Coleridge Fancy and Imagination

          Introduction

The Biographia Literaria an autobiography in discourse by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which he published in 1817. It was one of Coleridge's main critical studies. In this work, he discussed the elements of writing. The work is long and seemingly loosely structured, and although there are autobiographical elements, it is not a straightforward autobiography. Although the work is not written from Coleridge's poetic mind it is still written with the qualities and rhythm of the poetic. Through this discussion, he makes many value judgements, leaving his audience with a clear understand of his stance on certain issues. Some of the issues he tackles include politics, religion, social values and human identity. He expresses his own thoughts from a personal viewpoint. 

          Imagination

Imagination in its real sense denotes the working of poetic minds upon external objects or objects visible to the eyes. Imaginative process sometimes adds additional properties to an object or sometimes abstracts from it some of its properties. Therefore, imagination thus transforms the object into something new. It modifies and even creates new objects. According to Coleridge, imagination has two types: Primary and Secondary. Primary imagination is "the living power and prime agent of all human perception". It is a spontaneous act of the human mind, the image so formed of the outside world unconsciously and involuntarily. The secondary imagination is the poetic vision "to idealize and unify". Coleridge call secondary imagination a magical power; it fuses various faculties of human soul - will, emotion, intellect, perception. It fuses internal and external, the subjective and objective. The significance of the Imagination for Coleridge was that it represented the sole faculty within man that was able to achieve the romantic ambition of reuniting the subject and the object; the world of the self and the world of nature. For him, the most important aspect of imagination was that it was active to the highest degree.

          Fancy

Coleridge regards fancy to be the inferior to imagination. It is according to him a creative power. It only combines different things into different shapes, not like imagination to fuse them into one. According to him, it is the process of "bringing together images dissimilar in the  main, by source". It has no other counters to play with, but fixities and definites. Fancy, in Coleridge's eyes was employed for tasks that were 'passive' and 'mechanical', the accumulation of fact and documentation of what is seen. "Always the ape", Fancy, Coleridge argued was "too often the adulterator and counterfeiter of memory". For Coleridge, it was the Imagination that was responsible for acts that were truly creative and inventive and, in turn, that identified true instance of fine or noble art.

The distinction between Fancy and Imagination

The distinction made by Coleridge between Fancy and Imagination are rested on the fact that fancy was concerned with the mechanical operations of the mind while imagination on the other hand is described the mysterious power. "The Primary Imagination" was for Coleridge, the "necessary imagination" as it makes images and impressions of what it receives through the senses. It represents man's ability to learn from nature. The over arching property of the primary imagination was that it was common to all people. Whereas "The Secondary Imagination" on the other hand, represents a superior faculty which could only be associated with artistic genius. A key and defining attribute of the secondary imagination was a free and deliberate will. Thus imagination creates new shapes and forms of beauty by fusing and unifying the impressions it receives from the external world. Whereas Fancy is a kind of memory, and even when brought together, they continue to retain their separate individual properties. They receive no coloring or modification from the mind. It is merely mechanical juxtaposition and not a chemical fusion. Coleridge explains the point by quoting two passages from Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. The following lines from this poems of to illustrate Fancy: 

     Full gently now she takes him by the            hand.

     A  lily prisoned in a goal of snow

     Or ivory in an alabaster band

     So  white a friend engirds so with a             foe. 

In these lines images are drawn from memory, but they do not interpenetrate into one another. The following lines from the same poem illustrate the power and function of Imagination: 

     Look! How a bright star shooteth                 from the sky. 

     So glides he in the night from Venus' e       eye.

For Coleridge, Fancy is the drapery of poetic genius but imagination is its very soulwhich forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole. 

    Comparison with Wordsworth

Coleridge owed his interest in the study of imagination to Wordsworth. But Wordsworth was interested only in the practice of poetry, and he considered only the impact of imagination on poetry; Coleridge, on the other hand, is interested in the theory of imagination. He is the first critic to study the nature of imagination and examine its role in creative activity. Secondly, while Wordsworth uses Fancy and Imagination almost as synonyms. Coleridge is the first critic to distinguish between them and define their respective roles. Thirdly, Wordsworth does not distinguish between primary and secondary imagination, Coleridge's treatment of the subject is, on the whole, characterized by greater depth, penetration and philosophical subtlety. It is his unique contribution to literary theory.

          Conclusion

Critics have reacted strongly to the Biographia Literaria. But Coleridge delivers the Biographia Literaria without a second thought of whether or not there will be any disagreement from his audience. He does not cater to one audience; he just expressed his thoughts. Coleridge's brief discussion of imagination and fancy in Biographia Literaria has been called "perhaps the most famous single prose passage in all English literature, yet... Also one of the most baffling". He was also one first critic to distinguish between them and define their respective roles.