is an idea l i s t ' s defini t ion of the stage. I t i s upon th is

stage of the "universal mind 11 1?6 that the great Shakespearean

characters as Coleridge singles them out pass in review. There-

fore, in order to hold the individual mind as the stage of l i f e ' s

individuals, mind must be put in the s ta te in which universal

truths and experience will best be seen and understood. This

state is equivalent to delusion created by a picture upon a

l i t t l e child. The picture gives real delight . The scene on the

175Ib id . , I , p. 199.

176Ibi<1·, p. 4.



78

stage has the chief purpose of producing as much i l lusion as will

make the spectator contribute his own imaginative power and make

him feel that the scene is rea l . Stage scenes are to men what

the picture is to the child. The dramatic i l lusion that is put

upon the mind of man suspends the act of comparison and creates

poetic fa i th in the spectator . This i s accompanied by a chi ld ' s

sensibi l i ty .

Experiences thus presented before an audience must resemble

reali ty. The genius of the poet will bring about a balance and

anti thesis of feeling and thought. The condition of a l l con

sciousness "that without which we should feel and imagine only by

discontinuous moments," is

. . • that ever-varying balance, or balancing,of images, notions, or feel ings • . . conceived asin opposition to each other; in short, the per

ception of identity and contrariety, the leastdegree of which o o n s f ~ 1 u t e s l ikeness, the greatestabsolute difference.

Between these two, the identity and contrariety or l ikeness and

difference, there is a gradation of feelings and emotions, which

forms the source of interest for our in te l lec t and moral sense.

What place does the unit ies hold in Coleridge's concept of

a play? The unit ies as conceived as an inherent part of the

ancient drama had the ir meri ts , Coleridge conceded. He rejected

the unit ies in his theory, for he believed drama to be a l iv ing,

l??rb_ ! : ! . , p . 205.



79

dynamic growth and th is growth, an organic wholeness. The idea

or concept of a vi ta l unity as opposed to mechanical structure

appears not only in Coleridge's consideration of plot and char-

acter, but also in the very words and phrases that express th is

dYnamic dramatic whole. I f , therefore, the dramatist is to be

successful in throwing over his audience that •poetic faith" or

"disbelief", the elements of man's entire being must be fused.

To see these principles actually a t play in Coleri4ge's cr i t i -

cism, the creative imagination and experience imagination, and

his actual technique must not be considered as acting separately,

but as commingling, giving a oneness of impression.

Coleridge dwells a t length on the deta i ls that create this

oneness of impression, but deals with the imagination as the

power from which this unity proceeds. I t is imagination that

distinguishes romantic drama from every other kind. He himself

jus t i f ies the dist inction when he says,

. • . I have named the true genuine modernpoetry the romantic,l78

Then he defines Shakespearean drama as

.•• r o m a £ ~ g c poetry revealing i t se l f inthe drama.

Thus, The Tempest which Coleridge classif ies as a romantic drama

1s one

178Ibid . , p. 197.

179Ibid.



80

. • . the in terests of which are independentof a l l his tor ica l facts and associat ions, andarise from their f i tness to that faculty ofour nature, the imagination I mean, which owesno allegiance to time and place,--a species ofdrama, therefore, in which errors in chronologyand geography, no mortal sins in r g ~ species,are venial , or count for nothing.

The laws of the uni t ies would be a res t r ic t ion upon the fu l l

plaY of the imagination. The structure of the play is equiva

lent in Coleridge's mind to the growth of character and the

appropriate unity in that case would pervade the whole, attend

ant upon i t , balancing or posit ing the universal in past experi

encsor , as he cal ls them, •facts of mind". The romantic drama

appeals to the imagination. Anything exterior that might dis

turb the i l lusion or withdraw the mind from that inner realm

would destroy the essence of romantic drama for

•.• the excitement ought to come from within,-from the moved and sympathetic imagination;whereas, where so much i s addressed to the mereexternal senses of seeing and hearing, thespir i tua l vision i s apt to languish, and theat tract ion from without wil l withdraw the mindfrom the proper and only legitimate interestwhich is intended to spring from within. l8l

In other words, there must be a sublimation of the natural with

the spir i tual-- the s p i ~ i t u a l , we must remember, i s the union of

the individual with the universal, the contact with the l iving

nature or the natura naturans.

180Ibid . , p. 131.

181Ibid . , p. 132.



81

Imagination becomes in the hands of Shakespeare the brush

that paints not only the characters in l iving colors with the

l ight of sunshine and the shadow of interplay between the souls

of these characters, but also the background of the picture.

Furthermore, imagination is the power that creates dramatic

characters. Coleridge's Principle of the Reconciliation of

Opposites is his main technique. Sometimes th is reconciliation

is a union of opposites, especially of the universal and the

individual. In the individual i t is often modified by circum-

stances such as environment or heredity. This fact Coleridge

definitely states when discussing Shakespeare's women characters.

He says:

. • • there is essentially the same foundationand principle; the dis t inc t individuality andvariety are merely the resu l t of the modifica

t ion of circumstances, whether in Miranda themaiden, in Imogen the wife, or in Katherinethe queen.l82

Coleridge makes the theory of the imagination the basis of

his entire system of ar t . For Coleridge nature and ar t are one

and i t is the function of the secondary imagination to •ruse each

into each by a synthetic and magical power 11•183 The poet must

possess the vision of the universe as Divine act ivi ty and must

imitate not the real in himself but the rea l in the universal.

182Ibid. , p. 134.

183Biographia Literaria , I I , p. 12.



82

I t is the laok of imagination in Ben Jonson that makes Coleridge

saY with disgust:

• • • he Ben Jonson oared only to observewhat was external or open to , and l ikely to

impress the senses. He individualizes, notso muoh, i f at al l , by the exhibition of 'moral or intel lectual differences, as by thevariet ies and contrasts of mannersA modes ofspeeoh and tr icks of temper. . . ~ 4

In the works of Beaumont and Fletcher, Coleridge points out the

laok of imaginative power. These two dramatists presented the

experiences of the primary imagination without the infused emo-tion:

••• these poets took from the ear and eye,unchecked by any intui t ion of an inward im-poss ib i l i ty ; - - jus t as a man might puttogether a quarter of an orange, a quarterof an apple, and the l ike of a lemon and apomegranate, and make i t look l ike one rounddiverse-colored f ru i t . 85

This to Coleridge is not drama because nature does not work in

that manner. Coleridge says:

. nature, which works from within by evolution and assimilation, according to a law,cannot do so, nor could Shakespeare; for hetoo worked in the sp i r i t of nature, by evolvingthe germ from within by the imaginative poweraccording to an idea.l86

Therefore, f i r s t of al l , drama must be essential ly real ; i t

184Mrs. Henry Nelson Coleridge, Lectures Upon Shakespeare, I I

(London, 1849), p. 39.

185Ibid.

186Ibid.



83

must be a product of the imagination, that power which draws out

of the universal the individual, yet gives to the individual

something of the universal. Coleridge interprets Shakespeare's

dramatic characters according to the degree of experience and

imagination that consti tutes them. The reconciling and balancing

of extremes may create a mediocre character, but in comparing

Shakespeare's characters with Chaucer's, Coleridge finds that

Shakespeare's characters are the repre-sentatives of the interior nature of humanity,

in which some element has become so predominant ·as to destroy the health of the mind.l87

In noting the basic use of this theory in Coleridge's inter-

pretations, one is aware of a constant positing of opposites in

the building up of the characters. The dramatist must be able tc

distinguish the surface quali t ies from the essential ly ·inner

real i ty . He must not shape from his own individual person.

Coleridge charges Beaumont and Fletcher with such inconsistency.

Shakespeare, on the other hand, shaped or created his characters

187Ibid.

• .• out of the nature within; but we cannotso safely say, out of his own nature as anindividual person. No! th is l a t t e r is i t se l f buta natura naturata, an effect , a produot, not apower. I t was Shakespeare's prerogative to have

this universal, which i s potential ly in eachpart icular , opened to him, the homo generalis ,not an abstraction from observation of a varietyof men, but as the substance capable of endlessmodifications of which his own personal existencewas but one, and to use this one as the eye thatbeheld the other, and as the tongue that could



84

convey the discovery• . . Shakespeare, in com-posing, had not I , but the I representat ive.In Beaumont and Fletcher you have descriptionsof characters by the poet rather than thecharacters themselves; we are to ld , of thei rbeing; but we rare ly or never feel that they

actually are . l88

Sometimes the dramatic element in character consists of a

balance of imagination and experience. Often Shakespeare de-

velops character by the exclusion of one tendency and the

development of the other. Contrast brings out reciprocal t ra i t s

and

11 bymeans

ofthe contrast

the balance isestablished,

oppo-

si tes are created, and since they are par t of one ar t i s t i c unit ,

in a sense reconciled. 11189 Don Quixote and Sancho exemplify sue

contrast .

Don Quixote 's leanness and featurel inessare happy exponents of the excess of theformative or imaginative in him, contrasted

with Sancho's plump r o t ~ g g i t y , and recipiencyof external impression.

Imagination becomes the predominant force in Don Quixote.

Coleridge sees in him lack or knowledge of the sciences. Or, in

other words, experience is lacking and for tha t reason Don fa i l s

to see the invis ible in the world of the senses; he fa i led to

see l i f e in i t s symbolic forms. Consequently, Don creates for

188Mrs. H.N.Coleridge, op.c i t . , p. 45.

189Alice Snyder, op.c i t . , p. 40.

190H.N.Coleridge, Literary Remains (London, 1836), I , p. 117.



85

himself a world of reali ty or a world of experience out of the

romances which he read. Coleridge affirms the necessity of ex-

perience for Don when he says of him:

. . • the dependency of our nature asks for someconfirmation from without, though i t be onlyfrom the shadows of other men's f ic t ions. l9 l

Therefore Don Quixote created a world for himself. The will was

active in the realm of the imagination where

Don Quixote's will lived and acted as a kingover the creations of his fancy!l92

On the other hand, Sancho represents common sense without the

modifying power of reason or imagination. Don Quixote is the

result of a complete lack of judgment and understanding. In the

creation of these two characters, Coleridge sees the defect in

the picture of the two men, for there is a need for both elements

in the well developed character. Coleridge gives this idea

clearly when he comments in his summary on Cervantes:

191Ibid. ,

192Ibid. ,

193 IIbid . ,

Cervantes not only shows the excellenceand power of reason in Don Quixote, but inboth him and Sancho the mischiefs resultingfrom a severance of the two main constituentsof sound intel lectual and moral action. Puthim and his master together, and they form aperfect in te l lect ; but they are separated and

without cement; and hence each having a needof the other for i t s own completeness, e r s ~has at times the mastery over the other.

p. 118.

p. 119.

P· 120.



- - - - - - -86

Tbe same idea regarding the need which seeks to be fu l f i l led in

roan's nature, Coleridge states in h is theory of love elsewhere.

Again, it i s the basic idea of unity that runs as a red thread

through the entire weave of Coleridge's system of thought. Here

Don Quixote's love for the country lass i s a love of the inward

imagination, for ~ e makes no attempt to learn to know the countrJ

lass. Don refrains from seeking her love because of his fear of

having h is

•••cherished image destroyed by i t s

ownjudgment.l94

Therefore, he constantly l ives and loves in his imagination.

Another character ist ic of the imagination is exemplified in

Don Quixote when he describes the things of the senses and sensa-

t ions, especial ly in the desQription of the dawn which he does

• . . without borrowing a single t r a i tfrom either. l95

Imagination makes Don Quixote eulogize himself or ra ther ,

• . . the idol of his imagination, theimaginary being whom he. is acting.l96

Finally, with a promise of glory to himself, Sancho also comes

under the spell of the imagination. Coleridge remarks:

194Ibid. ,

195Ibid . ,

196Ibid . ,

At length the promises of the imaginativereason begin to act on the plump, sensual,

p. 121.

p. 122.

P· 123.



87

honest common sense accomplice,--but unhappilynot in the same person, and without the copulaof the judgment,--in hope of the substantialgood things, of which the former (the imagina-t ion) contempla.ted only the glory and the colours .197

But Sancho soon comes back to normal. He is soon cured of h is

seeking for the imaginative glory and his cure Coleridge notes it

• through experience.l98

Experience is one of the balancing effects . Sancho and Don

Quixote together would

.•• form a perfect in te l lect . • .199

The chief characterist ic of imagination is that i t i s 11 a l l -

generalizing11; the memory or the primary imagination i s •a l l -

particularizing". Coleridge says of the two:

Observe the happy contrast between theall-generalizing mind of the mad knight, andSancho's al l -part icular iz ing memory.200

Imagination works slowly under the guidance of Shakespeare'e

genius presenting the work of imagination upon his characters anc

in them. The audience is prepared slowly for the terror that i s

pervading Hamlet's imagination. Coleridge points out the way in

which imagination operates:

197Ibid . , p. 125.

198Ibid . , p. 126.

199Ibid . , p. 120.

200Ibid . , p. 127.



88

Compare the easy language of common l i fein which th is drama Hamlet opens, with thewild wayward lyr ic of the opening of Macbeth.The language is familiar: no poetic descript ions of night, no elaborate information conveyed by one speaker to another of what bothhad before the ir immediate perceptions. . . yetnothing bordering on the comic on the one hand,and no str iving of the in te l lect on the .other.I t is the language of sensation among men.201

Later in the play Horatio t ranslates the late individual specter

1nto thought and past experience and gains new courage. Hamlet's

inactivity is caused by an overbalance of imagination over

reason and in te l lect . In Hamlet Coleridge explains:

The effect of this overbalance of imaginationis beautiful ly i l lus t ra ted in the inward broodingof Hamlet--the effect of a superfluous act ivi tyof thought. His mind, unseated from i t s healthybalance, is forever occupied with the worldwithin him, and abstracted from external things;

~ ! s d r ~ ~ ~ ~ i ~ ~ I : d a w ~ ~ ~ s ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ n ; ~ a ~ ~ a ~ ~ = ~ i t ~ ~ ~ . ~ 5 2Action was not, therefore, consequent upon Hamlet's thought.

I t is the nature of thought to be indefini te ,while definiteness belongs to reali ty.203

Hamlet makes several attempts, however, to escape from this in-

ward thought. Although the scene which follows the interview

with the ghost maY have been censured as eccentric on the part o

Shakespeare's genius, nevertheless, Shakespeare understood that

201shakespearean Criticism, I , p. 20.

202Ibid . , I I , p. 273.

203Ibid.



89

. . . af ter the mind has been stretched beyondi t s usual pitch and tone, i t must either sinkinto exhaustion and inanity, or seek re l ie f bychange. Persons conversant with deeds ofcruelty contrive to escape from thei r conscienceby connecting something of the ludicrous with

them, and by inventing grotesque terms, and acertain technical phraseology, to disguise thehorror of the i r practices.204

Further, imagination fuses the comic and the t ragic ele-

ments of Shakespeare's characters. Coleridge reconciles the two

The terr ib le , however paradoxical i t may appearwill be found to touch on the verge of theludicrous. Both arise from the perception ofsomething out of the common nature of th ings , - something out of place: i f from th is we canabstract danger, the uncommonness aloneremains, and the sense of the ridiculous i sexcited.2o5

This supposition Coleridge derives from experience. He says:

The close all iance of these oppositesappears from the circumstance tha t laughteri s

equally the expression of extreme anguishand horror as joy: in the same manner thatthere are tears of joy as well as tears ofsorrow, so there i s a laugh of te r ror as wellas a laugh of merriment.206

Coleridge does not believe tha t Shakespeare introduced humour in

his tragedies merely for comic re l ief nor .for the sake of

exciting laughter in his audienae, but because comedy heightened

the t ragic . His fools are introduced merely to make the passion

204Ibid . , p. 274.

205Ibid .

206Ibid.



90

of the play stand out in bolder re l ie f and thus to intensify the

t ragic element. Miss Snyder observes on th is point: "The fusio

of the comic and t ragic may be jus t i f ied by the psychological

effect produced on the audience by the contras t , or again by a

real , dramatic interaction between the t ragic and comic charac

ter."207

The theory of the imagination served Coleridge as a theory

not only for analysis of dramatic character and the fusion of

comic-tragic elements in Shakespeare's plays, but also as an

agent that produced the atmosphere in them. I t i s the prime

function of the imagination "to spread the tone". Coleridge com

menta frequently upon the harmony and unity of Shakespeare's

plays; the unity that exists between the characters and the ir

background, the unity of thought and action.

. the highest and the lowest charactersare brought together, and with what excellence!

• the highest and the lowest; the gayestand the saddest; he i s not drol l in one sceneand melancholy in another, but often both theone and the other in the same scene. Laughteri s made to swell the tears of sorrow, and tothrow, as i t were, a poetic l ight upon i t ,while the tear mingles tenderness with thelaughter.208

The keynote of Shakespearean drama is to make the audience laugh

and weep in the same scene. Underlying th is thought i s the

fusion of the ideal and the rea l , the unity of a l l the elements

of l i f e .

207

208snyder, op.ci t . , p. 49.

_ ~ h a k e s p e a r e a n Critiaiam7

I I , pp. 1 6 9 ~ 7 0 .



91

To sum up the importance of experience and imagination in

Coleridge's concept of a play, i t must be remembered tha t he

considered each equally important in i t s own WaY. Experience

and imagination function in a well-rounded out character; each

must be judged from the standpoint of i t s function in the play.

Coleridge saw in the average contemporary plaY a predominance of

the experiential side of nature and l i f e ; i t lacked that ideal ,

imaginative element. Life and nature to Coleridge were, as has

been noted, the "manifold in one.n209

Throughout his cri t icism of Shakespeare and the other

English poets, Coleridge uses the principle of the Reconciliation

of Opposites not only as a means of metaphYsical abstractions,

but also as a scheme of st ructural analysis. In introducing the

third phase of th is chapter, technique or method, the meaning of

which for Coleridge implies great genius, his own words are most

significant:

209A hs e,

• • . Method. • . demands a knowledge of there la t ions which things bear to each other,or to the observer, or to the state and apprehension of the hearer. In a l l and each ofthese was Shakespeare so deeply versed, thatin the personages of a play, he seems ' to mold

his mind as some incorporeal material al ter -nately into a l l thei r various forms. 1 Inevery one of his various characters we s t i l lfeel ourselves communing with the same humannature. Everywhere we find individuali ty: nowhere mere por tra i ts . The excellence of hisproductions consists in a happy union of the

op.c i t . , p. 20.



92

universal with the part icular . But theuniversal is an idea. Shakespeare, there-fore, studied mankind in the idea of thehuman race; and he followed out that ideainto a l l i t s var ie t ies , by a Method whighnever fa i led to guide his steps aright.210

This method involves the Principle of the Reconciliation of

Opposites and resul ts when the passive impression received from

external things or rea l i ty i s balanced by the internal act ivi ty

of the mind in reflect ing and generalizing.

Coleridge would at t r ibute to Shakespeare two methods, the

psychological and the poetical . Thus far in this thesis an a t-

tempt has been made to bring out the psychology and philosophy of

Coleridge's master cri t ic ism. These play, l ikewise, a part in

his technique. Of the poet ical method he maintains that i t

. . • requires above a l l things a prepon-derance of pleasurable feeling: and where

the in terest of the events and charactersand passions is too strong to be continuouswithout becoming painful , there poet icalmethod requires that there should be what

~ ~ ~ l = ~ = ~ a ~ ~ ; ~ ~ ' ; h ~ ~ s ; ~ a ~ a ~ i l : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ l £ fIn th is statement Coleridge is defending Shakespeare against the

cr i t i cs . In a l l of Shakespeare's works Coleridge discerned

method, method in his moral conceptions, in his s tyle , and in thE

structure of his plays. With a tone of appeal to his hearers,

Coleridge bursts forth:

210Shakespearean Criticism, I I , Appendix, p. 344.

211Ibid . , p. 348.



93

What shal l we say of his moral conceptions?Not made up of miserable clap-trap and the tagends of mawkish novels, and endless sermonizing;-but furnishing lessons of profound meditation tof ra i l and fa l l ib le human nature. He shows uscrime and want of principle clothed not with aspurious g r e a t n ~ ~ ~ of soul; but with a force ofin te l lect . • .

Othello, Lear, and Richard are instances of these moral pictures .

The t es t of greatness of Shakespeare's moral element in the p l a y ~is that the reader or spectator wil l ar ise

. a sadder and wiser man • . . 213

Shakespeare's

• sweetness of style . . . 214

Coleridge says, i s occasioned by the adaptation of language to tb

type of character presented:

Who, l ike him, could so methodicallysui t the overflow and tone of discourse to

character lying so wide apart in rank, andhabits , and peculiari t ies , as Holofernesand Queen Catherine, Falstaff and L e a r . ~ l 5

Of Shakespeare's fai lure to observe the unit ies , Coleridge comes

back to the fundamental ideas of his ent ire structure of cr i t i -

cism, when he says to the cr i t ics :

212Ibid.

213Ibid.

0 gentle cr i t i c ! be advised. Do not

t rus t too much to your professionalooxterityin the use of the scalping knife and tomahawk.

214Ibid.

215Ibid . , p. 349.



-94

Weapons of diviner mould are wielded byyour adversary: and you are meeting himhere on his own peculiar ground, theground of idea, of thought, and of inspira-t ion. The very point of this dispute i s

ideal . . . . unity, as we have ~ ~ g w n , i s

wholly the subject of ideal law.

In the matter of technique Coleridge holds every principle

or theory regarding form secondary to the importance of subject-

matter. However, Shakespeare's .works are not devoid of a l l laws,

for i t i s evident from the form of his plays that perfect judg-

ment coupled with genius shaped them. Coleridge admits thatShakespeare's plays reveal many differences from those of his

contemporaries but these differences are addit ional proofs that

Shakespeare showed true poetic wisdom: they are

• .• resul ts and symbols of l iving poweras contrasted with l i fe less mechanism, offree and r iva l original i ty as contradis-

tinguished from servile imitat ion, or moreaccurately, (from) a blind copying ofeffects instead of a ~ l ~ e imitation of theessentia l principles .

Coleridge does not disregard rules , for he admits that genius

must be governed by rules even i f they do nothing more than

.•• unite power with beauty.218

Genius i s such that i t acts creatively under laws of i t s own

making. In fact , he states that genius must embody i t se l f in

216Ibid.

217Ibid . , I , p. 223.

218Ibid.



95

torm in order to be presented to another--in order to reveal i t -

self . The form, however, must not be predetermined upon the

matter, for the matter will determine the form.

Coleridge, borrowing from Schlegel, distinguishes two kinds

of form, mechanical and organic. Mechanical form is that which

is not necessarily caused by the purpose or function of matter,

but tha t which i s pre-determined as a wet clay moulded into any

shape. Organic form, on the other hand, i s innate; form grows o1

necessity out of matter:••• i t shapes as i t develops i t se l f fromwithin, and the fulness of i t s developmentis one and the same with the perfect ion ofi t s outward form. Such i s the l i f e , suchthe form.219

Understanding the fundamental principles of Coleridge's theory,

the student wil l see this as a supposition in his technique.

Coleridge's bel ief in the Divine in nature as natura naturans

makes i t logical tha t

Nature, the prime genial ar t i s t , inexhaustiblein d i v e ~ ~ e powers, is equally inexhaustible informs.2

Consequently, the forms of poetry, the expressions of thought,

will each have an original form--and this implies imitat ion. For

. . • each exterior is the physiognomy of thebeing within, i t s true image ref lected andthrown out from the concave mirror.221

219Ibid . , p. 224.

220Ibid.

221Ibid .



96

To investigate the true nature and foundation of poetic proba

bi l i ty , i t is necessary that each form be examined as to what i t

is to serve: in other words, to study the end or aim of dramatic

poetry. Dramatic poetry i s not to present a copy, but an imita

tion of real l i f e . In order to bring about that "suspension of

disbelief" or, in other words, to create the atmosphere of i l l u

sion the dramatist must avoid anything tha t may dis turb, such as

harshness, abruptness and improbability. Shakespeare was there

fore careful to avoid these disturbing qual i t ies . Everything

was tempered to the feelings of h is audience.

Coleridge lays down no hard and fas t laws for the dramatist.

Perfectly in harmony with the subtle imaginative element in his

system of crit icism, Coleridge at t r ibuted to Shakespeare

Expectation in preference to surprise • . .

As the feel ing with which we s ta r t le a t ashooting s tar , compared with that of watchingthe sunrise a t the pre-established moment, suchand so low i s surprise compared with expectation.222

Coleridge points out several instances where Shakespeare prepares

his audience for the appearance of a character or a si tuat ion or

an incident . The audience i s made to re- l ive the experience.

The storm in The Tempest i s a preparation for what follows. The

ta le i t se l f serves to develop the main character of the play; the

heroine i s charmed into sleep in such a manner that Ariel ' s

222Ibid . , p. 225.



.--97

entrance i s expected. Coleridge says:

. • • the moral feel ing called forth by thesweet words of Miranda, 'Alack, what troublewas I then to you! ' in which she consideredonly the sufferings and sorrows of her

father, puts the reader in a frame of mindto exert his imagination in favour of anobject so innocent and interesting.223

Again in speaking of the manner in which the lovers are

introduced, the same quality is noted:

The same judgment i s observable inevery scene, s t i l l preparing, s t i l l inviting,

ands t i l l

grat i fying, l ike a f inished pieceof music.224

This unity of feeling is a mark of Shakespeare's genius,

character is t ical ly manifested in Romeo and Ju l ie t . Art i s a

thing of growth and l ike a l l forms of growth i s slow. The

growth of the sunrise i s analogous to building meanings out of

truths that foreshadow them.

Most remarkable in technique i s the f i r s t scene of The

Tempest:

The romance opens with a busy sceneadmirably appropriate to the kind of dramaand giving, as i t were, the keynote to thewhole harmony .. I t prepares and in i t ia testhe excitement required for the entirepiece, and yet does not demand anything fromthe spectators, which the i r previous habitshad not f i t ted them to understand. I t i sthe bustle of a tempest, from which the rea lhorrors are abstracted; therefore, i t i s

223Ibid . , I I , p. 175.

224Ibid . , I I , p. 178.



98

poet ical , though not in s t r ic tness , natural-(the dist inct ion to which I have so oftenalluded)--and i s purposely restrained fromconcentering the in teres t on i t se l f , but usedmerely as ~ ~ 5 i n d u c t i o n or tuning for what i sto follow.

Coleridge says of the second scene that it i s

. . . retrospective narration.226

Prospera's speeches before the entrance of Ariel excite immediat•

interest and give the audience a l l the information necessary for

the understanding of the plot . In th is scene in which Prospero

te l ls the t ruth to his daughter, there i s a reconcilement of the

possible repulsiveness of the appearance of the magician in the

natural , human feelings of the father. The moment chosen by the

dramatist to reveal the tenderness of Miranda for her father was

timely, for Coleridge notes:

. . .i t would have been los t in directcontact with the agi ta t ion of the f irs ' t

scene.22?

Another mark of dramatic sk i l l is shown in the introduction

of the subordinate character ' f i rs t . In Hamlet, he comments on

the King's speech:

225Ibid . ,

226Ibid . ,

227Ibid . ,

228

Ibid . ,

Shakespeare's a r t in introducing a most

i m p o r t ~ ~ ~ but s t i l l subordinate characterf i r s t .

I , p. 132.

p. 132.

P· 133.

p. 22.



99

The play must have re l ie f , but that re l ie f must be gained

without destroying the atmosphere or unity of feeling. In Act I

scene i i , th is comment is found:

Relief by change of scene to the royalcourt. This ( re l ief is desirable) on anyoccasion; but how judiciotis that Hamletshould not have to take up the leavings ofexhaustion. . . 229

Moreover, the dramatist must not introduce many different

characters a t the same time in the same scene portraying them

suffering under the same emotions. Coleridge cr i t ic izes the incident in Act IV, scene v of Romeo and Ju l ie t , in which Ju l ie t

is supposed to be dead:

Something I must say on th is scene--yetwithout i t the pathos would have been ant ic i -pated. As the audience knew that Jul ie t isdead, th is scene is perhaps excusable. At a l levents i t is a strong warning to minor drama

t i s t s not to introduce a t one time manydifferent characters agitated by one and thesame circumstance. I t i s di f f icu l t to understand what effect , whether that of pity orlaughter, Shakespeare meant to produce--theoccasion and the characterist ic speeches areso l i t t l e in harmony: ex. grat ia , what theNurse says is excellently suited to the Nurse'scharacterA

3But grotesquely unsuited to the

occasion.G

Unity must be divers if ied. Of the dialogue in Act I I I , scene i i

Coleridge remarks:

One and among the happiest (instances) of

2 2 9 ~ . , P• 22.

230Ibid . , p. 11.



100

Shakespeare's power of diversifying thescene while he is carrying on the plot.231

No mere irrelevant incidents must be introduced into the

plot . In Act IV, scene vi of Hamlet, a l e t te r is brought in ex

plaining the capture of Hamlet by the pira tes . On th is incident

Coleridge's comment is :

Almost the only play of Shakespeare, inwhich mere accidents, independent of a l l will ,form an essential par t of the plot.232

Character must dominate over plot . Nor does the main interest

of the play l i e in the story alone. Men in a l l the ir t ruth must

appear as men. For he says:

we should l ike to see the man himselr.233

But men are to be considered as l iving and the ir natures are to

be inferred by a round about method:

I f you take what his friends say, you maybe deceived--s t i l l more so, i f his enemies;and the character himself sees himself thro 'the medium of his character, not exactly as i tis .234

The dramatist, furthermore, must be consistent in the de

velopment of characters; they must be people who walk on the

11h1ghroad of l i fe" . Contradictions in habits , feel ings , emo-

t ions, in a character are not found in Shakespeare, for with him

231Ibid . , p. 30.

232Ibid. , p. 35.

233Earl Leslie Griggs, The Best of Coleridge (New York, 1934),

p. 342.

234Ibid . , p. 343.



01

. . • there were no innocent adulteries; henever rendered that amiable which religionand reason taught us to detest ; he neverclothed vice in the garb of virtue, l ikeBeaumont and Fletcher, the Kotzebues of hisday: his fathers were aroused by ingrati tude,

235his husbands were stung by unfaithfulness. . .

This idea is in keeping with Coleridge's idea of reali ty and an

application of his concept of imitation. The dramatist must por

tray men and women whose affections are closely connected with

character portrayal and unity of feeling is the importance of

language. There are many instances in which Coleridge commentson the perfect harmony or adaptation of the language to the

character. This character is t ic he notes in Hamlet, in Lear and

in Macbeth. Although Coleridge advocated care and nicety in the

expression of a dramatist , he would never admire a pedantic

st i f fness or ar t i f ie ia l i ty of s tyle . In his lectures of 1811-12,

Coleridge defines poetry as

••• an a r t (or whatever better terms ourlanguage may afford) of representing, inwords, external nature and human thoughtsand affections, by the production of as muchimmediate pleasure in parts , as is compatiblewith the l a r g e ~ t sum of pleasure in the whole.236

Words were l iving for Coleridge; they were mediums through which

human affections were reproduced for others to enjoy. Pleasure

must accompany the poetic experience. This is the aim of poetry,

and each part of the poem must in i t se l f add to the composite

235Ibid. , p. 346

236

Shakespearean Criticism, I I , pp. 66, 67.



102

pleasure of the whole. But th is pleasure the novelist also can

produce. However, the poet must cause th is pleasure in his

reader while conveying the t ruths of nature or he ceases to be a

poet. This pleasure i t i s the function of meter to create .

Meter must produce such pleasurable feeling where the feeling

seems to cal l for i t as an accompaniment. Passion gives to ex-

pression i t s meter, but i t must be passion excited by poetic

impulse or fervor. Coleridge, however, would have his reader

understand that the true poem although possessing pleasure and

beauty of the individual parts , must have a unified beauty--the

beauty of the whole. The poet must also have a greater sensi

bi l i ty , a warmer sympathy with the nature or the incidents of

human l i f e . The dramatist must create under spontaneous inspira

t ion. The poem thus created will possess l iving vi ta l i ty which

will give to the reader the same pleasurable feelings and

emotions under which i t was created by the poet. The reader wil

rel ive the poet ' s experience and assimilate the emotions and

feelings to himself.

Meter is closely re la ted with the passion that aroused i t

and, therefore, passion portrayed in prose may have a certa in

meter. The language of the poet must be an imitation and not a

copy of the human feelings and emotions or experiences of l i f e .

The pleasure

. will vary with the different modes ofpoetry; and that splendour of part icular



103

l ines, which would be worthy of admirationin an impassioned elegy, or a short indig-nant sat i re , would be a blemish and proofof vi le tas te in a tragedy or an epic poem.2Z7

Indeed, Coleridge firmly asser ts that

. . • passion provides that neither thoughtnor imagery shal l be simply object ive, butthat the passio ver-a of humanity shal l warmand animate both.238

This l as t statement is what explains the language or

Shakespeare. Sometimes the language shows deep imaginative

power, sometimes i t i s purely fancy. Of Fielding, Coleridge

notes:

. . . in a l l his chief personages, Tom Jonesfor instance, where Fielding was not directedby observation, where he could not ass is thimself by the close copying of what he saw,where i t i s necessary that something shouldtake place, some words be spoken, some objectdescribed, which he could not have witnessed

(his soli loquies for example, or the interviewbetween the hero and Sophia Western before thereconcil iat ion) and I w i ~ l venture to say,. . . that nothing can be more forced and un-natural: the language i s without vivacity orsp i r i t , the whole matter i s incongruous andtotal ly dest i tute of psychological truth.239

On the other hand, Coleridge finds in Shakespeare's charac-

ters a perfect f i tness of language to the dramatis personae.

But his question i s : How was Shakespeare to observe the language

or Kings and Constables or those of high or low rank? I t was

237Ibid . , I , p. 164.

238Ibid . , p. 166.

239Ibid . I I , p. 135.- - '



104

through observation with

the inward eye of meditation upon his ownnature.240

Thus for the time Shakespeare

became Othello, and spoke as Othello, insuch circumstances, must have spoken.241

The language thus spoken is the language of passion. In Romeo

and Ju l ie t the poet i s heard. Likewise, Capulet and Montague

are mere mouthpieces of Shakespeare. Shakespeare

not placed under circumstances of excitement,

and only wrought upon by his own vivid andvigorous imagination, writes a language tha t in-variably and intui t ively b e c o m e ~ the conditionand position of each character.242

Coleridge admits that there is a language that i s not descrip-

t ive of passion and which at the same time i s poetic . I t i s the

language of fancy. I t i s the language of the poet speaking

rather than that of the dramatist . But Coleridge would s tress

the fact that when a thought or expression i s not usual i t must

not necessarily be considered unnatural.

The dramatist

represents his characters in every s i tuat ionof l i fe and in every s tate of mind, and there

is no form of language that may not bein tro-

duced with effect by a great and judiciouspoet, and yet be most s t r ic t ly according tonature.243

240Ibid . , p. 136.

241Ibid.

242Ibid. , p. 137.

243Ibid. , p. 139.



105

In the lectures of 1811-12, when discussing Hamlet,

Coleridge points out:

Here Shakespeare adapts himself so admirably

to the si tuat ion-- in other words so put himself into i t - - tha t , though poetry, hislanguage i s the very language of nature.. . . No character he has drawn, in the wholel i s t of his plays could so well and f i t lyexpress himself, as in ~ ~ 4 language Shakespearehas put into his mouth.

When language has meter added to i t , the pleasure derived

from i t i s doubled. In the Biographia Literar ia , Coleridge

explains a t length the origin and elements of meter.

Again Coleridge uses his principle of the Reconciliation of

Opposites when he gives the f i r s t cause or origin of meter as:

• . . the balance in the mind effected bythat spontaneous effor t which str ives tohold in check the workings of passion.245

Out of th is reasoning, two conditions necessary to effect recon

c i l ~ a t i o n present themselves:

Firat , tha t , as the elements of metre owe

the ir existence to a sta te of increasedexcitement, so the metre i t se l f should beaccompanied

2i6 the natural language of

excitement. ·

Butthese elements are brought about

by avoluntary act with the

aim of balancing emotion and delight and must be fe l t in the

metrical language. These two conditions must be reconciled:

244Ibid. , p. 193.

245Griggs, op.ci t . , p. 207.

246Ibid.



106

There must be not only a partnership,but a union; an interpenetration of passionand of will , of s p ~ 2 ~ a n e o u s impulse and ofvoluntary purpose.

such an interpenetration creates picturesque and vivid language

which would be unnatural under circumstances other than those

accompanying th is poetic fusion. The reader expects picturesque

language because the emotion is voluntari ly encouraged for the

pleasure that ensues. But th is is conditional. Meter, moreover

is an indication of the pulse of the passion.' The very act of

poetic composition produces an unusual s ta te of excitement which

brings with i t a difference in language from the everyday prose

of experience. Thus,

Strong passions command figurativelanguage and act as stimulants.248

But the most essential function of meter, the one which brings

out the true essence of poetic power and that essential unity

inherent in nature and in the poet, Coleridge describes as

•.• the high spir i tua l inst inct of thehuman being impelling us to seek unity byharmonious adjustment and thus establish-ing the principle tha t a l l the parts of anorganized whole must be assimilated

24a the

more important and essential par ts .

Then, in perfect harmony with his entire system of thought,

Coleridge returns to the dist inct ion between copying and

247Ibid .


249Biographia Literar ia , I I , p. 56.



CHAPTER IV

COLERIDGE'S CONTRIBUTION TO DRAMATIC THEORY IN HIS AGE,

HIS INFLUENCE ON SHAKESPEAREAN CRITICISM, AND

THE POSITION OF HIS DRAMATIC IDEAS IN RELATION TO

MODERN CRITICISM OF DRAMA

When Wordsworth wrote his defense in "The Preface of 1800 11

for the kind of poetry which The Lyrical Ballad$ gave to English

readers, both he and Coleridge were aware that old t rad i t.ions

were passing. The period of t ransi t ion was, however, not marked

by a radical change; i t was a continuation of the old with a

gradual coloring of the newer, more cosmopolitan dye of ut i l i -

tarianism. Crit ics began to view l i te ra ture not as l i te ra ture

apart from l i f e . Great national events, such as the French

Revolution, made l i te ra ture a medium for the more v i ta l thought

of the people. This at t i tude was seen in the theater .

Wordsworth gives a fa i r picture of the sp i r i t of the age in his

"Preface of 1800 11 in which with a note of disgust he condemns

England's sordid love for the "frantic" novel and the "German

tragedies." Life evinced a need for giving an out let to the new

impulses and aspirat ions stimulated by the French Revolution.

Consequently, with th is change in l i te ra ture cr i t ica l thought an

standards had to be readjusted. Crit ics began to t rea t l i t e ra -

ture as an out let for t ruth and knowledge and sought for the



10

from the nature of man; ref lect ing minds wil lpronounce i t arrogance in them thus to announce themselves to men of lettersA as theguides of thei r taste and judgment.G55

False standards of crit icism grew out of the changing

standards of l i f e . The causes of false cr i t ic ism, Coleridge

alleges, were accidental and permanent. Chief among these acci

dental causes was the over-stimulation of mind brought on by

current events of pol i t ical s t r i fe . I t was an age in which e v e r ~one t r ied to play cr i t ic :

. . .the greater desire of knowledge, be t te r

domestic habits , which yet, combining withthe above, make a hundred readers where acentury ago there were one, a n ~ 5 g f everyhundred, f ive hundred cr i t ics .

The permanent causes of false crit icism arose from the

. general principles of our nature.257

Man is re luctant and indifferent to the cult ivat ion of his

thinking powers. He neglects the use of his own

inward experience in the in terpretat ion ofthe ar ts a n ~ 8 t a k e s too readily the opinionsof others.2

England was beginning to feel the necessity of breaking away

from a t radi t ion of meaningless rules . However, rules were not

entirely abolished, but the cr i t i c was becoming an interpreter

255I 4p . 4 .


257Ibid.,, I I , p. 57.

258Ibid .



111

of society and of nature. He no longer stood apart from the

poet ' s work and looked a t i t as an isolated piece of ar t , but he

began to consider the poet as a human being who possesses a

temperament peculiar to himself as poet.

Coleridge admired the romantic drama, though he also

acknowledged the merits of the classical . He believed that the

modern reader could appreciate the merits of both i f he under-

stood the fundamental differences between the two. That is why

Coleridge points out in his Shakespearean Lectures the famouspassage in Plato ' s Symposium suggesting that i t i s natural to

genius to excel both in t ragic and comic poetry. I t i s for th is

reason that Shakespeare i s the ideal poet. Likewise, the minor

unit ies of time and place were accidents, mere inconveniences

that grew up with the Athenian drama. With equal freedom

Coleridge changes the principle of unity of action to unity of

homogeneity, proportionateness, and to ta l i ty of in teres t . Again,

he does not saY that Shakespeare's plays have Grecian symmetry,

but they do possess ar t i s t ic harmony.

In th is manner, Coleridge does not interpret by rules , but

seeks to rediscover the fundamental laws of poetic creation. He

uses the aids offered by Aris tot le in his Poetics, but he does

not feel bound to follow the Poetics because i t was written by

the great Aris tot le , or because i t was used by scholars and

cr i t i cs before him. Butcher finds that "formal method in the



113

1 n262and essentia events . . . He approved of the minor unit ies

in principle, but realized that the realism which they were to

produce was diminished by the ir observance. With Johnson the

ar t i s t ic effectiveness of classical unity was so important to

him that he would not rel inquish that principle even when i t

fai led. The division of a play into acts was arbitrary to him.

He says of an act: II . it i s so much of drama as passes with-

out intervention of time or change of place. A pause makes a

new act . In every rea l , and therefore in every imitative action,the in tervals may be more or fewer, the res t r ic t ion of five acts

being accidental and arbitrary.tt263

Such were the opinions prevailing jus t before Coleridge's

time. Classic standards were being held simply because they had

always been norms. The condition of the stage at th is time was s

ref lect ion of the age. The half-hearted adherence to class ica l

standards and a leaning toward broader interpretations inf lu

enced, without a doubt, the dramatists. Professor Watson in his

discussion of the conditions of the stage a t the time of

Sheridan to Robertson says: If the drabness of the age ac-

counts for much. 11264 I t was a period of industr ial change and

' 'in l i terary realms Thackeray could only sneer a t the pretensions

262works, ed. by Hawkins (London, 1787), VI, p. 429.

263Raleigh, op.c i t . , p. 57.

264As quoted in Nicoll, op.c i t . , p. 75.



114

pf the aristocracy, and Dickens in dealing with the mob had to

resort to false pathos and melodramatic etfects .• 265 The melo

~ r a m a of the period, then, was largely dependent upon the social

pircumstances. I t was not unti l this industrial unrest began to

~ d j u s t i t se l f that a higher type ot drama developed in England.

Playwrights, unable to adjust the stage in harmony with the

spir i t of the day, looked abroad to r inspiration. By this time

German drama found l i t t l e favor with English audiences. I t was

Paris that furnished inspiration. Fitzball in 1859 found drama•nearly a l l composed of translations.• 266 Although German drama

was popular in 1799, especially editions ot Kotzebue and Schille, ,

by 1819 these same editions were being sold at second-hand

bookstalls; nevertheless, individual attempts were being made to

edit anew the greater German masterpieces. The collected works

of Goethe and Schiller were being issued by larger publishers.

The renewed interest in Elizabethan l i terature is particu

larly characteristic of this time. This period, due to the

criticism of Coleridge, Schlegel and Hazlit t , and many others,

brought to the realization of English and German audiences the

profundity of Shakespeare. Shakespeare had not been forgotten

during the eighteenth century, but rarely did the cri t ic point

out the psychological depth manifest in his works. Rarely

265Ibid •............

266As quoted in Nicoll, op.c i t . , p. 76.



115

before this time did dramatists try to imitate Shakespeare. The

modern poetic dramas of the time show an imitation of E l i z a b e t b a ~and Shakespearean imagery.

The contemporary novel became popular. The minor drama

t i s t s found in these novels the type of plots , characters, and

dialogues upon which hast i ly written plays might be bui l t . Such

adaptations led to careless str inging together of episodes and

i t i s this episodical character is t ic of the plays of the half

century that led to poor dramatic workmanship. This same care

lessness caused dramatists to neglect the bet ter works of France

and Germany. Often the force of the tale i t se l f , regardless of

poor opportunities for characterizat ion and higher stage

technique, caused i t to be selected. Incidents alone could make

an appeal to the average English audience.

This period produced a class of dramas which may be called

closet-dramas. No sure dist inct ion was made between the acted

and the unacted drama. Some dramatists such as Talfourd wrote

dramas with no thought of actual production on a stage, though

these plays met with popular favor. Others who wrote with ambi

tions for theatr ical success had the i r plays merely printed.

There was no se t classif icat ion along these l ines. Dramas of a

purely· poetic kind also prevailed. Some of our most famous poets

and prose writers wrote poetic dramas that were never produced o ~

the stage. Such men as Coleridge, Scott , and Byron fe l t the

Germaninf luence--fel t the urge to teach in

a direct mannerthe



116

philosophy of German and English thought. The changing world

about them teemed with urges and impulses that displayed them-

selves in l i terature . Thus Coleridge's Osorio (1798) which was

rewrit ten and named Remorse was played a t Drury Lane in January,

1813. With Coleridge the consideration of passion came f i r s t

and only secondarily the adaptation of a passion to a person.

He real ized, however, that action is necessary to enliven the

long soli loquies. As Nicoll says, "Both for Coleridge and

Wordsworth i t is the abstract passion that counts, Wordsworth

writing his drama to prove the thesis that 11 sin and crime are apt

to s ta r t from their opposite qual i t ies" , and Coleridge, as his

l a te r t i t l e shows, dealing primarily with passion. 11 267

Miss Wylie has given a succinct summary of the chief marks

of the new crit icism when she s tates : "The new cri t ic ism, l ike

the old, declared tas te to be supreme; but now tas te is the in -

tui t ion of creative genius acting in unconscious harmony with

in te l lec tual law, and educating the world to f iner perception.

The recognition of th is higher law appears in the new st ress la id

on the sanity of genius. The poet, no longer the mere master of

knowledge or the victim of an overwrought sensibi l i ty , finds in

his own genius the law of perfect harmony. In this conception

i r regular i ty of l i fe i s as impossible as i rregulari ty of work.

Shakespeare's dramas were perfect because in them the imagination

267Op.ci t . , p. 192.



----------117

and in te l lec tual facul t ies won a perfect balance and harmony of

expression.u2S8 I t was natural that with a growth in principles

in the new philosophy and an increasing in teres t in the his toric

at t i tude that the conceptions of the functions of crit icism must

change. The task of the new crit icism was to understand the new

relat ions of l i terature and l i fe "in the perceptions of thelaws

according to which genius works, and especially in the estab-

lishment of the principles of l i te rary judgment.n269 The need

for writing made Coleridge declare that the ultimate end ofcrit icism i s

• much more to establish the principlesof writing, than to furnish rules how topass judgment on what has been written.270

English cr i t i cs before Coleridge praised Shakespeare

grudgingly; none possessed the cr i t i ca l power that was worthy of

his subject. Whether i t was to Coleridge's advantage or dis-

advantage that he was born in an age when few cr i t ics might aid

him i s not within the scope of th is paper. The age lacked true

cr i t i cs ; there were no terms adequate to express the new a t t i -

tude toward emotions, feel ings, and characterist ics of l i f e .

Contemporary crit icism was of a general nature, and nothing

seemed to indicate that Coleridge's poems were viewed as

268Laura Johnson Wylie, Studies in the Evolution of English

Criticism (Boston, 1894), p. 184.

269Ibid.

270BiographiaLiteraria ,

I I , p. 62.



.118

indicative of a new order in l i te rary endeavors. Graham says of

Coleridge's writ ings, 11 The Monthly Review discovered a certa in

amount of uncouthness and obscurity, and a tendency of extrava-

gance, but declared the Religious Musings reached the top-scale

of sublimity.n 271 Most of Coleridge's poems published before

1798 complied with the standard cr i ter ia of the eighteenth

century and, consequently, the tone of cri t icism toward them i s

for the most part favorable. From 1798 the aims and values of

Coleridge as a poet were constantly misunderstood, for "most ofthe reviewers took a l l the poems in The Lyrical Ballads to be

the work of one writer. They did not know what to make of the

"Ancient Mariner", and except for th is one had l i t t l e to say

about the poems contributed by Coleridge. Grsnam gives a true

estimate of the type of crit icism which was prevalent in

Coleridge's day when he says: "Blackwood's Magazine, which in

1817, in a thoroughly host i le and unjust review of the Bio

~ h i a Literaria had held the character as well as the work of

Coleridge up to scorn, because of his ' inveterate and diseased

egotism'·, and had published as la te as June 1819 a burlesque

thi rd par t of Christabel, suffered a sudden change of heart . In

October 1819 appeared an excessively f la t te r ing review, written

in such language as to make one suspect the motives that prompt

i t . Blackwood's crit icism was general and indiscriminative. I t

271Walter Graham, Publications of the Modern L a n g u ~ e Associa

t ion, "Contemporary Critics of Coleridge, theP o e t ~

38:278,(July, 1923).



119

was the old crit icism of rules ra ther than tha t of interpreta-

t ion and impression. 11 272

Coleridge realized fully the injust ice of such cri t ic ism.

During the course of his lectures he stressed the importance of

the use of words in crit icism when he says that one cause of

false cri t icism i s

. • • the vague use of terms and therein thenecessity of appropriating them more s t r ic t lythan in ordinary l i fe . . . 273

A fascinating study in Coleridge's body of cri t icism i s the

study of his cr i t i ca l terminology. I t is evident from his

writings that the heritage of the f i f teenth and sixteenth centu-

r ies he made his own. Originally, many terms were technical

terms used in the ar t s , craf ts , and sciences. Later, toward the

end of the sixteenth century, comparisons of ancient and modern

works began to appear. The noun 11 cr i t ic 1 and the adject ive

11 cr i t i ca l 11 were f i r s t terms ordinari ly used in medicine. Terms

of philosophy and psychology were established during the seven-

teenth century, the age of reason. During the age of classicism,

England imported cr i t i ca l terms from I ta ly and France. The

eighteenth century, the age of "Romantic Unrest employed, though

i t did not originate, the faci le terminology of connisseurship,

the notions of amusing and picturesque, but more seriously

272Ibid . , p. 283.

273shakespearean Criticism, I , p. 248.



120

expanded these terms dealing with the processes of ar t i s t ic

creation and original i ty which just i fy the pre-Romantic period

as a period of decadence ra ther than a triumphant culmination of

the la ter eighteenth century.n274

Most of Coleridge's inventions in cr i t i ca l terminology were

the resu l t of a defini te aim a t more precise expression. I t was

the precision and logic of terms that made Scholastic reasoning

and diction appeal to him. The terms "objective" and "subjec

tive" had occurred occasionally as remnants of Scholastic use

during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . When Kant's

philosophy indicated the need for greater discrimination in the

explanation of i t s doctrines, the terms "objective" and

"subjective" came into use. Isaacs states tha t "to Coleridge's

example in 1817 is due entirely the widespread adoption of these

indispensable terms. 11 275 One of the most interesting words that

Coleridge derived from the German is "aesthetic". Isaacs says

that Coleridge was "the ear l ies t English l i te rary cr i t i c to con

cern himself with an aesthetic system.n276 Most of Coleridge's

contributions are no longer used in cr i t ic ism. A few of these

terms are busyness, credibilizing, presentimental, expectabil i ty,

novellish, poematic, esemplastic, and interaddit ive. Among the

274J. Isaacs, 11 Coleridge's Crit ical Terminology", English Association, Essays and Studies, 21:87. Oxford, 1936.

275Ibid . , p. 92.

276

Ibid . , p. 95.



121

more important phrases which Isaacs l i s t s as real contributions

to English cr i t ica l terminology are to ta l i ty or in teres t ,

mechanical ta len t , aesthetic logic , accrescence or object ivi ty,

real- l i fe diction, technique of poetry, undercurrent of feel ing,

and poetical logic. 277 Of Coleridge's use of the term

"polari ty", Isaacs says: "when Coleridge speaks in 1818 of

'contemplating in a l l Electrical phenomenon the operations of a

Law which runs through a l l Nature, viz . , the law of polar i ty , or

the manifestation ofone power

by opposite forces ' , we areup

against a serious and complicated problem. Firs t of a l l by his

underlining of the word, i t i s clear that Coleridge i s ei ther

proud of his invention of i t , or regards i t as a s ignif icant and

careful use; secondly; the work i s a valuable contribution to our

cr i t ica l armoury and i t s uses have not yet been exhausted; the

Q.E.D. can find no ear l ie r use of the term in this special shade

of usage; •• . the fact that th is use i s a subtle and thought

out t ransference of a known term to the great central problem of

Coleridge's cr i t ica l researches into the esemplastic power, the

coadunating faculty, and the problem of multeity in unity, gives

an emotional significance of the highest order to th is otherwise

cold technical term. 11 278 Coleridge "was actuated by ' the in-

st inct ive passion in the mind for one word to express one act of

277Ibid. , p. 98.

278Ibid . , p. 87.



122

feel ing ' , a passion shared by Flaubert.n279 By his at t i tude

Coleridge stimulated the establishment of dis t inc t meanings of

terms which influenced even nineteenth century thought.

Although Coleridge wrote exquisite poetry af ter 1799, his

in teres t was centered in aesthetics and philosophy. He was very

fragmentary and, consequently, never finished his many projected

schemes. The only finished work was the t ranslat ion of

Wallenstein. Miss Helmholtz claims that " if he had not taken up

the role of public lec turer , i t i s safe to say that England wouldbe without a body of l i te rary crit icism of which the vi ta l in

fluence or thought-engendering power cannot be questioned.n280

I t was through the influence of Sir Humphrey Davy tha t

Coleridge delivered his lectures at the Royal Inst i tut ion in the

winter and spring of 1808. Henry Crabbe Robinson has preserved

these lectures in his Diary and two le t te rs which he wrote to

Mrs. Clarkson. I t i s necessary to remember that Coleridge had

to attack neo-classical prejudices which kept Shakespeare from

his true place among dramatists. In his Lectures of 1811-12,

Coleridge states defini te ly his purpose:

I t has been stated from the f i r s t that one ofmy purposes in these lectures i s to meet andrefute popular objections to part icular p o i n t ~ 8 1in the works of our great dramatic poet . . .

279As quoted in Isaacs, o p . c i ~ . , p. 90.

2 8 ~ e l m h o l t z , op.c i t . , p. 291.

28lshakespear.ean Criticism, I I , p. 184.



123

Such was the task Coleridge undertook with the help of

l ibera l English and German cri t ic ism. He singled out Dr.

Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare as a target and frequently re -

turned to the subject. Among the smaller points of defense for

Shakespeare which ear l ie r cr i t ics had condemned was Shakespeare's

use of puns and conceits. The neo-classical ra t ional is t con

demned Shakespeare's exuberant fancifulness for in "serious

drama i t offended his sense of decorum.u282 Coleridge himself

was serious minded and was not entire ly in sympathy with the

comic in the serious drama, but explains them by saying that thej

were Elizabethan custom.

Another prevailing note of eighteenth century manners was

the sentimental. movement on decorum among the English middle

class who attr ibuted coarseness and immorality to Shakespeare.

But as Raysor says of Coleridge in this respect , "his character

i s t ic philosophical arguments were more appropriate in discussing

Shakespeare's morality than in defending his puns. 11 283 However,

because of insuff ic ient knowledge of Shakespeare's period,

Coleridge seemed to be ignorant of the fact that Shakespeare

purif ied his sources. Coleridge believed that Shakespeare's

282Ibid . ,

283Ibid.,

284Ibid. ,

essentia l purity i s evident in his wholetreatment of love, which is the supreme test .284

I , p. xxxiv.

p. XXXV.

P·xxxiv.



124

would credi t Coleridge for his rebut ta l , af ter

of the curious cr i t ic ism that Shakespeare was in-

to Fletcher in representing women characters and the

The central controversy which interested eighteenth century

was Shakespeare's violation of the unit ies. Raysor says

"· in defending Shakespeare's violation of the unit ies

. • he brought forward arguments which have probably had a

his tor ica l influence upon Shakespearean histor ical

than anything else which he ever wrote, except his in -

of Hamlet."286 In the study of the unit ies , how

Coleridge was anticipated by Kames and Lessing.

had an argument of h is own, which i s more important

nd more original than any other which he had used. 11 287 This

appears in the Literary Remains bearing a 1805 water-

Coleridge saw that the imagination had a part to play upon

"The orthodox defence of the three unit ies was the

theory of l i t e r a l delusion which Dr. Johnson ridiculed

devastating power. But in the heat of debate Johnson em

too strongly the contrary view that 'a play read effects

85William Richardson, Professor of Humanity a t Glasgow, gives anof Shakespeare's women in Essays on Shakespeare's

Character of Sir John Falstaff and on his Imitation ofCharacters, (London, 1789). -

Shakespearean· C r i t i c ~ s m , I , p. xxxvii i .

7Ibid .



125

the mind l ike a play acted' .u288 Johnson in his Preface to

Shakespeare concludes that dramatic performances are unreal.

Raysor says: "This i s surely as extreme as the doctrine which

Dr. Johnson destroyed, for i t recognizes only the rat ional and

not the imaginative sta te of the audience. There i s no rat ional

in a dramatic action, l ike that assumed in the term

' delusion ' , but there is an imaginative bel ief , which may be de-

scribed as an ' i l lus ion ' , almost l ike that of dreams.n289

Theproblem of dramatic i l lusion had been

asubject of dis-

cussion. Coleridge's interpretation of dramatic i l lusion i s 11 a

s ignif icant achievement of l i te rary cr i t ic ism, because i t

for the f i r s t time a simple and obviously sound explanation

f a problem on which cr i t i cs had been confused for more than a

and a half.n290 Although Farquhar, Kames. Herder,

and Schlegel realized to a degree the at t i tude of the

toward the play, Coleridge went far beyond these cr i t ics

n the extent and precision of the explanation. "His explanation

f dramatic i l lusion is his own contribution to the controversy

the uni t ies , and i t represents the character ist ical ly subtle

nd accurate psychological analysis in which Coleridge surpassed

8Ibid . , p. xxxix.

Ibid.

0Ibid.



126

a l l his English and German predecessors in Shakespearean cr i t i -

cism. u291

Coleridge borrowed from S c ~ l e g e l the argument which played

a prominent part in his Shakespearean cri t ic ism. This argument

is the dis t inct ion between Greek classical and Shakespearean

romantic drama. His chief dist inct ion was that "even though

Greek tragedy appealed part ly to the reason, it was forced to

accommodate i t se l f to the senses, while romantic drama appealed

direct ly to the reason and imagination.n292 His explanation of

the argument indicates that the dramatist must be allowed freedon·

in the use of the unit ies :

The reason is aloof from time and space;the imagination has an arbitrary control overboth; and i f only the poet have such power ofexciting our internal emotions as to make uspresent to the scene in imagination chiefly,he acquires the r ight and privi lege of usingtime and space as they exist in the imaginationobedient only to the laws which the imaginationworks by.293 .

The ant i thesis between romantic and classic affects not

only the three unit ies but every phase of dramatic method.

"Shakespeare's profound interest in individual personali ty, over

and above ·the needs of the action and sometimes perhaps at the

expense of the action; the r ich lyr ica l suggestiveness of his

291Ibid . , p. xxxix-xl.

292Ibid . , p. x l.




127

style; and above a l l , his modern natural is t ic impartial i ty

toward l i f e , his refusal to mould the chaos of experience into a

defini te moral meaning--all these set h is dramatic genius in

opposition to that of the Greeks and associate i t with the spir i i

of modern romanticism and naturalism.u294

Coleridge generalized h is defense of Shakespeare by proving

that Shakespeare's a r t was equal to his genius. In the discussior

of th is problem Coleridge introduced much into English crit icism

that was la te r to become essential in the study of English l i t e r -

ature. Criticism of Shakespeare's plots disappeared with the

disregard of the three unit ies and character-analysis became a

popular method of dealing with his plays. This character ist ic

was due to the love of personal individuali ty which merely em-

phasized ideas that were la tent in neo-classical cr i t ic ism. The

method of character-studies was established by the end of the

eighteenth century.295 Coleridge was not the f i r s t to use the

method of character-analysis . His at t i tude shows the general

sympathetic tone of the eighteenth-century cr i t ics who selected

the beauties, rather than the faul ts of Shakespeare's ar t .

and, through Addison, Longinus possessed an emotional ana

imaginative sensitiveness which foreshowed the romantic point of

view. Coleridge never fe l l into 11 the extreme romantic relativisili

94Ibid . , p. xl i .

95cr. Nichols-Smith, Eighteenth-Century ~ s s a y s on Shakespeare,"Introduction", p. xxxii-x:x.xviii.



128

of some of his followers, never questioned the possibi l i ty and

value of general principles of crit icism •••• Relativism seems

to be an essential characterist ic of romantic cri t ic ism, because

of i t s love of the immediate aesthetic impression and i t s dis-

t rus t of a l l fixed standards; but in th is regard Coleridge was

not romantic.n296 His at t i tude toward the romantic movement was

shown in his insistence on a sympathetic cri t ic ism. In the neo-

classical theory certain standards were applied impart ial ly to

a l l l i terature and "by balancing beauties and faults",297 es-

tablished i t s l i terary worth. Crit ics maintained th is unsympa-

the t ic at t i tude up to the time of Addison when there was a

protes t against i t . Although there was a great deal of l ibera l

cri t icism in the las t quarter of the century a break was not

brought about unt i l Coleridge and his contemporaries came. On

the other hand, "in the ir anxiety to avoid the dogmatism of thei r

predecessors the romantic cr i t ics hurried to the other extreme

and in i t ia ted a worship of Shakespeare which confined crit icism

to appreciation, without leaving room for standards of judgment.

In one f l ight of rhetoric Coleridge permitted himself to say

that 'Shakespeare. . . never introduces a word, or a thought, in

vain or out of place: i f we do not understand him, i t i s our

faul t or the faul t of copyists and topographers' ; and his general

296Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. xlvi .

297Ibid.



129

policy in defending Shakespeare against the cr i t ics of the

eighteenth century was to admit absolutely nothing.n298 This is

one of the many deficiencies of Coleridge's cri t ic ism.

His opposition to neo-classical cr i t ics marks the beginning

of the new school of Shakespearean cri t ic ism. "If h is lectures

and marginalia sometimes seem sentimental, that i s the defect of

the i r vir tue, of the constant moral reflectiveness which gives

them the i r characterist ic elevation and dignity, and the i r r ich

ness in humane wisdom.n299 But Coleridge never subst i tutes his

own impressions for the work of a r t under hand. His greatest

resource was in the psychological analyses and although he

possessed the strong romantic strain he also possessed keen

powers of analysis. Raysor says: " I t i s th is side of Coleridge's

genius which makes him seem so much less the type of romanticism

than Lamb or Hazl i t t or Pater, the great impressionists.u300

The psychologist and the poet appear together in most of

Coleridge's cri t icism, but the more detai led and br ief comments

convey the true poet ' s delight . Many of his aesthetic notes are

found in his cri t icism of the eight selected plays and even

there they may be los t to the casual reader because11his poetical

sensit iveness appears chiefly in the imaginative depth and

298Ibid.

299Ibid. , P· 1.

300Ibid . , P· l i .



130

delicacy of his psychological analyses, and in his style . 11 301

I t i s the poet in Coleridge that made him superior to his

English predecessors and even to Schlegel. This character is t ic

of Coleridge as a cr i t i c is summed up by Legouis and Cazamian

thus: " I t i s , however, in l i terary cri t ic ism that his achieve

ment i s the most last ing. No one before him in England had

brought such mental breadth to the discussion of aesthet ic

values. His judgments are a l l permeated by a trend of thought

that is strongly under the influence of great doctrinal pre

conceptions; even in this domain he is the metaphysician. The

well-known differentiat ion between imagination and fancy which

Wordsworth interpreted af ter his own fashion, i s a way to laying

stress upon the creative act ivi ty of the mind, opposed to the

passive association of mental pictures; but for Coleridge i t has

a mystical significance. . . . His remarks on Shakespeare show

a sound in tui t ion of the profound unity of dramatic ar t . Accus

tomed as he is to reach the heart of things, to f ind there the

same v i ta l impulse which animates his own thought, and to see

this secret of l i fe produce what becomes the apparent world of

the senses. Coleridge i s thus able to discern with an unerring

insight the paths along which a central impulse has radiated, so

to speak, towards a l l the fundamental ideas, aspects and

01Ibid . , p. lx .



131

characterist ics of a work.n302

Of Coleridge's contemporaries much that would be of i n t e r e s ~could be written but th is discussion must confine i t se l f with

those who are most closely associated with Coleridge, not only

in the intimacy of his l i fe but also with his l i terary endeavors

A study of Coleridge would be incomplete without reference to

the most potent influence in his intimate l i f e . His re la t ion-

ship with Wordsworth i s an outstanding friendship in the history

of English le t te rs . Coleridge, on his side, worshipped

Wordsworth and called him

the only man to whom at a l l times and in a l lmodes of excellence I feel myself inferior.303

Coleridge's f inest crit icism is in his famous essay on

Wordsworth in the Biographia Literar ia . Although Coleridge

praises Wordsworth, he "has nothing to say about the core ofWordsworth's genius. 11304 Their influence upon each other was

considerable; Wordsworth had the stronger nature, more enduring

and, consequently, he exerted the greater influence. Not only

did the two men themselves dif fer , but in a l l the circumstances

and motives of the ir l i te rary and cr i t i ca l endeavors they dif-

fered as well. Wordsworth wrote his Preface to Llrical Ballads

302Emile Legouis and Louis Cazamian, A History of English

Criticism (New York, 1930), pp. 1046-1047.

303As quoted in Hugh Kingsmill, The English Review, "Samuel

Taylor Coleridge", 59 (July, 1 9 3 ~304Ibid.



132

while he was s t i l l young and possessed poetic genius; Coleridge

wrote the Biographia Literar ia when his poetic genius had waned

and youth had also departed.

Although the Biographia Literar ia i s the principal document

in which Coleridge reveals his loss, "Dejection: an Ode 11 i s a

passionate self - revelat ion. The tone of sad regret contrasts

with Wordsworth's Prelude:

There was a time, though my path was rough,This joy within me dall ied with distress ,And a l l my misfortunes were but as the s tuffWhence Fancy made me dream of happiness:For hope grew round me, l ike the twining vine,And f rui ts and fol iage, not my own, seemed mineBut now aff l ic t ion bows me down to earth:Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;But oh! each vis i ta t ionSuspends what nature gave me a t my bir th ,My shaping sp i r i t of imagination.For not to think of what I needs must fee l ,But to be s t i l l and pat ient , a l l I can;

And haply by abstruse research to stealFrom my own nature a l l the natural manThis was my sole resource; my only plan:Ti l l that which sui ts a part infects the whole

0nd now is almost grown the habi t of my soul.3 5

Coleridge had a remarkable abi l i ty to inspire friendship anc

devotion. Soon af ter his entrance into Chris t ' s Hospital, he

formed a friendship with Charles Lamb which lasted unt i l his

death. Since they were of opposite temperaments, they stimulated

each other. Coleridge possessed the stronger in te l lect , yet the

l ight humor of Charles Lamb acted as an inspiration to his

305samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Complete Poetical Works, ed. byE. H. Coleridge (Oxford, 1912), I , p. 48.



133

philosophical musings. Lamb had the greater degree of sustained

effor t . He was an excellent l i te rary cr i t i c . Griggs says of

him, 11 he often shared his l i terary discoveries with Coleridge,

whose in teres t in the Elizabethan dramatists, perhaps, can be

partly at t r ibuted to Lamb. 11306 Coleridge was undoubtedly the

most br i l l ian t man of his day but he was inconstant and irregular

and always in need of encouragement. Charles Lamb often drew

from Coleridge his best l i terary endeavors.

To Byron Coleridge appealed when his financial status was

low. "The contact between Coleridge and Byron was br ief , the ir

correspondence being confined to the period between Easter 1815

and April 1816, the time a t which Byron finally departed from

England. I t i s known that in 1812 Byron interceded with the

managers of Drury Lane for the production of Coleridge's Remorse

and that he attended a t least two of Coleridge's lectures in

1811 and 1812; but the i r personal intercourse apparently did not

extend beyond those incidents and the exchange of a few

le t te rs . 11307 His f i r s t l e t t e r to Byron was a t Eas.ter, 1815.

Coleridge wrote i t when he was t rying to finance his son

entrance at Oriel. In the f i r s t l e t te r he asked Byron

to intercede for him a t the publishers. The works tha t he

6Griggs, op.c i t . , p. xvi i i .

7Griggs, "Coleridge and Byron 11, Publication of the Modern

Association, 45:1085 (1930).



134

wished to publish were various poems not contained in Lyrical

Ballads, the second edit ion of his Juveni le Poems, and the

Remorse308

which he had enlarged with some revisions in plot and

character. Besides these were a proposed general Preface and a

par t icu lar Preface to the "Ancient Mariner." Again in October,

1815, Coleridge wrote:

All my le isure Hours I have devoted to theDrama, encouraged by your Lordship's adviceand favourable opinion of my comparativepowers among the t ragic Dwarfs, which exhausted Nature seems to have been under thenecessity of producing since Shakspear.Before the th i rd week in December I sha l lI t rus t be able to transmit to your Lordshipa Tragedy, in which I have endeavoured toavoid the faul ts and deficiencies of theRemorse, by a bet te r subordination of thecharacters , by avoiding a duplici ty ofIn teres t , by a greater clearness of Plot ,and by a deeper Pathos. Above a l l , I havelabored to render the Poem a t once t ragic

and dramatic.309

Dire necessi ty made Coleridge real ize that modern drama re -

quired more than character-analysis . I t needed plo t , and a

simple in teres t together with a deeper feel ing. Necessity drove

him to attempt drama-writing although his sympathies were not

with the acted play. In the same l e t t e r Coleridge comments on

his proposed plan of writing his tor ical plays:

08In her ar t ic le , "Wordsworth's Relation to Coleridge's Osorio",

Hamilton points out connections between Osorio and threecharacter is t ic poems by Wordsworth-- 11 The Id io t Boy 11 , "The Blind

Boy", and 11 Ruth. 11

09Griggs, 11 Coleridge and Byron", p. 1089.



135

During my stay in London I mentioned to Mr.Arnold or Mr. Rae my intention of presentingthree old plays adapted to the present stage.The f i r s t was Richard the Second--perhaps themost admirable of Shakespeare's his tor ica lplays, but from the length of the speeches,

the entire absence of female Interest , and(with one splendid exception) i t s want ofvisual effect the leas t representable in thepresent s tate of postulate of the stage.310

Here i s Coleridge's more pract ical idea concerning the stage.

I t was more of a condescension than his sincere views on essen-

t i a l s of true drama. Two other intended adaptations are

mentioned:

. . . The second play which I mentioned toMr. Arnold, and I believe to Mr. Rae, was

B and F 's Pilgrim--this I had determinedto rewrite almost entirely , preserving theoutl ine of the Plot ; and the main charactersand to have la id the scene in Ireland; andto have ent i t led i t Love's Metamorphoses . . • .

But the third was that , on which I not onlyla id

the greateststress,

andbui l t most

hope, but which I have more than half written,and could complete

3t£ less than a month, was

the Beggar's Bush.

Of the l as t play Coleridge, character is t ic of his love of preach

ing, says:

. I was struck with the application ofthe Fable to the Present Times.312

Zapola, a romance, was rejected by the Drury Lane

310Ibid.

311Ibid . , p. 1090.

312Ibid.



136

Committee, but was published in 1817. Remorse was presented at

Drury Lane in 1813 with considerable success. The research of

Professor Griggs in 1937 brings to l ight a fragment of an un

published play. Griggs sees in the Diadeste evidence of a

str iv ing on the part of Coleridge to 11 bend h is genius to the

demands of the contemporary theater.n313 I t contains the

Eastern set t ing and the character is t ic romantic extravagance of

the early nineteenth century. Griggs says of Diadeste: 11 The

value of this fragment l ies f i r s t in what i t shows of Coleridge'e

dramatic tendencies and second in i t s occasional poetic l ines.

Throughout his l i f e Coleridge hoped for dramatic success as a

means of emancipating himself from the slavery of hack-writing;

but except for Remorse his attempts were abortive. . •• I am

unable defini tely to date the fragment. The handwriting resem

bles that of the years 1812-20; and very probably the piece was

written when success of Remorse (1813) suggested dramatic writing

as a means of financial independence. 11314

Coleridge's relationship with Hazli t t i s one of influence.

The question of Hazl i t t ' s relat ion to Coleridge and his in

debtedness is evident from the words of Hazli t t himself. In his

lectures on "The English Poets 11 Hazli t t says of Coleridge that he

i s "the only person from whom I ever learnt anything.n315 In

313Modern Philology, 11 Diadeste, a F r ~ m e n t of an Unpublished Pla;yby Samuel Taylor Coleridge", 34:377 {1937).

314Ibid., p. 378.

315wm. Hazli t t , Works, "Lectures on the English Poets11

,

V, p.l67



138

a paral le l in Principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites. But

Miss Schneider observes, "his Hazli t t ' s ear l ies t account of

the faculty borrows interest from the fact that i t preceded by

some years the ear l ies t published remarks on the subject by

Wordsworth and Coleridge. 11319 I t was with the aid of Hazli t t ' s

"br i l l ian t but re luctant and contemptuous discipleship that

Coleridge's lectures in i t ia ted and established the great t radi-

t ion of English Shakespearean criticism.tt320

Characteristic of the romantic c r i t i c , Coleridge t reated

Shakespeare's plays as closet-drama. Raysor affirms regarding

Coleridge's cri t ic ism, "Though Coleridge was capable of excellent

technical dramatic cri t ic ism, his primary point of view as a

cr i t i c was not dramatic but l i terary.t t321 In the Tomalin Report

of the Third Lecture of 1811-12 Series, Coleridge is represented

as having stated defini tely his mode of reasoning: "In speaking

of the dramas of Shakespeare, Coleridge said he should be in

clined to pursue a psychological rather than a his tor ica l mode

of reasoning. 11 322 I t is consequent upon this fact tha t the many

conventions of the drama were of secondary importance. 11 Like

Lamb and Hazl i t t , he did not hesitate to say that he preferred

reading Shakespeare to seeing his plays performed on the stage.

319Schneider, op.c i t . , p. 99.

320Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. lx i .

321Ibid . , p . l i v .

322Ibid . , I I , p. 96.



139

Closet-drama i s not an anomaly in ar t , as we have sometimes

heard, but i t is certainly not animated by the purposes of

Shakespeare. The resul t of such crit icism i s always to subordi

nate plot to character, that i s , to cr i t ic ize plays as i f they

novels, and to forget the numerous conventions of the drama

or the sake of psychology. With the best modern natura l is t ic

as for example with Ibsen, this i s possible; but not with

Shakespeare f i l led his plays with condensed mean-

which can be fully comprehended only by means of detailedbut his central intention was not esoteric. The dramatist

o writes with fu l l knowledge of the theater , and with actual

on the stage as his f i r s t and chief objective--and

th is i s the case with Shakespeare--must adapt the general

of the play to the comprehension of the groundlings, and

as l i t t l e regard for the paradoxes and hidden meanings beloved

f scholars and cr i t ics .n323

A deficiency of Coleridge's crit icism i s his lack of his

knowledge. Although Coleridge was a "vigorous exponent

f the his tor ica l point of view toward Shakespeare 11 ,324 he was

often l imited by his actual knowledge of Elizabethan drama

was wide but not always accurate nor detai led. Coleridge

the plays of Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger

23Ibid . , I , p. lv .

24Ibid.



140

as i s evident from his frequent successful comparisons of these

dramatists with Shakespeare. In his desire to prove that

Shakespeare was superior to his age, Col.eridge seems to set

Shakespeare up as "a f inal cr i ter ion of the drama.n325

Coleridge's f ie ld lay in psychological analysis, the best

of which i s his study of Hamlet. "At every turn of his acute

psychological analysis , he generalizes his perceptions of univer

sal qual i t ies in human nature, which may be read, as in the

analysis of Edmund's shame, which generates the gui l t . . . with

out the need of reference to Shakespeare's plays. u326 Coleridge's

analysis of Hamlet i s , as Raysor sta tes, "probably the most in -

f luent ia l piece of Shakespearean crit icism which has even been

produced. 11 327 Miss Snyder, in a more detailed study of

Coleridge's crit icism, asserts , "Coleridge's l i te rary crit icism

owes much of i t s significance to keen psychological analysis.tt328

There i s evident in much of his crit icism anticipations of our

modern psychological point of view. He discusses characters

rather in terms of v i ta l act ivi ty than states facts about their

external actions. This i s the tendency of the modern psycholo

Many of Coleridge's comments show that he t r ied 11 to do

325Ibid . , I , P· xlv.

26Ibid . , I , p. 1.

27Ibid . , I , p. l i i .

28Modern Language Notes. "A Note on Coleridge's Shakespearean

Criticism", 38:23-33, (1923) .



141

away with philosophic dualism, to prove to himself that extremes

do meet, to reconcile opposites. This i s entirely natural for

the contemporary thought tendency referred to i s real ly the

modern, psychological rather than metaphysical, way of resolving

dualism. I t shows i t se l f as the attempt, now to explain the ob

jective or external-- real i ty as grasped by the in te l lect - - in

terms of vi ta l act iv i ty ; now to explain the conscious in terms

of the subconscious; and now to explain the pathological in t e r m ~of the normal, and the destructive in terms of the constructive

or creative. 11 329 Many of Coleridge's comments f ind paral le ls in

the f ie ld of modern psychology, especially that of abnormal

psychology. When Coleridge describes Shakespeare's characters

as 11 the representat ives of the inter ior nature of humanity, in

which some element has become so predominant as to destroy the

health of the mind 11,

330 he i s anticipating modern psychologists.

"This very statement", Miss Snyder points out , 11 i s 'a significant

anticipation of the view of one of our contemporary psychologiste

who note that among others Iago, Richard I I I , Macbeth, Hamlet,

Anthony, and Timon can a l l be studied l ike patients suffering

from neuroses•." 331

Again and again Coleridge manifests a tendency to use

329Ibid . , p. 23.

330As quoted in Snyder, "A Note on Coleridge's Shakespeareancr i t ic ism," p. 25.

331Ibid . , p. 25.



142

Shakespeare's characters as means to propound his theory and as

such his crit icism loses in dramatic value. As a dramatic

cr i t i c he offers very l i t t l e that i s of pract ical value to the

stage cr i t i c . His mass of cr i t i ca l matter may serve as a text

of crit icism to the l i te rary student.

With a l l Coleridge's deficiencies even the most fast idious

acknowledge him a master cr i t i c . Raysor, who perhaps has

the best comprehensive study of him, summarizes Coleridge's

in these words:11In rich ethical reflectiveness, in

sensit iveness of poetic imagination, and above a l l , in

insight into human nature, Coleridge is a cr i t i c worthy

f his place a t the head of English crit icism of Shakespeare.

greates t of English creative writers received his due t r ib

te from the greates t of English cr i t ics . 11 332

The story of Coleridge's private l i f e i s one of weakness

nd fai lure. No other man of h is time possessed greater gi f t s

he did, yet he was his own greatest enemy. His was the

born of suffering: while his body succumbed to mortal

his soul ever hungered af ter eterni ty . There are

who condemn Coleridge a dreamer, a fai lure; theirs is a

that bears deeper penetrat ion. Paradoxical as i t may

out of the fa i lure of his l i f e - - i f i t be so--sprang a new

in English poetry and crit icism.

32Shakespearean Criticism, I , p. lx i .



CONCLUSION

Coleridge attempted to bridge the gap between the world of

rea l i ty and the world of ideal i ty . He was torn between sent i

mentalism and materialism, but managed, unlike Blake, to

staoi l ize his explorations through a discipline that was almost

incompatible with his original genius. In Coleridge's body of

crit icism there i s a balance of the old with the new. He was

imbued with the ideas of Plato and the Cambridge Platonis ts and

the German t ranscendentalists; therefore, eighteenth-century

made no appeal to him. He looked with skepticism

the idea l i s t ' s theories. The universe that exis ts outside

f man i s not the l imit of man's experience. Mind's creative

can not adquately explain the existence of apparent

Coleridge constructed his whole philosophical system

the theory that mind has a being because i t recognizes i t -

Mind i s object and subject at one and the same time.

possesses a faculty and a state of being. Since se lf -

man to recognize what i s within as well as

is without, the reason i s independent of the senses. Be

mind and sense, therefore, Coleridge recognizes a higher

n d a lower reason; the f i r s t is the divine or spir i tua l ; the

i s the power of intel lectualizing on the material that i s

the senses. Below the two is the understanding, a



145

b e c o ~ e s self-conscious and thus derives the nature of the uni

verse. Within man himself, man finds the divine. In th is way

the reason r ises to genuine universals , to eternal t ru ths .

Thus far Coleridge's ideas were similar to Kant's . Kant

believed that the human mind could not arr ive at a knowledge of

God. Coleridge leaned toward a mystical interpretation of the

universe; consequently, in his system of thought Christ ianity

harmonized with phiiosophy and the essential doctrines of

Christ ianity were eternal truths of the reason . The God whomthe reason thus recognized was active throughout the universe.

t was God who had created in everything--in nature, in man, in

society, past and present-- i t s essent ia l idea and man's reason

find in each i t s purpose and destiny.

When Coleridge says that Shakespeare i s a dramatic poet, he

that the poet himself does not speak or appear in his own

but carries on the action by agents who display, not the

individual thoughts and ideas, but universals embodied in

and types. Characters grow out of the natura

the l iv ing, divine nature of the universe.

There is a war between the creative power and the in te l lec

energy. In the drama Coleridge conceived of these two as

They may be considered as opposite analytical tend

that waylay the outburst of language. I t i s in the

of the two that Shakespeare's power as a dramatist l i es ,

nd in that fusion we find the keynote of Coleridge's idea of the



BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coleridge's Works

Anima Poetae. Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge. Boston,1895.

Biofraphia Epistolar is . Edited by A. Turnball. In two volumesondon, 1911.

Biographia Literar ia . Edited by John Shawcross. In twovolumes. Oxford, 1907.

Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism.Middleton Raysor. In two volumes.

Edited by ThomasCambridge, 1930.

His Own Times. Edited by Sara Coleridge. In threevolumes. London, 1850.

Toward the Formation of a More ComB!ehensive Theory ofLife. Edited by S. B. Watson. London, 1849. ·

on Shakespeare and Other Poets. Edited by A. TurnballLondon, 1914.

of Samuel Taylor C o l e r i ~ . Edited by Ernest HartleyColeridge. In two volumes. London, 1895.

R e m a i n ~ . Edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge. In twovolumes. London, .1836.

Aesthetic and Literary. Edited by Thomas Ashe.London, 1885.

and Lectures upon Shakespeare and Some of the Old Poets

and Dramatists with Other Literary Remains of Coleridge.Edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge. Yn two volumes. London,1849.

and Omniana. Edited by Thomas Ashe. London, 1885.

Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Editedby Derwent Coleridge. London, 1871.

Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor C o l e r i d g ~ . Editedby Ernest Hartley Coleridge. In two volumes. Oxford, 1912.



149

The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited byW. G. T. Shedd. In seven volumes. New York, 1884.

The Friend. Edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge. London, 1844.

The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited byJ . R. Osgood. In three· volumes. Boston, 1871.

Beers, H. A.

Century.

Other References

A History of English Romanticism in the EighteenthNew York, 1910.

- - - - - A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century.New

York, 1910.

Bernbaum, Ernest. Guide Through the Romantic Movement. In fivevolumes. New York, 1933.

Blanchard, Frederic T. 11 Coleridge's Estimate of Fielding 11,

Modern Philology, 10:153-63 (1922).

Bosanquet, Bernard. A History of Aesthetics. London, 1892.

Bowles, W. L. "Coleridge and Arnold", Sewanee Review, 30:454-

461 (December, 1922).

Bradley, A. C. English Poetry and German Philosophy in the Ageof Wordsworth. Manchester, England, 1909.

Brandl, Aloia. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English RomanticSchool. London, 1887.

- - - - - "Shakespeare and Germany", Third Annual Shakespeare Lee- ·ture, Proceedings of the Brit ish Academy (July 1, 1913).

Brooks, Benjamin Gilbert. 11 Coleridge's Poetical Technique, AStudy", Life and Letters , 10:594-608 (August, 1934).

Butcher, Samuel Henry. Aris to t le ' s Theory of P o e t r ~ a n d FineArt. London, 1895.

Caine, Hall. Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. London, 1887.

Campbell, James Dykes. Samuel TaYlor Coleridge, A Narrative ofthe Events of His Life. London, 1896.



151

Hamilton, Marie Padgett . "Wordsworth's Relation to Coleridge'sOsorio", Studies in Philology, 34:429-43? (July, 193?).

Haney, John Louis. A Bibliography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Philadelphia, 1903.

Hazli t t , William. "Lectures on the English Poets", Works.Vol. V. London, 1890.

Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich. The Introduction to the H i s t ~of Fine Art. Translated with notes and prefatory essay byB. Bosanquet. London, 1905.

Herrick, Marvin Theodore. "The Poetics of Aristotle inEngland", Cornell Studies in English, 1?:141-14? (New Haven,1930).

Howard, Claud. Coleridge's Idealism: A Study of i t s Relationship to Kant and to the Cambridge Platonis ts . Boston, 1924.

Helmholtz, Anna Augusta. "The Indebtedness of Samuel TaylorColeridge to August Wilhelm Von Schlegel", Bullet in of theUniversity of Wisconsin, Philological and Literary Series ,3:2?3-3?0. June, 190?.

J . "Coleridge's Crit ical Terminology", Essays andStudies by Members of The English Association. Oxford, 1936.

Kaufman, P. "The Reading of Southey and Coleridge; The Recordof Their Borrowings from the Bris tol L i b r a r y ~ 1?93-1?98 11

,

Modern Philology, 21:31?-320 (February, 1924;.

Kingsmill, Hugh. 11 Samuel Taylor Coleridge", The English Review,59:53-58 (July, 1934).

Knight, William Angus. C o l e r i ~ e and Wordsworth in the WestCountry, Their F r i e n d s h i p ~ ~ r k , and Surroundings. London,1913.

Emile and Cazamian, Louis. A History of English Crit i cism. New York, 1930.

Lehman, Benjamin H. "A Paragraph Deleted by Coleridge", ModernLanguage Notes, 39:58-59 (January, 1924).

Lovejoy, A. 0. "On the Discrimination of Romanticism", Publicat ions of the Modern Language Association. XXXIX, (1924),229-54.



152

Lovejoy, A. 0. The Revolt against Dualism. Chicago, 1926.

- - - - - "Nature as an Aesthetic Norm", Modern Language Notes,XLII (1927), 444 f f .

Lowes, John Livingston.of the Imagination.

The Road to Xanadu: A Study in the WaysNew York, 1927.

Mackall, J . W. Coleridge's Literary Criticism. London, 1931.

Morley, Edith J . Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth Lamb, etc.Being Selections from the Remains of Henry Crabb Robinson.London, 1922.

- - - - - "Coleridge and Germany (1799) 11, Mercury, 23:554-565

(April, 1931) . ·

Morrill , Dorothy. "Coleridge's Theory of Dramatic I l lusion",Publications of the Modern Language Association, 42:436-444\November, 1927).

Muirhead, John H. Coleridge as Philoso£her. New Y o r ~ , 1930.

Nettlesheim, Josephine. 11 Das Erl2>schen von Coleridge's'd ichterischer Produktion' urn 1800 11

, Archiv. 146:213-222(1923).

Newdick, Rober ts . "Coleridge on Hazlit t" , Texas Review,9:294-300 (July, 1924).

Nicoll , Allardyce. A History of Early Nineteenth Century Drama(1800-1850). Cambridge, 1930.

Partr idge, E. "General Movement of Criticism since 1798 11,

Contemporary, 131:747-755 (June, 1927).

Potter , Stephen. Minnows among Tritons; Mrs. S.T.Coleridge'sLetters to Thomas Poole, 1799-1834. London, 1934.

Powell, A. E. (Mrs. Dodds). The Romantic Theorz of P o e t r ~ .London, 1926.

Prideaux, William Francis. The B i b l i o g r ~ of Coleridge.London, 1900.

Raleigh, Sir Walter. Six Essgys on Johnson. Oxford, 1910.



153

Raysor, Thomas Middleton. 11 Diadeste, a Fragment of an Unpub-l ished Play by Samuel Taylor Coleridge 11

, Modern Philologl.34:377-380. (May, 1937).

----- 11Some Marginalia on Shakspere 11

, Publications of ModernAssociations. 42:762 (March, 1927).

- - - - - "Unpublished Fragments on Aesthetics by s. T. Coleridge",Studies in Philologl . 22:529-37 (October, 1925).

Reynolds, Myra. The Treatment of Nature in English Poetry between Pope and Wordsworth. Chicago, 1899.

Richards, I . A. Coleridge on Imagination. London, 1934.

Richardson, William. Essays on Shakespeare's Dramatic Characterof Sir John Falstaff and on h is Imitation of Female Charac

ters . London, 1789. ·

Ritter , Otto. "Coleridgiana", Englische Studien. 58:368-389(1924).

Robertson, J . G. The Reconciliation of Classic and Romantic.Cambridge, England, 1925.

Sch&tze, Martin. 11 Romantic Motives of Conduct in ConcreteDevelopment", Modern Philologl, 16:281-285 ( - - - - , 1918-1919).

Shanks, Edward.11The Poetic Imagination", Merourl, 16:504-511(September, 1927).

Shearer, Edna Aston. "Wordsworth and Coleridge Marginalia in acopy of Richard Payne Knight's Analytical Inquiry into thePrinciples of Taste", Huntington Librar l guarter l l , 5:63-99(California, 1937).

Sherwood, Margaret, Coleridge's Imaginative Conception of theImagination. Wellesley, 1937.

- - - - - Undercurrents of Influence in English Romantic Poetrz.Wellesley, 1935.

Snyder, Alice D. "Coleridge's Cosmogeny: a Note on the PoeticWorld-View." Studies in Philologz. 21:616-625 (October,1924).

- - - - - "A Note on Coleridge's Shakespeare Criticism 11, Modern

~ a n g u a g e Notes, 38:23-31 (January, 1923).

- - - - - "Books Borrowed by Coleridge from the Library of theUniversity of Gattingen 11

, 25:377-80 (February, 1928).



154

- - - - - "Coleridge's Reading of Mendelsohn's 'Morgenstunden' and'Jeru.salem' . " Journal of English and German Philology,28:503-517 (October, 1929).

- - - - - "Coleridge's Theory of Life", Modern Language Notes, 47:

299-301 (May, 1926).

- - - - - The Principle of the Reconciliation of Opposites. Ann

Arbor, 1918.

Spingarn, J . E. "A Note on Dramatic Criticism 11, Essays and

Studies by Members of the English Association. Oxford, 1909.

Stokoe, F. W. German Influence in the Epglish Romantic Period,1788-1818. Cambridge, 1926.

Symons, Arthur. The Romantic Movement in English Poetry.London, 1909.

Taylor, w.· F. Crit ical Annotations of Samuel Taylor Coleridge;Being Marginal Notes Inscribed inVolumes Formerly in thePossession of Coleridge. Harrow, 1889.

Thompson, Frank T. "Emerson's Indebtedness to Coleridge",Studies in PhilolQgl, 23:55-76 (January, 1926).

Wordsworth, William. The Complete Poetical Works, CambridgeEdition, New York, 1904.

Wylie, Laura Johnson. Studies in the Evolution of EnglishCr_!ticism. Boston, 1894.



The thesis "Coleridge's Idea of' the Drama as a Basis

of His Shakespearean Criticism, 11 written by Sister Virgina

See.bert,s.c., has been accepted by the Graduate School

with reference to for.m, and by the readers whose naL•es

appear below, with reference to content. I t is therefore

accepted in partie.l fulfilment of the requirements for the

Coleridges Idea of the Drama as the Basis of His Shakespearean C

Documents

Transcript of Coleridges Idea of the Drama as the Basis of His Shakespearean C