Theories British of Poetry II: Romanticism A Study of Manifestos
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Manifesto:
document that defends a major shift in thinking (philosophical defense of new thought and writing)
Themes that Unify Romantic Manifestos
1)
Centrality of Imagination Role of the Poet Prophet Redemptive Power of Poetry
2)
3)
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Biographia Literaria
S a m u e l T a y l o r
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[474]
Biographia Literaria
It was the union of deep feeling with profound thought; the fine balance of truth in observing with the imaginative faculty in modifying the objects observed; and above all the original gift of spreading the tone, the atmosphere, and with it the depth and height of the ideal world, around forms, incidents, and situations of which, for the common view, custom had bedimmed all the luster, had dried up the sparkle and the dewdrops.
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Biographia Literaria
To find no contradiction in the union of old and new, to contemplate the Ancient of Days and all his works with feelings as fresh as if all had then sprang forth at the first creative fiat, characterizes the mind that feels the riddle of the world and may help to unravel it. To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood; to combine the childs sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every
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Biographia Literaria
And therefore it is the prime merit of genius, and its most unequivocal mode of manifestation, so to represent familiar objects as to awaken in the minds of others a kindred feeling concerning them, and that freshness of sensation which is the constant accompaniment of mental no less than bodily convalescence. (476)
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Biographia Literaria
The IMAGINATION, then, I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary I consider as an echo the of former, coexisting with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates in order to recreate; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still, at all events, it struggles to idealize and unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead. [477]
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Biographia Literaria
During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbors, our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of imagination. [478]
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Biographia Literaria
[The imagination] reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the general, with the concrete; the idea, with the image; the individual, with the representative; the sense of novelty and freshness, with old and familiar objects; a more than usual state of emotion, with more than usual order; judgment ever awake and steady self-possession, with enthusiasm
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Biographia Literaria
The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other, according to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity that blends and (as it were) fuses, each to each, by that synthetic and magical power to which we have exclusively appropriated the name of imagination. [482]
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Summary
Coleridge: Biographia Literaria
Man is an echo of Gods IMAGINATION Poetry should adhere to the truth of nature The truth should be colored by IMAGINATION The poet is a prophetic figure Novelty or freshness of perception Poetry is healing and even redemptive
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Questions or Comments?
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