Coleridge's view on poem and poetry, a critical analysis

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name- solanki Mayuri m. 

Roll no - 28

Year- 2017- 19

Paper- literary theory and criticism 
Topic - Coleridge view on poem and poetry a critical analysis 
Email - mayuribensolanki24@gmail.com 
Enrolment no -20691020180050
Submitted - department of English maharajah krushnkumarsinhji  bhavnager university 

Introduction: 
        Coleridge is poet and philosopher. The work of Coleridge naturally divided into three classes;

         His poem synthesis poet’s emotion feeling. Coleridge is more musical than Wordsworth. In his poem include Imagination is very important for Coleridge  poem is synthetic and magical power. The difference is between the combination of those elements and objects. A poem has well known rhyme like of the days in the several months

Thirty days hath September

April June and November

              Coleridge was deals with persons and character supernaturalAccording to Coleridge he also says that Distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself which sustains and modifies thoughts and emotions of the poet own mind

Poetry for Coleridge is an activity of the poet mind. The poem is merely one of the forms of its expression; According to Coleridge poetry should be best world in best order and it delight from the harmonious whole

Poetry

Arch (1798)
Arch (1800)
Biographia Literaria (1907)
Christabel: Kubla Khan, a Vision; The Pains of Sleep (1816)
Fears in Solitude (1798)
Lyrical Ballads, with a few Other Poems (1798)
Poems (1803)
Poems on Various Subjects (1796)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Oxford Authors (1985)
Selections from the Sybilline Leaves of S. T. Coleridge (1827)
Sibylline Leaves: A Collection of Poems (1817)
Sonnets from various authors(1796)
The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1969)
The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1912)
The Devil's Walk: A Poem (1830)
The Literary Remains in Prose and Verse of Samuel Taylor Coleridge(1839)
The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge (1828)

Prose

A Moral and Political Lecture(1795)
Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character (1825)
Biographia Literaria, or Biographical Sketches of my Literary Life and Opinions (1817)
Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1973)
Conciones ad Populum, or Addresses to the People (1795)
Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit(1841)
Essays on His Own Times; forming a second series of "The Friend,"(1850)
Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive Theory of Life (1848)
On the Constitution of Church and State (1830)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Selected Letters (1987)
Seven Lectures upon Shakespeare and Milton (1856)
Specimens of the Table Talk of the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge(1835)
The Friend: A Literary, Moral, and Political Weekly Paper (1810)
The Friend; A Series of Essays(1812)
The Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1895)
The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1957)
The Philosophical Lectures of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1949)
The Plot Discovered, or an Address to the People Against Ministerial Treason (1795)
The Statesman's Manual, or The Bible the Best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight: A Lay Sermon(1816)
Unpublished Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1932)
Zapolya: A Christmas Tale (1817)

Drama

Remorse, A Tragedy, in Five Acts(1813)
The Fall of Robespierre. An Historic Drama (1794)

Periodicals

The Watchman: A Periodical Publication (1796)

Coleridge’s critical analysis about the poem and poetry:

                  his work Biographia Literaria is a great literary work, it has occupied a permanent position in the whole range of English literary criticism and the critic discusses many important points form that. He has drawn some striking difference between poem and poetry. How.   ever at the end of it we are not absolutely sure about the exact remarking between poem and poetry in its essence they are supposed to be the same.

                 In chapter he puts a large number of questions regarding the nature and function of poetry and later on he answered them. He believes that metre is considered to be essential part of poetry but not come up with exact definition of the poetry. His comments on poem and poetry are artistic philosophical and psychological.

                      At first it is necessary to know how Coleridge distinguishes a poem from prose composition. Coleridge says that a poem contains the elements as a prose composition. Both of them use words so there is no difference between a poem and a prosooe composition, in this respect Coleridge says a poem contains the same elements as a prose compositio but one difference is to be noticed here that metre or rhyme both is used in the poem and they are not used in prose composition.

According to Coleridge the immediate purpose of a poem is to give pleasure to the reader and another thing is that everything else in the poem is supposed to be secondary it means Coleridge prime aim is reader. On the other side the immediate purpose is to communicate truth a poem must possess an organic unity wherein metre, rhyme everything is used in a poem an artistic way while they are not used in the prose. Is metre is used superficially it can be a po - em but a poem cannot please us if there is no organic unity Coleridge thinks the main aim of poetry is only one and that is to give pleasure.

                On the other hand Coleridge does not regard metre as essential for poetry he clearly says that poetry of highest kind may exist without metre

                     He also believes that metre to be useful and necessary for writing poetry he refers to Plato, Burnet, Jeremy who wrote without metre. Coleridge believes that rhyme and metre are essential in order to memorize what is written and to develop a certain kind of attachment to it by getting the feeling of the words through a particular rhyme or rhythm.

               Coleridge distinguishes a poem from in his Biographia Literaria by saying that poetry is a wider than a poem poetry is an activity of poet’s min but a poem is merely one of the form of expression. Poetic creativity is basically an activity of imagination he identifies imagination with the soul of poetry.

                                 This distinction between poetry an poem is not clear to the core we are left with more questions than answers at the end of it we find to sum up we can say that Coleridge’s distinction between poem and poetry is not clear enough by the word poetry he means all kind of imaginative activity. Only in his sen -se he has drawn a distinction between a ‘poem’ and ‘poetry’

                          A poem according to Coleridge contains the same elements as a prose composition because both using the words. The difference between a poem and a prose composition cannot then lay in the medium for each employs the same medium

It must therefore consist in a different combination of them in consequent of a different object being proposed

Further he says that a poem is that species of composition which is opposed to works of science by proposing for its immediate obj
- ect pleasure not truth

       

                               Coleridge gives no real justification of the old statement of a poem of any length neither can be or ought to be all poetry poetry for Coleridge is a wider category than that of a poem.

  Poetry is a kind of activity which can be engaged in painters or philosophers or scientists and is not confined to those who employ metrical language or even to those who employ language of any kind;poetry in this larger sense brings the whole soul of the man into activity with each faculty playing its proper part according to its relative worth and dignity. This take place whenever the secondary imaginationcomes into operation.

                        

                   Coleridge points out that poetry of the highest kind may exist without metre and even without the contradistinguishing objects of a poem. The quality of the prose in this writings is equal to that of high poetry; he also asserts that the po.  - em of any length neither can be nor ought to be all poetry, then the question is what the poetry i How is it different from poem

To quote Coleridge what is poetry Is so nearly the same question with that what is poem? 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,thought,emotions of the poet’s own mind thus the difference between poem and poetry is not given in clear terms.

“This distinction between ‘poetry’ and ‘poem’ is not clear, and instead of defining poetry he proceeds to describe a poet, and from the poet he proceeds to enumerate the characteristics of the imagination

                                  This is so because poetry for Coleridge is an activity of the poet’s mind and poem is merely one of the form of expression, a verbal expression of that activity and poetic activity is basically an activity of imagination, imagination is the prime source for the poet without that poet cannot write.

      

       Poem is nature function as Coleridge explaining his idea and view towards it by saying that poem is a heart of reality work that po. - etry convey the feeling by rhyme and that took place as golden shield. A poem therefore may be defined as species of composition which is opposed to works of science by proposing for its immediate object pleasure not truth and from all other species it is discriminated by proposing to itself such delight fro. m the whole as it compatible with a distinct gratification from each component part.

 Conclusion:

                            According to Coleridge he says poem and poetry is not any length he given a new criticism and this was pro - vide by Coleridge in the ‘Biographia Literaria.’ Biographia Literaria is a fashion of autobiography, literary criticism and philosophical theory. Fact and fiction both are very important part of liter - ature thus Coleridge is the first English critic based his literary criticism on philosophical principles.

For him ‘art is more important’ than any other thing.

 Work sited -

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https://googleweblight.com/i?u=https://m.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/samuel-taylor-coleridge&grqid=55NzcjEz&hl=en-In