S.T.

Coleridge as a critic
Coleridge is one of the greatest of literary critics, and his greatness has been almost
universally recognized. He occupies, without doubt, the first place among English literary
critics. After eliminating one after another the possible contenders for the title of the greatest
critic, Saintsbury concludes:

“So, then there abide these three – Aristotle, Longinus and Coleridge.”

According to Arthur Symons, Coleridge's Biographia Literaria is,

“… the greatest book of criticism in English.”

Herbert Read concludes Coleridge as:

“ … head and shoulders above every other English critic.”

I. A. Richards considers him as the fore-runner “of the modern science of semantics”, and
Rene Wellek is of the view that he is a link, “between German Transcendentalism and
English Romanticism.”

A man of stupendous learning, both in philosophy and literature, ancient as well as modern,
and refined sensibility and penetration intellect, Coleridge was eminently fitted to the task of
a critic. His practical criticism consists of his evaluations of Shakespeare and other English
dramatists, and of Milton and Wordsworth. Despite the fact there are so many digressions and
repetitions, his practical criticism is always illuminating and highly original. It is rich in
suggestions of far reaching value and significance, and flashes of insight rarely to be met with
in any other critic. His greatness is well brought out, if we keep in mind the state of practical
criticism in England before him. The Neo-classic critics judged on the basis of fixed rules.
They were neither legislative nor judicial, nor were carried away by their prejudices.
Coleridge does not judge on the basis of any rules. He does not pass any judgment, but gives
his responses and reactions to a work of art. His criticism is impressionistic-romantic, a new
kind of criticism, a criticism which dealt a knock out blow to neo-classic criticism, and has
been in vague, more or less, ever since. He could discover new beauties in Shakespeare and
could bring about fresh re-valuations of a number of old English masters. Similarly, his
criticism of Wordsworth and his theories enable us to judge him and his views in the correct
perspective.

In the field of theoretical inquiry, Coleridge was the first to introduce psychology and
philosophy into literary criticism. He was interested in the study of the process of poetic
creation, the very principles of creative activity, and for this purposes freely drew upon
philosophy and psychology. He thus made philosophy the basis of literary inquiry, and thus
brought about a union of philosophy, psychology and literary criticism. His literary theories
have their bases in philosophy; he imparted to criticism the dignity which belongs to
philosophy. He philosophized literary criticism and thus brought about a better and truer
understanding of the process of creation and the nature and function of poetry.

His greatest and most original contribution to literary criticism is his theory of imagination.
Addison had examined the nature and function of imagination, and Wordsworth, too, had
developed his own theory on the subject. But all previous discussions of imagination look
superficial and childish when compared with Coleridge's treatment of the subject. He is the
first critic to differentiate between Imagination and Fancy, and to differentiate between
primary and secondary Imagination. Through his theory of imagination he revolutionized the
concept of artistic imitation. Poetic imitation is neither a servile copy of nature, not is it the
creation of something entirely new and different from Nature. Poetry is not imitation, but
creation, but it is creation based on the sensations and impressions received from the external
world. Such impressions are shaped, ordered, modified and opposites are reconciled and
harmonized, by the imagination of the poet, and in this way poetic creation takes place.

Further, as David Daiches points out:

“It was Coleridge who finally, for the first time, resolved the age old problem of the
relation between the form and content of poetry.”

Through his philosophical inquiry into the nature and value of poetry, he established that a
poem is an organic whole, and that its form is determined by its content, and is essential to
that content. Thus metre and rhyme, he showed, are not merely, “pleasure super-added”, not
merely something superfluous which can be dispensed with, not mere decoration, but
essential to that pleasure which is the true poetic pleasure. This demonstration of the organic
wholeness of a poem is one of his major contributions to literary theory.

Similarly, his theory of “Willing Suspension of Disbelief” marks a significant advance over
earlier theories on the subject. His view that during the perusal of a poem or the witnessing of
a play, there is neither belief nor disbelief, but a mere suspension of disbelief, is not
universally accepted as correct, and the controversy on the subject has been finally set at rest.

However, it may be mentioned in the end that as Coleridge’s views are too philosophical, he
is a critic no easy to understand. Often it is fragmentary and unsystematic. Victorians, in
general, could not appreciate him and his appeal was confined to the few.

It is only in the 20th century that his literary criticism has been truly understood and
recognition and appreciation have followed. Today his reputation stands very high, and many
go to him for inspiration and illumination. Despite the fragmentary nature of his work, he is
now regarded as the most original critic of England.
S. T. Coleridge: Criticism on Wordsworth's Theory of Poetic Diction
Wordsworth and Coleridge came together early in life and mutually arose various theories
which Wordsworth embodied in his “Preface to the Lyrical Ballads” and tried to put into
practice in his poems. Coleridge claimed credit for these theories and said they were “half the
child of his brain”. But later on, his views underwent the change; he no longer agreed with
Wordsworth’s theories and so criticized them.

In his Preface, Wordsworth made three important statements all of which have been objects
of Coleridge's censure.

First of all Wordsworth writes that he chose low and rustic life, where the essential passions
of the heart find a better soil to attain their maturity. They are less under restraint and speak a
plainer and more emphatic language. In rustic life our basic feelings coexist in greater
simplicity and more accurately contemplated and more forcibly communicated. The manners
of rural life, sprang from those elementary feelings and from the necessary character of rural
occupations, are more easily realized and are more durable. Lastly the passions of men are
incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms of nature.

Secondly, that the language of these men is adopted because they hourly communicate with
the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived. Being less under
social vanity, they convey their feelings and ideas in simple and outright expressions because
of their rank in society and the equality and narrow circle of their intercourse.

Thirdly, he made a number of statements regarding the language and diction of poetry. Of
these, Coleridge refutes the following parts: “a selection or the real language of men”; “the
language of the men in low and rustic life”: and, “Between the language of prose and that of
metrical composition there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference”.

As regards the first statement, i.e. the choice of rustic characters and life, Coleridge points
out, first, that not all Wordsworth characters are rustic. Characters in poems like Ruth,
Michael, The Brothers, are not low and rustic. Secondly, their language and sentiments do not
necessarily arise from their abode or occupation. They are attributable to causes of their
similar sentiments and language, even if they have different abode or occupation. These
causes are mainly two: (a) independence which raises a man above bondage, and a frugal and
industrious domestic life and (b) a solid, religious education which makes a man well-versed
in the Bible and other holy books excluding other books. The admirable qualities in the
language and sentiments of Wordsworth’s characters result from these two causes. Even if
they lived in the city away from Nature they would have similar sentiments and language. In
the opinion of Coleridge, a man will not be benefited from a life in rural solitudes unless he
has natural sensibility and suitable education. In the absence of these advantages, the mind
hardens and a man grows, ‘selfish, sensual, gross and hard hearted’.

As regards the second statement of Wordsworth, Coleridge objects to the view that the best
part of language is derived from the objects with which the rustic hourly communicates. First,
communication with an object implies reflection on it and the richness of vocabulary arises
from such reflection. Now the rural conditions of life do not require any reflection, hence the
vocabulary of the rustics is poor. They can express only the barest facts of nature and not the
ideas and thoughts which results from their reflection. Secondly, the best part of a man’s
language does not result merely from communication with nature, but from education, from
the mind of noble thoughts and ideals. Whatever rustics use, are derived not from nature, but
from The Bible and from the sermons of noble and inspired preachers.

Coleridge takes up his statements, one by one, and demonstrates that his views are not
justified. Wordsworth asserts that the language of poetry is:

“A selection of the real language of men or the very language of men; and that there
was no essential difference between the language of prose and that of poetry”.

Coleridge retorts that,

“‘Every man’s language’ varies according to the extent of his knowledge, the activity of
his faculties, and the depth or quickness of his feelings”.

Every man’s language has, first, its individual peculiarities; secondly, the properties common
to his class; and thirdly, words and phrases of universal use.

“No two men of the same class or of different classes speak alike, although both use
words and phrases common to them all, because in the one case their natures are
different and on the other their classes are different”.

The language varies from person to person, class to class, place to place.

Coleridge objects to Wordsworth’s use of the words, ‘very’ or ‘real’ and suggests that
‘ordinary’ or ‘generally’ should have been used. Wordsworth’s addition of the words, “in a
state of excitement”, is meaningless, for emotional excitement may result in a more intense
expression, but it cannot create a noble and richer vocabulary.

To Wordsworth’s argument about having no essential difference between the language of

poetry and prose, Coleridge replies that there is and there ought to be, an essential difference
between both the languages and gives numerous reasons to support his view. First, language
is both a matter and the arrangement of words. Words both in prose and poetry may be the
same but their arrangement is different. This difference arises from the fact that the poetry
uses metre and metre requires a different arrangement of words. Metre is not a mere
superficial decoration, but an essential organic part of a poem. Even the metaphors and
similes used by a poet are different in quality and frequency from prose. Hence there is bound
to be an ‘essential’ difference between the arrangement of words of poetry and prose. There
is this difference even in those poems of Wordsworth’s which are considered most
Wordsworthian.

Further, it cannot be confirmed that the language of prose and poetry are identical and so
convertible. There may be certain lines or even passages which can be used both in prose and
poetry, but not all. There are passages which will suit the one and not the other.

Thus does Coleridge refute Wordsworth’s views on the themes and language of poetry.
S. T. Coleridge: Imagination and Fancy
In Chapter XIII of Bigraphia Literaria, Coleridge writes:

“The imagination then I consider either as primary, or secondary”.

According to Coleridge, Imagination has two forms; primary and secondary. Primary
imagination is merely the power of receiving impressions of the external world through the
senses, the power of perceiving the objects of sense, both in their parts and as a whole. It is a
spontaneous act of the mind; the human mind receives impressions and sensations from the
outside world, unconsciously and involuntarily, imposes some sort of order on those
impressions, reduces them to shape and size, so that the mind is able to form a clear image of
the outside world. In this way clear and coherent perception becomes possible.

The primary imagination is universal, it is possessed by all. The secondary imagination may
be possessed by others also, but it is the peculiar and typical trait of the artist. It is the
secondary imagination which makes artistic creation possible. Secondary imagination is more
active and conscious; it requires an effort of the will, volition and conscious effort. It works
upon its raw material that are the sensations and impressions supplied to it by the primary
imagination. By an effort of the will and the intellect the secondary imagination selects and
orders the raw material and re-shapes and re-models it into objects of beauty. It is
‘esemplastic’, i.e. “a shaping and modifying power”. Its ‘plastic stress’ re-shapes objects of
the external world and steeps them with a glory and dream that never was on sea and land. It
is an active agent which, “dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to create”.

This secondary imagination is at the root of all poetic activity. It is the power which
harmonizes and reconciles opposites. Coleridge calls it a magical, synthetic power. This
unifying power is best seen in the fact that it synthesizes or fuses the various faculties of the
soul – perception, intellect, will, emotion – and fuses the internal with the external, the
subjective with the objective, the human mind with external nature, the spiritual with the
physical. Through this unifying power nature is colored by the soul of the poet, and soul of
the poet is steeped in nature. ‘The identity’ which the poet discovers in man and nature
results from the synthesizing activity of the secondary imagination.

The primary and secondary imaginations do not differ from each other in kind. The
difference between them is one of degree. The secondary imagination is more active, more a
result of volition, more conscious and more voluntary than the primary one. The primary
imagination is universal while the secondary is a peculiar privilege enjoyed by the artist.

Imagination and fancy, however, differs in kind. Fancy is not a creative power at all. It only
combines what is perceives into beautiful shapes, but like the imagination it does not fuse and
unify. The difference between the two is the same as the difference between a mechanical
mixture and a chemical compound. In a mechanical mixture a number of ingredients are
brought together. They are mixed up, but they do not lose their individual properties. In a
chemical compound, the different ingredients combine to form something new. The different
ingredients no longer exist as separate identities. They lose their respective properties and
fuse together to cerate something new and entirely different. A compound is an act of
creation; while a mixture is merely a bringing together of a number of separate elements.

Thus imagination creates new shapes and forms of beauty by fusing and unifying the
different impressions it receive from the external world. Fancy is not creative. It is a kind of
memory; it randomly brings together images, and even when brought together, they continue
to retain their separate and 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 poem serve 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 white a foe.

In these line 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’ eye.

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

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.
Willing Suspension of Disbelief
No phrase in the language has acquired such wide and universe popularity, and has had such
a profound impact on subsequent literary theory as Coleridge's phrase, “Willing suspension
of disbelief”, which he used to indicate the nature of poetic dramatic illusion. All through the
Neo-classics era the question of dramatic illusion and credibility had exercised the mind of
critics, and the observance of the unities was considered essential for, their violation puts too
severe a strain on the credibility of the audience and thus dramatic illusion is violated. The
topic was hotly debated and both Dryden and Dr. Johnson have expressed their views on it,
views which are in advance of those of their contemporaries. However, it was Coleridge who
said the last word on the subject, and finally put the controversy at rest.

Coleridge uses the phrase in connection with his account in Chapter XIV of the Biographia
Literaria of the origin and genesis of the Lyrical Ballads. He writes,

“In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical ballads; in which it was agreed that my
endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural or at least
romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a
semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing
suspension of disbelief for the moment which constitutes poetic faith”.

Thus he was to treat of characters supernatural, which are incredible and improbable and
which under normal circumstances we would not believe in but the treatment was to be such
that as long as we were reading his poems, there would be, “a willing suspension of
disbelief”, and we would believe for the moment in what is essentially incredible and
improbable. In other words, the treatment should be such as would send the judgment of
readers to sleep, so that they would pursue the poem with delight.

In Chapter XXIII of the Biographia Literaria he explains himself further and writes:

“The poet does not require us to be awake and believe; he solicits us only to yield
ourselves to a dream; and this, too, with our eyes open, and with our judgment pursue
behind the curtain, really to awaken us at the first motion of our will, and meantime,
only, not to disbelieve”.

The poet sends our judgment to sleep, for as long as we are reading his word or seeing his
play. He does not ask us to believe in what is presented to our mind; he only requires that we
should not disbelieve. Only a momentary suspension of disbelief is required for an enjoyment
of imaginative literature. We are not under any illusion that it is reality; only, for the moment,
there is a voluntary remission of judgment, we enjoy what we dream of. Similarly, the poet, if
he is sufficiently skilful, sends our judgments to sleep so that we neither believe nor
disbelieve, it to be reality, but merely enjoy what is presented to the mind’s eye. Our reason,
or rational judgment, our consciousness, is in voluntarily suspension and this suspension of
judgment enables us to enjoy what is in our waking moments when the spell is broken, we
would condemn as incredible. Distancing in time and place, humanizing of the marvelous and
the supernatural, etc., are some of the devices used to procure such, “willing suspension of
disbelief”.

Further light on Coleridge's views in this connection is thrown through a comparison with the
view of Dr. Johnson. Dr. Johnson was of the view that the reader or the spectator deludes
himself into believing a play to be a reality, as long as he is witnessing it. The spectator
knows, “from the first to the last that the stage is only a stage and that the players are only
players”. But knowingly he deludes himself and regards it as the reality. Not unlike Johnson,
Coleridge is of the view that it is not in this state that a tale or play is enjoyed, or that the
reader or the spectator allows himself to be deluded even temporarily, to be able to enjoy it.
On the contrary, he just takes leave of his judgment for the time being. ‘The true stage-
illusion consists not in the mind’s judging it to be a forest, but in its remission of the
judgment that it is not a forest’. While Dr. Johnson believed that the spectator is in full
exercise of his judgment and knows that what is being presented to him is not reality,
Coleridge believes that the spectator does not voluntarily exercise his judgment for the time
being. His critical faculty is asleep so to say. Thus Coleridge’s position is a middle one: the
spectator or the reader does neither actively believe nor disbelieve. His judgment is in a state
of suspension for the time being. Voluntarily he is persuaded not to exercise it as long as he is
reading a poem or witnessing a play. Imaginative literature owes its appeal to such
suspension of disbelief.
S. T. Coleridge: Function of Poetry
Coleridge poses numerous questions regarding the nature and function of poetry and then
answers them. He also examines the ways in which poetry differs from other kinds of artistic
activity, and the role and significance of metre as an essential and significant part of a poem.

He begins by emphasizing the difference between prose and poetry.

“A poem contains the same elements as a prose composition.”

Both use words. Then, the difference between poem and a prose composition cannot lie in the
medium, for each employs words. It must, therefore, “consists in a different combination of
them, in consequence of a different object being proposed.” A poem combines words
differently, because it is seeking to do something different.

“All it may be seeking to do may be to facilitate memory. You may take a piece of prose
and cast it into rhymed and metrical form in order to remember it better.”

Rhymed tags of that kind, with their frequent, “sounds and quantities”, yield a particular
pleasure too, though not of a very high order. If one wants to give the name of poem to a
composition of this kind, there is no reason why one should not. As Coleridge says:

“But we should note that, though such rhyming tags have the charm of metre and
rhyme, metre and rhyme have been ‘superadded’; they do not arise from the nature of
the content, but have been imposed on it in order to make it more easily memorized.”

The “Superficial form”, the externalities, provides no profound logical reason for
distinguishing between different ways of handling language.

“A difference of object and contents supplies an additional ground of distinction.”

The philosopher will seek to differentiate between two ways of handling language by asking
what each seeks to achieve and how that aim determines its nature. “The immediate purpose
may be the communication of truth or the communication of pleasure. The communication of
truth might in turn yield a deep pleasure, but, Coleridge insists, one must distinguish between
the ultimate and the immediate end.” Similarly, if the immediate aim be the communication
of pleasure, truth may nevertheless be the ultimate end, and while in an ideal society nothing
that was not truth could yield pleasure, in society as it always existed, a literary work might
communicate pleasure has always existed, a literary work might communicate pleasure
without having any concern with “truth, either moral or intellectual”.

“The proper kinds of distinction between different kinds of writing can thus be most
logically discussed in terms of the difference in the immediate aim, or function, of
each.”

The immediate aim of poetry is to give pleasure.

But, “The communication of pleasure may be the immediate object of a work not metrically
composed” – in novels, for example. Do we make these into poems simply by superadding
metre with or without rhyme? To which Coleridge replies by emphasizing a very important
principle: you cannot derive true and permanent pleasure out of any feature or a work which
does not arise naturally from the total nature of that work. “To ‘superadd’ metre is to provide
merely a superficial decorative charm.” “Nothing can permanently please, which does not
contain in itself the reason why it is so, and not otherwise. If metre be superadded, all other
parts must be made consonant with it.” Rhyme and metre involve, “an exact correspondent
recurrence of accent and sound” which in turn “are calculated to excite” a “perpetual and
distinct attention to each part.” “A poem, therefore, must be an organic unity in the sense that,
while we note and appreciate each part, to which the regular recurrence of accent and sound
draw attention, our pleasure in the whole develops cumulatively out of such appreciation,
which is at the same time pleasurable in itself and conductive to an awareness of the total
pattern of the complete poem.”

“Thus a poem differs from a work of scientific prose in having as its immediate object
pleasure and not truth, and it differs from other kinds of writing which have pleasure and not
truth as their immediate object by the fact that in a poem the pleasure we take from the whole
work in compatible with, and even led up to by the pleasure we take in each competent part.”
Therefore, a legitimate poem is a composition, in which the rhyme and the metre bear an
organic relation to the total work; in it, “parts mutually support and explain each other, all in
their proportion harmonizing with, and supporting the purpose and known influences of,
metrical arrangement.”

Thus Coleridge puts an end for good to the age old controversy whether the end of poetry is
instruction or delight or both. Its aim is definitely to give pleasure, and further poetry has its
own distinctive pleasure, pleasure arising from the parts, and this pleasure of the parts
supports and increases the pleasure of the whole.

Not only that, Coleridge also distinguishes a ‘Poem’ from ‘Poetry’. According to Shawcross:

“This distinction between ‘poetry’ and ‘poem’ is not very 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. As David Daiches points out:

“’Poetry’ for Coleridge is a wider category than that of ‘poem’; that is, poetry is a kind
of activity which can be engaged in by painters or philosophers or scientists and is not
confined to those who employ metrical language, or even to those who employ language
of any kind. Poetry, in this large sense, brings, ‘the whole soul of man’, into activity,
with each faculty playing its proper part according to its ‘relative worth and dignity’.”

This takes place whenever the ‘secondary imagination’ comes into operation. Whenever the
synthesizing, the integrating, powers of the secondary imagination are at work, bringing all
aspects of a subject into a complex unity, then poetry in this larger sense results.

“The employment of the secondary imagination is, a poetic activity, and we can see why
Coleridge is led from a discussion of a poem to a discussion of the poet’s activity when we
realize that for him the poet belongs to the larger company of those who are distinguished by
the activity of their imagination.” A poem is always the work of a poet, of a man employing
the secondary imagination and so achieving the harmony of meaning, the reconciliation of
opposites, and so on, which Coleridge so stresses; but a poem is also a specific work of art
produced by a special handling of language.

The harmony and reconciliation resulting from the special kind of creative awareness
achieved by the exercise of the imagination, cannot operate over an extended composition;
one could not sustain that blending and balance, that reconciliation, “of sameness, with
difference; of the general, with the concrete; the idea, with the image; the individual, with the
representative; the sense of novelty and freshens, with old and familiar objects”, and so on,
for an indefinite period. A long poem, therefore, would not be all poetry. Indeed, Coleridge
goes to the extent of saying that there is no such thing as a long poem. Rhyme and metre are
appropriate to a poem considered in the larger sense of poetry, because they are means of
achieving harmonization, reconciliation of opposites, and so forth, which, as we have seen,
are objects of poetry in its widest imaginative meaning.

In a legitimate poem, i.e. in a poem which is poetry in the true sense of the word, there is
perfect unity of form and content. The notion of such organic unity runs through all
Coleridge’s pronouncements of poetry. Rhyme and Metre, are not pleasure superadded for,

“Nothing can permanently please, which does not contain in itself the reason why it is
so, and not otherwise.”

Nothing that is, “superadded”, merely stuck on for ornament or decoration, can really please
in a poem; every one of its characteristics must grow out of its whole nature and be an
integral part of it. Rhyme and metre are integral to the poem, an essential part of it, because
the pleasure of poetry is a special kind of pleasure, pleasure which results both from the parts
and the whole, and the pleasure arising from the parts augments the pleasure of the whole.
Thyme and metre are essential parts for by their, “recurrence of accent and sound”, they
invite attention to the pleasure of each separate part, and thus add to the pleasure of the
whole. “When, therefore, metre is thus in consonance with the language and content of the
poem, it excites a ‘perpetual and distinct attention to each part’, ‘by the quick reciprocations
of curiosity still gratified and still re-excited’, and carries the reader forward to the end ‘by
the pleasurable’ activity of the mind excited by the attractions of the journey itself. There is
no stopping for him on the way, attracted by the parts; nor any hastening forward to the end,
unattracted by the parts. It is one unbroken pleasure trip from the parts to the whole.”

Thus Coleridge's contribution to the theory of poetry is significant. First, he puts an end for
good to the age old controversy between instruction and delight being the end of poetry, and
establishes that pleasure is the end of the poetry, and that poetry has its own distinctive
pleasure. Secondly, he explodes the neo-classical view of poetry as imitation, and shows that
it is an activity of the imagination which in turn is a shaping and unifying power, which
dissolves, dissipates and creates. Thirdly, he shows that in its very nature poetry must differ
from prose. He controverts Wordsworth's view that ‘rhyme and metre’ are merely
superadded, shows that they are an organic part of a poem in the real sense of the word.