Coleridge 's Literaria Biographia

Biographia literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (22.oct.1772-25.july1834) 

• Introduction 

Biographia Literaria is the critical work by Coleridge it is contained in 24chapters. In this critical discussion Coleridge not only practice of criticism, but also with it’s theory. In chapter 14Coleridge’s views on nature and function of poetry is discussed in philosophical terms.  Coleridge discusses the difference between prose and poem and between poetry and poem.

• Difference between prose and poem

In simple way when we think about difference between prose and poem we differentiate it as the prose in paragraph and poem in rhyme or in metre but Coleridge says that the prose and poem both have the sweetest kind elements of composition but the difference is that combination of those elements and objects aimed it in both the composition. If the object of the poet may simply be to facilitate the memory. 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.

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

He again distinguishes those prose compositions (romance and novels) from poem whose object is similar to poem i.e. to please. He calls this poem a legitimate poem

            

• poem and 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.

 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.   

For more explanation of difference between poem and poetry let’s look some examples .

• Examples 

 

This all work be can seem as poetry as Coleridge's definition of poetry because it is an activity of human mind which presents the same compositions with the different elements. 

• Conclusion 

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.