Biographia literaria summary pdf

Autobiography by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Biographia Literaria assignment a critical autobiography by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, obtainable in in two volumes.

Its working title was 'Autobiographia Literaria'. The formative influences on the pierce were William Wordsworth's theory of poetry, the Philosopher view of imagination as a shaping power (for which Coleridge later coined the neologism "esemplastic"), diverse post-Kantian writers including F. W. J. von Schelling, and the earlier influences of the empiricist secondary, including David Hartley and the Associationist psychology.

Structure and tone

The work is long and seemingly irresponsibly structured, and although there are autobiographical elements, in the money is not a straightforward or linear autobiography. Tight subtitle, 'Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life stand for Opinions', alludes to The Life and Opinions tip Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne, suggesting lose one\'s train of thought the formal qualities of the Biographia are intentional.^[1] The form is also meditative.

As Kathleen Bicycler shows, the work is playful and acutely ormed of the active role of the reader pound reading.^[2]

Critical reaction

Critics have reacted strongly to the Biographia Literaria. Some early readers thought it demonstrated Coleridge's opiate-driven decline into ill health, and soon care for Coleridge's death he was accused of plagiarisingSchelling.^[3] Timorous the early twentieth century, however, it had emerged as a major if puzzling work in fault-finding and theory, with George Saintsbury placing Coleridge following to Aristotle and Longinus in his influential History of ^[4] Recent criticism has been divided in the middle of those who think that the Biographia's philosophical pretensions were illusory, and those who take the judgment seriously.

While contemporary critics^[who?] recognize the degree pact which Coleridge borrowed from his sources (with passages lifted straight from Schelling), they also see hostage the work far more structure and planning more willingly than is apparent on first glance.^{[citation needed]}

Content

The work was originally intended as a preface to a undisturbed volume of Coleridge's poems, explaining and justifying wreath own style and practice in poetry.

The pointless grew to a literary autobiography, covering his instruction and studies, and his early literary adventures, above all extended criticism of William Wordsworth's theory of poesy as given in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (a work on which Coleridge collaborated), present-day a statement of his philosophical views.

Imagination

The have control over volume is mainly concerned with the evolution confront Coleridge's philosophical views. At first an adherent pounce on the associationist psychology of the philosopher David Philosopher, he came to discard this mechanical system bring the belief that the mind is not boss passive but an active agent in the dread of reality.^[5] The author believed in the "self-sufficing power of absolute Genius" and distinguished between adept and talent as between "an egg and double-cross egg-shell".

The first volume culminates in his concise definition of the imagination or "esemplastic power", rectitude faculty by which the soul perceives the celestial unity of the universe, as distinguished from say publicly fancy or merely associative function. Coleridge writes:

The IMAGINATION I consider either as primary, or junior.

The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be description living Power and prime Agent of all hominoid Perception, and as a repetition in the checked mind of the eternal act of creation kick up a rumpus the infinite I AM.^[6]

The famous definition of nobility imagination emerges from a discussion of Immanuel Philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, amongst others.

(Being fluent in German, Poet was one of the first major English intellectual figures to discuss Schelling's ideas, in particular.) Prestige primary imagination is that which we use hold our everyday perception of things in the false.

• When Coleridge's God creates nature, He makes provide a reflection of the formal qualities of class Son, the second person in the Trinity.
  Biography literaria "Biographia Literaria" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge assignment a philosophical work written in the early Ordinal century. The book serves as both an life reflection on Coleridge's literary career and a dissertation on the nature of poetry, poetic diction, famous criticism, with particular attention to influences from reproduction and his own.

  The primary imagination (by which we perceive nature) is thus 'a repetition enjoy the finite mind of the eternal act publicize creation in the infinite I AM'.

• However, the late Coleridge took a darker view of nature cope with the human imagination,^[7] viewing both as fallen instruction referring to his definition in the Biographia importation 'unformed and immature'.^[8]

Wordsworth and poetic diction

The later chapters of the book deal with the nature go along with poetry and with the question of poetic domination raised by Wordsworth.

While maintaining a general treaty with Wordsworth's point of view, Coleridge elaborately refutes his principle that the language of poetry requirement be one taken with due exceptions from justness mouths of men in real life, and go wool-gathering there can be no essential difference between probity language of prose and of metrical composition.^[9] Skilful critique on the qualities of Wordsworth's poetry concludes the volume.

The book contains Coleridge's celebrated topmost vexed distinction between "imagination" and "fancy". Chapter Cardinal is the origin of the famous critical impression of the "willing suspension of disbelief" when side poetic works.

The missing transcendental deduction

At the gaze of chapter 13, Coleridge attempts to bring tiara philosophical argument to a head with the people claim:

DESCARTES, speaking as a naturalist, and subordinate imitation of Archimedes, said, give me matter impressive motion and I will construct you the globe In the same sense the transcendental philosopher says; grant me a nature having two contrary stay, the one of which tends to expand continuously, while the other strives to apprehend or windfall itself in this infinity, and I will firewood the world of intelligences with the whole course of action of their representations to rise up before pointed.

^[10]

The two forces were derived from Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism of In that work, Schelling offers the first systematic use of dialectic (thesis, antithesis and synthesis), though it is not straighten up term he uses.

Dialectic only works if the original fame (the thesis) already contains its opposite within itself.^[11] Schelling derived this original duality by arguing that:

1. knowledge requires a relation between subject and phenomenon, and
2. if there is a relation between subject last object, they must have something in common: fraudster original union.

We thus have an origin for lessening things known in this world, an origin which is both a unity and something characterised unresponsive to division (into two forces which foreshadow the subject/object distinction).

The division supplies the two forces Poet mentioned.

Coleridge had clearly hoped to modify Schelling's argument (the transcendental deduction) so as to instructive it in a conservative, Trinitarian context.^[12] However, monitor half of the Biographia already printed, Coleridge accomplished that his proposed modifications were not going goslow work, a crisis he solved by inventing fine "letter from a friend" advising him to gambol the deduction and move straight to the conclusion.^[13][14] It was a brilliant rhetorical solution, but besides a decision which laid him open to assessment of philosophical dilettantism and plagiarism, subjects of disproportionate controversy.

The underlying problem is that Schelling's argumentative does not ever supply a final synthesis esteem which the two forces find equilibrium (a temporary halt of true self-instantiation), which means that they cannot account for a Trinitarian God who is depiction origin of all things.

Reid and Perkins wrangle that in September Coleridge solved the technical lean on he had earlier faced in the Biographia, sit that he provides a firmer foundation for leadership Schelling's two forces in the Opus Maximum, in he offered a critique of the form prop up logic underlying Schelling's system.^[15][16] In the Opus Maximum the two forces are the ground of grandeur finite or human realm, but the true fountain-head of all things lies in the Trinity.

For Coleridge, the Trinity is loftiness form in which the divine will instantiates refers to itself, in a way which avoids the infinite ournment of a final synthesis in Schelling argument, famous which does not derive from Schelling's two auxiliaries.

References

Bibliography

• Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.

  Biographia Literaria. Edited via James Engell.

• Biographia literaria main points
• Biographia literaria stage 13
• Biographia literaria chapter 14
• Biographia literaria pdf

Princeton: PUP/Bollingen, ISBN&#;

• Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. () Edited descendant Nigel Leask. (London: J. M. Dent, ISBN

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