Literary Criticism: Definition of poem and poetry and the explanation of the poetic process by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

‘Biographia Literaria’ is a book where Samuel Taylor Coleridge illustrates his ideas about poetry. Mainly, it was Coleridge’s response to William Wordsworth’s ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’. Coleridge and Wordsworth had differences in their poetic principles, even though they were close friends. They laid the foundation of the Romantic age of English literature together, but their ideas about poetry were not quite similar. We can see more of these differences in the book ‘Biographia Literaria’.

In his book ‘Preface to the Lyrical Ballads’, William Wordsworth puts forth a number of new ideas which provoked thoughts among the contemporary litterateurs. Wordsworth wanted to say that poetry should be written in such a language that would be comprehensible to the general people and its subject matters should represent the daily life of common men. He also states that nature should be considered with sheer importance while writing poem and a poet should describe nature in his or her poetry. Besides, Wordsworth also provides his own theory on how a poet should write poetry or poetic process.

Coleridge reflected on some of the issues quite differently and it is perhaps down to the fact that Coleridge was one of the best philosophers of that age. So, not only was he a renowned poet, but at the same time, he was a philosopher and his philosophical ideologies influenced in different European countries. In Biographia Literaria, we can see that Coleridge mixes philosophy with literature. That is the reason he puts so much emphasis on ‘imagination’ and tries to signify imagination in everything.

Coleridge sees poem and poetry differently and the primary difference between the two is not apparent in Biographia Literaria. By poem, we can understand a particular poem, while poetry, in general, means collection of all poems. Coleridge also defines these two terms somewhat similarly. However, he associates a poet’s thoughts, feelings and imagination with poetry. That means, poetry represents the overall identity of a poet, while poem is just an individual poem.

To Coleridge, poetic genius is the most important thing when it comes to poetic process. A poet must utilize his poetic genius and imagination. Coleridge comes up with two different imaginations- primary and secondary imaginations. With the use of imagination, poets can come up with different new ideas and poetry gets elevated as well.

Both Wordsworth and Coleridge had immense contribution to the popularity of Romantic age or Romantic Movement. Coleridge delicately introduced the influence of imagination. Looking at his poetry and the subject matter of his poetry, we can understand the importance of imagination. Coleridge was a poet of great caliber and his Biographia Literaria not only did establish him as a poet, but also introduced his identity as a great literary critic of English literature.