PAGE 202 1. 8. as a repetition, &c. Sara Coleridge (Biog. Lit. 1847, i. 297) records that she finds this sentence 'stroked out in a copy of the B. L. containing a few marginal notes of the author, which are printed in this edition'." She adds, 'I think it best to preserve the sentence while I mention the author's judgement upon it, especially as it has been quoted.' Probably Coleridge felt that the ideas which the sentence suggested were incongruous with the rest of the passage. 12. differing only in degree, &c. The distinction appears to be this. The primary imagination is the organ of common per ception, the faculty by which we have experience of an actual world of phenomena. The secondary imagination is the same power in a heightened degree, which enables its possessor to see the world of our common experience in its real significance. And the creations of art are the embodiment of this vision. Cp. the opening words of Schelling's Introduction to his Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie (1799): 'Intelligence is productive in twofold wise, either blindly and unconsciously, or with freedom and consciousness; unconsciously productive in the perception of the universe, consciously in the creation of an ideal world.' 16. objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead. Thus Coleridge wrote in 1802 (Letters, p. 405) that to the Greeks, owing to their lack of imagination, 'all objects were dead, mere hollow statues. Cp. Schelling, Abhandlungen, &c. (Werke, I. 367): 'An object is something dead and motionless which, itself incapable of action, is only the object (Gegenstand) of action.' 18. Fancy, on the contrary, has no other counters. Cp. Wordsworth's Preface to Poems of 1815 (O. W., p. 957): 'Fancy does not require that the materials she makes use of should be susceptible to change in their constitution from her touch: and, where they admit of modification, it is enough for her purpose if it be slight, limited, and evanescent. Directly the reverse of these are the desires and demands of the Imagination. She recoils from everything but the plastic, the pliant, and the indefinite.' 28. the critical essay on the uses of the Supernatural. This essay, which was projected as early as 1801 (see Letters, p. 349: I shall, therefore, as I said, immediately publish my 'Christabel', with two essays annexed to it, on the 'Preternatural' and on 'Metre') was never written, or at least never completed. Another project of Coleridge's was to prefix to Sibylline Leaves an essay of forty pages on the Imaginative in poetry'; this, too, came to nothing (Life, p. 233). Coleridge appears to have lectured on the romantic use of the Supernatural in Lecture XI of the course of 1818 (see Prospectus, Lectures, p. 173). Oxford: Printed at the Clarendon Press by HORACE HART, M.A. The borrower must return this item on or before the last date stamped below. If another user places a recall for this item, the borrower will be notified of the need for an earlier return. Non-receipt of overdue notices does not exempt the borrower from overdue fines. Harvard College Widener Library Cambridge, MA 02138 617-495-2413 WIDT WIPEN 2005 SEP 19 2005 CANCELLED ΑΛΛΑ Please handle with care. Thank you for helping to preserve library collections at Harvard. |