Coleridge Biograpgia Literaria Chapters 13 & 14

 

From Biographia Literaria

Chapter 13

Coleridge considers the imagination to be primary or secondary. According to Coleridge, the primary imagination is "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 imagination co-exist with the conscious will. It is an echo of the primary imagination. The secondary imagination will diffuse, dissipate, and dissolve in order to recreate.

From Biographia Literaria

Chapter 14

In this chapter, Coleridge talks about how him and Wordsworth decided that a series of poems may be composed of two sorts. The first would be supernatural and the second would be subjects they chose from ordinary life. This is what led them to the idea of the "Lyrical Ballads." Coleridge was the one who focused on the supernatural while Wordsworth focused on the normal or ordinary. Coleridge talks about how his poems were not as successful as Wordsworth. In the first edition, Wordsworth published 19 of the 23 poems. Coleridge said that his poems made the ballads not flow right.

Coleridge also talks about in this chapter what poetry is. He says "What is poetry? is so nearly the same question with what is a poet? that the answer to the one is involved in the solution of the other. For it is a distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself, which sustains and modifies the images, thoughts and emotions of the poet's own mind." Coleridge talks about what the poet is in ideal perfection. He says that an ideal poet would bring the whole soul of a man into activity. He also says that the ideal poet "diffuses a tone and spirit of unity that blends and fuses by that synthetic and magical power, the imagination."