Samuel Taylor Coleridge (/ ˈ k oʊ l ə r ɪ dʒ /; 21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets.He also shared volumes and collaborated with Charles Lamb, Robert Southey, and Charles Lloyd. Biographia Literaria is a prose work written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet and founder of the Romantic Movement in England.
Synopsis
Motives to the present work—Reception of the Author's first publication--
Discipline of his taste at school—Effect of contemporary writers on youthful
minds—Bowles's Sonnets—Comparison between the poets before and since
Pope.
It has been my lot to have had my name introduced both in conversation, and
in print, more frequently than I find it easy to explain, whether I consider the
Read +-Discipline of his taste at school—Effect of contemporary writers on youthful
minds—Bowles's Sonnets—Comparison between the poets before and since
Pope.
It has been my lot to have had my name introduced both in conversation, and
in print, more frequently than I find it easy to explain, whether I consider the
fewness, unimportance, and limited circulation of my writings, or the
retirement and distance, in which I have lived, both from the literary and
political world. Most often it has been connected with some charge which I
could not acknowledge, or some principle which I had never entertained.
Nevertheless, had I had no other motive or incitement, the reader would not
have been troubled with this exculpation. What my additional purposes were,
will be seen in the following pages. It will be found, that the least of what I
have written concerns myself personally. I have used the narration chiefly for
the purpose of giving a continuity to the work, in part for the sake of the
miscellaneous reflections suggested to me by particular events, but still more
as introductory to a statement of my principles in Politics, Religion, and
Philosophy, and an application of the rules, deduced from philosophical
principles, to poetry and criticism. But of the objects, which I proposed to
myself, it was not the least important to effect, as far as possible, a settlement
of the long continued controversy concerning the true nature of poetic diction;
and at the same time to define with the utmost impartiality the real poetic
character of the poet, by whose writings this controversy was first kindled, and
has been since fuelled and fanned.
In the spring of 1796, when I had but little passed the verge of manhood, I
published a small volume of juvenile poems. They were received with a
degree of favour, which, young as I was, I well know was bestowed on them
not so much for any positive merit, as because they were considered buds of
hope, and promises of better works to come. The critics of that day, the most
flattering, equally with the severest, concurred in objecting to them obscurity,
a general turgidness of diction, and a profusion of new coined double epithets .
The first is the fault which a writer is the least able to detect in his own
compositions: and my mind was not then sufficiently disciplined to receive the
authority of others, as a substitute for my own conviction. Satisfied that the
thoughts, such as they were, could not have been expressed otherwise, or at
least more perspicuously, I forgot to inquire, whether the thoughts themselves
did not demand a degree of attention unsuitable to the nature and objects of
poetry. This remark however applies chiefly, though not exclusively, to the
Religious Musings. The remainder of the charge I admitted to its full extent,
and not without sincere acknowledgments both to my private and public
censors for their friendly admonitions. In the after editions, I pruned the
double epithets with no sparing hand, and used my best efforts to tame the
swell and glitter both of thought and diction; though in truth, these parasite
plants of youthful poetry had insinuated themselves into my longer poems
with such intricacy of union, that I was often obliged to omit disentangling the
weed, from the fear of snapping the flower. From that period to the date of the
present work I have published nothing, with my name, which could by any
possibility have come before the board of anonymous criticism. Even the three
or four poems, printed with the works of a friend , as far as they were censured
at all, were charged with the same or similar defects, (though I am persuaded
not with equal justice),—with an excess of ornament, in addition to strained
and elaborate diction. I must be permitted to add, that, even at the early period
of my juvenile poems, I saw and admitted the superiority of an austerer and
more natural style, with an insight not less clear, than I at present possess. My
judgment was stronger than were my powers of realizing its dictates; and the
faults of my language, though indeed partly owing to a wrong choice of
subjects, and the desire of giving a poetic colouring to abstract and
metaphysical truths, in which a new world then seemed to open upon me, did
yet, in part likewise, originate in unfeigned diffidence of my own comparative
talent.—During several years of my youth and early manhood, I reverenced
those who had re-introduced the manly simplicity of the Greek, and of our
own elder poets, with such enthusiasm as made the hope seem presumptuous
of writing successfully in the same style. Perhaps a similar process has
happened to others; but my earliest poems were marked by an ease and
simplicity, which I have studied, perhaps with inferior success, to impress on
my later compositions.
At school, (Christ's Hospital,) I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very
sensible, though at the same time, a very severe master, the Reverend James
Bowyer. He early moulded my taste to the preference of Demosthenes to
Cicero, of Homer and Theocritus to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid. He
habituated me to compare Lucretius, (in such extracts as I then read,) Terence,
and above all the chaster poems of Catullus, not only with the Roman poets of
the, so called, silver and brazen ages; but with even those of the Augustan
aera: and on grounds of plain sense and universal logic to see and assert the
superiority of the former in the truth and nativeness both of their thoughts and
diction. At the same time that we were studying the Greek tragic poets, he
made us read Shakespeare and Milton as lessons: and they were the lessons
too, which required most time and trouble to bring up, so as to escape his
censure. I learned from him, that poetry, even that of the loftiest and,
seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of
science; and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and
dependent on more, and more fugitive causes. In the truly great poets, he
would say, there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the
position of every word; and I well remember that, availing himself of the
synonymes to the Homer of Didymus, he made us attempt to show, with
regard to each, why it would not have an
retirement and distance, in which I have lived, both from the literary and
political world. Most often it has been connected with some charge which I
could not acknowledge, or some principle which I had never entertained.
Nevertheless, had I had no other motive or incitement, the reader would not
have been troubled with this exculpation. What my additional purposes were,
will be seen in the following pages. It will be found, that the least of what I
have written concerns myself personally. I have used the narration chiefly for
the purpose of giving a continuity to the work, in part for the sake of the
miscellaneous reflections suggested to me by particular events, but still more
as introductory to a statement of my principles in Politics, Religion, and
Philosophy, and an application of the rules, deduced from philosophical
principles, to poetry and criticism. But of the objects, which I proposed to
myself, it was not the least important to effect, as far as possible, a settlement
of the long continued controversy concerning the true nature of poetic diction;
and at the same time to define with the utmost impartiality the real poetic
character of the poet, by whose writings this controversy was first kindled, and
has been since fuelled and fanned.
In the spring of 1796, when I had but little passed the verge of manhood, I
published a small volume of juvenile poems. They were received with a
degree of favour, which, young as I was, I well know was bestowed on them
not so much for any positive merit, as because they were considered buds of
hope, and promises of better works to come. The critics of that day, the most
flattering, equally with the severest, concurred in objecting to them obscurity,
a general turgidness of diction, and a profusion of new coined double epithets .
The first is the fault which a writer is the least able to detect in his own
compositions: and my mind was not then sufficiently disciplined to receive the
authority of others, as a substitute for my own conviction. Satisfied that the
thoughts, such as they were, could not have been expressed otherwise, or at
least more perspicuously, I forgot to inquire, whether the thoughts themselves
did not demand a degree of attention unsuitable to the nature and objects of
poetry. This remark however applies chiefly, though not exclusively, to the
Religious Musings. The remainder of the charge I admitted to its full extent,
and not without sincere acknowledgments both to my private and public
censors for their friendly admonitions. In the after editions, I pruned the
double epithets with no sparing hand, and used my best efforts to tame the
swell and glitter both of thought and diction; though in truth, these parasite
plants of youthful poetry had insinuated themselves into my longer poems
with such intricacy of union, that I was often obliged to omit disentangling the
weed, from the fear of snapping the flower. From that period to the date of the
present work I have published nothing, with my name, which could by any
possibility have come before the board of anonymous criticism. Even the three
or four poems, printed with the works of a friend , as far as they were censured
at all, were charged with the same or similar defects, (though I am persuaded
not with equal justice),—with an excess of ornament, in addition to strained
and elaborate diction. I must be permitted to add, that, even at the early period
of my juvenile poems, I saw and admitted the superiority of an austerer and
more natural style, with an insight not less clear, than I at present possess. My
judgment was stronger than were my powers of realizing its dictates; and the
faults of my language, though indeed partly owing to a wrong choice of
subjects, and the desire of giving a poetic colouring to abstract and
metaphysical truths, in which a new world then seemed to open upon me, did
yet, in part likewise, originate in unfeigned diffidence of my own comparative
talent.—During several years of my youth and early manhood, I reverenced
those who had re-introduced the manly simplicity of the Greek, and of our
own elder poets, with such enthusiasm as made the hope seem presumptuous
of writing successfully in the same style. Perhaps a similar process has
happened to others; but my earliest poems were marked by an ease and
simplicity, which I have studied, perhaps with inferior success, to impress on
my later compositions.
At school, (Christ's Hospital,) I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very
sensible, though at the same time, a very severe master, the Reverend James
Bowyer. He early moulded my taste to the preference of Demosthenes to
Cicero, of Homer and Theocritus to Virgil, and again of Virgil to Ovid. He
habituated me to compare Lucretius, (in such extracts as I then read,) Terence,
and above all the chaster poems of Catullus, not only with the Roman poets of
the, so called, silver and brazen ages; but with even those of the Augustan
aera: and on grounds of plain sense and universal logic to see and assert the
superiority of the former in the truth and nativeness both of their thoughts and
diction. At the same time that we were studying the Greek tragic poets, he
made us read Shakespeare and Milton as lessons: and they were the lessons
too, which required most time and trouble to bring up, so as to escape his
censure. I learned from him, that poetry, even that of the loftiest and,
seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of
science; and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and
dependent on more, and more fugitive causes. In the truly great poets, he
would say, there is a reason assignable, not only for every word, but for the
position of every word; and I well remember that, availing himself of the
synonymes to the Homer of Didymus, he made us attempt to show, with
regard to each, why it would not have an
Biographia Literaria
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