By S. T. COLERIDGE EDITED WITH HIS AESTHETICAL ESSAYS BY J. SHAWCROSS VOLUME II OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS OR Biographical Sketches OF MY LITERARY LIFE AND OPINIONS. BY S. T. COLERIDGE, Esq. VOL. II. LONDON: REST FENNER, 23, PATERNOSTER ROW BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA CHAPTER XIV Occasion of the Lyrical Ballads, and the objects originally proposed-Preface to the second edition-The ensuing controversy, its causes and acrimony-Philosophic definitions of a poem and poetry with scholia. DURING the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbours, 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, 5 and the power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of imagination. The sudden charm, which accidents of light and shade, which moon-light or sun-set diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to represent the practicability of combining both. These are 10 the poetry of nature. The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, the incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the 15 affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. And real in this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency. For the 20 second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life; the characters and incidents were to be such, as will be found in every village and its vicinity, where there is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them, when they present themselves. 25 In this idea originated the plan of the "Lyrical Ballads"; COLERIDGE 11 |
