Coleridge discussion on Primary and Secondary Imagination

          Introduction


Coleridge gave much thought to the imagination. He considers poetry the product of the secondary imagination. The secondary imagination dissolves, diffuses and dissipates in order to recreate; it struggles to idealize and unify. 
The two Cardinal Points of poetry according to Coleridge are: 
1. The power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by faithful adherence to the truth of nature. 
2. The power of giving the interest of novelty by the modifying colors of Imagination. 
Imagination in its real sense denotes the working of poetic minds upon external objects or objects visible to eyes. Imaginative process sometimes adds additional properties to an object or sometimes abstract from it some of its properties. Therefore imagination thus transformers the object into something new. It modifies and even creates new objects. According to the Coleridge imagination has two types - Primary Imagination and Secondary Imagination. 

    1. Primary Imagination


Coleridge asserts that the mind is active in perception. This activity which is subconscious and is the common birth right of all men, is the work of Primary Imagination, which may be defined as the inborn power of perceiving that makes it possible for us to know things. The Primary Imagination is a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal art of creation in the finite I AM. The power of perception, Coleridge called as Primary Imagination whereas the poetic imagination as the Secondary Imagination. It differs from the primary imagination in degree, but not in kind. While all men possess the heightened degree of the universal human power to which the poet lays claim.
 To put this into understandable English, imagination in general is the way we find the "hidden meanings" in the world. It is our creative force. The Primary Imagination is the largely unconscious way we match and assimilate information and ideas from nature and the world around us. We make connections between what we see and our life and between different things that we see. It is the imagination that all people have. It is imitating God's creative process. 
The "Kubla Khan" is one of the best poem of Coleridge expressing most vividly the imaginations. In "Kubla Khan" we primarily witness the primary and secondary imagination at work. Since this is a dream vision, the primary imagination provided the raw material that Coleridge's artistic brain reworked into a work of art. The first part of the poem appears to come from the primary imagination: it is a recreation or imagination of a scene we might see in the world. In the second two stanzas, Coleridge takes this raw material of primary imagination and bring it to a new, more ecstatic level, mixing concrete images from nature with musings on the divine - and possibly a description of a sexual, ejaculatory dream.

    2. Secondary Imagination


(Echo of the Primary Imagination) differs in two important respects from primary imagination. First, primary imagination is subconscious, while the secondary imagination coexist "with the conscious will" and involves, therefore elements of conscious and subconscious activity. Poetic "making" blends conscious selection with subconscious infusion, some elements are intentionally chosen while others are mysteriously given or supplied from the deepness of the poet's subconscious mind. Second, the secondary imagination is described as a power that "dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate". It dissolves and then reintegrate the components in a new way that draws attention to their coalescence. Secondary imagination bridges the gap between the two world of spirit and matter; it fuses perception, intellect, feeling, passions and memory. It struggles to idealize and unify.
The secondary imagination puts what it sees in nature together in new and different ways. It is original; it leaps to a higher level; it is the imagination possessed by artistic geniuses.
The last stanza of Kubla Khan starts with 'A damsel' and this really sounds like a narrative shift or a different narrator or a different function of a consciousness. Here is where the secondary imagination begins. He's recalling the damsel and her song so there's elements of his conscious will (in the act of remembering) and the original experience of the song.

      Fancy


On the other hand, is distinguished from Imagination (both primary and secondary) because it is not poetic. It differs from imagination in kind. Fancy, to Coleridge was merely mechanical memory. It's recording "just the facts". Fancy is the absence of imagination. It is just reconfiguring already existing things or ideas. It is merely aggregative and associative; it is a mode of memory receiving all its materials readymade from the law of association.

      Conclusion


Coleridge thought that the task of poetry is to convey the mystery of life. He believes in imagination as a vehicle for truth. He felt about the creation of his imagination something similar to what he felt about dreams. Coleridge's definition of the ideal poet is characterized by its emphasis on imagination.



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