ASSIGNMENT NO - 3 /Literary Theory & Criticism: WESTERN-1

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Difference between Poem and Poetry: Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Ø Prepared by     : KAVITABA P. GOHIL

Ø Roll No                : 23

Ø Paper – 3            : Literary Theory & Criticism: Western – 1

Ø M.A (English)   :  Sem -1

Ø Enrollment No : 2069108420180018

Ø Batch                   :  2017-19

Ø Email                   : kavitabaprahaladsinhjigohil@gmail.com

Ø Submitted to   :  Smt .S. B Gardi, Department of English,                                                                                               MK Bhavnagar University.

Ø Topic      : Difference between Poem and Poetry: Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

PREFACE:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s critical work is contained in 24 chapters of Biographia Literaria (1815–17). In this critical disquisition, Coleridge concerns himself not only with the practice of criticism, but also, with its theory. In his practical approach to criticism, we get the glimpse of Coleridge the poet; whereas in theoretical discussion, Coleridge the philosopher came to the center stage. In Chapter XIV of Biographia Literaria, Coleridge’s view on nature and function of poetry is discussed in philosophical terms. The poet within Coleridge discusses the difference between poetry and prose, and the immediate function of poetry, whereas the philosopher discusses the difference between poetry and poem.  He was the first English writer to insist that every work of art is, by its very nature, an organic whole. 

COLERIDGE:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher and theologian of the age. He was born at 21 October 1772; Ottery St. Mary, Devon, England. He was very close friend of William Wordsworth. Coleridge was founder of the Romantic Movement in England and also he was member of lake poets. He was well known for his greatest poems like 'the rime of the ancient mariner', "Kubla khan” and 'charitable' as well as the major prose work "biographia literaria". Coleridge was very weak by his health; thus throughout his entire life he faces many difficulties to survive, during his adult life he become victim of anxiety and depression; it has been speculated that he had bipolar disorder, which had not been defined during his lifetime.

His childhood passed through illness of body and thus he always becomes victim of humiliation; he was treated for these conditions with laudanum, thus it brings up lifelong addiction of opium. Critics noted that after addicted opium he stars his literary work it gives him energy and led him towards a new world of novelty; which reflected into his literary works. Over addiction of opium create problems also; thus his mostly works are uncompleted.

HIS LITERARY WORKS:

A current standard edition is The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Kathleen Coburn and many other editors (1969–2002), which appeared (from Princeton University Press and Routledge and Kegan Paul) in Bollingen Series 75, in 16 volumes, broken down as follows into further volumes and parts, to a total of 34 separate printed volumes: (contributors)

1.  [Lectures 1795 on Politics and Religion (1971);

2.  The Watchman (1970);

3.  Essays on his Times in the Morning Post and the Courier (1978) in 3 vols;

4.  The Friend (1969) in 2 vols;

5.  Lectures, 1808–1819, on Literature (1987) in 2 vols;

6.  Lay Sermons (1972);

7.  Biographia Literaria (1983) in 2 vols;

8.  Lectures 1818–1819 on the History of Philosophy (2000) in 2 vols;

9.  Aids to Reflection (1993);

10.     On the Constitution of the Church and State (1976);

11.     Shorter Works and Fragments (1995) in 2 vols;

12.     Marginalia (1980 and following) in 6 vols;

13.     Logic (1981);

14.     Table Talk (1990) in 2 vols;

15.     Opus Maximum (2002);

16.     Poetical Works (2001) in 6 vols (part1 Reading Edition in 2 vols; part 2 Variorum Text in 2 vols; part 3 Plays in 2 vols).] (contributors)

BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA

"Biographia literaria; or Biographical Sketches of my literary life and opinions" is original or full name of Coleridge’s autobiography. In 1817 it was published; in two volumes.

The work was originally intended as a mere preface to a collected volume of his poems, explaining and justifying his own style and practice in poetry. The work grew to a literary autobiography, including, together with many facts concerning his education and studies and his early literary adventures, an extended criticism of William Wordsworth's theory of poetry as given in the preface to the Lyrical Ballads (a work on which Coleridge collaborated), and a statement of Coleridge's philosophical views. (contributors, " Biographia Literaria." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.)

In the first part of the work Coleridge is mainly concerned with showing the evolution of his philosophic creed. At first an adherent of the associational psychology of David Hartley, he came to discard this mechanical system for the belief that the mind is not a passive but an active agency in the apprehension of reality. The author believed in the "self-sufficing power of absolute Genius" and distinguished between genius and talent as between "an egg and an egg-shell". The discussion involves his definition of the imagination or “esemplastic power,” the faculty by which the soul perceives the spiritual unity of the universe, as distinguished from the fancy or merely associative function. (contributors, " Biographia Literaria." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.)

The book has numerous essays on philosophy. In particular, it discusses and engages the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. Being fluent in German, Coleridge was one of the first major English literary figures to translate and discuss Schelling, in particular. (contributors, " Biographia Literaria." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.)

The later chapters of the book deal with the nature of poetry and with the question of diction raised by Wordsworth. While maintaining a general agreement with Wordsworth's point of view, Coleridge elaborately refutes his principle that the language of poetry should be one taken with due exceptions from the mouths of men in real life, and that there can be no essential difference between the language of prose and of metrical composition. A critique on the qualities of Wordsworth's poetry concludes the volume. (contributors, " Biographia Literaria." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.)

The book contains Coleridge's celebrated and vexed distinction between “imagination” and “fancy”. Chapter XIV is the origin of the famous critical concept of a “willing suspension of disbelief”. (contributors, " Biographia Literaria." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.)

DIFFRENCE BETWEEN POEM AND POETRY:

 'The poem of any length neither can be, nor ought to be, all poetry.'

In the last section of the chapter 14, Coleridge considers to distinguish poem from poetry. Coleridge points out that “poetry of the highest kind may exist without metre and even without the contradistinguishing objects of a poem”. He gives example of the writings of Plato, Jeremy Taylor and Bible. The quality of the prose in this writings is equal to that of high poetry. He also asserts that the poem of any length neither can be, nor ought to be, all poetry. Then the question is what is poetry? How is it different from poem? To quote Coleridge: “What is poetry? is so nearly the same question with, what is a 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, thoughts, and emotions of the poet's own mind. (DILIP)

One is a specific instance of the other. Means Poem is a specific instance of poetry. Poetry is a kind of tree and poem is one branch of this tree. It's all depended on imagination.

Thus the difference between poem and poetry is not given in clear terms. Even John Shawcross (in Biographia Literaria with Aesthetical Essays – 1907 Ed.) writes “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 a poem is merely one of the forms of its expression, a verbal expression of that activity, and poetic activity is basically an activity of the imagination. (DILIP)

*IMAGINATION: 'CREATING AND RECREATING KNOWN AND SEEN IMAGES.'

There are two types of imagination.

1] Primary imagination 

⇝ Uniting the objects of sense. 

2] Secondary imagination 

⇝ Unifying the objects of sense with emotions and feelings.

@ POETRY IS : 

-Distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself, which sustains and modifies the images, thoughts, and emotions of the poet's own mind,

-The best words in their best order ,

-Activity of poets mind 

- eg. 1] Steve jobs -I PHONE 

        2] RIGHT BROTHER’S AIRPLANE

       3] HUMAN BODY 

Both things are apt for example of poetry. Poetry is imagination of poet in which he added something and harmonies it.  

     

  BEST EXAMPLE OF POETRY-(KUBLA KHAN)

     

“ In Xandu did Cublai Can build a stately Pallace, encompassing sixteen miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightfull streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure, which may be moved from place to place.^{” (contributors, "Kubla Khan." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.)}

@ Poem:

-is merely one of the forms of poet's expression

Poem is only imagination of post.

Ordinary poets can only wrote poems by their primary imaginations, whereas extra ordinary poets can write poetry and there for they need secondary imagination. And it is necessary in them.  

As David Daiches(A Critical History of English Literature) points out, ‘Poetry’ for Coleridge is a wider category than a ‘poem’; that is, poetry is a kind of activity which can be engaged in by 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 man; into activity, with each faculty playing its proper part according to its ‘relative worth and dignity’. This takes place whenever the synthesizing, the integrating, powers of the secondary imagination are at work, bringing all aspects of a subject into a complex unity, then poetry in this larger sense results. (DILIP)

David Daiches further writes in A Critical History of English Literature, “The employment of the secondary imagination is a poetic activity, and we can see why Coleridge is let from a discussion of a poem to a discussion of the poet’s activity when we realize that for him the poet belongs to the larger company of those who are distinguished by the activity of their imagination.” By virtue of his imagination, which is a synthetic and magical power, he harmonizes and blends together various elements and thus diffuses a tone and spirit of unity over the whole. It manifests itself most clearly in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities – such as (a) of sameness, with difference, (b) of the general, with the concrete, (c) the idea, with the image, (d) the individual, with the representative, (e) the sense of novelty and freshness, with old and familiar objects, (f) a more than usual state of emotion, with more than usual order, (g) judgment with enthusiasm. And while this imagination blends and harmonizes the natural and the artificial, it subordinates to nature, the manner to the matter, and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy with the poetry. (DILIP)

CONCLUTION:

In his own words, he endeavored ‘to establish the principles of writing rather than to furnish rules about how to pass judgment on what had been written by others’. (DILIP)

Coleridge was interested in creative writing thus he busied himself with questions of “How it came to be there at all”. Coleridge was the first English critic who builds his literary criticism on philosophical base.

Works Cited

contributors, Wikipedia. " Biographia Literaria." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 29 5 2017. 1 11 2017 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biographia_Literaria#References>.

—. "Kubla Khan." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 27 10 2017. 1 11 2017 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan>.

—. "Samuel Taylor Coleridge." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 31 10 2017. 1 11 2017 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge#Poetry>.

DILIP, BARAD. 5 10 2015. 1 11 2017 <https://www.slideshare.net/dilipbarad/samuel-coleridge-biographia-literaria-ch-14>.

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