Chapter 14

Biographia Literaria

Difference between Poem and Poetry

The written monument of Coleridge’s critical work is containedin 24 chapters of Biographia Literaria (1815–17). In this criticaldisquisition, Coleridge concerns himself not only with thepractice of criticism, but also, with its theory. In his practicalapproach to criticism, we get the glimpse of Coleridge the poet;whereas in theoretical discussion, Coleridge the philosophercame to the centre stage.

In Chapter XIV of Biographia Literaria, Coleridge’s view onnature and function of poetry is discussed in philosophicalterms. The poet within Coleridge discusses the differencebetween poetry and prose, and the immediate function ofpoetry, whereas the philosopher discusses the differencebetween poetry and poem. He was the first English writer toinsist that every work of art is, by its very nature, an organicwhole. At the first step, he rules out the assumption, which, fromHorace onwards, had wrought such havoc in criticism, that theobject of poetry is to instruct; or, as a less extreme form of theheresy had asserted, to make men morally better.

Q1. Which two cardinal points of poetry are discussed by Coleridge in Chapter 14 of Biographia Literaria?

Q2. “During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were neighbours, our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal points of poetry”. Explain with reference to Coleridge’s view in Ch. 14 of Biographia Literaria.

Two cardinal points of poetry: Coleridge begins this chapterwith his views on two cardinal points of poetry. To him thesecardinal points are (i) the power of exciting the sympathy ofthe reader by a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and(ii) the power of giving the interest of novelty by modifyingwith the colours of imagination. According to him, it wasdecided that Wordsworth would write poetry dealing with thetheme of first cardinal point and the other was to be dealt byhim. For the first type of poetry, the treatment and subjectmatter should be, to quote Coleridge, “The sudden charm,which accidents of light and shade, which moon-light or sun-set diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared torepresent the practicability of combining both. These are thepoetry of nature.” In such poems, subjects were to be chosenfrom ordinary life; the characters and incidents were to besuch, as will be found in every village and its vicinity, wherethere is a meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or tonotice them, when they present themselves.

In the second type of poetry, the incidents and agentswere to be supernatural. In this sort of poetry, to quoteColeridge, “the excellence aimed at was to consist inthe interesting of the affections by the dramatic truthof such emotions as would naturally accompany suchsituations, supposing them real. And real in this sensethey have been to every human being who, fromwhatever source of delusion, has at any time believedhimself under supernatural agency.” Thus with thehelp of imagination the natural will be dealtsupernaturally by the poet and the reader willcomprehend it with ‘willing suspension of disbelief ’.

The Lyrical Ballads consists of poems dealing withthese two cardinal points. Wherein, the endeavour ofColeridge was to deal with “persons and characterssupernatural”, and that of Wordsworth “was to give thecharm of novelty to things of every day, by awakeningthe mind's attention from the lethargy of custom, anddirecting it to the loveliness and the wonders of theworld before us.”

Q3. What are Coleridge’s views towards Wordsworth’s poetic creed?

Q4. “Had Mr. Wordsworth's poems been the silly, the childish things … they must have sunk at once, a dead weight, into the slough of oblivion, and have dragged the preface along with them”. Explain with reference to Coleridge’s view in Chapter 14 of Biographia Literaria.

Coleridge, even though he did not agree with Wordsworth’s views onpoetic diction, vindicated his poetic creed in chapter 14 of BiographiaLiteraria. Coleridge writes in defence to the violent assailant to the‘language of real life’ adopted by Wordsworth in the Lyrical Ballads.

There had been strong criticism against Wordsworth’s views expressedin Preface also.

Coleridge writes in his defence: “Had Mr. Wordsworth's poems been thesilly, the childish things, which they were for a long time described asbeing; had they been really distinguished from the compositions of otherpoets merely by meanness of language and inanity of thought; had theyindeed contained nothing more than what is found in the parodies andpretended imitations of them; they must have sunk at once, a deadweight, into the slough of oblivion, and have dragged the preface alongwith them”. He wrote that the ‘eddy of criticism’ which whirled aroundthese poems and Preface would have dragged them in oblivion.

But it has not happened. Instead, to quote Coleridge, “year after yearincreased the number of Mr. Wordsworth's admirers. They were found toonot in the lower classes of the reading public, but chiefly among youngmen of strong ability and meditative minds; and their admiration(inflamed perhaps in some degree by opposition) was distinguished by itsintensity, I might almost say, by its religious fervour.” Thus, Coleridgegives full credit to the genius of Wordsworth.

It does not mean that he agreed with Wordsworth on all thepoints.

Coleridge writes: “With many parts of this preface in thesense attributed to them and which the words undoubtedlyseem to authorize, I never concurred; but on the contraryobjected to them as erroneous in principle, and ascontradictory (in appearance at least) both to other parts ofthe same preface, and to the author's own practice in thegreater number of the poems themselves.

Mr. Wordsworth in his recent collection has, I find, degradedthis prefatory disquisition to the end of his second volume, tobe read or not at the reader's choice”.

Hence, we may say that, Coleridge is frank enough to pointout that some of the views of Wordsworth were wrong inprinciple and contradictory, not only in parts of the Prefacebut also to the practice of the poet himself in many of hispoems.

Q5. How does Coleridge distinguish between Prose and Poem?

Q6. Does the super addition of metre make the difference between prose and poem?

Q7. Would then the mere super addition of metre, with or without rhyme, entitle these to the name of poems? Explain.

Q8. “A poem contains the same elements as a prose composition”. Elucidate.

Q9. What according to Coleridge is the nature and function of poem?

The poem contains the same elements as a prosecomposition. But the difference is between thecombination of those elements and objects aimed at inboth the composition.

According to the difference of the object will be thedifference of the combination. If the object of the poet maysimply be to facilitate the memory to recollect (remember)certain facts, he would make use of certain artificialarrangement of words with the help of metre.

As a result composition will be a poem, merely because it isdistinguished from composition in prose by metre, or byrhyme. In this, the lowest sense, one might attribute thename of a poem to the well-known enumeration of the daysin the several months;

Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November

Thus, to Coleridge, mere super addition of meter or rhyme does not make a poem.

He further elucidates his view point by various prose writings and its immediate purpose and ultimate end. In scientific and historical composition, the immediate purpose is to convey the truth (facts). In the prose works of other kinds (romances and novels), to give pleasure in the immediate purpose and the ultimate end may be to give truth. Thus, the communication of pleasure may be the immediate object of a work not metrically composed.

Now the question is “Would then the mere superaddition of metre, with or without rhyme, entitle theseto the name of poems?”

To this Coleridge replies that if metre is super addedthe other parts of the composition also mustharmonise with it. In order to deserve the name poemeach part of the composition, including metre, rhyme,diction and theme must harmonise with thewholeness of the composition.

Metre should not be added to provide merely asuperficial decorative charm. Nothing canpermanently please, which does not contain initself the reason why it is so, and not otherwise. Ifmetre is super added, all other, parts must bemade constant with it. They all must harmonisewith each other.

A poem, therefore, may be defined as, that species ofcomposition, which is opposed to works of science, byproposing for its immediate object pleasure, not truth;and from all other species (having this object incommon with it) it is discriminated by proposing toitself such delight from the whole, as is compatiblewith a distinct gratification from each componentpart.

Thus, according to Coleridge, the poem is distinguished formprose compositions by its immediate object. The immediateobject of prose is to give truth and that of poem is to please.

He again distinguishes those prose compositions (romanceand novels) from poem whose object is similar to poem i.e. toplease.

He calls this poem a legitimate poem and defines it as, “itmust be one, the parts of which mutually support andexplain each other; all in their proportion harmonizingwith, and supporting the purpose and known influencesof metrical arrangement”.

Therefore, the legitimate poem is a composition in which therhyme and the metre bear an organic relation to the totalwork. While reading this sort of poem “the reader should becarried forward, not merely or chiefly by the mechanicalimpulse of curiosity or by a restless desire to arrive at the finalsolution; but by the pleasurable activity of mind excited by theattractions of the journey itself”.

Here Coleridge asserts the importance of theimpression created by the harmonious whole of thepoem. To him, not one or other part but the entireeffect, the journey of reading poem should bepleasurable.

Thus Coleridge puts an end to the age old controversywhether the end of poem is instruction or delight. Itsaim is definitely to give pleasure, and further poem hasits own distinctive pleasure, pleasure arising from theparts, and this pleasure of the parts supports andincreases the pleasure of the whole.

Q10. How does Coleridge differentiate between Poem and Poetry?

Q11. “Poetry of the highest kind may exist without metre and even without the contradistinguishing objects of a poem.” Explain.

Q12. “A poem of any length neither can be, nor ought to be, all poetry”. Explain.

Q13. The difference between poem and poetry “is a distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself, which sustains and modifies the images, thoughts, and emotions of the poet's own mind”.

In the last section of the chapter 14, Coleridge considers todistinguish poem from poetry. Coleridge points out that“poetry of the highest kind may exist without metre and evenwithout the contradistinguishing objects of a poem”.

He gives example of the writings of Plato, Jeremy Taylor andBible. The quality of the prose in this writings is equal to thatof 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 ispoetry? How is it different from poem?

To quote Coleridge: “What is poetry? is so nearly the samequestion with, what is a poem? The answer to the one isinvolved in the solution of the other. For it is a distinctionresulting from the poetic genius itself, which sustainsand modifies the images, thoughts, and emotions of thepoet's own mind.

Thus the difference between poem and poetry is not givenin clear terms. Even John Shawcross (in BiographiaLiteraria with Aesthetical Essays – 1907 Ed.) writes “thisdistinction between ‘poetry’ and ‘poem’ is not clear, andinstead of defining poetry he proceeds to describe a poet,and from the poet he proceeds to enumerate thecharacteristics of the imagination”.

This is so because ‘poetry’ for Coleridge is an activity of thepoet’s mind, and a poem is merely one of the forms of itsexpression, a verbal expression of that activity, and poeticactivity is basically an activity of the imagination.

As David Daiches(A Critical History of EnglishLiterature) points out, ‘Poetry’ for Coleridge is a widercategory than a ‘poem’; that is, poetry is a kind of activitywhich can be engaged in by painters or philosophers orscientists and is not confined to those who employmetrical language, or even to those who employlanguage of any kind.

Poetry, in this larger sense, brings, ‘the whole soul ofman; into activity, with each faculty playing its properpart according to its ‘relative worth and dignity’. Thistakes 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.

David Daiches further writes in A Critical History of EnglishLiterature, “The employment of the secondary imagination is apoetic activity, and we can see why Coleridge is let from adiscussion of a poem to a discussion of the poet’s activity whenwe realize that for him the poet belongs to the larger companyof those who are distinguished by the activity of theirimagination.”

By virtue of his imagination, which is a synthetic and magicalpower, he harmonize and blends together various elementsand thus diffuses a tone and spirit of unity over the whole.

It manifests itself most clearly in the balance or reconciliationof opposite or discordant qualities – such as (a) of sameness,with difference, (b) of the general, with the concrete, (c) theidea, with the image, (d) the individual, with therepresentative, (e) the sense of novelty and freshness, with oldand 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 naturaland the artificial, it subordinates to nature, the manner to thematter, and our admiration of the poet to our sympathy withthe poetry.

To conclude, we may say 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’.

Thus, Coleridge is the first English critic who based his literary criticism on philosophical principles. While critics before him had been content to turn a poem inside out and to discourse on its merits and demerits, Coleridge busied himself with the basic question of ‘how it came to be there at all’. He was more interested in the creative process that made it, what it was, then in the finished product.