The thought of Coleridge has to be pursued across stones, ditches, and morasses; with haste, lingering, and disappointment; it turns back, loses itself, fetches wide circuits, and comes to no visible end. But you must follow it step by step; and, if you are ceaselessly attentive, will be ceaselessly rewarded. When Coleridge says, in this book, that "the ultimate end of criticism is much more to establish the principle of writing than to furnish rules how to pass judgment on what has been written by others," he is defining that form of criticism in which he is supreme among critics. Lamb can be more instant in the detection of beauty; Pater can make over again an image or likeness of that beauty which he defines, with more sensitive precision; but no one has ever gone deeper down into the substance of creation itself, or more nearly reached that unknown point where creation begins. As poet, he knows; as philosopher, he understands; and thus, as critic, he can explain almost the origin of creation. ARTHUR SYMONS 66 The Biographia Literaria grew out of a projected preface to what Coleridge meant to call an Autobiographia Literaria: Sketches of my Literary Life and Opinions.” From being the preface, it gradually became the work itself, and that, from being the first volume of an edition of Coleridge's poems, became a separate work in two volumes. It was begun at Calne in the summer of 1815, and finished at Highgate in the following year. In 1817, when the first volume and a part of the second had already been printed, the sheets were transferred from one publisher to another, and the second volume swelled out to the size of the first by extending the criticism of Wordsworth, adding Satyrane's Letters" and the concluding chapter of autobiography, and also the slashing review of Maturin's Bertram, a foolish melodrama which had been played at Drury Lane instead of Coleridge's Zapolya. 66 LIST OF WORKS Greek Prize Ode on the Slave Trade, Cambridge, 1792. Monody on the Death of Chatterton (first draft), 1794. The Fall of Robespierre: An Historic Drama (Coleridge and Southey), 1794. Contributions o The Cambridge Intelligencer and The Morning Chronicle, 1794795. The Watchman, 1796. Poems on Various Subjects, 1796. The Vision of the Maid of Orleans (Southey's Joan of Arc), republished as The Destiny of Nations, 1796. Ode on the Departing Year, 1796. Contributions to The Monthly Magazine, 1796-1797. Fears in Solitude; France, an Ode; Frost at Midnight, 1798. Lyrical Ballads, 1798 (containing "The Ancient Mariner" and other poems). Contributions to The Morning Post, 1798-1802. Poems in Annual Anthology, 1799-1800. Wallenstein (from the German of Schiller), 1800. Contributions in Prose and Verse to The Courier, 1807-1811. The Friend, I June, 1809, to 15 March, 1810. Contributions to Southey's Omniana, 1812. Remorse, 1813 (remodelled from Osorio, written in 1797; pub. 1873). Essays on the Fine Arts (Felix Farley's Bristol Journal, 1814). Christabel; Kubla Khan; Pains of Sleep, 1816 (first and second parts of Christabel written 1797 and 1800). The Statesman's Manual; or, The Bible the Best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight, 1816. Sibylline Leaves, 1817. Zapolya: A Christmas Tale, 1817. Biographia Literaria, 1817. On Method (Essay forming the General Introduction to Encyclopædia Metropolitana, 1817-1818). Contributions to Blackwood's Magazine, 1819-1822. Aids to Reflection, 1825. On the Constitution of the Church and State, 1830. A Moral and Political Lecture, 1795. Conciones ad Populam; or, Addresses to the People, 1795. The Plot Discovered: An Address to the People, 1795. First Collected Edition of Poems and Dramas, 1828. POSTHUMOUS WORKS Specimens of his Table Talk (Edited by H. N. Coleridge), 1835. Letters, Conversations, and Recollections of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Edited by T. Allsop), 1836, 58, 64. Literary Remains (Edited by H. N. Coleridge), 1836-1839. Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (Edited by H. N. Coleridge), 1840. Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive Theory of Life (Edited by S. B. Watson), 1848. Notes and Lectures upon Shakespeare and some of the Old Dramatists (Edited by Sara Coleridge), 1849. Essays on his own Times (Edited by S. Coleridge), 3 vols., 1850. Notes upon English Divines (Edited by Derwent Coleridge), 1853. Notes: Theological, Political, and Miscellaneous (Edited by D. Coleridge), 1853. Lectures on Shakespeare, from Notes by J. P. Collier, 1856. Poetical and Dramatic Works, founded on the Author's latest edition of 1834 (Edited by R. H. Shepherd). 4 vols. London and Boston, 1877-1881. Complete Works (Edited by Professor Shedd), 1884. Miscellanies: Esthetic and Literary (Edited by T. Ashe), 1885. The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Edited by James Dyke Campbell), 1893. Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1785-1834 (Edited by E. H. Coleridge), 2 vols., 1895. CHAPTER CONTENTS I. Motives to the present work-Reception of the Author's first publication-Discipline of his taste at school-Effect of III. The Author's obligations to Critics, and the probable occasion IV. The Lyrical Ballads with the Preface-Mr. Wordsworth's earlier poems-On Fancy and Imagination-The investi- gation of the distinction important to the Fine Arts V. On the law of Association-Its history traced from Aristotle VI. That Hartley's system, as far as it differs from that of Aris- totle, is neither tenable in theory, nor founded in facts VII. of the necessary consequences of the Hartleian Theory-Of the original mistake or equivocation which procured its VIII. The system of Dualism introduced by Des Cartes-Refined first by Spinoza and afterwards by Leibnitz into the doc- trine of Harmonia præstabilita—Hylozoism-Materialism -None of these systems, or any possible theory of Asso- IX. Is Philosophy possible as a science, and what are its con- ditions?-Giordano Bruno-Literary Aristocracy, or the existence of a tacit compact among the learned as a privileged order-The Author's obligations to the Mystics -To Immanuel Kant-The difference between the letter and the spirit of Kant's writings, and a vindication of prudence in the teaching of Philosophy-Fichte's attempt to complete the Critical system-Its partial success and 67 . 71 X. A Chapter of digression and anecdotes, as an interlude pre- ceding that on the nature and genesis of the Imagination or Plastic Power-On Pedantry and pedantic expressions -Advice to young authors respecting publication-Vari- XI. An affectionate exhortation to those who in early life feel themselves disposed to become authors XII. A Chapter of requests and premonitions concerning the XIV. Occasion of the Lyrical Ballads, and the objects originally proposed-Preface to the second edition-The ensuing XV. The specific symptoms of poetic power elucidated in a XVI. Striking points of difference between the Poets of the present age and those of the fifteenth and sixteenth XVII. Examination of the tenets peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth- Rustic life (above all, low and rustic life) especially unfavourable to the formation of a human diction- The best parts of language the product of philosophers, not of clowns or shepherds-Poetry essentially ideal and generic-The language of Milton as much the XVIII. Language of metrical composition, why and wherein essentially different from that of prose-Origin and elements of metre-Its necessary consequences, and XIX. Continuation--Concerning the real object, which, it is XX. The former subject continued-The neutral style, or that XXII. The characteristic defects of Wordsworth's poetry, with the principles from which the judgment, that they are defects, is deduced-Their proportion to the beauties |