Imagination in the Contemporary World and the Legacy of Romantic Literary Thought

I have gained a greater sensitivity or ability to communicate what could not be said well at the prior instance (sometimes revisions weaken original work, though!).

Of perhaps all our Romantics, Coleridge has left for us the most sophisticated analysis of what he was about in the matter of writing, editing, criticism and the composition of poetry.

And, happily for us, he submerges himself into a long discussion – one might call it almost a tirade, in its exhaustive energy and vehemence – about imagination. Coleridge does not hesitate to take us on a philosophical and theological journey of great complexity in his attempt to fully explore the topic of imagination.

From a letter dated June 23, 1834:

“You may conceive the difference in kind between the Fancy and the Imagination                      in this way, that if the check of the senses and the reason were withdrawn, the first would become delirium, and the last mania.  The Fancy brings together images which have no connexion natural or moral, but are yoked together by the poet by means of some accidental coincidence….(while) (t)he Imagination modifies images, and gives unity to variety; it sees all things in one, il peu nell’ uno. There is the epic imagination, the perfection of which is in Milton; and the dramatic, of which Shakespeare is the absolute master (http: Imagination in Coleridge 3).”

Coleridge’s theorizing may be clear to some: to my mind, he’s abstruse and convoluted in his thinking, and a variety of interpretations of what he meant about Imagination exists. What seems to be clear is that for Coleridge there are two sorts of Imagination, a primary and a secondary kind.  Even so, this distinction between ‘pure imagination’

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