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The Prose Style Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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The Prose Style Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Content THE PROSE STYLE OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
by
Lynn Merle Grow
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(English)
June 1971
I
I
72-557
GROW, Lynn Merle, 1945-
THE PROSE STYLE OF SAMUEL TAYLOR
COLERIDGE.
University of Southern California,
Ph.D., 1971
Language and Literature, general
University Microfilms, A XEROX C o m p an y , Ann Arbor, Michigan
©COPYRIGHT BY
Lynn Merle Grow
1971
THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
TH E GRADUATE SCHOO L
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
..L y n n . . M e r l ^ .....................
under the direction of h..X$.... Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The Gradu
ate School, in partial fulfillment of require
ments of the degree of
D O C T O R OF P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
D ate...June.. .197.1
DISSERTATION CO! ‘ EE
'hairman
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION .................................... 1
II. COLERIDGE’S STYLISTIC TRAITS DEDUCIBLE FROM
HIS CRITICAL PRINCIPLES...................... 22
III. THE SYNTACTIC LABYRINTH....................63
IV. THE EARLY COLERIDGE........................92
V. THE INFLUENCE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY . . . 112
VI. THE DIFFERENT STYLES.................. 134
VII. THE CONSISTENCY OF THE BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA . 175
BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................... 196
ii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Since Samuel Taylor Coleridge's death in 1 8 3 4,
there has been a welter of scattered commentary on the
prose of his published works. Judgments run the critical
gamut from strong disapproval to high praise, and repre
sent nearly every imaginable tone from enthusiasm to
jocosity to bitter denunciation. It might be added that
they also include a wide variation in perceptiveness,
from the incisive to the inept.
Those critics who have disapproved of Coleridge's
style usually have focused their attention upon his
alleged "obscurity." Certainly his contemporaries lost
no time in opening fire on this ground. Perhaps the most
remarkable trait about these literary broadsides is their
great variation in attitude. Peacock is irresistably
funny with his parodies of Coleridgean rhetoric in his
novels Melincourt and Nightmare Abbey.^ Carlyle's lampoon
p
is equally comic. Byron's famous lines in his dedication
to Don Juan are also satiric, but several shades less
•3
good-natured. Hazlitt's comments are not only less than
good-natured, they are positively acrid.^ Southey is
1_________
2
straightforwardly analytic.5
Many early and middle nineteenth-century treat
ments of Coleridge took the form of ridicule, because
commentators were more strongly influenced than are most
today by moral disapproval. They looked askance at
Coleridge's indulgence in opium, and at his seeming
inability to realize the vast projects which he set for
himself. Often they read into Coleridge's style traits
(instability, tendency to wander) which they attributed to
the man, as Hazlitt and Carlyle attributed to Coleridge's
face and walk traits which they thought that they
observed in his character.^ Though ridicule of Coleridge
the prose stylist and moral disapproval of Coleridge the
man have largely disappeared, objections to his "obscure"
style continue. Gordon McKenzie's masterful assessment
of organic unity in Coleridge concludes that C^he
Coleridge whose works exhibitj” ... lack of orderly plan
and development--a lack characteristic of all Coleridge's
work ... is the Coleridge, diffuse, repetitious,
digressive, whom we must accept."7 Armour and Howes
consider the style uneven, a reflection of the unresolved
struggle in Coleridge's mind between the controlling
o
critic and the rambling talker. William Walsh thinks
Coleridge disorganized, but sympathetically tries to turn
a vice into a virtue by suggesting that the very disorgani
zation of the prose is a reflection of the modern mindj
3
thus, Coleridge receives the somewhat backhanded compliment
of being "modern" if imperfect.^ d. G. James, however,
gives no quarter: "he rarely thought things out, and he
composed prose which could hardly be worse. "•L0
Undoubtedly, much of this adverse commentary per
sists because scholars, even when they do not unreflect
ingly take over the judgments of their predecessors, still
take Coleridge’s own remarks on his style at face value.
In this matter, as in so many others, it is sadly true that
Coleridge was his own worst enemy. On at least four
11
occasions, he explicitly criticized his own style.
Taken together, these self criticisms anticipate the basic
arguments— obscurity, involution, polysyllabic diction,
and over-elaboration— used against him by later critics.
In spite of all the unfavorable analyses, however,
Coleridge has never wanted for defenders of his style.
Shortly after his own lifetime, Henry Nelson Coleridge
and Sara Coleridge each offered a sympathetic (and in each
case, good) critique. Henry Nelson Coleridge's analysis
is particularly perspicuous, as this excerpt shows:
The contents of the following pages may, I think,
be taken as pretty strong presumptive evidence that
his ordinary manner was plain and direct enough; and
even when, as sometimes happened, he seemed to ramble
from the road, and to lose himself in a wilderness of
digressions, the truth was, that at that very time he
was working out his fore-known conclusion through an
almost miraculous logic, the difficulty of which con
sisted precisely in the fact of its minuteness and
universality. He took so large a scope, that, if he
was interrupted before he got to the end, he appeared
4
to have been talking without an object; although,
perhaps, a few steps more would have brought you
to a point, a retrospect from which would show you
the pertinence of all he had been saying. I have
heard persons complain that they could get no answer
to a question from Coleridge. The truth is, he
answered, or meant to answer, so fully, that the
querist should have no second question to ask. In
nine cases out of ten he saw the question was short
or mis-directed; and knew that a mere yes or no
answer could not embrace the truth— that is, lihe
whole truth--and might, very probably, by implication
convey error. Hence that exhaustive, cyclical mode
of discoursing in which he frequently indulged...
But when he was dealing with a question, the demand
upon the intellect of the hearer was very great; not
so much for any hardness of language, for his diction
was always simple and easy; nor for the abstruseness
of the thoughts, for they generally explained, or
appeared to explain, themselves; but pre-eminently
on account of the seeming remoteness of his associa
tions, and the exceeding subtlety of his transitional
links...— Coleridge to many people— and often I have
heard the complaint— seemed to wander; and he seemed
then to wander the most, when, in fact, his resistance
to the wandering instinct was greatest,— viz., when
the compass and huge circuit,- by which his illustra
tions moved, travelled farthest into remote regions,
before they began to resolve. Long before this
coming round commenced, most people had lost him,
and naturally enough supposed that he had lost himself.
They continued to admire the separate beauty of the
thoughts, but did not see their relations to the
dominant theme. However, I can assert, upon my long
and intimate knowledge of Coleridge’s mind, that logic
the most severe was as inalienable from his modes of
thinking, as grammar from his language. 12
While most of Henry Nelson Coleridge's remarks pertain to
Coleridge's conversation, they are equally applicable to
his written prose. Though commentaries by Henry Nelson
and Sara Coleridge may be discounted somewhat as
representing the partiality of kin, DeQuincey's warm
approval cannot be so explained awa y . 1 ^ jn the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, several scholars
5
maintained, contrary to the general opinion, that
Coleridge's prose was tightly controlled, not loose and
meandering.-1 -^
In our own time, analytic technique has improved
sufficiently to permit the development of several theories
about why Coleridge's style took the form that it did.
Stephen Potter's interpretation is that Coleridge's verbal
complexity was a function of precision in idea.1^ If
Coleridge were to have made himself too easily comprehen
sible, Potter says, he might also have been oversimplifying
(and hence falsifying) the concepts that he was trying to
convey. William Walsh was the first to present the fruit
ful hypothesis that "Coleridge's arguments, more often
than not, are the lucid, and more often than he is credited
with, the stringent drawing out of elements densely
1 z T
collected in the initial complex image." Because of
these ingenious suggestions, critical opinion gradually is
shifting to a more favorable view of Coleridge as prose
stylist. While most would still not rank Coleridge among
the masters of English prose style, many at least would be
willing to agree with Virginia Radley:
...the adjectives "labyrinthian" and "circum
locutory" are appropriate to any general description
of the prose. Nevertheless, to dismiss the prose as
"muddled," "peripheral," "obscure," "unsystematic,"
and the like, is not only to beg the question, but
also to miss at least one-half and perhaps three-
fourths of the essential Coleridge.17
Although a large number of individuals have
6
ventured remarks on the prose style, these remarks by and
large have been scattered and made only in passing. Two
exceptions are the chapter entitled "Joint Authorship" in
Stephen Potter's book, Coleridge and S.T.C., and, more
recently, Sister Mary Osinski's unpublished doctoral dis
sertation, A Study of the Structures of Co-ordination in a
Representative Sample of the Biographia Literaria.1®
Potter's chapter, however, does not provide sufficient
space for an in-depth study. He is forced to limit himself
to comment about the parenthetical quality of the
Coleridgean sentence and about the linguistic innovations
(particularly the coining of new words) attempted by
Coleridge. Sister Osinski's work, on the other hand, is
done in great depth, but is designed to illuminate only
eight chapters in the Biographia Literaria and a few other
essays and p a s s a g e s .^ As the title implies, it also is
limited in that it only deals with the structures of
coordination. Consequently, up to now Virginia Radley's
assessment of the state of Coleridgean prose style studies
has held true: "No overview of the prose is available at
present, nor is there likely to be one for some time to
come." 20 Certainly this dearth has not resulted from any
lack of need. David Erdman, who has devoted much time and
effort to determining Coleridgean authorship of newspaper
articles, has pointed to a large area in which such a
study might be applied:
7
The extensive Coleridgean territory where these
tools Cof stylistic analysis] need to be used is that
of newspapers— to the Morning Post within the possible
span of six years through August 1803 and to the
Courier from possibly 1804 to the l820's.2l
Of especial interest are the review articles
attributed to Coleridge. Erdman’s thorough research has
settled the question to the extent that information about
Coleridge's stylistic habits, combined with the available
external evidence, has permitted. 22 But more knowledge of
Coleridge’s style is needed if such author identifications
are to be made with full confidence. Furthermore, it is
not unreasonable to wish to evaluate Coleridge's artistry
as a prose stylist. In the past, Coleridge has been
viewed as a philosopher, political writer, or critic, who
might hold his own in terms of the ideas which he
presented (though granting him even this much merit is
recent), but who could not be considered a highly adept
prose stylist. With increasing scholarly attention being
paid to the prose writings, however, it is time that at
least some attention be directed to an evaluation of
Coleridge as prose writer.
In undertaking this task, I am considering all
the major works which are suitable for this type of
analysis, including the Essays on His Own Times, The Friend,
the Aids to Reflection, the Lay Sermons, the Theory of
Life, the Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, the Treatise
on Method, the Constitution of Church and State, the
8
Letters3 and the Biographia Literaria. For the purposes
of analysisa I exclude the books compiled from records of
his oral prose (the Shakespearean Criticism, parts of the
Miscellaneous Criticisnij and the Philosophical Lectures),
and those works not Intended for publication (notebooks,
marginalia) since they do not represent consciously pre
pared prose, though I do draw upon them for Coleridge's
remarks about style and for illustration of his linguistic
interests.
It is possible to make a case for the marginalia
as being in a sense intended for publication, since they
are, in effect, addenda to already published books, many
of which did not belong to Coleridge, and they also reflect
the idiosyncractic movement of his mind. Although they are
present in only copy (or at best in several copies) of
a given work, they are at least more accessible than the
letters, which were intended for and largely restricted to
an audience of one. But this assumption is somewhat
dubious since, when they appear in Coleridge's own books,
it seems especially likely that they were primarily
intended for his own reference. And there is a more tell
ing argument against the inclusion of the marginalia.
Many of them are fragmentary--short remarks not placed in
any sort of context by which the functions of the lexical
and syntactic constituents may be determined with certainty
and too brief to establish any stylistic patterns.
9
Consequently, analysis of their stylistic characteristics
would he difficult at best and unreliable at worst,
certainly not as expressive of his thought or the syn
tactical habits of thought as the published works.
I have felt justified, however, in extracting
Coleridge's comments about stylistic and linguistic
matters from both the table talk and the notebooks, since
the specific wording of his statement is relatively
unimportant to obtaining accurate notions of Coleridge's
opinions. Likewise, the fragmentary nature of many note
book entries and the illegibility of some others2^ is not
so severely limiting as to prevent us from drawing upon
them for Coleridge's opinions about stylistic and linguis-
pii
tic concerns.
From Coleridge's many works we can draw a truly
impressive number of allusions to linguistic matters. The
sheer number of these references, the diversity of subjects
covered, and the depths of insight which Coleridge often
displays should demonstrate beyond doubt that Coleridge
did think long and deeply about language. These
references are an indication that Coleridge thought long
and deeply about the composition of his prose as well.
It would be ironic indeed if one of the language's foremost
literary critics, author of numerous contributions to the
study of prose style, should himself practice
unthinkingly.
10
Certainly Coleridge recognized the power that
language, properly employed, could exert.^5 He worked
throughout his career to extend the power and flexibility
of the English language by coining literally hundreds of
new words. u He applauded the ability of the German
language to form new words readily by means of affixation
and composition,^ and advocated the adoption of certain
German affixes in order to improve the capacity of the
oR
English language'to form new words. u He devoted some
time to comparing the advantages of German with those of
other languages in several respects.29 Greek as well as
German won Coleridge's admiration for its ability to form
compound epithets, an ability he wished English possessed
in much greater degree. He favorably compared English
with Greek in its large stock of words of abuse.3°
Although many of his derivations were fanciful, Coleridge
took a keen interest in etymology, to go along with his
interest in forming new words.31 The underlying motivation
for all this concern with words was Coleridge's belief
that confusion attended the use of many expressions
because words had acquired so many different shades of
m e a n i n g .32 Consequently, he advocated the infusion of new
words into the language in order to facilitate the process
of de-synonymization.33 Coleridge believed that if one
did not work for distinctness in expression in this way,
confusion in thought, which is dependent upon language,
11
would result,3^ and this he considered a serious evil.35
He even thought of preparing a new dictionary,36 which
would help prevent confusion in the use of language.
Important though the precise handling of diction
was to him, it was far from Coleridge's only linguistic
concern. He contributed ideas on such grammatical topics
as the parts of speech,37 the existence of the dual c a s e ,33
the absence of vowels in Hebrew,37 the question of a
neutral pronoun^® and a passive participle^ in English,
and the lack of both the hard and the soft theta in
German.^ He worked for more effective expression by
using the compound epithet.^3 He thought the subject of
prose style so important that he felt the need for a study
of the logic of sentence construction.^ He even contem
plated writing a history of English style.^5 He was well
aware that style varied with the i n d i v i d u a l , ^ while he
recognized the classifications into which style was
traditionally divided.^7
As a practicing critic, Coleridge demonstrated his
sensitivity to even the smallest nuances of language, as
his thoroughgoing criticism of several parts of William
Afi
Sotheby's Orestes attests. Coleridge's critical acumen
also manifested itself in another area of language use,
punning. Although he did not approve of the wide-spread
use of puns in serious prose, because of his concern for
words to draw distinctions rather than to establish
12
relationships,^ he assumed the critical principle of not
judging harshly works which did resort to them.5°
In the ensuing chapters, I hope to demonstrate
that Coleridge, whether by intuition or by design,
developed a prose style appropriate to his critical
principles, and did not simply meander. In the next
chapter, I will discuss Coleridge's chief stylistic traits,
and relate these to his critical, philosophical, aesthetic,
and scientific principles. Chapter three will explore the
ways in which Coleridge builds his syntactic structures,
again in harmony with consistently-held principle. Chapter
four is concerned with Coleridge's early prose. Chapter
five will take up the question of the influence of the
seventeenth century, the influence which had the greatest
impact upon the prose of his maturity. Chapter six
defines and differentiates Coleridge's two major prose
voices, the journalistic and the philosophical, and
considers Coleridge's skillful adaptation of his stylistic
manner to the subject matter in any given essay. Chapter
seven will contain an analysis of the consistency of the
Biographia Literaria in order to show that Coleridge's
adherence to his critical principles in the writing of
prose extended to book-length works.
13
NOTES FOR CHAPTER I
1He is in particularly good form in these
sections:
Mr. Fax immediately recognized the poetico-
political, rhapsodicoprosaical, deisidaemoniacopara-
doxographical pseudolatreicological, transcendental
meteorsophist, Moley Mystic, Esquire, of Cimmerian
Lodge." Melincourt, ed. H. F. B. Brett-Smith and
C. E. Jones, The Halliford Edition, 10 vols. (New
York: Gabriel Wells, 1924-1934), II (1924), 328.
They had scarcely left the shore when they were
involved in a fog of unprecedented density, so that
they could not see one another; but they heard the
dash of Mr. Mystic’s oars, and were consoled by his
assurances that he could not miss his way in a state
of the atmosphere of very consentaneous to his
peculiar mode of vision; for that, though, in
navigating his little skiff on the Ocean of Deceitful
Form, he had very often wandered wide and far from
the Island of Pure Intelligence, yet this had always
happened when he went with hiseyes open, in broad
daylight; but that he had soon found the means of
obviating this little inconvenience, by always
keeping his eyes close shut whenever the sun had the
impertinence to shine upon him. Melincourt, p. 332.
Mystery was his mental element. He lived in the
midst of that visionary world in which nothing is
but what is not. He dreamed with his eyes open, and
saw ghosts dancing round him at noontide.... To
qualify himself for a coadjutor in this laudable task
|pf rebuilding 'the feudal fortresses of tyranny and
superstition'!/, he plunged into the central opacity
of Kantian metaphysics, and lay perdu several years
in transcendental darkness, till the common daylight
- of common sense became intolerable to his eyes. He
called the sun an ignis fatuus..." Nightmare Abbey,
Halliford Edition, III (1924), 9-10.
p
The lampoon is directed at Coleridge's conversa
tion, but it is easily applicable, as Carlyle himself no
doubt realized, to the written works as well:
14
Nothing was more copious than his talk, and
furthermore it was always, virtually or literally,
of the nature of a monologue; suffering no interrup
tion, however reverent; hastily putting aside all
foreign additions, annotation, or most ingenuous
desires for elucidation, as well-meant superfluities
which would never do; besides it was talk not flowing
anywhither like a river, but spreading everywhither
in inextricable currents and regurgitations like a
lake or sea; a confused unintelligible flood of
utterance, threatening to submerge all known land
marks of thought and drown the world with you....
He began anywhere, you put some question to him,
made some suggestive observation; instead of answer
ing this, or decidedly setting out towards an answer
of it, he would accumulate formidable apparatus,
logical swim-bladders, transcendental life-preservers
and other precautionary and vehiculatory gear, for
setting out; perhaps did at last get under way--but
was swiftly solicited, turned aside by the flame of
some radiant new game on this hand or that, into new
courses; and ever into new; and before long into all
the Universe, where it was uncertain what game you
would catch, or whether any...you swam and fluttered
in the mistiest, wide, unintelligible deluge of
things, for the most part in a rather profitless,
uncomfortable manner.
Glorious islets, too, I have seen rise out of
the haze; balmy sunny islets of the blest and the
intelligible..." The Life of John Sterling, Centenary
■ Edition of the Works of Thomas Carlyle, vol. II (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, n.d.). Originally
published in 1 8 5 1.
^The Works of Lord Byron, ed. Ernest Hartley
Coleridge, 12 vols. (London: John Murray, 1 9 3 6), pp. 3-4.
[Rptd. from 3rd edition of March, 1803D.
And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing,
But like a hawk encumbered to his hood,—
Explaining Metaphysics to the nation—
I wish he would explain the Explanation.
^In his review of Coleridge's Lay Sermon, for
instance, he writes:
He is the Dog in the Manger of Literature, an
intellectual Mar-Plot, who will neither let anybody
else come to a conclusion, nor come to one himself.
15
Hazlitt continues the attack in a footnote:
This work is so obscure, that it has been
supposed to be written in cypher, and that it is
necessary to read it upwards and downwards, or
backwards and forwards, as it happens, to make
head or tail of it. The effect is exceedingly
like the qualms produced by the heaving of a ship
becalmed at sea; the motion is so tedious, im-
progressive, and sickening. Complete Works, ed.
P. P. Howe, 21 vols. (London and Toronto: J. M.
Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1932), VII, 115-
^As he is in this letter to Miss Barker of
January 29, 1810:
It is not a little extraordinary that Coleridge,
who is fond of logic, and who has an actual love and
passion for close, hard thinking, should write in so
rambling and inconclusive a manner....he goes to work
like a hound, nosing his way, turning, twisting, and
winding and doubling, till you get weary with
following the mazy movements. Selections from the
Letters, ed. M. H. Fitzgerald, 4 vols. (London:
Oxford University Press, 1912), II, 1 8 8-1 8 9.
^Hazlitt's comments typify this type of criticism.
About his appearance, Hazlitt says:
His mouth was gross, voluptuous, open, eloquent;
his chin good-humoured and round; but his nose, the
rudder of his face, the index of the will, was small,
feeble, nothing— like what he has done. It might
seem that the genius of his face as from a height
surveyed and projected him (with sufficient capacity
and huge aspiration) into the world unknown of thought
and imagination, with nothing to support or guide his
veering purpose, as if Columbus had launched his
adventurous course for the New World in a scallop,
without oars or compass. So at least I comment on
it after the event. Complete Works, XVII, 109.
He reads a similar meaning into Coleridge's walk:
I observed that he continually crossed me on the
way by shifting from one side of the foot-path to
the other. This struck me as an odd movement; but
I did not at that time connect it with any instability
of purpose or involuntary change of principle, as I
have done since. Complete Works, XVII, 113-
16
As was so often the case, Coleridge himself opened
the door to such criticism. See, for instance, how he
describes himself to Thelwall in The Collected Letters of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Earl Leslie Griggs, 4 vols.
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956-59)* I (1956), 259-260.
^Organic Unity in Coleridge, University of
California Publications in English, VII, i (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1939)j P* 104.
^Coleridge the Talker (New York and London:
Johnson Reprint Corporation, 19 6 9 )5 p. 30. Originally
published by Cornell University Press, 1940).
^Coleridge: The Work and the Relevance. (New
York: Barnes and Noble, 1 9 6 7 )3 p. 2 5.
10"The Thought of Coleridge," in The Major English
Romantic Poets: A Symposium in Reappraisal, pp. 100-112,
ed. Clarence D. Thorpe, Carlos Baker, and Bennett Weaver
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1957)j
p. 1 1 2.
-'--'•Typical of these references is the remark:
I am, & was at the very first number of The
Friend, sensible of my defect in facility of Style,
and more desirous to avoid obscurity than successful
in the attempt. Habits of abstruse and continuous
thought, and the almost exclusive perusal of the
Greek Historians & Philosophers, of the German Meta
physicians & Moralists, and of our English Writers
from Edward VIth to James Ilnd, have combined to
render my sentences more piled up and architectural,
than is endurable in so illogical an age as the
present, in which all the cements of Style are
dismissed, and a popular Book is only a sequence of
epigrams and aphorisms on one subject. Too often
my Readers may justly complain of involution and
entortillage in my style, tristem nescio quam et
impexam antiquitatem. Collected Letters, III (1959)?
237* Similar comments may be found, respectively,
on pages 20 and 1 8 8 -1 8 9 of the Collected Letters,
vol. II (1 9 5 6) in The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, ed. Kathleen Coburn, 2 double vols. (New
York: Pantheon; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1957-61), II (1961), 2372.
12Quoted in The Table Talk and Omniana of Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, ed. T. Ashe (London: George Bell and
Sons, 1888), pp. 6 -8 and in The Complete Works of Samuel
17
Taylor Coleridge, 7 vols., ed. W. G. T. Shedd (New York:
Harper and Brothers, 1854), VI, 233-234. Sara Coleridge's
critique is in her edition of the Essays on His Own Times
(London: William Pickering, 1 8 5 0), pp. lxxxv-lxxvii.
^Recollections of the Lake Poets, ed. Edward
Sackville-West (Paulton and London: John Lehmann, Ltd.,
1948), pp. 32-33. First published in Tait's Magazine, 1834-
1 8 3 5. First published in book form in 1853-l8bO in the
Collective Edition of his works, published by James Hogg.
It is interesting that DeQuincey defends Coleridge in the
same water imagery which Hazlitt used in attacking him:
That point being settled, Coleridge, like some
great river, the Orelana, or the St. Lawrence, that,
having been checked and fretted by rocks or thwarting
islands, suddenly recovers its volume of waters and
its mighty music, swept at once, as if returning to
his natural business, into a continuous strain of
eloquent dissertation, certainly the most novel, the
most finely illustrated, and traversing the most
spacious fields of thought by transitions the most
just and logical that it was possible to conceive.
^See Laura Johnson Wylie, "Samuel Taylor
Coleridge," in Studies in the Evolution of English
Criticism (Boston: Ginn and Company, 1094), pp. 162-204;
W. P. Kerr, "Samuel Taylor Coleridge in English Prose
Selections, 5 vols. (New York: The Macmillan Company,
189b), V, 7 6j and Oliver Elton, "The Coleridges," in A
Survey of English Literature, 1 7 8O-I8 8I3 4 vols. (New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1920), II, 199-234.
^ Coleridge and S. T. C., The Life and Letters
Series, no. 8b (London: Jonathon Cape, 1935) 5 pp. 177-178.
l6Walsh, p. 43.
^ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Twayne's English Authors
Series, no. 3b (New York: Twayne Publishing Company,
1 9 6 6), p. 105.
^Catholic University of America, 1 9 6 3•
-^Specifically, Chapters 1-4, 14, 17* 18, and 22 in
the Biographia Literaria. Other prose works studied
include the short essays "On Style," "On Metaphysical
Reasoning," "On Method," "On Romeo and Juliet," the
introduction to the first Lay Sermon, two letters, and
a few passages from the Aids to Reflection.
18
2 0Radley, p. 106.
21"The Case for Internal Evidence (6): The
Signature of Style;" BEY PL, 6 3, no. 2 (February, 1959), 95.
Reprinted in Erdman and Fogel, Evidence for Authorship:
Essays on Problems of Attribution (Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University Press, 1965), pp. 45-68.
PP
"Immoral Acts of a Library Cormorant: The
Extent of Coleridge's Contributions to the Critical
Review," BNYPL, 6 3, no. 9 (September, 1959)5 433-454; no.
10 (October, 1959) 5 515-530; and no. 11 (November, 1959) 5
575-589.
23Edmund Blunden, "Coleridge's Notebooks," REL,
8, no. 1 (January, 1 9 6 6), 2 5-2 6.
oh
^To add to the difficulties, one must choose
carefully the text upon which he bases his comments. We
may divide the works for which there is a textual problem
into four categories: (1) letters; (2) notebooks; (3)
marginalia; and (4) table talk. The letters present the
fewest problems. The scattered letters and parts of
letters printed in such sources as Thomas Allsop, Letters,
Conversations, and Recollections of S. T. Coleridge, 2
vols. (London: Moxon, 1 8 3 6); Joseph Cottle, Early “Recol
lections Chiefly Relating to the Late Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, 2 vols. (London: Longman, Rees, and Company,
I8 3 7) and Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge! and
Robert Southey (London: Houlston and Stoneman, 1837);
Memorials of Coleorton, Being Letters from Coleridge,
Wordsworth, and his Sister, Southey, and Sir Walte~r~Scott
to Sir George and Lady Beaumont of Coleorton, Leicester^
shire, 1803-1834, ed. William Knight, 2 vols. (Edinburgh:
D. Douglas, 1887)l Unpublished Letters from Samuel Taylor
Coleridge to the Rev. John Prior Estlm, ed. Henry A.
Bright LPhilobiblon Society Miscellanies, XV, l877-l884J;
and Mrs. Henry Sandford, Thomas Poole and His Friends, 2
vols. (London and New York: The Macmillan Company, 1888)
provide only a fragmentary picture of Coleridge the letter
writer, and often, due to Victorian or family sensitivities,
a somewhat inaccurate one. Arthur Turnbull's Biographia
Epistolaris: Being the Biographical Supplement of
Coleridge's Biographia Literaria (London: GeorgeBell and
Sons, 1911) merely reprints 219letters drawn from earlier
publications. E. H. Coleridge's Letters of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, 2 vols. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and
Company, 1 8 9 5) contains 260 letters, but many were printed
with omissions. Earl Leslie Griggs' Unpublished Letters of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 2 vols. (New Haven, Connecticut:
19
Yale University Press, 1932) supplements E. H. Coleridge’s
edition with some 400 more letters. For letters of 1 7 8 5-
1819 Griggs' Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
4 vols. (Oxford: at the Clarendon Press, 1958-1959) is
the standard edition, and should be the only one used.
For later letters one must depend upon E. H. Coleridge.
The notebooks, with the exception of a few frag
ments published in the Literary Remains, ed. Henry Nelson
Coleridge, 4 vols. (London: William Pickering, 1 8 3 8) and
elsewhere are represented only by the Anima Poetae, ed.
E. H. Coleridge (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin,
and Company, 1895) and Kathleen Coburn’s edition of the
Notebooks. The two volumes of textual material of the
Noteboo~ks currently available supercedes the Anima Poetae,
but these two volumes cover only 1794-1808. For references
after 1 8 0 8, the Anima Poetae remains the only published
source.
The marginalia first appeared in The Literary
Remains. This work, however, is completely unreliable, as
Paul Elmer has noted in "Editorial Revision of Coleridge’s
Marginalia," MLN, 68 (1952) 32-37- The same objections
apply to volumes four and five of Shedd, which were based
on the Literary Remains. The Notes, Theological, Political,
and Miscellaneous, ed. Rev. Derwent Coleridge (London: r
Edward Moxon, 1853) is likewise suspect, since much of it
reprints material verbatim from the Literary Remains and
since the motives for publication were the same (see p. vi
of the preface of that work). Derwent Coleridge's edition
of Notes on the English Divines by Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
2 vols. (London: Edward Moxon, 1353), of course, follows
the same editorial policies. Reliable modern editions are
Roberta Florence Brinkley, Coleridge on the 1 7th Century
(Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1955)
and Coleridge’s Miscellaneous Criticism, ed. Thomas
Middleton Raysor (Cambridgej Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 1 9 3 6). Even Raysor's volume, however,
is not complete, and at one place in his preface (p. ix)
he sounds suspiciously like E. H. Coleridge:
I should not wish, however, to collect and
publish all of Coleridge's innumerable marginalia,
even if it were possible. I have, in some cases,
printed critical notes in this book with much
reluctance, merely because they had more or less
established themselves in the canon.of Coleridge's
established work. In other cases, I have deliberately
passed by Coleridge marginalia posthumously published
in various periodicals, either because this book is
limited to criticism in literature, or because it
would be unfair to the writer to print trivialities
never intended for the press.
20
The accuracy of the oral prose is much harder to
verify than the accuracy of the printed works, needless to
say. As far as the lectures on Shakespeare are concerned,
there is no reason to suspect the Lectures and Notes on
Shakespeare and Other English Poets, ed. T. Ashe (London:
George Bell and Sons, 1890), since it does not involve any
controversial political or religious issues. This volume,
however, has been superceded by Coleridge's Shakespearean
Criticism, ed. T. M. Raysor (Cambridgej Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1930). The table talk per se is
represented by two major 19th century editions, Ashe's
Table Talk and Omniana and Volume VI of Shedd. These
remain the only major samplings of his informal prose.
Descriptions of his table talk from j6 of his contempor
aries have been collected in Coleridge the Talker.
Fortunately, the new Bollingen Series, The
Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, should, when
complete, provide reliable, scholarly editions for all the
works except the letters, and eliminate much of the exist
ing confusion in choosing a text.
^ Notebooks, n a 2864.
2 6two extensive discussions of this matter are by
Joshua H. Neumann, "Coleridge on the English Language,"
PMLA, 6 3, no. 2 (June, 1948), 642-661 and by J. Isaacs,
"Coleridge's Critical Terminology," Essays and Studies by
Members of the English Association, 21 (1935)a 86-104.
See also Dorothy Coldicutt, "Was Coleridge the Author of
the 'Enquirer' Series in the Monthly Magazine, 1 7 9 6-9?",
RES, 25 (January, 1939)5 45-60.
27Neumann, p. 653*
2^Notebooks, II, 3 1 6 0.
29Table Talk, pp. 1 8 2, 225, 2 6 2, 2 9 6-2 9 7, and 4l4.
(The page numbers for volume six of Shedd are, respectively
4l5j 256, 291, and 5 2 3).
3°Table Talk, p. 84 (missing in Shedd).
31Table Talk, pp. 70-71* 248. (In Shedd, pp. 309,
477-478).
32Notebooks, II, 2442.
33Table Talk, p. 75 (Shedd, p. 313): Biographia
Literaria, ed. George Watson (London: J. M. Dent and
Company, 1965)3 PP. 50* 51n. Reprinted from 1956 edition.
Originally published in 1 9 0 6.
3^Brinkley, p. 250.
35Brinkley, p. 115•
36shedd> III* 325~326n.
37Table Talk, p. 43 (Shedd, VI, 282).
38Table Talk, p. 1 6 7 (Shedd, VI, 399).
•^Notebooks, n 5 2450.
^°Anlma Poetae, pp. 1 6O-I6 1.
Table Talk, pp. 1 6 7 -1 6 8 (Shedd, VI, 400).
^ Table Talk, p. 1 6 7 (Shedd, VI, 400).
^3 Joshua Neumann has noted these instances:
Collected Letters, I, 171, 19^, 6 3O; II, 9 0 3, 1074; III,
3b, 541 j Letters, ed. Coleridge, II, 7 6 1.
^Table Talk, p. 110 (Shedd, VI, 346).
^^Collected Letters, II, 877*
^ Biographia Literaria, p. 1 9 8.
^Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 421.
^3Quoted in detail, and accompanied with a fine
analysis, in Ralph Cohen, "S. T. Coleridge and William
Sothey's Orestes," MLR, 52 (1957), 19-27- .
^ Biographia Literaria, p. 92.
5QNotebooks, II, 2396. For other Coleridge re
marks about punning, see p. 190 in the Anima Poetae, where
he projects a treatise on the subject; Table Talk, p. 43
(Shedd, VI, 282), where he discusses the serious pun, and
pp. 3^7-348, where he discusses the origins of the pun;
and Brinkley, p. 203 and the Shakespearean Criticism, I,
3 8, 149, 1535 II, 103, 1 2 1-1 2 2, 137-138, 184, and 190,
where he discusses the uses of the pun in specific works
of literature. For a discussion of these Coleridgean
remarks and of Coleridge’s own use of puns see Sylvan
Barnet, "Coleridge on Puns: A Note to His Shakespearean
Criticism," JEGP, 56 (1957), 6 0 2-6 0 9.
CHAPTER II
COLERIDGE'S STYLISTIC TRAITS DEDUCIBLE
FROM HIS CRITICAL PRINCIPLES
For the reader familiar with the prose, there are
many times, when after only the briefest perusal of a
passage, he is able to proclaim confidently, "that is
unmistakeably Coleridge." As early a critic as Sara
Coleridge noticed this and commented penetratingly upon it:
There is a countenance in an author's mode of
expression; not that a man's whole being will look
forth from his writings....but that enough of his
intellectual character and temperament will appear
in his compositions... to render the author clearly
recognizable by those well acquainted with his
mental idiosyncracy....
An author may shift his style as a man wears
a different habit on different occasions...yet the
writer's personality will shine through it.
My Father's genius was never hidden in the
different forms it assumed or modes in which it was
manifested. The identity was more impressive than
the diversity in all that proceeded from his mind.1
David Erdman agrees, and has attempted to be more exact
about what that "countenance" of style consists of: "The
main thing is that Coleridge is a writer who can seldom
proceed any distance incognito without being provoked into
some ironic comment, some gesticulation of metaphor, or
p
some metaphysical outcry, that gives him away."
In this chapter, I examine the chief stylistic
22
23
traits which are common to all of Coleridge's writings,
whether Journalistic or philosophical, and, where appro
priate, relate these stylistic traits to Coleridge's
critical principles. First, I consider the involuted
nature of the prose, and show how it is authorized by
Coleridge's critical, philosophical, aesthetic, and
scientific principles. The relevant critical principle is
Coleridge's outright rejection of any sort of epigrammatic
style. The germain philosophical principle is organic
unity. Two aesthetic principles are discussed, the
reconciliation of multeity into unity, and the reconcilia
tion of opposites, which follows from the philosophical
principle of organic unity. The scientific principle
involved is association of ideas. Following a treatment
of these four classes of principles, we will turn to the
diction. Then we will move to the tone. And finally we
will examine his theory and practice of metaphor.
One of the important traits in Coleridge's prose
is involution. Contrary to the all too prevalent opinion,
the involuted sentences are not the products of a
vacillating, self-contradictory mind; instead they demon
strate a remarkable consistency in adherence to principle.
Coleridge as practicing critic feared that enforced
brevity resulted in superficiality.3 He was, therefore,
quite critical of the Senecan and the French styles of
epigrammatic writing ("merely strung together like beads'1)^.
24
the style of his contemporaries ("marbles in a bag which
touch without adhering"),5 and the "aphoristic" style of
Oriental nations.^ Conversely, he lavishly praised Taylor,
Milton, and Hooker for their long, yet "logical" sen-
7
tences. Nor was this simply an idiosyncratic preference.
He wrote that
The philosophy of language... ought to be
experimentative and analytic of the elements of
meaning— their double, triple, and quadruple com
binations, of simple aggregation or of composition
by balance or opposition.
Thus innocence is distinguished from virtue,
and Vice-versa. In both of them there is a positive,
but in each opposite.8
This "aggregation" and "composition" could best be done,
Coleridge believed, by means of a convoluted style. In
order to achieve the desired result, Coleridge strongly
emphasized connectives, particularly conjunctions, for
these involuted sentences. He felt that if these were
used well, a good writer could achieve maximum coherence;
he could present an argument which formed a "linked
strain" throughout.9 When in a later chapter we examine
the structures of coordination and the expansion devices,
we will see that this emphasis upon connectives is
suggestive in terms of Coleridge's sentence structure.
His adherence to a central philosophical principle,
that organic unity is a prevailing principle in the
universe,'**0 helped to confirm his judgment in favor of the
complex kind of style which he wrote. Organic unity
25
provides for:
The mysterious process of growth, in which the
parts develop simultaneously from a seed in which
the matured organism is already contained.
The inseparability of form from content....
Great complexity of process. The copresence
of conscious and unconscious, discursive and
immediate, willed and spontaneous.H
These criteria lend themselves as well to literary critic
ism as to ontology, as Coleridge demonstrates when he
applies them to his literary criticism.
Of course, as Coleridge no doubt realized, applica
tion of a biological principle to literary works could
only be done metaphorically. As a metaphor, the term is
helpful in pointing out the similarities of effect between
two kinds of developing objects] but one should beware of
demanding too much from a figure of speech. The organic
metaphor nicely characterizes Coleridge's spiraling,
rather than point-by-point, strategy in prose, but the
metaphysical and scientific connotations which the term
acquires when Coleridge uses it as a quasi-religious
substantive expression do not apply here. In short, when
used as a term of literary criticism, "organic" is formal,
not substantive. In its formal sense its use by
Coleridge in connection with literary works is, however,
legitimate.
He applies the first two criteria of organic unity
when he describes the art of Shakespeare as the creation
of characters which exhibit
26
individuality everywhere, mere portrait no where.
In all his various characters, we still feel ourselves
communing with the same human nature, which is every
where present as the vegetable sap in the branches,
sprays, leaves, buds, blossoms, and fruits, their
shapes, tastes, and odours. Speaking of the effect,
i.e. his works themselves, we may define the
excellence of their method as consisting in that just
proportion, that union and interpenetration of the
universal and the particular, which must ever pervade
all works of decided genius and true science. For
Method implies a progressive transition...!2
Similar remarks occur elsewhere in his criticism.13 it
follows from this criterion that the factors governing the
development of the organism's (or literary work's) form
are internal, rather than imposed from without, since the
end product is present in its final form in the germ.
Coleridge insisted upon this corollary,!^ and consistently
followed it in his work as a literary critic. He praises
seventeenth century prose writers for following it,15 but
rejects Ciceronianism because he feels that it contains
"a foreign something, which had been superinduced on the
language, instead of growing out of it."l6
The first criterion of organic unity, concerning
the mysterious processes of growth, also implies the
growth of the work of art in the mind of the author in
accordance with his mental makeup. Coleridge felt that
regardless of the particular work, or form of that work,
being discussed, the author's stamp was impressed upon
it,1^ because in the style of an author's works, there was
"an organic 'manifestation' of the man."l® Coleridge
explicitly applied the principle to his own writings, and
27
did not limit its application to imaginative works only:
"My philosophical opinions are blended with, or deduced
from, my feelings; and this, I think, peculiarizes my
style of Writing. And like everything else, it is some
times a beauty, and sometimes a fault."19 He says of
The Friend, "Each Essay will, he believes, be found
compleat in itself, yet an organic part of the whole con
sidered as one disquisition."20 The "organic manifesta
tion" of Coleridge is the principle of organic unity
itself; this is the "philosophical opinion" that most
directly particularizes his style of writing. His prose
exhibits the organic growth of thought, as both early21
and contemporary critics have recognized:
We can apply to Coleridge's writings words he
used himself to describe— of all things— parentheses.
'They are the drama of reason, the thought growing'.'
This gives exactly the effect Coleridge's writings
have of offering the thing as it moves, the idea, the
feelings, the dream, the spectacle, before it has
been arrested by time or tedium or frozen into conven
tion. And Coleridge conveys the effect of movement,
of the volatility of mental action, so unmistakeably
because it is the central habit of his mind and so
vividly because of the mobility and transparency of
a style that is as apt and supple as light. 22
Organic growth of thought, it might be added, is also
exhibited in Coleridge's penchant for marginalia and
notebooks; he produces all kinds of writing "in process."
His philosophical opinions, which he admits are
reflected in his writings, call for an organic growth of
thought. So, in his prose, he puts forth a tentative
28
statement or part of a complete thought and then in
succeeding clauses modifies it, just as the thought had
originally existed in his mind, but then had been modified
by succeeding insights concerning it.23 p0r instance, in
the sentence, "We learn all things indeed by occasion of
experience; but the very facts so learnt force us inward
on the antecedents, that must be pre-supposed in order to
render experience itself possible,"2^ the first independent
clause states the original idea of the sentence. Coleridge
then adds the qualification in the second independent
clause, and a final qualification of "things" in the
dependent clause. This structure gives the impression,
at least, of corresponding to the order of Coleridge's
thought. First, the idea that "We learn all things indeed
by occasion of experience" occurs to him; then he has the
insight that "the very facts so learnt force us inward on
the antecedents"; and finally decides that a further
refinement, "that must be pre-supposed in order to render
experience itself possible" should be annexed to the
second independent clause.
The third criterion of organic unity, great
complexity of process, especially encourages the applica
tion of the whole idea of organic unity to works with a
convoluted (or at least complex) structure. Because the
more complex systems, whether of plants and animals or of
prose writings, can better provide for the necessarily
29
complex processes of organic growth, Coleridge believed,
as Gordon McKenzie has remarked, that "The number of
relationships included in any system is a certain sign of
the system’s value."25 Obviously, this does not mean that
the number of elements included should be as large as
possible, but rather that the number of relationships
should be. The distinction is important to keep in mind,
so that we will not wrongly ascribe to Coleridge advocacy
of a boundless, shapeless, chaotic flood of words as a
sentence style. "Related" for Coleridge means organically
(i.e., fully integrated with one another) related. Thus
he would exclude any system which contained so many con
stituents or constituents so diverse that they could not
totally interact with one another. As Sister Mary Osinski
has concluded, Coleridge attempted to "express himself as
completely and lucidly as possible."2^ The large number
of relationships included within the typical Coleridgean
sentence permits the complete and lucid expression of even
quite diverse elements. Coleridge is thus able to adhere
to the principle of reconciliation of opposites, another
important aspect of his philosophical thinking about
organicism.2? Sometimes, as in this sentence from The
Friend, several sets of opposites are related:
Now, will reason, will common sense, endure
the assumption, that it is highly reasonable to
believe a universal power, as the cause and pre
condition of the harmony of all particular wholes,
each of which involves the working principle of
30
its own union— that it is reasonable, I say, to
believe this respecting the aggregate of objects,
which, without a subject, (that is a sentient and
intelligent existence) would be purposeless; and
yet unreasonable and even superstitious or enthus
iastic to entertain a similar belief in relation to
the system of intelligent and self-conscious beings,
to the moral and personal world?2o
This sentence reconciles the opposites reason and common
sense, wholes and their constituents, subject and object,
the reasonable and the unreasonable, and the physical
world and the personal world. As we shall see in the next
chapter, Coleridge puts this principle of reconciliation
of opposites into practice in the small constructions
(words and phrases) as well as the larger building blocks
(whole sentences) of his prose. He lexically coordinates
(and thus reconciles into the overall sentence structure)
words of varying degrees of difference in meaning; he
moulds sentences which integrate hypotactic and coordinate
elements.
Coleridge's use of an involuted style is called for
by his aesthetic theory, as it is by his critical and
* II
philosophical theories. In his essay On the Principles
of Genial Criticism," Coleridge declares that "The
Beautiful arises from the perceived harmony of an object,
whether sight or sound, with the inborn and constitutive
rules of the judgment and imagination: and it is always
intuitive."29 This definition requires, in other words,
that a work of art, if it is to qualify as beautiful,
31
must have its principles of organization operating
organically from within, as opposed to the Augustan pen
chant for forcing sentences into neat (at times too neat)
relationships of balance and antithesis.3° The organic
principle means that "harmony" of the object only can be
achieved by fusion of the many parts into one whole;
simply arranging the separate parts felicitously will not
suffice:
The BEAUTIFUL, contemplated in its essentials,
that is in kind and not in degree, is that in which
the many still seen as many, becomes one. Take a
familiar instance, one of a thousand. The frost on
a windowpane has by accident crystallized into a
striking resemblence of a tree or a seaweed. With
what pleasure we trace the parts, and their relations
to each other, and to the whole I Here is the stalk
or trunk, and here the branches or sprays--sometimes
even the buds or flowers....So far is the Beautiful
from depending wholly on association, that it is
frequently produced by the mere removal of associa
tions ....
The most general definition of beauty, therefore,
is...Multeity in Unity.31
In the character of the beautiful the manifold
must be melted into O n e . . .32
These almost transcendental-sounding expressions reflect
the depth of Coleridge’s acceptance of them. In fact, he
believed in a sort of artistic monis m.33 jn Coleridge's
scheme of thought, the multeity is as important as the
unity. The excellence of the final form depends upon the
quantitative and the qualitative diversity of the component
parts as much as upon their reconciliation into an
undifferentiated whole.3^ Obviously the involuted style,
32
which allows the writer to hold many elements in solution
simultaneously, in a sentence and also in the larger
structural units (the paragraph and the section of the
essay), best meets Coleridge's criteria for the Beautiful.
Very often the principle which determines the
overall structure is association of ideas, a principle
which Coleridge took over from the scientific writings of
David Hartley. The loose structure resulting from the
application of this principle to prose style enables
Coleridge to do any necessary enlarging upon a subordinate
element in a statement before drawing the multeity of
loose ends into a harmonious unity. He can make a state
ment, be reminded of some part of the statement that needs
elaboration, and elaborate in a subordinate clause.
Although subordination of this kind can imply a
premeditated, hierarchical ordering, if it involves the
expression of a thesis statement and then development of
that thesis in ensuing subordinate constructions, this is
not the effect encountered in Coleridgean prose.
Coleridge's subordinations do not develop the preceding
statements, but rather move off in new directions. This
procedure has been described accurately by Morris Croll
as the "linked" or "trailing" effect, in which "members
relate, not to the general idea or most important word of
the preceding member, but to its last word."35 The process
may continue if Coleridge observes in the subordinate
33
clause an element requiring further explanation. He then
takes on a second subordinate clause to make the necessary
explanation. For instance, take the sentence,
God.forbid! that I should be suspected of a
wish to enter into a rivalry with Schelling for the
honors too unequivocally his right, not only as a
great and original genius, but as the founder of
the Philosophy of Nature, and as the most successful
improver of the Dynamic System, which, begun by Bruno,
was freed from all its impurities and visionary
accompaniments by Kantj in whom it was the native
and necessary growth of his own system. 36
Armour and Howes gives a succinct resume of the successive
associations which Coleridge made in arriving at this
sentence:
Coleridge began with the idea that he had no
desire to take glory from Schelling. Thinking of
Schelling, he went off into a description of his
work. Thinking of his work, he remembered its
source in Bruno and its effect on Kant. Thinking
of Kant, he explained Kant’s relation to Schelling’s
system.37
It is well known that Coleridge finally rejected
the mechanistic and passive aspects of the associationism
of Hartley, but this does not mean that he abandoned the
association-of-ideas technique in his later writings,
although he did re-form his mental picture of the associa-
tionist process to one of association influenced by
feeling.38 His recorded utterances indicate that he
conceived of association, at least in its literary applica
tion, as a stream of feeling rather than as a series of
collisions of ideas as separated from each other as
billiard b a l l s .89 The difference is monumental, because
34
if the items associated are conceived of as drops in a
stream, it is clear that they are indivisible components
of a whole (and hence subsist in a relationship of
organic unity, not of mechanical cause and effect). Addi
tionally, the vast number of drops in even a small quantity
of water metaphorically reinforces Coleridge’s insistence
that the number of items being held in suspension be as
large as possible. Coleridge is seeking always to embrace
in his generalizations the largest overall or most compre
hensive view possible; thus his practice here. In terms
of structure, then, Coleridge is impressively consistent.
He does not depart from his critical, philosophical,
aesthetic, or scientific principles in asserting what is
\
a good prose style.
Surprisingly, Coleridge is equally consistent in
practice with his pronouncements in theory on the subject
of diction. I say surprisingly, because at first glance
his emphatic championing of the plainest and simplest
possible diction would appear to be a denial of his own
practice. Several times, he takes occasion to opt for
simple diction:
The words in prose ought to express the intended
meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to
themselves, it is, in general, a fault.40
If men would only say what they have to say in
plain terms, how much more eloquent would they bel4l
For works of imagination should be written in
very plain language; the more purely imaginative
35
hn
they are the more necessary it is to be plain. 1
In his criticism of other writers, he is equally careful
to make the point:
Lin seventeenth century writers! the words are
selected because they are the most appropriate,
regard being had to the dignity of the total impres
sion, and no merely big phrases are used where plain
ones would have sufficed, even in the most learned of
their works.^3
Habe semper, says Caesar as quoted by Gellius,
in memoria atque in pectore, ut tamquam sic fugias
insolens verbum.^
Likewise, Coleridge felt that the overall effect produced
by the diction of a passage should not be too dazzling.
Certainly Coleridge adhered to this last principle faith
fully. No one has yet accused him of attempting to take
the reader’s breath away with pyrotechnical prose, although
as we shall see when we discuss the journalistic style, he
did at times use emotionally-charged epithets. As Charles
Frederick Johnson observed in 1886: "While his prose
abounds in graphic and suggestive images, it is strictly
argumentative prose; it holds no artistic element in solu-
h/r
tion. It is addressed primarily to the intellect.
The simplicity of the words involved, though, is
another matter. When Coleridge spoke of simple diction,
he apparently confounded it with precise diction. This is
understandable, considering that for a man who had thought
as long and as deeply as he had about many abstruse
subjects, the precise word was the simple word, since it
36
conveyed a definitely-bounded concept to his mind. For a
man with his great critical intellect, the difficult word
was the shorter, more popular one which carried with it a
host of only hazily-defined meanings; a word whose constant
use had widened both the connotations and the denotations
to the point at which it would be difficult to ascertain,
in any given instance, just what idea was meant by its
user.
In keeping with this supposition, Coleridge
stresses the importance of having a large vocabulary,^ and
bemoans the shortage of technical terms in the English
language.^® This we would expect from one who, as we
noted in Chapter I, was so strong an advocate of de-synonym--
ization, in order to enhance the precision of word
meanings.
In a crucial passage in the Anima Poetae, Coleridge
illuminates this distinction between precision and
simplicity and explains that meaning depends entirely upon
the experience of the reader. If a man describes jaundice
as yellow, for instance, and his reader does not know what
"yellow" is, because he has had no experience of it, then
no meaning is conveyed.^9 He goes on to explain that
I have dwelt on this for more reasons than one;
first, because a remark that seems at first sight
the same, namely, that ’everything clearly perceived
may be conveyed in simple common language,' without
taking in the ’to whom?’ is the disease of the age—
an arrogant pusillanimity, a hatred of all informa
tion that cannot be obtained without thinking; and
37
secondly* because the pretended imperfection of
language is often a disguise of muddy thoughts;
and* thirdly* because to the mind itself it is
made an excuse for indolence in determining what
the fact or truth is which is the premise.50
Thus* while Coleridge did realize that there was a diff
erence between precision and simplicity* he often used
"plain" or "simple" in a context that called for "precise."
This being taken into account* it is evident that Coleridge
followed the rules that he prescribed for diction* as the
briefest glance at the enormous list of new words that he
coined and the new meanings or new uses that he found for
old words will attest.
On the subject of tone* Coleridge has comparatively
little to say. But from his few utterances it is possible
to discover at least his major operating principle* his
aesthetic premise: "Beauty is the shorthand hieroglyphic
of Truth— the mediator between Truth and Feeling* the Head
and the Heart."51 if We take the prose as an object of
beauty* then a tone neither coldly calculating nor
slushily sentimental is called for* since the tone acts as
the mediator between the Head (the coldly rational) and the
Heart (the warmly emotional). His comments specifically on
written works support this conclusion. In The Friend*
there are several points at which Coleridge discusses the
proper approach to one’s audience* subject* and material*
particularly for moral discourses. He wholeheartedly
ascribes to the principle that devices of "entertainment"
38
(which appeal to the heart) are appropriate for the
serious work:
But in respect to the entertainingness of moral
writings, if in entertainment be included whatever
delights the imagination or affects the generous
passions, so far from rejecting such a mean of per
suading the human soul, my very system compels me
to defend not only the propriety, hut the absolute
necessity of adopting it, if we really intend to
render our fellow-creatures better or wiser.52
At the beginning of essay number five, Coleridge
culminates his defense of appealing to both the head and
the heart with the statement that such an appeal is part
of his practice:
I have said, that my very system compels me to
make every fair appeal to the feelings, the imagination
and even the fancy. If these are to be withheld from
the service of truth, virtue, and happiness, to what
purpose were they given? In whose service are they
retained?53
Though he unreservedly supports the practice of appealing
to the "generous passions" as well as to the intellect in
moral works, he is careful to avoid a carte blanche
authorization of appeal to all emotions under all circum
stances. He qualifies his statement with the words "fair
appeal to the feelings." Clearly his concern is to keep a
balance between appeal to the head and appeal to the heart.
This care to maintain a balanced appeal extends
to less serious types of writings as well; he has what at
times sounds like an Elizabethan uneasiness about what
effects rabble-rousing pamphleteers could have on what he
termed, even in the full flush of his youthful radicalism
39
(1 7 9 5) "those loud-tongued adulators, the mob."-^
Consequently, as Carl Woodring has aptly put it,
"Coleridge's principles as a gentleman prophet would not
let him publish for the inflammation of the unrighteous.
He opposed the hounding even of demagogues, but he could
not join Cobbett and Carlile in demagoguery."^5 jn the
"Introductory Address," for instance, when Coleridge speaks
of the French Revolution, he insists that "instead of
railing with infuriate declamation against these excesses,
we shall be more profitably employed in developing the
sources of them."^ And in the ensuing discussion he is
as good as his word. He analyzes the errors of the French
patriots, of the Girondists, and of Robespierre. He then
takes up the topic of revolution, but treats it in terms
of a description of four classes of professed friends of
freedom, carefully avoiding anything like the kind of
declamatory rhetoric which a topic such as this so easily
could evoke. The remainder of the essay, concerned with
the education of the lower classes, the conduct necessary
for those who instruct the lower classes, and a final plea
for moderation of the passions, is likewise marked by
restraint.
Also unlike the practicing demagogue, Coleridge
bridles his word choice. The "explosively French"57 term
"liberty" is used sparingly, and nearly always in a
reference to the French, as in his dedication to the poem
4o
"To the Exiled Patriots:"
It is with pleasure that I am permitted to
recite a yet unpublished tribute to their merit,
the production of one who has sacrificed all the
energies of his heart and head, a splendid offer
ing on the altar of Liberty.58
The even more explosive word "democracy" is completely and
conspicuously absent. As these examples indicate,
Coleridge normally does take the via media between the head
and the heart, although in places he is very warmly
emotional and in places he is very coldly calculating.
This conclusion, of course, is exactly the opposite
from that reached by a good many Coleridgean critics. In
his own lifetime, Hazlitt accused him of a tone of
snobbish pomposity:
The consciousness that he was in possession of
truths denied to others produced the characteristic
note of pontification which is evident in early and
late works alike. It led to the creation of an air
of mystery through the use of out of the way allusions,
erudite quotations, unfamiliar words, and technical
terms; and to his paying a too ’willing homage to
the Illustrious Obscure.’59
If this were the only extant criticism on this
ground, it might be written off as simply one more segment
of Hazlitt's acrid attack. But although Hazlitt is much
more explicit than anyone else, the criticism is implicit
in the oft expressed judgment that Coleridge is "obscure."
Though the many critics who have felt that his writings
are "labyrinthine" or "mazy" might not go so far as to
pronounce him "pompous" or "snobbish," most of them
41
certainly would concur that his works exude "intellect
uality" and represent the interests of the "head" over
those of the "heart."
On the other hand, Stephen Potter has brought the
opposite charge against him. Potter feels that a
straightforward tone (which he terms "Coleridge") is to be
found only in those works not intended for publication—
fin
notebook entries, marginalia, and letters. Potter feels
that Coleridge inculcated into those works prepared for
publication a "chilling excess of feeling" (the mark of
"S. T. C." rather than "Coleridge").^1 Potter feels that
this excess normally takes the form of defensiveness
(feeling that he must always excuse himself), presenting
himself as a misunderstood man, and employing sweeping
generalizations to do these things. When he lapses into
this style, the tone is appropriately dubbed "mental
bombast.
It is true that against neither of these charges
can Coleridge fully be defended. He does at times indulge
in an over-blown intellectuality, as in these sentences:
Words are but remembrances, though remembrance
may be so excited, as by the a priori powers of the
mind to produce a tertium aliquid. The utmost,
therefore, that should be said is that every addita-
ment of perception requires a new word, which (like
all other words) will be intelligible to all who
have seen the subject recalled by it, and who have
learnt that such a word or phrase was appropriate
to itj and this may be attained either by a new word,
as platinum, titanium, osmiu, etc., for the new metals,
or an epithet peculiarizing the application of an
old word.°3____________
42
He does become needlessly apologetic, melodramatic, and
bombastic on occasion, and, as we shall see in Chapter VI,
in his early political writings uses a rhetoric which
borders upon the inflammatory in places. Within a very
few pages in one section of the Biographia Literaria,
Coleridge exhibits all of these traits, except inflamma
tory rhetoric. First, he glories in his role in national
affairs. He pretends that he thinks little of his own
journalistic efforts, but is careful to name-drop all he
can (and affix as many important-sounding titles as
possible to each name); and he cannot resist the melo
dramatic flourish of suggesting that he would be proud to
have the charge that the Morning Post (specifically,
Coleridge's leading article) started the war with France
"inscribed on my tomb":
I am not indeed silly enough to take as any
thing more than a violent hyperbole of party debate
Mr. Fox's assertation that the late war (I trust that
the epithet is not prematurely applied) was a war
produced by the Morning Post; or I should be proud
to have the words inscribed on my tomb. As little
do I regard the circumstance that I was a specified
object of Buonaparte's resentment during my resi
dence in Italy in consequence of those essays in the
Morning Post during the Peace of Amiens. (Of this
I was warned, directly, by Baron von Humboldt, the
Prussian Plenipotentiary, who at that time was the
minister of the Prussian court at Rome and indirectly,
through his secretary, by Cardinal Fesch himself.)
Nor do I lay any greater weight on the confirming
fact that an order for my arrest was sent from Paris,
from which danger I was rescued by the kindness of
a noble Benedictine and the gracious connivance of
that good old man, the present Pope.64
It is not long before Coleridge drifts from boasting to
43
defending himself. He introduces some of the charges
brought against him and feels compelled to assert:
But my severest critics have not pretended to
have found in my compositions triviality, or traces
of a mind that shrunk from the toil of thinking.
No one has charged me with tricking out in other
words the thought of others, or with hashing up anew
the crambe jam decies coctam of English literature
or philosophy. Seldom have I written that in a day,
the acquisition or investigation of which had not
cost me the previous labor of a month.
An unmistakeable note of mental bombast is produced when
Coleridge continues to plead his case:
I will not therefore hesitate to ask the consciences
of those who from their long acquaintance with me and
with the circumstances are best qualified to decide
or be my judges, whether the restitution of the suum
cuique would increase or detract from my literary
reputation. In this exculpation I hope to be under
stood as speaking of myself comparatively, and in
proportion to the claims which others are entitled
to make on my time or my talents. By what I have
effected am I to be judged by my fellow men; what
I could have done is a question for my own
conscience
These excesses, though blatant when they do occur, reflect
only a part of Coleridge's response. To imagine Coleridge
as constantly assuming one or another of these poses does
him considerably less than justice. At most points he is
faithful to his principle of avoiding extremes. Consider
ing the wide range of topics about which he wrote, and the
various kinds of writings which he did, this tonal range
is to be expected. But it is even more pronounced than
it otherwise might have been, due to Coleridge's organic
theory. Just as the particular nature of the individual's
44
writing determined the form of that writing, so this
individual nature determined its tone. Coleridge, in
other words, did not formulate a "Coleridgean" tone and
then impose it mechanically upon whatever writing he
happened to be doing at the time. He instead let the
nature of the piece itself (along with such individual
needs as appeal to an audience) suggest its tone.
He is often scornful, particularly when dissecting
a political opponent's policies, and is often melodramatic
to boot. In the following quotation, excerpted from his
brief essay "Modern Patriotism," Coleridge attacks those
whom he believes to bear only the trappings of patriotism:
You are a Gamester— you a patriot I— a very poor man
was lately hovering round a Butcher's shop--he wanted
to buy a sheep's liver; but your footman in livery
outbid him, and your spaniel had it I I doubt your
Patriotism. You harangue against the Slave-Trade;
you attribute the present scarcity to the war— yet
you wear powder and eat pies and sugar
It is worth noting that this scorn is, though scathing,
carefully nonparticular, hypothetical, and free of
inflammatory diction and exhortation, such as an appeal
to democracy.
Both satire and parody are within Coleridge's
normal range, as he demonstrates in the Watchman article,
"Copy of a Handbill." The satirical thrust is directed
towards Pitt, whom Coleridge assails for unintelligibility.
The satire's effectiveness is enhanced by Coleridge's
parody of the sort of legalese which is able to turn any
45
/TQ
simple matter into a complicated one. Once in a while,
he will undertake a passage in an entirely ironic vein:
III. That the Revenue would be injured.— To the
friends of humanity this is indeed a cogent argument
against the abolition. They will doubtless reflect,
how worthily this Revenue has been employed for
these last hundred years--they will review with
delight wastelands cultivated, science publickly
protected and rewarded, population increased, and
the peasantry of England and Ireland instructed in
useful learning, and humanized. The universal plenty,
which this Revenue has been applied to scatter and
secure, they will recognize in every lane, hamlet,
and cottage.°9
And there are a good many lighter sections, as in
this whimsical treatment of fasting:
The Romans decamped, and the Tarentines, in
memory of this deliverance, instituted an annual
Fast: which, in my humble opinion, was not a very
wise action, as an annual Feast in the nature of
things would have stimulated the gratitude of their
posterity much more effectually. I have omitted to
mention that some Divines assert, that fasting was
the first command given by God, when he forbad our
first parents to eat of the Tree of Knowledge: they
disobeyed, and were severely punished; and our Divines
seem to have been effectually warned by their
example.70
The greatest range in tone is to be found in Coleridge's
journalistic writings, and the smallest range is to be
found in the philosophical disquisitions. We will look
at the distribution of tone more closely when we examine
each type of writing individually.
Metaphor is the last major trait that we need to
discuss in terms of its relationship to a Coleridgean
theory of style. But at this point we encounter the
problem of Coleridge's terminology, which easily can
46
become very confusing. Today we would call "metaphor"
what Coleridge called "symbol" (at least when "symbol" is
applied to a written work), except that Coleridge required
that the terms of the metaphorical comparison be on
different levels of abstraction. If we concur with Abrams
that "In a metaphor a word which in ordinary usage
signifies one kind of thing, quality, or action is applied
to another, without express indication of a relation
between them, we have what Coleridge persistently
termed "symbolism," with one important exception.
Coleridge would not accept as "symbolism" a comparison
like "books are the keys to the world," in which both
terms ("books" and "keys") are on the same level of
abstraction. When Coleridge used the term "metaphor," he
alluded to the mechanical process of arbitrarily repre
senting an abstraction by a concrete, sensuous referent.
The "metaphor" was not connected in any necessary way with
the abstraction for which it stood; consequently the word
is used pejoratively by him. Unfortunately, Coleridge
uses the word "allegory" to mean the same thing; and this
interchanging of terms has resulted in a good deal of
critical confusion ever since. Let us look at a place in
which Coleridge muddles the two terms:
It is among the miseries of the present age that
it recognizes no medium between Literal and Meta
phorical . Faith is either to be buried in the dead
letter,or its name and honors usurped by a counter
feit product of the mechanical understanding, which
47
in the blindness of self-complacency confounds
SYMBOLS with ALLEGORIES. Now an Allegory is but
a translation of abstract notions into a picture-
language which is nothing but an abstraction from
objects of the senses; the principal being more
worthless even than its phantom proxy, both alike
unsubstantial, and the former shapeless to boot.72
([emphasis mine, capitals Coleridge’s[J
In an attempt to prevent our hopelessly muddling all these
terms, I will use the word "metaphor" only in the sense
of Abram’s definition, the sense commonly agreed upon by
critics today. When I refer to "symbol," "allegory," or
"image" (which we will encounter momentarily), however, I
will mean Coleridge’s definition. Since "symbol" and
"allegory" mean very much the same thing for us today as
they did for Coleridge, they should present little trouble.
This leaves "image," which will be treated only briefly.
To get anywhere with metaphor in Coleridge, it is first
necessary to discuss his remarks about "symbolism," since
he conceived of metaphor as verbal symbolism"^ and since
his remarks upon the subject are significant. But, as
Patricia Ward has so justly commented, "The problem of
defining the symbol as it exists for Coleridge... is
complicated by the scattered and sparse nature of the
author’s writings on the subject and by his baffling
illustrations."^ This means that we need to proceed with
caution, though there are certain general observations
which seem safe enough. Let us start with Coleridge’s
definition of the symbol:
48
...characterized by a translucence of the special
in the individual* or of the general in the special*
or of the universal in the general; above all by the
translucence of the eternal through and in the
temporal. It always partakes of the reality which it
renders intelligible; and while it enunciates the
whole* abides itself as a living part in that unity*
of which it is the representative.75
This is* at least at first glance* baffling indeed; though
the lines have been much analyzed.7^ But we can at least
conclude that the terms "individual*" "special*" "general*"
"universal*" "temporal*" and "eternal " form two separate
progressions* the first four terms being spatial (in that
they differ in degree of extension* either numerically or
by volume)* while "temporal" and "eternal" deal with time.
The elements of the spatial continuum are differentiable
in terms of degree of generalization. "Individual" is the
most localized. "Special" describes a limited class which
might include numerous individuals. "General" includes
all those items considered "special" plus most others.
"Universal" is comprehensive; every element without
exception is included in it. "Temporal" and "eternal"
likewise differ quantitatively (though of course also
qualitatively)* but in duration rather than in extension.
The constituents of both of these continuums (if we may
term a two item series a "continuum") have in common a
graduated variance in terms of degree of abstraction;
increasing generalization in extension and increasing
generalization in duration are the two possible means of
49
describing differences in level of abstraction. The con
clusion to be drawn from all this as far as Coleridge's
theory of "symbolism" is concerned is that a "symbol" must
(at least if it is to operate successfully) set up a
comparison between two things which are on different levels
of abstraction.^
This alone is not enough to define "symbol,"
however, since allegory also compares two things on
different levels of abstraction. But the second sentence
of Coleridge's definition separates "symbol" from allegory
by stipulating that the symbol "partakes of the reality
which it renders intelligible," while allegory is merely
an arbitrary form of representation. Ultimately, then, an
aesthetic judgment is required. The metaphors which
Coleridge thinks are used successfully he labels "symbols"]
those which he thinks are unsuccessful he terms
"allegories." In the final analysis, however, it does not
matter that there is such an insubstantial criterion to
work with and that consequently there may be instances,
perhaps even a good many instances, which are borderline.
We need not stop to classify them. So long as we know
that for Coleridge a "symbol" is as closely as possible
merged with the reality which it represents, and that
"allegory" is simply a pejorative term for "unsuccessful
symbol," we understand Coleridge's main principle.The
problem resides in the terminology far more than in the
50
concepts involved.
Again unfortunately, Coleridge blurred the dis
tinction between two more critical terms— "symbol" and
"image." When what we term a metaphor occurs in a work of
literature, Coleridge is as prone to call it an "image"
as a "symbol." This means that the modern reader must
remember that Coleridge used both "symbol" and "image" to
refer to what we call "metaphor;" and that when he used
the term "metaphor," he meant something else entirely.
When we today use the word "image" we mean by it a direct
presentation of a visual picture; if the visual picture
before us stands for something besides itself we term it
"symbolism." But for Coleridge, "image" meant both a
"visual picture" and the abstractions for which it stands.
Here is a passage from Jeremy Taylor which Coleridge as
critic praises for its "image."
The ’full eyes of childhood’ is one of the finest
images in the language.
Reckon but from the spritefulness of youth, and the
fair cheeks and full eyes of childhood, to the
loathsomeness and horror of a three days’ burial.
The basis for Coleridge’s praise is that Taylor has
represented successfully all the attributes with which he
mentally endows youth ("spritefulness;" "fair cheeks and
full eyes," itself a metaphor for "blooming"). He has,
in other words, represented the abstractions "spriteful
ness" and "blooming" with the concrete expression "full
51
eyes of childhood."
Coleridge as prose writer is faithful throughout
in making one of the terms of each comparison by metaphor
concrete and one term abstract. In this example, he likens
the abstraction "peace" to an olive branch: "Ministers
80
have dashed the budding olive branch to the ground!I!!"
This somewhat eccentric limitation of the symbol
is perhaps more understandable if we take into, account the
connection Coleridge drew between the concept of "symbol"
and the concept of "imitation." He is very careful to
state that the mental picture painted for us by a symbol
is an "imitation" and not a "copy:"
Hard to express that sense of the analogy or
likeness of a Thing which enables a Symbol to
represent it, so that we think of the Thing itself—
& yet knowing that the Thing is not present to us.—
Surely, on this universal fact of words and images
depends by more or less mediations the Imitation
instead of the Copy which is illustrated in very
nature Shakespeananized/--that Proteus Essence
that could assume the very form, but yet known &
felt not to be the Thing by that difference of the
Substance which made every atom of the Form another
thing/— that likeness not identity--an exact web,
every line of direction miraculously the same, but
the one worsted, the other silk.°l
This seems to argue something like a Platonic
theory of the symbol, in which a concrete object in the
physical world is a likeness of its eternal prototype. If
something like this is indeed being argued (I intentionally
-avoid labelling the theory "Platonic"; this qualifier is
used only analogously), it follows that a symbol
52
("metaphor" for us) to be a symbol, must establish a com-
| parison between two things on different levels of abstrac
tion. This does not mean, however, that Coleridge never
considered the possibility of comparing two items on the
same level of abstraction. It does mean that when such a
comparison is made, he classes it as something other than
metaphor.
Coleridge thought highly of the symbol (what we
think of as metaphor) as a rhetorical device. We know
this not only because of the great number of metaphors
that he uses in his prose works (though this would be
strong evidence by itself), but also because of his
explicit comments about them. When he speaks of imagery
in general (again, we need to remember that by "image"
Coleridge means what we think of as metaphor) he goes so
far as to say, "it is only by sensuous images that we can
elicit truth as at a flash."®2
But far more important than either Coleridge's
theories about metaphors or the quantities of them that he
uses is the peculiar quality about them that makes them so
unmistakable. When Sara Coleridge was compiling the
Essays on His Own Times, she often depended upon recogni
tion of a distinctively Coleridgean metaphor in order to
determine his authorship.®3 More recently, David Erdman
has attempted to pinpoint the specific quality which makes
a metaphor Coleridgean:
53
A characteristic mark of Coleridge’s authorship
is the imaginative control of a common metaphor,
first fixing the image (’firm he moved with one pace
in one path’), then making precise use of it (’neither
vaulted nor tottered'), and then keeping it to
his country, nor... ,.
As the sentence in which the metaphor is located grows
under Coleridge's tutelage, so the metaphor likewise grows.
It literally "partakes of the reality which it renders
intelligible," insofar as it becomes part of the point
which it is designed to clarify.
simple extension in length. The more extended the meta
phor is, the more opportunity there is for additional
resemblences between the metaphor and its referent to be
developed. And the more comprehensive these resemblences
are, the more nearly interchangeable are symbol and
referent; (2) By finally taking the place of the referent
in Coleridge's mind. When the resemblences between
referent and symbol are complete enough, Coleridge actually
begins to think in terms of the metaphor, entirely dropping
the referent from his consciousness. In this way, the
metaphor really does seem to "grow" as we follow it,
since it is assumed into the living process of thought.
enough to remind us of the Coleridgean concept of organic
unity. But taken in reference with the other elements of
Coleridge's definition of it, the conclusion is virtually
govern the final rushed before
The metaphor does this in two ways: (1) By
This characteristic of growth would in itself be
54
undeniable that Coleridge's conception of metaphor is a
function of his principle of organic unity. The metaphor
must "enunciate the whole" and "abide itself as a living
part of that unity of which it is the representative."
First, we can notice the significant qualifier "living,"
which suggests the organic metaphor5 second, the "living
body" suggests the comparison to an organ of a living
body. Just as the organically unified entity must have
its principles represented in potentia in the seed from
which it springs, so the metaphor must contain within
itself all the principles of that object which it
represents.
Coleridge's critical principles, then, clearly
spell out the organic development of metaphor. As
Erdman has noticed, this principle of organic development
is part of Coleridge's practice as well as part of his
theory. We might cite one example in addition to the one
which Erdman has analyzed for us:
In the infancy of the world, signs and wonders
were requisite in order to startle and break down
that superstition, idolatrous in itself and the
source of all other idolatry, which tempts the
natural man to seek the true cause and origin of
public calamities in outward circumstances, persons
and incidents: in agents therefore that were
themselves but surges of the same tide, passive
conductors of the one invisible influence, under
which the total host of billows, in the whole line
of successive impulse, swell and roll shoreward;
these finally, each in its turn, to strike, roar
and be dissipated.°5
In this instance, both criteria for a successful
55
"symbol” are met. The comparison of "signs and wonders"
to the waves of an ocean involves items on two different
levels of abstraction. The "signs and wonders" are much
more generalized than the concrete, palpable ocean waves.
And the comparison is extended to sufficient length to
permit the metaphor to usurp completely the place of the
referent in Coleridge's thought. Until he reaches the
colon of the sentence, Coleridge is solely preoccupied
with the relationship between the "signs and wonders" and
superstition and idolatry. When he compares these
"agents" to "surges of the same tide," however, he drops
the signs, wonders, idolatries, and superstitions, and
speaks only in the metaphorical terms of the ocean waves.
The waves themselves now are foremost in his mind, with
the referents (the agents) only present by metaphorical
implication.
It should be noted, however, that this pattern of
thinking organically in metaphors does not always hold,
which is why Erdman carefully limits his description of
Coleridge's method to "a characteristic mark." Another
if more diffuse and difficult criterion which one might
apply to determine Coleridge's authorship in doubtful
cases is simply the power of the image. If it is
i
Coleridgean, it grasps the reader's attention with an iron
hand. The control is assured, though at times both the
power and the control are achieved at the price of
56
melodrama. When Coleridge does become histrionic, while
yet not slipping completely into bombast, his metaphor
sounds almost Dickensean:
In this guise, my Lord, is the vital principle
of the 'evil thing' working, even here in England
and at the present moment. In this still reigning
epidemic, beneath this quickening atmosphere of a
presumptuous ignorance, and supplied from the dung-
yard of fashionable philanthropy, a section, a
dissevered spine of the 'redundant' monster has
been vegetating, head and tail, into an integral
reptile of no obtrusive form, of no glaring colours\
but its fang resting on a bag of the old venom,
and its voices supprest indeed and low, yet to be
recognized by an attentive ear, as the same fore
tokening hiss.86
While it is not possible to recognize a Coleridgean meta
phor strictly by its content, Coleridge does have certain
favorites. By far the most common of these are the
fountain (alternately scum or some other substance
bubbling to the surface)^7 and mist.
With the patterns of Coleridge's theoretical pro
nouncements and the analyses of the characteristics which
are common to his prose behind us, we are now ready to
examine the syntactic structures in detail. It will be
the purpose of the next chapter to provide this analysis.
57
NOTES FOR CHAPTER II
^Essays on His Own Times, pp. lxxxv-lxxxvii.
2Erdman, "The Signature of Style," p. 100.
^Notebooks, II, 2075.
^Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 217.
5Table Talk, p. 224 (Shedd, VI, 455).
^Philosophical Lectures, ed. Kathleen Coburn
(London: Pilot Press, 1949), p. 290.
^Miscellaneous Criticism, pp. 216-217.
®Anima Poetae, p. 173•
9Table Talk, p. 224 (Shedd, VI, 455).
10Walter Jackson Bate nicely sums up the prevalence
of this principle in Coleridge, Masters of World Literature
Series (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1 9 6 8), p. 148.
llRichard Harter Fogle, The Idea of Coleridge's
Criticism, Perspectives in Criticism, 9 (Berkeley andLos
Angeles: University of California Press, 1 9 6 2), pp. 9-10.
^ The Friend, ed. Barbara E. Rooke, 2 vols. Boll-
ingen Series of the Collected Works of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, no. 4 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1 9 6 9)> I* 457.
■^Miscellaneous Criticism, pp. 42-43* 44.
-^Brinkley, p. xxix.
- ^Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 217.
•^Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 22.
•^The Friend, I, 457*
58
-^Erdman, "Coleridge on George Washington: Newly
Discovered Essays of 1800," BNYPL, 6l, no. 2 (February,
1957)i P. 92. Reprinted in Evidence for Authorship,
pp. 321-337.
- ^Collected Letters, I, 2 7 9.
2°The Friend, I, 150.
21For instance, Charles Frederick Johnson,
"Coleridge," in Three Americans, Three Englishmen (New
York: Thomas Whittaker, ltt 8b), p. tSA.
22Walsh, p. 28.
23coleridge himself describes this method as
growth of thought from parenthetical expression. See
Collected Letters, III, 282.
2^Biographia Literaria, p. 79.
25prganic Unity in Coleridge, pp. 53-54• Coler
idge himself does not say so quite as directly, but the
tenor of such remarks as "The poet, described in ideal
perfection, brings the whole soul of man C.my italics] into
activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each
other, according to their relative worth and dignity"
(Biographia Literaria, pp. 173-174) surely warrants such a
strong statement.
^ Structuresof Coordination, p. 3 6.
27por an excellent treatment of this topic, see
the Aids to Reflection, ed. Henry Nelson Coleridge, 2 vols.
(London: William Pickering, 1843), I, 44-45.
2 8Aids, I, 45.
29"0n the Principles of Genial Criticism," in the
Biographia Literaria by S. T. Coleridge, with His
Aesuhetical Essays, ed. John Shawcross, 2 vols. ("Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1907)5 II5 243.
30as John Colmer points out in "Coleridge on
Addington’s Administration," MLR, 54, no. 1 (January,
1959)j 70. Reprinted in Evidence for Authorship, pp.
338-343.
81Biographia Literaria, ed. Shawcross, II, 232.
32Thomas M. Raysor, "Unpublished Fragments on
59
Aesthetics by S. T. Coleridge," SP, 22, no. 4 (October,
1925)3 530.
33james Benziger, "Organic Unity: Leibnitz to
Coleridge," PMLA, 66, no. 2 (March, 1951)3 2 9.
3^Robert 0. Preyer, "Julius Hare and Coleridgean
Criticism," JAAC, 1 5, no. 4 (June, 1957), 456.
35summarized by Robert Adolph in The Rise of
Modern Prose Style (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London,
England: MIT Press, 1 9 6 8), p. 1 8.
^Biographia Literaria, 8 7-8 8.
37coleridge the Talker, p. 31.
38yosunari Takahashi presents this point convinc
ingly in "Coleridge and the Stream," Studies in English
Literature (Tokyo), 42, no. 1 (September, 1 9 6 5), 35.
39Notebooks, I, 1770, 1833; II, 2370; Anima
Poetae, p. 208; I.A. Richards, Coleridge on Imagination
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, I960), p. 58.
First published 1935; second edition, 1950.
^Table Talk, p. 238 (Shedd, VI, 468).
^-Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 221.
^ Table Talk, p. 89 (Shedd, VI, 3 2 6).
^ Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 217 •
^Notebooks, I, 384.
^Anima Poetae, pp. 327-238.
^ Three Americans, Three Englishmen, p. 44.
^Anima Poetae, p. 126.
^Notebooks, II, 2442; Anima Poetae, pp. 1 96,
232-233.
^ Anima Poetae, p. 225.
50Animae Poetae, pp. 226-227.
6o
^Walter Jackson Bate cites this reference from
the Semina Rerum manuscript in "Coleridge on the Function
of Art," Perspectives of Criticism, ed. Harry Levin
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1950), p. 134.
52The Friend, I, 10.
^^The Friend, I, 35*
54es says on His Own Times, p. 10.
55poijtics in the Poetry of Coleridge (Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 19bl), p. 15h.
^Essays on His Own Times, p. 7.
57woodring, p. 38.
58Essays on His Own Times, p. 1 9.
^ Complete Works, VII, 116.
^Coleridge and S. T. C., p. 117.
^-Coleridge and S. T. C., p. 118.
^2Coleridge and S. T. C., p. 120.
63Anima Poetae,.pp. 225-226.
^Biographia Literaria, p. 121.
^ Biographia Literaria, p. 124.
^Biographia Literaria, p. 125.
67The Watchman, ed. Lewis Patton, in Bollingen
Series of the Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
no. 2 (1 9 7 0), p. 99.
^The Watchman, pp. 47-48.
^9 The Watchman, p. 135*
7QThe Watchman, p. 52.
^A Glossary of Literary Terms (New York et alii:
Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1957)s p. 35*
61
72The Statesman's Manual; or The Bible the Best
Guide to Political Skill and Foresight: A Lay Sermon
Addressed to the Higher Classes of Society, with an
Appendix Containing Comments and Essays Connected iJith the
Study of the Inspirational Writings (London: Gale and
Fenner, 181b), pp. 36-37.
73d . G. James has an excellent discussion of this
point in "The Thought of Coleridge."
74"Coleridge's Critical Theory of the Symbol,"
Texas Studies in Language and Literature, 8, no. 1
(Spring, 19bb), 32.
75stalesman's Manual, p. 37.
7^Two of the best studies are by Elisabeth
Schneider, Coleridge, Opium, and Kubla Khan (New York:
Octagon Books, IncT, 19bb), pp. 25b-25b and by Robert Penn
Warren, "A Poem of Pure Imagination," in Selected Essays
(New York: Random House, 1958), pp. 198-305' .
77For a more detailed discussion, see Warren,
p. 280 passim.
78coleridge makes a more radical distinction
between the two terms in regard to his psychology: the
symbol is a product of the imagination and allegory a
product of fancy. Distinguishing between imagination and
fancy as two separate faculties is the main thesis of the
Biographia Literaria.
79]3rinkley, p. 2 6 0.
Q°Essays on His Own Times, II, 309-310.
^Notebooks, II, 2274.
ftp
UC-T. Ashe, Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare and
Other English Poets! (London: George Bell and Sons, 1890),
p. 459.
^ Essays on His Own Times, I, lxxxiv-lxc.
RA
^"Coleridge on George Washington: Newly Dis
covered Essays of 1800," p. 8 9.
^Statesman's Manual, pp. 11-12.
^Essays on His Own Times, III, 694-695.
62
®^The prevalence of this metaphor is in great
measure due to its identification by Coleridge with the
creative process of the human mind. For detailed treat
ments of this creative process see especially James V.
Baker, The Sacred River: Coleridge’s Theory of the
Imagination (Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Louisiana State
University Press, 1957); Richards, Coleridge on Imagina
tion] Margaret Sherwood, Coleridge’s Imaginative Concept
of the Imagination (Wellesley, Massachusetts: Wellesley
College Press, Inc., 1937); and J. A. Appleyard,
Coleridge’s Philosophy of Literature: The Development of
a Concept of Poetry, 1791-1319 (Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 19bb).
CHAPTER III
THE SYNTACTIC LABYRINTH
Coleridge’s method in prose writing is to start
with a simple element and then to expand it in one of a
very large number of ways. When he has finished expanding
upon the kernel element, he has created a syntactic
labyrinth. As we observed in the last chapter, the
reader following the serpentine syntax gets the marked
impression of following the organic growth of Coleridge’s
thought. It is this apprehension of the thought growing,
as the parts of an organism grow, that distinguishes
Coleridge’s prose from that of other writers. Yet, in
spite of the impression that the reader has of following
an extemporaneous effusion, the seemingly meandering prose
is in actuality carefully structured. Without such
careful structuring, it would not reflect Coleridgean
organic unity, since, as we have seen in the last
chapter, the unity is as important to him as the
organicism.
This chapter identifies the principal means by
which the structuring is accomplished. The examples cited
will be drawn mainly from Coleridge’s journalistic
____________________________63__________________________
G\
efforts, because in these topical essays the devices are
much more obtrusive than in the later and more heavily
philosophical works.
In keeping with the criterion that the entity
which is to be unified organically must contain in poten-
tia in its seed the full set of characteristics which
the final product will exhibit, Coleridge’s sentences
nearly always begin with a statement which contains his
core meaning, and then is developed towards the full
growth of that meaning in the course of the succeeding
phrases and clauses. These phrases and clauses may be
grouped according to four types: coordinate, subordinate,
hypothetical, and expletive. All four types of structure
help to hold the multeity of "organs" of the sentence,
the component grammatical parts, in one unified body, and
all four types serve important enough and extensive enough
functions that they should be mentioned.
This is not to imply that the use of any given
device classed under one of the four basic headings is
unique with Coleridge, or that any device can be labeled
restrictively "organic" (or labeled according to any other
category, for that matter). Rather, it is the impression
that the prose gives of that specific type of harmonious
interaction among the constituent devices which conveys
the thought in process, not the devices themselves, which
is uniquely Coleridgean.
6 5
The coordinate devices far outnumber the others*
and discussion of them will occupy more space here than
will discussion of the others. It is no accident that
coordinate devices are so much more often used than the
other types. In the first place* Coleridge was acclimated
to their use by their prevalence in eighteenth-century
writings. As we shall see in Chapter Four* these were
the models for his early prose efforts* efforts which
established some of the stylistic characteristics which
he carried over into the writings of his maturity. In the
second place* the coordinate devices do their job of
ordering in a much more obtrusive way than do the other
types. In prose structures like Coleridge's* where
involuted organization can so easily lead to reader con
fusion* very obvious and very strong types of ordering
devices* which are for the most part coordinate* are
called for. Consequently* Coleridge* either by intuition
or by conscious design* used many more coordinate
structures than structures of other kinds. Let us open
discussion of these four types of devices* then* with the
coordinate ones* those which link sentence elements in a
relationship of grammatical equality. The largest of the
coordinate units are those formed by Coleridge’s attempt
to achieve sentence balance. In some of the very early
passages* this tendency is carried to such an extreme that
the passages sound mechanical and contrived.
66
In his "Introductory Address," for example,
Coleridge writes of "A nation wading to their rights
through blood, and marking the track of freedom by devas
tation."'1 ' The kernel of the sentence (actually the sen
tence fragment) is "A nation wading to their rights
through blood." Each unit in this kernel is then matched
with a corresponding unit when the coordinate expansion
is brought into play. In this way, Coleridge is able to
double the size of the original germ of the sentence, and
in the process enable himself to present specifically his
meaning, the cost of liberty. He is able to discuss both
the concept of the attainment of rights by bloodshed and
the concept of marking the bloody path by destruction,
instead of merely stating that the cost of liberty is high,
or instead of letting the idea of the bloodshed which
accompanies the attainment of rights represent this high
cost. Coleridge first states the human cost, and then
balances it with the statement about the cost in property.
A thorough study of these coordinate relationships
exists in Sister Mary Osinski's dissertation. Sister
Osinski has discovered that four major kinds of coordina
tion— lexical, syntactic, accentual, and semantic--link
together the elements of the sentences studied. For our
purposes, accentual coordination can be considered under
the category "lexical," since where there is lexical
coordination there is also accentual coordination. There
67
fore, we will make no more specific mention of accentual
coordination. In many cases besides this general one,
the categories are overlapping^ a given specimen may
exhibit one, two, three, or all four kinds of coordination.
The lexical is defined as:
...the conjunction of two or more units consisting
of free lexical forms, that is, the conjunction of
single words or groups of words balanced simply as
word units. 2
For instance, Coleridge writes of "retirement and dis
tance" i "literary and political."
There is a good deal of variation in the sizes of
the balanced elements. In the sentence analyzed at the
beginning of this chapter, we have compared individual
words ("wading" and "marking") and phrases ("to their
rights" and "the track of freedom" and "through blood"
and "by devastation"). As the very next sentence indi
cates, this balance may extend to the whole sentence:
"Yet let us not embattle our feelings against our.reason.
Let us not indulge our malignant passions under the mask
of humanity."3
At nearly every turn, Coleridge seems to formulate
a thought and then to expand upon it by pairing it with
another:
The patriots of France either hastened into the
dangerous and gigantic error of making certain evil the
means of contingent good, or were sacrificed by the
mob, with whose prejudices and ferocity their unbending
virtue forbade them to assimilate.^
68
The basic thought is twinned: the patriots either
"hastened into... error" or "were sacrificed by the mob..."
The elements which constitute this thought are likewise
conceived in two’s. The noun cluster "certain evil" is
played off against the noun cluster "contingent good,"
thus making explicit the two major elements involved in
the question about the morality of the proceedings of the
French patriots. The noun "prejudices" is teamed with the
noun "ferocity" to detail the mob's characteristics more
completely than "prejudices" alone would detail them.
And the adjective "gigantic" is joined with the adjective
"dangerous" to state more clearly the magnitude of the
error.
Much less often the basic structure is tripartite:
"Are we men? free men? rational men? And shall we carry
on this wild and priestly war against reason, against
freedom, against human nature?"5 The three part structures
(men, free men, rational men and reason, freedom, human
nature) begin to acquire a cumulative effect, as opposed
to the purely balanced effect of the two-part structures.
In addition to basic weighting of one word with
another, Coleridge uses a number of other coordinate
devices. One such device is the appositive. The
appositive, like balance per se, evens out the weight of
the sentence elements, giving to the sentence a sense of
finish and of polish in the same way that balance does.
69
On the semantic level (which we will discuss in more
detail later), it again helps him to refine the meaning
or implications of the noun to which it is in apposition.
When Coleridge writes that "Brissot, the leader of the
Gironde party, is entitled to the character of a virtuous
g
man and an eloquent speaker," "Brissot" is qualitatively
offset (balanced as a structure) by "the leader of the
Gironde party" even though the two items vary considerably
in length and hence do not offset each other quantitatively
This reinforces the balancing obtained by the playing off
of "virtuous" with "eloquent" and "man" with "speaker"
later in the sentence.
A less often employed device, used both for
balance and for parallelism, is the,placing of emphasis
upon key terms, as in the sentence,
It has been the opinion of wise and good men,
that to act effectively, we must act in Parties;
that is, that men who really agree with each other
in certain great points, should keep up an appearance
of agreeing in all points, and act and vote
accordingly.7
After the initial emphatic italicizing of "parties," there
is a paralleling on both lexical and semantic levels of
"really" with "appearance" and (certain) "great" with
"all." Coleridge makes certain via the emphasis that we
will not miss the contrast which the parallel structure
sets up. In keeping with his normal practice of
balancing one sentence element with another, he uses the
70
emphasis of one to equalize the weight of the other.
When more than two elements are to be balanced*
Coleridge will employ multiple center points:
Nor let it be forgotten* that these excesses
perpetuated the. war in La Vendee and made it more
terrible* both by the accession of numerous partizans*
who had fled from the persecution of Robespierre* and
by inspiring the Chouans with fresh fury* and an
unsubmitting spirit of revenge and desperation.°
{[emphasis minej
In the same way that he uses multiple balance
points* he often uses multiple parallelisms* a practice
which has a cumulative effect. While the ideas are
balanced in order to give the reader the impression that
they have been thought out carefully and have been
expressed only after weighing all sides of an argument*
the ideas are placed into series of cumulations in order
to impress the reader with their number (and hence total
weight).
This use of studied rhetorical devices creates an
Augustan-like balance in a sentence. This balance is
contrary in effect to the achievement of a sense of spon
taneous development* which we identify as a major
attribute of Coleridgean prose. But* as we shall see as
we get deeper into an analysis of Coleridge's prose
techniques* elements both balanced and unbalanced*
seemingly studied and seemingly spontaneous* are necessary
to this organic effect. There is a tension between these
two types of elements either in individual sentences or
71
in longer passages. The studied rhetoric constitutes
just one of these elements.
At times, this studied use of rhetorical device
can be extended to surprising lengths:
’The mass of the people have nothing to do with
the laws, but to obey theml’— ere yet this foul
treason against the majesty of man, ere yet this
blasphemy against the goodness of God be registered
among our statutes, I enter my protest I Ere yet
our laws as well as our religion be muffled up in
mysteries, as a Christian I protest against this
worse than pagan darkness! Ere yet the sword
descends, the two-edged sword that is now waving
over the head of freedom, as a Briton, I protest
against slavery! Ere yet it be made legal for
ministers to act with vigour beyond law, as a child
of peace, I protest against Civil War! This is the
brief moment, in which freedom pleads on her knees:
we will join her pleadings, ere yet she rises terrible
to wrench the sword from the hand of her merciless
enemy! We will join the still small voice of reason,
ere yet it be overwhelmed in the great and strong
wind, in the earthquake, in the fire!9 [emphasis minej
But Coleridge is not always quite so obvious
about his studied rhetoric. Most of the time, the parallels
used to achieve cumulative effects are either a series of
rhetorical questions or a series of exclamations. While
easy to spot when one is looking for them, they do not
force themselves upon the reader not already expecting
them. The patch of rhetorical questions is the more
common of the two:
By what means did Mr. Burke serve the Ministers?
By the effect which his speeches produced on the
House of Commons? Or by his publications? Assuredly
by the latter! And is he not then serving and about
to serve them? But did Mr. Burke receive no gratuity
anterior to his retirement from public life?10
72
But Coleridge still uses the series of exclamations with
some frequency:
REVENUE, the grand preventive against that
fiendish composition of Murder and Suicide, called
WAR-REVENUE! that so sompletely precludes Intoxication
in the lower classes, Luxury in the higher ranks, and
Bribery in allI— The friends of humanity may mourn that
so excellent an end could not be effected by less
calamitous means; but they will stifle their feelings,
and lose the miseries of the West-Indies in the
contemplation of that paradisical state of their
native country— for which it is indebted to this
well-raised, well-applied REVENUE, which while it
remains in such pure hands, no friend of Freedom
and Virtue can possibly wish diminished I 111
The least frequently used technique for achieving
parallelism is the refrain. In addition to its function
as a unifying device for the essay, it gives the reader
a point at which he can pause and digest the course of the
argument as far as it has been developed. It also tends
to set up a parallelism among the three major paragraphs
of the essay, each of which ends with the refrain:
If therefore the present war be unnecessary in
its origin, unprovoked in its primary movements,
let us call it any thing: only not a crusade.12
Unless therefore it shall be admitted, that
Suwarrow and his Russians have returned home poets
and gentlemen; or that our Bond-street officers
have been transmuted, by the alchemy of our
expeditions, into the chaste, gentle and sober
knights of ancient chivalry; let us call the
present war any thing; only not a crusade.13
Unless therefore it be admitted that the direct
object of the present war is to lay the foundations
of a greater freedom than we before enjoyed; unless
it be admitted, that it has tended to prevent commerce
from being a monopoly of one nation; unless it be
granted, that is, viz. this present war, spite of
the assessed and income taxes, is peculiarly
73
favourable to the increase and permanence of a
middle class\ that it militates against all
attachment to kings as persons, and nobles as
privileged classes; and to the Roman Catholic
superstitions, as absurditiesunless all this
be conceded by the friends of freedom let them
call the present war any thing: only not a
crusade.1^
The second major species of coordination is
syntactic:
A structure of syntactic coordination is the
conjunction of two or more supra-lexical units
alike in grammatical function....Except in the
most ordinary case of the independent clauses that
constitute the whole of a compound sentence, the
likeness between the parts of a syntactic parallel
is their common relation to a third speech unit in
the sentence. Thus, to cite one of the simplest
examples at this level, in the word-group, 'establish
ment of my taste and critical opinions,' the
parallel or coordinate speech units, 'taste' and
'critical opinions' function together objectively
in a prepositional phrase and are in a 'modifying'
relation to the third unit, 'establishment'....They
tthe syntactic parallels^ occur in every conceivable
capacity within a sentence and in a wide range of
magnitude.15
These syntactic parallels are made more complex by a
phenomenon which Sister Osinski designates as "expanded
coordination"; the pfocess of "structuring a new syntactic
pair of speech units into what is already one part of a
1 ^
structure of coordination." Furthermore, "within this
corollary feature of expanded coordination itself there
is a remarkable range of short-to-long structures."1^
Sister Osinski cites the example:
Praises of the unworthy are felt by ardent minds as
robberies of the deserving
and
it is too true
74
and too frequent, that Bacon,
Harrington,
Machiavel,
and Spinoza are not read,
because
Hume
Condillac „
and Voltaire are
Here, what began as a tri-partite structure linked by
"and" is expanded into a multi-faceted structure. The
first two connections are made by means of "and" but the
next is made with "that" and the last is made with
"because."
Although the segments linked are, in each case,
identical in type, and therefore balance qualitatively,
they are often very different in size, and therefore
create an imbalance quantitatively. In the example given
above, for instance, the section beginning "praises of
the unworthy" is far larger than its counterpart "it is
too true."1^ Sister Osinski suggests that it is because
of this disjunction between lexical and syntactic balance
20
that Coleridge at first strikes us as unclear.
Ordinarily, as in the above example, it is because the
final portion of the structure has had an insertion that
the imbalance results. 21
Another complicating factor is that Coleridge is
given to establishing syntactic parallelism between groups
of which one member is attributive to another, hence
using coordination where we would expect subordination. 22
75
For instance, he writes,
(able to deduce) but one instance
and
that out of a copy of verses half
ludicrous, half splenetic.23
"That out of a copy of verses half ludicrous, half
splenetic" modifies "instance" and so is subordinate to
it. But the two elements are treated as syntactic equals,
since they are joined with "and."
One final element which at'times can reduce
materially the clarity of the coordination is Coleridge's
practice of extending the conjunctions by annexing
adverbial forms to them. There are a multitude of these
affixes, such as "or perhaps more strictly," "and seem
ingly, " "and of course," "or at least," "or at best."2^
The final type of coordination to be discussed
here is semantic, defined as
the conjunction of two or more units of speech
possessing a correspondence of meaning; the observed
correspondence between the members of the structures
semantically coordinate ranges from that of identity
to that of opposition.25
The two extremes, identity and opposition, however, occur
comparatively rarely. This is hardly surprising for one
so concerned with precision as was Coleridge. Identity
means at best repetition for the sake of emphasis; at
worst it betokens a literary stutter, without even having
emphasis to excuse it. But it does appear in one
functional form in Coleridgean prose— the annoying habit
76
of restating the same idea in different words several
times over. This practice, while at times irritating,
admittedly does have a function. It is another form of
parallelism designed to have a cumulative effect— and
usually it succeeds. It certainly succeeds in this case:
You deem me an Enthusiast— an Enthusiast, I
presume, because I am not quite convinced with
yourself and Mr. Godwin that mind will be omni
potent over matter, that a plough will go into
the field and perform its labour without the
presence of the Agriculturist, that man will be
immortal in this life, and that Death is an act
of the Will. 26
What in essence is set up here, as it is whenever Coleridge
chooses to use this device, is a kind of expanded apposi
tion. First an idea is stated, just as, in an appositive,
a name is mentioned. Then the same idea is restated in
different words, just as in an apposition the equivalent
expression for the name (often the title of the person
named, or other information about him) is supplied.
Opposition is better calculated to elucidate an
idea, but only in crude terms of bi-polarization.
Coleridge instead most often opts for words which are
slightly different but not opposed in meaning, because
by playing off one against the other he can convey fine
shades of meaning, or obtain a "richness of reference."^7
For instance, when he talks of "sudden or unprepared
transitions, " 26 he can take advantage of the important
distinction between "sudden" and "unprepared" (a transi-
77
tion could be effected very gradually and still be done
without preparation) to describe the transitions more
accurately. Likewise, Coleridge consistently employs
words which are similar in meaning, but not identical, as
in the phrase "connected and combined," where "both words
denote a union, but one of association and the other of
penetration."29 Often it requires a nice if not arbitrary
decision to determine whether a relation of similarity
but not identity or of dissimilarity but not opposition is
intended. Regardless of what category is finally
selected, however, it remains true that using language in
this way allows Coleridge at least to approach the
precision which he seeks. Sister Osinski has determined
that the instances of dissimilarity are much more frequent
than those of similarity.30 Again, this conclusion should
not come as a surprise, considering Coleridge’s predis
position to draw distinctions.31
Also under Sister Osinski's scrutiny is the
larger body within which the structures of coordination
inhere, the sentence, since it has a marked influence
upon the specific forms that the coordinations contained
within it will assume. She found that by far the dominant
form (nearly 60$ of those included in her sample) is the
complex sentence, consisting of one main clause, and one
or more subordinate clauses. Just over 10$ are compound-
complex, having at least two coordinate principal clauses,
78
one or more of which having a minimum of one subordinate
clause. About 25$ are simple sentences, consisting of one
independent clause^ and only about 4$ are compound
sentences, containing two or more main clauses and no
dependent clauses. All the types range widely in terms
of length.32
By an overwhelming margin, Coleridge's sentences,
regardless of kind, are loose rather than periodic.
Sister Osinski's analysis of Coleridge's loose sentences,
while lengthy, contains so many worthwhile remarks that
I quote it in full:
Like some of the seventeenth century prose
writers whom he professedly admired and imitated,
he wrote sentences that have a periodic cast
initially, but lose this in the process of con
struction so that they become ultimately loose.
This type of sentence, which is at least as frequent
in the BIOGRAPHIA as the genuinely periodic, serves
further to underscore that there is a profusion of
thought striving for utterance in Coleridge and a
struggle of mind toward an organized and emphatic
presentation of his thought. In these sentences,
we see initially a careful formulation toward a
climax, then what is an apparent achievement of
this climax, but finally an extension of the sentence
structure in a kind of free amplification. For
instance, in lamenting the difference between his
own early education and that of the "modern" youth
of his day, Coleridge says:
Instead of storing the memory during the period
when the memory is the predominant faculty, with
facts for the after exercise of judgment,
and
instead of awakening by the noblest models the
fond and unmixed love
and
admiration,
which
is the natural
79
and
graceful temper of early youth;____
THESE nurslings are taught to dispute
and
decide;
to suspect all, hut their
own
and
their lecturer's
wisdom
and
to hold nothing sacred from
their contempt
but their own contempt
ible ignorance:
boy graduates in all the technicals
and
in all the dirty passions
and
impudence of anonymous
criticism. (I, 7, 31)
There is a careful structuring of the two
"instead of" word-groups to the climactic "these...
decide," and thus far the sentence may be
described as a model period. But the accumulation
of infinitive phrases constitutes a loose explica
tion of "dispute and decide," qualifying the
periodic effect of all that went before; and the
structure of opposition following the colon is
such a patently affective after-thought about
"these nurselings" that it contributes significantly
to the ultimate looseness of the sentence.33
In the typical Coleridgean sentence, a tension
inheres between the balance created by the structures of
coordination and the hypotasis (relations of subordination
and dependence) resulting from the large proportion of
subordinate clauses found in the complex and compound-
complex sentences.3^ This tension makes the reader's job
difficult, because at all times he must identify the
relationship, either subordinate or coordinate, which has
been set up among the words which he is reading. When he
8o
encounters such complex structures as my next sentences,
he often must labor to follow them. There are, perhaps,
coordinate words as part of a subordinate clause, itself
coordinate with another subordinate clause. Both of
these are in turn subordinate to the main clause (which
may itself contain coordination and subordination of
various sizes and types). In structures like these, a
syntactic labyrinth can develop^ and in Coleridgean prose,
this sort of complication is the rule rather than the
exception.
Sister Osinski's findings take us a great distance
towards a determination of the exact character of the
prose style, which in the first two chapters we merely
termed "involuted." The techniques of coordination and
subordination employed are a logical outgrowth of the
principles which were detailed in Chapter II.
The fact that there are so many instances of
lexical coordination would be sufficient in itself to
indicate a substantial effort on the part of the author
to present a complete and precise picture of what he is
discussing, since it implies an inability to be content
with one-word descriptions, explanations, and examples.
Taken in conjunction with the use of all shadings of
semantic relationships— different degrees of similarity,
dissimilarity, identity, and opposition— these coordina
tions are unmistakable signs that Coleridge worked to
81
exploit fully the resources of grammar and logic in order
to convey his ideas as accurately as possible.
The "expanded coordination" feature of the syntac
tic relationships (especially when the expansion is due
to an inversion), the overwhelming percentage of complex
sentences, and the generally loose nature of the sentences
all combine to render the impression that the thought is
growing as we read it. Normally, the independent clause
comes first in Coleridge's complex sentences. The
independent clause introduces the main idea, usually
phrased in a patterned, balanced manner, giving the
impression of being well thought out in advance. Then,
however, comes the dependent clause. Following the main
idea as it does, it seems like an afterthought. This
"by the way" quality is reinforced as the established
balance of the independent clause is abandoned, and the
resultant loose sentence draws to its conclusion. A
typically Coleridgean structure is:
The times are trying; and in order to be
prepared against their difficulties, we should
have acquired a prompt facility of adverting in
all our doubts to some general and comprehensive
truth.35
The overall effect of this sort of structure is to give
the reader the impression that he is witnessing the evolu
tion of Coleridge's thought.
The practice of establishing syntactic parallelism
between groups of which one member is attributive to
82
another is an attempt to gain (1) emphasis and (2)
clarity. By elevating the normally subordinate member to
a coordinate position, its relative importance is
increased, since it becomes (at least grammatically) equal
to the other member, rather than subordinate to it. The
emphasis, in turn, helps to clarify the important idea or
ideas in the sentence. When it so happens that an idea is
logically subordinate to another, it must be expressed by .
a subordinate clause in order to indicate logical
dependence. But when an idea logically subordinate to
another is equal in importance to that idea, Coleridge is
able to express both the logical dependence and the
equality of importance by putting the dependent element
into a subordinate clause, but one coordinate grammatically
to the idea to which it is related. In the sentence cited
earlier in this chapter as an example,
(able to deduce) but one instance
and
that out of a copy of verses half ludicrous,
half splenetic3o
the detailing of the instance as "half ludicrous, half
splenetic," while logically dependent upon the "instance"
which it describes, is equal to it in importance.
Coleridge in fact only admits the instance as a preliminary
step to discrediting it.
The extension of conjunctions by annexing clusters
of adverbial modifiers can be used either to achieve
83
greater emphasis or to gain greater precision, depending
upon what sort of modifier is used. The "at least" or
"of course" variety is largely emphatic; it stresses that
there is no room for doubt about the statement. The
"perhaps more strictly" or "at best" type, on the other
hand, enhances precision, since it establishes a relation
ship between the statement which it introduces and some
other statement which has gone before. In this case, as
in all the others we have studied in this chapter, the
prose shows evidence of Coleridge's design, which is at
least instinctive, if not conscious, even in its minutest
details.
The coordinate devices are both the most numerous
and the most various of the four types. The second most
numerous and most various device is the subordinate.
Often, in fact, it strikes the reader that Coleridgean
prose is nothing more than a series of subordinations,
loosely strung together. This sentence, for instance,
sprouts a thickly matted jungle of prepositional phrases:
But we find, by a letter from Dover, that a
messenger from the French government did arrive,
with a letter from Talleyrand, Minister of Foreign
Affairs at Paris, to Lord Grenville.37
But this impression results mainly from the fact that
subordinate structures normally are both longer and harder
to perceive than coordinate ones. They are by nature
digressive, and hence tend to blend in with the serpentine
84
development of thought, rather than to stand out in
contrast to the thought in the way that the coordinate
devices do. While we need not discuss the process of
subordination in any length here, since each of the
subordinate devices operates in the manner of the pre
positional phrases alluded to above, it is important to
keep in mind that subordination is a crucial element in
Coleridge's prose. For it is only by means of the numerous
dependent clauses and other forms of subordination that
a tension can exist between the balanced effects of the
coordinate structures and the hypotactic effects of the
devices being discussed in this section. This tension,
in turn, we have already seen in Chapter II as essential
to reconciliation of opposites. And the reconciliation
of opposites is important to the organic organization of
his prose.
The third large class of expansion devices may
be labelled "hypothetical." The expression of the
hypothesis, although generally limited in number to the
one word "if," and only third of the four classes in
frequency of occurrence, exerts an influence far greater
than might be expected upon a passage in which it does
occur. This happens because Coleridge uses hypothesis to
put a question, which he then proceeds to elaborate upon,
often for several succeeding sentences. All the discussion
about the question is occasioned by the initial hypothesis,
85
and consequently may be viewed as expansion resulting
directly from it. In this passage Coleridge first states
an hypothesis, expands upon it, and then follows it up
with another hypothesis, which he in turn expands upon:
If however his first intentions were pure, his
subsequent enormities yield us a melancholy proof,
that it is not the character of the possessor which
directs the power, but the power which shapes and
depraves the character of the possessor. In
Robespierre, its influence was assisted by the
properties of his disposition.— Enthusiasm, even
in the gentlest temper, will frequently generate
sensations of an unkindly order. If we clearly
perceive any one thing to be of vast and infinite
importance to ourselves and all mankind, our first
feelings impel us to turn with angry contempt from
those, who doubt and oppose it. The ardour of
undisciplined benevolence seduces us into malignity;
and whenever our hearts are warm, and our objects
great and excellent, intolerance is the sin that
does most easily beset us. But this enthusiasm in
Robespierre was blended with gloom, and suspiciousness,
and inordinate vanity. His dark imagination was still
brooding over supposed plots against freedom— to
prevent tyranny he became a tyrant— and having
realized the evils which he suspected, a wild and
dreadful tyrant.— Those loud-tongued adulators, the
mob, overpowered the lone-whispered denunciations of
conscience--he despotized in all the pomp of
patriotism, and masqueraded on the bloody stage of
revolution, a Caligula with the cap of liberty on
his head.3o
Two hypotheses have in this instance occasioned a whole
page of discussion. First, Coleridge grants hypothetic
ally that Robespierre’s first intentions were pure, but
then brings up his subsequent enormities. He then almost
parenthetically interrupts a discussion of these
enormities in order to interj’ect several generalizations
which would account psychologically for this tendency in
86
Robespierre. These generalizations begin with "...it is
not the character of the possessor...", "Enthusiasm, even
in the gentlest temper...", "If w£ clearly perceive any
one thing to be of vast and infinite importance..."
respectively. Following this, Coleridge returns to the
concrete idea of Robespierre’s enormities. All this dis
cussion, however, was triggered by the first "if" clause.
The fourth and final type of sentence expansion
device, what I have chosen to call "expletive," is related
in function to the hypothetical. It too states a pre
liminary assumption, which paves the way for further
(often extensive) discussion. But it differs in its
grammatical relationship to the sentence which it intro
duces. Like the expletive proper, it is a type of
absolute construction, existing in a relationship neither
of modification nor of coordination to the sentence. It
is related only semantically; a statement necessary to the
sense of the argument which follows, but expressed without
the usual grammatical tentacles to connect it to the
sentence which it accompanies. In the following example,
while the absolute construction comes in the middle of the
sentence, it marks a turn in the thought; and that which
follows is directly dependent upon the absolute:
The Author of an essay on political justice
considers private societies as the sphere of real
utility— that (each one illuminating those
immediately beneath him,) truth by a gradual
descent may at last reach the lowest order.39
87
Here, the absolute nature of the construction is under
scored by its enclosure in parentheses.
These expansion devices are instrumental in
determining the rhythm of the prose, as well as its
logical structure. The coordinate and the hypothetical
devices establish a smooth cadence. Harmonious flow
results from the frequent balance and parallelism of the
coordination. The same effect results from the sense of
moving from a stated condition to its seemingly inevitable
ramifications in the process of working out the
hypothesis. At the points where coordination and
hypothesis dominate, the reader can pick up speed in
working through the material; he does not have to pause
to establish in his mind the relationships suggested by
the subordinate material. For instance, the reader has
no trouble going very quickly through the sentence,
By its simplicity it will meet their compre
hension, by its benevolence soften their affections,
by its precepts will direct their conduct, by the
vastness of its motives insure their obedience.^-0
The subordinate elements, on the other hand, tend
to torpedo the establishment of any heard rhythm. Since
they usually lack parallelism or balance, they render the
impression of variety rather than of harmony. Where they
are in the ascendent, the reader must slow down consider
ably, in order to get his logical bearings, as he must in
order to read this:
88
It must not however, be disguised, that at all
times, but more especially when the public feelings
are wavy and tumultuous, artful demagogues may
create this opinion: and they, who are inclined to
tolerate evil as the means of contingent good, should
reflect, that if the excesses of terrorism gave to
the republic that efficiency and repulsive force which
circumstances made necessary, they likewise afforded
to the hostile courts the most powerful support and
excited that indignation and horror, which every where
precipitated the subject into the design of the
ruler
The expletive constructions, both in their
frequency of appearance and in their lack of grammatical
relationship to the sentences with which they occur, may
be likened to the musical cadenza. They interrupt the
normal progress of the rhythm, but do not break it. The
reader only has to slow down enough to establish one
relationship, that of the relevancy of the expletive pre
mise to the materials which follow. Here is an example:
Those materials of projectile force, which now
carelessly scattered explode with an offensive and
useless noise, directed by wisdom and union, might
heave rocks from their base.— or perhaps (dismissing
the metaphor) might produce the desired effect
without the convulsion.^ 2
Since very often more than one and sometimes all
of these types of rhythm occur in a single passage, a
tension is established. This tension is the predominant
mood of the prose as a whole. While one or another type
may dominate briefly, the prevailing tension is soon
re-instituted. This tension, I believe, works to the
enhancement, rather than the detriment, of the style.
There are elements of balance and parallelism present in
89
order to facilitate the clarity of the prose, and to pre
vent the reader from becoming bogged down in slowly trying
to piece together an exploded chaos of statements. But
there are also elements of explanation and elaboration
present in order to assist the precision of the prose, and
to prevent the reader from skimming too quickly and too
lightly over Coleridge's complex ideas. For good measure,
literally and figuratively, there are mid-points between
these two polarized types, the mid-points set up by the
absolute constructions. What results from the combination
of all these elements is a syntactic labyrinth, though
a carefully structured one.
90
NOTES FOR CHAPTER III
"'"Essays on His Own Times 3
I, 7.
2 0sinskia p. 1 2.
3
Essays on His Own Times3
I, 7.
4
Essays on His Own Times3
I.
8.
^Essays on His Own Times 3
I, 55.
^Essays on His Own Times 3
I, 91.
^Essays on His Own Times,
I,
240.
o
Essays on His Own Times 3
I,
1 1.
^Essays on His Own Times 3
I, 57.
10The Watchman,,
p. 36.
- 1 - 1The Watchman^
p. 135.
I2Essays on His Own Times 3
II,
4io.
•^Essays
on His Own Times 3
II,
411.
I^Essays on His Own Times 3 II, 411-412.
l^osinskij p. 1 8.
•^Osinski, p. 21.
-^Osinski, pp. 2 1-2 2.
•^^Blographia Literaria3 p. 31.
I9osinskia p. 2 7.
2QStructures of Coordination, p. 28.
2 1 0sinski5 p. 3 2.
2 2 0sinskij p. 40.
91
^ Biographia Literaria, p. 14.
2\)s inski, pp. 41-42.
25osinski, p. 53*
2^The Watchman, p. 197.
2?0sinski, p. 59•
2^Biographia Literaria, p. 248.
29osinski, p. 6 0; the phrase occurs in the
Biographia Literaria, p. 46.
3Qstructures of Coordination, p. 6 9.
31As we noted in Chapter I, when we discussed
Coleridge's emphasis upon de-synonymization of words
through coinage and his playing down of the use of puns
because they are predicated upon multiple meanings of
words.
32Structures of Coordination, pp. 82-84.
33structures of Coordination, pp. 91-93j the
citation is from Biographia Literaria, p. 6.
3^0sinski, pp. 113-114.
35Essays on His Own Times,
la 7.
3^Biographia Literaria, p. 14 •
37Essays on His Own Times, 94.
3®Essays on His Own Times,
I3
9-1 0.
^Essays on His Own Times,
I3
2 1.
^Essays on His Own Times,
I3 22-23.
^Essays on His Own Times,
I3
1 0-1 1.
^2Essays on His Own Times,
I3
2 8.
CHAPTER IV
THE EARLY COLERIDGE
The prose style of Coleridge’s youth is quite
different from the style of his maturity. However, once
Coleridge settles into his mature style, increasing age
results in no further discernible change. In this chapter,
I shall identify the chief traits of the early Coleridgean
style. For the sake of clarity, I (arbitrarily) consider
only works written prior to age 25 (1 7 9 7 or before) to
be "early." To examine the early ptylistic traits, it is
necessary to consider both journalistic and personal prose,
since in his youth as in his maturity Coleridge composed
both types (the personal prose of his maturity exhibits
no traits requiring separate commentary). The principal
philosophical works are products of a later time. The
early journalism is represented by the "Condones ad
Populum" and the articles from the Watchman. The personal
prose is restricted to Coleridge’s early letters.
Generally speaking, the journalistic works are
more subdued than are the personal letters, undoubtedly '
because of the public character of the journalism and
because of the dangers of speaking out at the time. In
the period 1 7 9 2-1 7 9 6, when the habeas corpus act was
92
93
suspended and the Twin Bills against sedition were
enacted, McCarthy-like witch hunts were engaged in by the
Pitt Government. But even so, the diction is anything but
cautious. While even in his maturity Coleridge writes in
a manner that I would classify as "freewheeling," in his
youth he is yet more extreme. In his youthful writings
there is an arrogant certainty, a noisy emotional clamor
which contrasts with the more judicious, philosophically
evaluative approach of the mature Coleridge. In his youth,
he does not hesitate to employ highly charged terms:
The cadaverous tranquillity of despotism will
succeed the generous order and graceful indiscretions
of freedom— the black moveless pestilential vapour
of slavery will be inhaled at every porell
While this manner of writing was common in Coleridge's day,
particularly in partisan political journalism, it provides
an interesting contrast to the more restrained approach
of his maturity.
His rhetorical structuring of the early journal
istic prose is likewise calculated to further an already
bombastic effect. While he does not use more rhetorical
devices, or even different ones from those of the later
essays, those which do appear are used much more obtrusive
ly. When he wishes to achieve a cumulative effect, for
instance, he writes: "You wish to be distinguished from
the herd; you like victory in an argument; you are the
tongue-major of every company: therefore you love a
94
tavern better than your own fireside." The "you" followed
by the verb four successive times is blatant; but the
resulting cumulation is yet more forcefully presented.
When it comes time for the conclusion towards which the
cumulated items are leading, Coleridge not only inserts
a full colon, which normally signifies that a conclusion
is to follow, but he even puts in the word "therefore"
and once again repeats the "you." Only a few pages
earlier he has provided us with an illustration of the way
in which he normally proceeds in his maturity, but so
seldom proceeds in these earlier pieces. Instead of using
a verbatim repetition of the initial connective, Coleridge
modifies his expression: "They elected their kings on
account of their noble birth; their leaders for their
personal valor."3 [emphasis minell He can still establish
in no uncertain terms the desired parallel, but can do it
without hitting the reader over the head with obvious
repetition. Also, in this sentence he has seen fit to let
the semicolon stand alone as the link between the two
halves of the sentence, instead of doing what he too often
would do in this situation, which is either to insert an
"and" after the semicolon, or, worse yet, put in the
repeated words "they elected" in addition to the "and."
The practice of too much and too obvious rhetorical
repetition (or its close relative, antithesis) results in
mechanical, "sing-song" rhythms like the following:
95
There are a third class among the friends of
freedom, who possess not the wavering character of
the first description; nor the ferocity last
delineated. They pursue the interests of freedom
steadily, but with narrow and self-centering views:
they anticipate with exultation the abolition of
privileged orders, and of acts that persecute by
exclusion from the rights of citizenship. They are
prepared to join in digging up the rubbish of
mouldering establishments, and stripping off the
tawdry pageantry of governments.^-
Similarly overused rhetorical devices are the patch of
rhetorical questions, the patch of exclamations, and the
patch of short sentences, each of which we will examine in
greater detail in Chapter VI when we discuss the various
prose styles.
The influence upon early Coleridgean style which
most readily comes to mind is eighteenth-century
Johnsonian or "grand" style. This sort of antithetical
structure is the most immediately noticeable attribute
of the style. Casting these antithetical structures into
pairs results in a highly balanced, polished sentence:
Its province is to bring about natural events
by easy means, and to keep up curiosity without the
help of wonder: it is therefore precluded from the
machines and expedients of the heroic romance, and
can neither employ giants to snatch away a lady from
the nuptial rites, nor knights to bring her back from
captivity; it can neither bewilder its personages
in deserts, nor lodge them in imaginary castles.5
The two sets of "neither" clauses are balanced by the two
sets of "nor" clauses; "natural events" is balanced by
"easy means;" "machines" is balanced by "expedients;"
"nuptial rites" is balanced by "captivity;" "deserts" is
96
balanced by "castles."
As is also evident from the selection from
Johnson, this kind of prose normally has short phrases;
and the brevity of the phrases intensifies the effects
of antithesis. If we put the passage from Johnson side-
by-side with the passage from Coleridge it is apparent
that both use the balanced, terse clauses of the eighteenth
century "grand" style.
At first it appears surprising that Coleridge
would be influenced by this style, because later in life
he spiritedly rejected it. At three separate times he
seems to spurn it in firm fashion. Here, he prefers the
seventeenth-century technique to the eighteenth:
Many years ago Mr. Mackintosh gave it as an
instance of My perverted taste that I had seriously
contended tha^ in order to form a style worthy of
Englishmen, Milton and Taylor must be studied
instead of Johnson, Gibbon, and Junius...6
In the two other places, he not only unfavorably compares
eighteenth-century prose with prose of the seventeenth
century, but explicitly rejects the former, specifically
mentioning the balance and antithesis which are its core
attributes:
The essence of this style consisted in a mock
antithesis, that is, an opposition of mere sounds,
in a rage for personification, the abstract made
animate, far-fetched metaphors, strange phrases,
metrical scraps, in every thing, in short, but
genuine prose.7
Like idle morning visitors, the brisk and
profitless periods hurrv in and hurry off in___________
97
quick and profitless succession.®
Richard Harter Fogle is undoubtedly right when he
explains that Coleridge’s rejection of the principles of
balance and antithesis governing this early prose marks
a subsuming of these principles into a more comprehensive
outlook on style:
The neoclassical contradiction ^between art and
nature, genius and judgment} arises from a method
of antithetical thinking, embodied in the sentence
structure of Pope’s poetry and Johnson’s prose, which
leaves its oppositions wholly separated. Coleridge
did not reject the method, but transcended it. He
perceived that nature and art, genius and judgment
are opposites but not disparates; that they are
different aspects of the same whole, and can be
unified if we conceive a unifying force.1°
This accounts for balanced and antithetical elements in
Coleridge’s later prose, though these elements form parts
of larger structures in which there are also unbalanced
and non-antithetical elements. The difference of effect
on the ear between the early and the later prose is that
while in the early prose the balanced, antithetical
elements, standing by themselves, create the sensation of
rigid, planned syntactic order, in the later prose these
elements are offset by loosely subordinated elements
which create the sensation of flexible, spontaneous
development. This difference is comparable to the
difference between simple melody and counterpoint in
music.
This process of subsuming elements of his earlier
98
style into his later prose can be applied to the other
attributes which Coleridge thought most characteristic
of eighteenth-century style. From time to time even in
the later works, many of the typically eighteenth-century
devices of prose style appear, but often as part of
larger structures, or at least supplemented with other
devices typical of the eighteenth century.
Of the characteristics listed by Coleridge in the
passages quoted at the top of page 97 5 we mentioned what
he termed "far-fetched metaphor" previously, in the
discussion of the vivid metaphors of the journalistic
prose. We also mentioned the "opposition of mere
sounds" in the form of alliteration, as in this passage:
"...the contemplation of possible perfection, and propor
tionate pain from the perception of existing depravation."^-
Many of Coleridge’s early and bombastic passages would
qualify as matter for the "strange phrases" which he
disparages.
One characteristic of eighteenth-century prose
which we have not previously mentioned in the prose of
Coleridge is the intertwining of "metrical scraps" into
the prose text. But we need not look far before a
metrical scrap of Coleridge's own comes into view:
whether they be those, who
admire they know not what
And know not whom, but as one leads the other:
or whether those,
99
Whose end is private hate, not help to
freedom,
Adverse and turbulent when she would lead
to Virtue.15
Likewise, it is not hard to discover an example of his
early use of personification. The first selection in
Sara Coleridge’s Essays on His Own Times, is "A Letter
from Liberty to Her Dear Friend Famine."1^ It appears
then that Coleridge's early style was molded largely by
the influences of what he considered to be eighteenth-
century practice. As we shall see in the next chapter,
his mature style was affected by what he understood as
seventeenth-century practice.
Aside from these influences, Coleridge’s writing
skills developed in various ways, one of the most important
of which is metaphor. While in the very early journalistic
works the metaphors are merely decorative, it is not long
before Coleridge begins to use the metaphor as a means of
thinking. His thought progresses through the extension
of the metaphor, as in this example from the "introductory
Address:"
The temple of despotism, like that of Tescalipoca,
the Mexican deity, is built of human skulls, and
cemented with human blood;— let us beware that we be
not transported into revenge while we are levelling
the loathsome pile; lest when we erect the edifice
of freedom we but vary the style of the architecture,
not change the materials.17
As a consequence of the presence of the more
extreme varieties of diction, rhetorical devices, and the
more extended metaphor, the tone of the early journalistic
100
essays is, broadly speaking, more impassioned than is that
of the later works. We have already seen an example of
the straightforward, bombastic tone in this chapter.^®
Earlier in this study, we alluded to the extreme parody
and satire to be found in the "Copy of a Handbill" article
from the Watchman, which was one of Coleridge’s early
journalistic efforts.19 A section from the essay "On the
Present War" illustrates the extremely cutting irony to
be found in the early journalism:
And here we cannot but admire the deep and
comprehensive views of ministers, who having
starved the wretch into vice send him to the
barren shores of New Holland to be starved back
again into virtue. It must surely charm the eye
of humanity to behold men reclaimed from stealing
by being banished to a coast where there is nothing
to steal, and helpless women, who had been
Bold from despair and prostitute for bread,
find motives to reformation in the sources of their
depravity, refined by ignorance, and famine-bitten
into chastity. 20
As far as the whimsical tone is concerned, one only need
point to the infamous introductory quotation to the
"Essay on Fasts" from the Watchman series. Coleridge’s
citation of Isiah xvi, 11, "Wherefore my Bowels shall
pH
sound like an Harp" is an extreme to which he was
unlikely to venture in his more mature years, particularly
after the mellowing experience of receiving numerous
bitter complaints about his taste, if not his morals.
Although so far we have had to classify many of
101
Coleridge’s locutions and use of devices in the early
journalistic prose as "extreme" or "excessive," these are
not yet the most extreme or excessive occurrences. While
a number of the rhetorical devices characteristic of his
mature prose are present, there are also many instances of
eighteenth-century influence which he outgrew. Let us
examine in detail the devices used in a manner character
istic of Coleridge's maturity, and then those used in a
typically eighteenth-century Johnsonian style.
Prom the beginning, he structures his prose in
the ganglinous way for which he became so well known. I
have extracted this from his earliest preserved letter,
written at age 13: "I received your letter with pleasure
on the second instant, and should have had it sooner, but
that we had not a holiday before last Tuesday, when my
brother delivered it me." 22 From the simple statement
that he has received his mother's letter, Coleridge adds
the qualifying clause explaining why it had not arrived
sooner; and to this he adds another qualifying clause
explaining the means of delivery.
By the time he has reached fifteen the ganglia has
been extended from mere sentence length to cover whole
sections of digression and association of ideas. Even
parenthesis, containing the highly typical Coleridgean
apology for the digression, occurs at such an early age:
I pray you pardon my not writing before. Five
102
times have I set down with a fix’d resolution to
write you; and five times have I torn it before I
have writ half of it. Nothing in it pleased me.
All was STUFF, as Mr. Boyer phrases it. But now
I can write with much better will, if only to
rejoice with you at your success. I am apt to think,
that for you Fortune will take of/f/ her bandage,
and reward merit for once. But I have forgot. My
Aunt desired me in the beginning of this epistle to
assure you 'of her kindest love to you: she never
felt so much pleasure in her life, as at your
success./'/ Old Bishop is somewhat better than an
Atheist. He seldom fails of exerting his oratorical
. . ./homiletical?/ abilities on the subject of our
Saviour; the immortality of the soul. His arguments
are very strong. As, any wise man may see, as how
it cant be so. Heaven would not be large enough
to hold all the souls of all men, who have ever
liv'd. It is remarkable how zealous all these
• infidels are to persuade you to embrace their fan
tastical doctrines. Addison finely says: 'They
play for nothing: safe on both sides./'/ Well:
but to return (a good way to apologize for a digres
sion) I shall acquaint you, how my affairs stand in
our little world.23
Nearly all the rhetorical devices so characteristic
of his later prose are to be found in abundance in all the
early personal letters, with the exception of the patch of
rhetorical questions, a device obviously better suited
for polished public debate than for personal correspon
dence. The patch of rhetorical questions (If two in a
row may be allowed to be a "patch") does occur in this
passage, however, along with the more frequently occurring
patch of exclamations:
My more than Brother What shall/I/write to you?
Shall I profess an abhorrence of my past conduct?
Ah me--too well do I know it's iniquity— but to
abhor! My frame is chill and torpid— the Ebb and
Flow of my hopes & fears has stagnated into reck-
lessness--one wish only can I read distinctly in my
heart--that it were possible for me to be forgotten
103
as tho' I never had been! The shame and sorrow of
those who loved me--the anguish of him, who protected
me from my childhood upwards--the sore travail of her
who bore me— intolerable Images of horror!2^
This passage also is illustrative of the extremely melo
dramatic and self-pitying, self-condemnatory tone which
Coleridge often assumes in these early letters.
Another frequently employed rhetorical device in
the early letters is parallelism through cumulation, a
device employed in both the Johnsonian style and in the
style of Coleridge’s later prose. In this instance, the
cumulation is emphasized through the use of a second set
of cumulations (the "this age" series) within the larger
parallelism of the "from" series.
It helps to relieve and soothe the mind, and
is a sort of refuge from Calamity— from slights and
neglects and censures and insults and disappointmentsi
from the warmth of real enemies and the coldness of
pretended friends; from you well wishers (as they
are justly called, in opposition, I suppose, to well
doers) men, whose inclinations to serve you always
decrease in a most mathematical proportion, as their
opportunities to do it increase^ from the
'proud man's contumely, and the spurns,
Which patient Merit of th' unworthy takes'
from grievances, that are the growth of all times
and places and not peculiar to this age--which
Authors call--this critical age, and Divines, this
sinful age, and Politicians, this age of Revolutions.--
An acquaintance of mine calls it this learned age, in
due reverence to his own abilities, and like Monsieur
Whatd-ye call him, who used to pull off his hat, when
he spoke of himself.— The poet Laureate calls it—
this golden age— and with good reason—
For him the fountains with canary flow,
And, best of fruit, spontaneous guineas grow.—
104
Pope in his Dunciad makes it this leaden age; but I
chuse to call it without an epithet--this Age.23
In addition to parallelism, balance and antithesis
is very often found. The frequency with which these
devices occur is reminiscent of the eighteenth-century
Johnsonian style. In the following passage, the balance
is achieved partially by means of yet another rhetorical
device, emphasis through italicizing of key words:
Frequent consideration and minute scrutiny have
at length unravelled the cause— Viz— That, though
Reason is feasted, Imagination is starved: whilst
Reason is luxuriating in it's proper Paradise,
Imagination is wearily travelling over a dreary
desert. To assist Reason by the stimulus of Imagina
tion is the Design of the following Production, in
the execution of it much may be objectionable .26
These devices of parallelism, balance, and antithesis are
present in Coleridge's mature style as well as here, but
not nearly to such a great extent.
As in the early journalistic writing, the
eighteenth-century taste for personification appears on
occasion in the early personal letters: "I first have
drawn the Nymph Mathesis from the visionary caves of
Abstracted Idea, and caused her to unite with Harmony."^7
The two major flaws in the epistolary prose, a
pedestrian use of metaphor and an overwrought, blaring
tone, are characteristic neither of Johnsonian nor of
later Coleridgean style. In Coleridge’s earliest letters,
the diction is too pompous, as in these examples:
I wish you would remedy that evil by keeping up
105
an epistolary correspondence.with me.2®
a good pair of breeches will be no inconsiderable
accession to my appearance.29
The sore throat gargarization and attention have
removed: my cough remains— and is indeed in its
zenith: not Cerberus ever bark'd louder: every act
of tussitation seems to divorce my bowells and
belly. . ,3’ U
Can you let me have them time enough for
readaptation before Whimond/a/y?31 [italics minej
This over-intellectualizing tendency is especially obvious
when Coleridge elects to write his letters in Latin, as he
does on a number of occasions.^ 2
Although Coleridge's use of structural devices is
almost always more flamboyant in the early writings than
in the later ones, his use of metaphor in the earlier
personal letters is plodding. At this time he has not
developed his remarkable power for the strikingly apt
comparison, nor has he yet learned to think with the
metaphor. Consequently, metaphor in the earliest letters
is somewhat rare, and in those letters in which it does
occur, it is by and large mediocre:
Now I do hate that way of concluding a letter--
'Tis as dry as a stick, as stiff as a poker, and
as cold as a cucumber.33
your letters are a comfort to me in the
comfortless Hour— they are Manna in the Wilderness.34
After tumult and agitation of any kind the mind
and all it's affections seem to dose for a while—
and we sit shivering with chilly feverishness
wrapped up in the ragged and threadbare cloak of
mere animal enjoyment.35
io6
If the metaphors are drab, however, the tone is
anything but. The range in tone is truly astonishing; and
the extremes of intensity to which the tones are carried
matches the range of tones. For a start, we can consider
the "estecean" qualities of boasting, defensiveness, and
apology. Boasting.usually is somewhat subtly accomplished,
as here, where in the guise of praising the poet Tomkins,
Coleridge takes occasion to praise himself:
We had a long conversation together, in the
close of which he declared, that he thought me a
very clever young man— and I_ declared that I
thought his Collection of Poems one of the best
Collections, I had ever seen.3©
Defensiveness is beautifully illustrated in the
sentence following the last one in the previous quotation:
"I am just two months older than he is." Coleridge feels
that he must defend himself for not winning the prize, and
so cites the "fact" that Butler is so close to the same
age that the prize was awarded to him on a technicality.
In reality, however, Coleridge was fifteen months older
than Butler,3^ a significant difference at college age.
The feeling that he must apologize for himself,
common enough in the later letters, surfaces even more
often in the early ones. Here is one of the typically
Coleridgean apologies (also typically, he immediately goes
from the apology for "nonsense" to transcribing more of
what he admits is nonsense):
— There is an old proverb— of--a river of words,
107
and a spoonful of sense— and I think, this letter
has been a pretty good proof of it— : but as
Nonsense is better than blank paper, I will fill
this side with a song.39
He exhibits an ability to chastise others, as well as to
ward off chastisement by others through the use of
apologies which forestall criticism. Here he lectures his
brother George:
Duty as well as affection prompts me to conclude
the narration of this event by admonishing you to
pursue the same course of reformation: as your
hand-writing, though sufficiently gentlemanlike, is
most hieroglyphically obscure..
At times he adds righteous indignation to didacticism, as
in this section, where he is aroused by the petty scound
rels whom he feels are all too numerous in the world:
"Oh! I do know a set of little, dirty, pimping, pety-
fogging, ambi-dextrous fellows, whom would set your house
on fire, tho* it were but to roast an egg for themselves.
There are times in the letters, however, when
Coleridge might well have saved some of his righteous
indignation for himself. There are spots at which he even
engages in petty gossip, some of it vicious. This is one
such spot:
It [a verse which Coleridge citesj was composed
by a Mr Thistethwait, the town cryer— and is much
admired.--we are all mortal.— !— His Wife carries
on the business— it is whispered about the town,
that a match between her and Mr Coe, the shoemaker,
is not improbable— he certainly appears very
assiduous in consoling her— but as to any thing
matrimonial, I do not write it as a well authenticated
fact....
Were you ever at Cambridge, Anne? The River
108
Cam is a handsome stream of a muddy complexion*
somewhat like Miss Yates* to whom you will present
my Love— (if you like). In Cambridge there are 16
Colleges* that look like work-houses* and 14 Churches*
that look like little houses. The Town is very
fertile in alleys* and mud* and cats* and dogs*
besides men* women* ravens* clergy, proctors* Tutors*
Owls* and other two legged cattle.^2
Lest we judge Coleridge too harshly* however* it
is important to remember that this represents the high
jinks and show-off stance of a freshman college student.
Furthermore* if there are passages which are not worthy of
him* there are many more which are of the stature which
we would expect from him. Finally* it is hard to stay
indignant with Coleridge for any length of time* even
after reading one of the passages which smack too strongly
of the petty gossip. Before we know it* we have happened
upon one of those delightfully whimsical passages which
punctuate his works:
I anticipate your arrival at Ottery— your
presence* like the Sun* will relax the frost of
my genius* and* like a cathartic* purify it of
all obstructions* so that I expect to flow away
in a bloody flux of poetry.^3
And* although Coleridge is not normally thought of as a
writer with a rollicking sense of humor* certainly there
are humorous passages in the early letters. At the
conclusion of the letter from which we have just quoted*
for instance* we get:
By the by* I compared the carbuncle on your
cheek to the star of Venus passing over the disk
of the Sun.
In Devonshire* I shall write Mr Sparrow—
109
God love you— /Your's ever
S T Coleridge
P.S. Edward's love— N.B. Ned has proposed an
in melius to my simile by comparing your carbuncle
to an ignis fatuus passing over a Dunghill.^
In a similar vein he writes to Mary Evans about a ghost
which he professes to have seen:
And as for you* 0 Young Man (now he addressed
himself to me) write no more verses— in the first
place, your poetry is vile stuffj and secondly,
(here he sighed almost to bursting) all Poets go
to -11, we are so intolerably addicted to the Vice
of Lying!— He vanished— and convinced me of the
truth of his last dismal account by the sulphureous
stink, which he left behind him.^5
It is on this happy note that we take our leave of the
early Coleridge. We have examined both his early journ
alistic prose and his early letters, and have found
numerous stylistic clues pointing to the eighteenth-century,
though most of the devices used were carried to extremes.
In the next chapter we will examine the influences upon
his prose style of those seventeenth-century writers whom
he so much admired.
110
NOTES FOR CHAPTER IV
•^Essays on His Own Times, 13 6l.
2The Watchman^ p. 9 8.
^The Watchman^ p. 8 9.
^“ Essays on His Own Times, I3 15.
^The Works of Samuel Johnsona LL.D.j ed. Arthur
Murphy3 12 vols (London, l8o6)5 IV 3 20.
^Literary Remainsj p. 209.
^Miscellaneous Criticism^ p. 220.
^Brinkley, p. 419.
^Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 226.
- I - 0" Coleridge * s Critical Principles*" Tulane Studies
in English, 6 (1956)* 6 5.
^-Quoted by Edna Shearer in "Wordsworth and
Coleridge Marginalia in a copy of Richard Payne Knight1s
Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste*"
Huntington Library Quarterly, I, no. 1 (October* 1937)j 71.
1 2Shearer* p. 71.
13shearera p. 7 6.
^Essays on His Own Times *
I, 17.
^Essays on His Own Times *
I,
1 2.
^Essays
on His Own Times *
PP. 3-5.
^Essays on His Own Times3
I,
2 7-2 8.
l80n p. 8 2.
-^See Chapter II.
Ill
20Essays on His Own Times3 I3 48.
21The Watchman^ p. 51*
22Collected Letters I j X •
^Collected Letters I, 2.
^Collected Letters
i, 63.
25collected Letters i, 50.
^Collected Letters
i, 7.
27collected Letters
i, 7.
2^Collected Letters i, 2.
29collected Letters
1* 5.
3°Collected Letters i, 9-10.
3-*-Collected Letters
1, 5.
32For instance^, see Collected Letters 3 I3 38-44.
33collected Letters I3 24.
3^Collected Letters
I, 73.
35collected Letters
I, 73.
36collected Letters I, 10.
37collected Letters
I, 47.
3®Collected Letters I3 47n.
39collected Letters
I, 51.
^Collected Letters I3 11.
^Collected Letters I, 48.
^Collected Letters
I, 31.
^Collected Letters
I, 36-37.
^Collected Letters
I, 43.
^collected Letters I, 27-28.
CHAPTER V
THE INFLUENCE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
With a picture of his early stylistic traits before
us, we are in a position to examine the affinities of
Coleridge to his seventeenth-century models. To do
anything like a complete job of deducing stylistic
influence would be impossible, because of the immensely
wide scope of Coleridge’s reading and because of the
difficulty of making with certainty a connection between
a given practice of a seventeenth-century writer and a
practice of Coleridge's own. Even restricting ourselves
to those books which Coleridge annotated in some way, as
opposed to considering all those which he read,-1 - we are
still left with the approximately 450 volumes which so far
p
have been located. The possibility that there are even
more which have not yet come to the attention of scholars
is fairly good, since in the period after 1810 when he
lived at various lodgings with friends, Coleridge left a
trail of books behind him.^
Furthermore, the influences are as various as
they are numerous. In the last chapter we noticed the
influence of eighteenth-century Johnsonian prose on the
112
113
early style. If one were to follow this trail further, it
is possible that it could lead us to specific authors.
In a very perceptive and scholarly study for its time,
Laura Johnson Wylie avers that
In questions of form he was from the beginning
on Burke’s side. He shared with him the warmer
style of syntax, the bolder similes, the freer
illustrations, and more poetic turns of speech--
in short the school of Romantic prose— only that
he looked back more directly to the seventeenth
century.^-
Coleridge's comments upon Greek works provide the
basis for speculation about another source of influence,
as they could as easily be describing his own work: "The
Greek writings are distinguished by long sentences,
formed as it were, architecturally; each par^jb is built on
the preceding; and the whole sentence would lose by
changing the arrangement."5 Oliver Elton has picked up
this hint: "Coleridge's style and mind, at their best,
have really in them something of the Greek; the flowing,
impregnating, Platonic quality following precisely in words
the windings of very refined matter.
The well-known controversy about Coleridge's
alleged borrowings from German literary figures easily can
be extended to embroil the question of stylistic influence.
In the case of at least one writer, Richter, Coleridge
7
informally acknowledged such stylistic influence.
But, whatever validity may inhere in these claims,
the core of the question of stylistic influence on
114
Coleridge is in the English Renaissance and seventeenth-
century writers, particularly the seventeenth-century
(and sometimes later) divines. Coleridge devoted consider
able attention to the styles of many of these figures, and
was impressed enough to judge them fit models for
imitation. He says, for instance, that
Cowley, with the omission of a quaintness here
and there, is probably the best model of a style
for modern imitation in general....Many parts of
Algernon Sidney's treatises afford exemplars of a
good modern practical style; and Dryden in his
prose works, is a still better model, if you add
a stricter and purer grammar.°
Of Barrow he says: "C I intend to] examine minutely the
nature, cause, birth, & growth of the verbal imagination,
of which Barrow is almost the Ideal."9 He likes most of
what he finds in Leighton, though occasionally he finds
some point which he feels warrants criticism: "The style
too is in many places below Leighton's ordinary style--in
some places even turbid, operose, and catechrestic;— for
example— 'to trample on smilings with one foot and on
frownings with the other.'"10 He highly admires a section
from the works of Fulke Greville:
I do not remember a more beautiful piece of
prose in English than the consolation addressed by
Lord Brooke (Fulke Greville) to a lady of quality
on certain conjugal infelicities. The diction is
such that it might have been written now, if we
could find any one combining so thoughtful a head
with so tender a heart and so exquisite a taste.H
Rather than multiply examples, we simply can note that
during the course of this chapter, we will have occasion to
115
allude to Donne* Hooker* Milton* Taylor* Bacon* Hall* and
Baxter in addition to the writers mentioned so far; and
this list is hy no means exhaustive. In fact* we can make
the generalization that Coleridge admired nearly every
writer of the Elizabethan Period and the seventeenth
century as he himself says:
When I think of the vigour and felicity of
style characteristic of the age* from Edward VI*
to the Restoration of Charles* and observable in
the letters and family memoirs of noble families—
take* for instance* the Life of Colonel Hutchinson*
written by his widow— I cannot suppress the wish—
0 that the habits of those days could return* even
though they should bring pedantry and Euphuism in
their train.12
It is not necessarily true* of course* that just
because a writer reads widely he absorbs stylistic
influence from every or even any work that he comes into
contact with. But in Coleridge’s case we have the strong
evidence of his own assertion to that effect:
We insensibly imitate what we habitually
admire; and an aversion to the epigrammatic
unconnected periods of the fashionable Anglo-
f
allican taste has too often made me willing
o forget* that the stately march and difficult
evolutions* which characterize the eloquence of
Hooker* Bacon* Milton* and Jeremy Taylor* are*
notwithstanding their intrinsic excellence* still
less suited to the periodical Essay. This fault
1 am now endeavouring to correct; though I can never
so far sacrifice my judgment to the desire of being
immediately popular* as to cast my sentences in the
French moulds* or affect a style which an ancient
critic would have deemed purposely invented for
persons troubled with asthma to read* and for those
to comprehend who labour under the more pitiable
asthma of a short-witted intellect.
This quotation also asserts the names of Hooker*
116
Bacon, Milton, and Taylor as examples of the "eloquence"
of seventeenth-century prose. Although others will vary
from occasion to occasion, whenever he mentions specific
seventeenth-century writers, the names Milton and Taylor
are nearly always present. In October, l8055 Coleridge
wrote to his benefactor Thomas Wedgwood to tell him that
he planned to publish a volume of selected prose writings
from Hall, Milton, and Taylor.1^- In 1817 Coleridge
actually did compare Milton and Taylor in part of the
"Apologetic Preface" to "Fire, Faminine, and Slaughter"
IS
in Sibylline Leaves. ^
What was it about these writers that made such a
strong appeal to Coleridge, an appeal which lasted from
his early youth to his old age? He never is too specific
about the sources of the appeal, though he mentions the
subject generally. Typical of the way in which Coleridge
speaks about the seventeenth-century writers is
A valuable remark has just struck me on reading
Milton's beautiful passage on true eloquence, his
apology for Smectyminus. 'For me, reader, though I
cannot say,' etc.--first, to show the vastly greater
numbers of admirable passages, in our elder writers,
that may be gotten by heart as the most exquisite
poems; and to point out the great intellectual
advantage of this reading, over the gliding smoothly
on through a whole volume of equability.-1 -^
A casual look at this passage would suggest that only the
familiar topic of the joint appeal which a successful work
of prose must make to both the head and the heart, to the
emotional expression which is easily memorized and to the
117
rational explanation which makes for "intellectual
advantage," is being trumpeted. But, when this passage
is considered along with several others, it is clear that
the two elements which Coleridge consistently admires, as
he does here, are (1) the breathtaking imagery, often in
the form of elaborate conceits; (2) the ganglinous senten
ces, which allow the writer to hold a great many ideas in
suspension before the end of the sentence, and to achieve
a great amount of progression from one thought to another
without having the progression interrupted by the pause
which necessarily follows the termination of the sentence.
As for figurative language, Roberta Brinkley thinks
that "...it was the imagery characteristic of the writing
of this period which afforded him the greatest pleasure,
whether it was the magnificent ebb and flow of Donne's
amazing figure of the world as a sea or the homely figure
of cobwebs in the heart.One of Coleridge's most
lavish sections of praise of Taylor, for instance, is
devoted largely to the imagery: "What Bard of ancient or
modern times has surpassed, in richness of language, in
fertility of fancy, in majesty of sentiment, in grace of
i o
imagery, this Spenser of English prose?MJ-°
The second important element of the styles of the
seventeenth-century writers which Coleridge so admired, the
tentacled sentence, I think weighed so heavily in
Coleridge's critical scales largely because he made it over
118
to fit into his own critical scheme. He seems to have
viewed it as a form which embraced the organic unity of
its elements. Something of this conception is given away
in his defense of the labyrinthian sentence structure which
was in general use in the seventeenth century. He finds
no fault with the long sentence, and defends the practice
of stringing one clause behind another by arguing that the
thought could not be expressed in any other way: "It is
generally not true, that Taylor's punctuation is arbitrary,
or his periods reducible to the post-revolutionary
standard of length by turning some of his colons and
semi-colons into full stops."19 This he believes to be so
because he views the successive clauses as built one upon
the other, logically as well as syntactically. As he
discusses Hooker and Taylor, the word "agglomerating" is
indicative of Coleridge's position on this matter:
The classical structure of Hooker— the impetuous,
thought-agglomerating flood of Taylor--to these there
is no pretence of a parallel] and for mere ease and
grace, is Cowley inferior to Addison, being as he is
so much more thoughtful and full of f a n c y ? 2 0
This very sentence can be analyzed for its mind-
filling suspension of multiple yet allied ideas. Coleridge
opens with the mention of Hooker, described as having not
only "structure" but "classical" structure. His style thus
is characterized as a beautifully molded, though static
one. Coleridge then jumps to the detailing of Taylor's
style as "impetuous" and "thought-agglomerating," which
119
makes it the polar opposite of Hooker’s. Taylor’s style
is fluid, not static, and "impetuous" rather than
"classical." Coleridge then brings these opposites to
some measure of reconciliation in the phrase "to these
there is no pretence of a parallel." With these two ideas
of style now somewhat settled in the readers' minds,
Coleridge moves to a second comparison, related yet not
parallel to, the comparison of Hooker and Taylor. The
comparison of Addison to Cowley is also in terms of style,
but in connection with fancy and thoughtfulness, rather
than fluidity and stasis. This comparison of Addison and
Cowley, however, is done in terms of degree rather than
opposition. Whereas Hooker exemplified "structure" and
Taylor "a flood," both Addison and Cowley exemplify
"fancy" and "thoughtfulness," but in differing amounts.
Thus, in the course of a single sentence Coleridge holds
in suspension both a qualitative and a quantitative
comparison, each dealing with style, the subject which he
is discussing. It might just be added in passing that in
this small excerpt Coleridge seems once again to stress
imagery ("full of fancy") and logical progression ("more
thoughtful"). In another place, he stresses the unity of
all the elements held in suspension in the involuted
sentences through the conceptual ability to "unite the
PI
insulated fragments of truth." This I think provides a
clue to Coleridge's admiration for the extended conceit,
120
since the more extended figure, like the more complex
sentence, can hold more elements in suspension than can
the briefer one. Most convincingly, in his essay "On
Style," Coleridge says flat out that the seventeenth-
century writers possess organic unity:
The unity in these writers is produced by the
unity of subject and the perpetual growth and evolu
tion of the thoughts, one generating, and explaining,
and justifying, the place of another, not, as in
Seneca, where the thoughts, striking as they are,,
are merely strung together like beads, without any
causation or progression.22
Though the elements of imagery and unity are the
two units which most readily attracted Coleridge to the
writers of the seventeenth century, there are other elements
in these writers which were equally congenial to
Coleridge's own practice. This is evident in a few
passages of which Coleridge was particularly fond. This
is one, prefaced by a remark of his about it:
It must surely have been after hearing of or
witnessing some similar event or scene of wretchedness,
that the most eloquent of our Writers (I had almost
said of our Poets) Jeremy Taylor, wrote the following
paragraph, which at least in Longinus's sense of the
word, we may place among the most sublime passages in
English Literature. 'He that is no fool, but can
consider wisely,, if he be in love with this world we
need not despair but that a witty man might reconcile
him with tortures, and make him think charitably of
the rack, and be brought to admire the harmony that
is made by a herd of evening wolves when they miss
their draught of blood in their midnight revels.
The groans of a man in a fit of the stone are worse
than all these; and the distractions of a troubled
conscience are worse than those groans: and yet a
careless merry sinner is worse than all that. But
if we could from one of the battlements espy, how
many men and women at this time lie fainting and
121
dying for want of bread, how many young men are
hewn down by the sword of war; how many poor orphans
are now weeping over the graves of their father, by
whose life they were enabled to eat; if we could but
hear how many mariners and passengers are at present
in a storm, and shriek out because their keel dashes
against a rock, or bulges under them; how many people
there are that weep with want, and are mad with
oppression, or are desparate by a too quick sense of
a constant infelicity; in all reason we should be
glad to be out of the noise and participation of so
many evils. This is a place of sorrows and tears,
of great evils and constant calamities: let us
remove hence, at least in affections and preparations
of mind.23
The extremely lengthy sentences of this passage are made
up of a series of clauses, some independent and others
dependent. Since both types are found in the same sentence:
a tension is set up between the coordinative thrust of the
independent clauses (opened by "but" and "and" in these
sentences) and the hypotactic tendency of the dependent
clauses (initiated by "that," and "if" here), just as it
is in Coleridge's prose. How real a tension this is is
indicated by the even balance of coordinate with sub
ordinate elements; there are four coordinate structures
and four subordinate ones.
The second sentence of this passage, with its
three parallel "worse than" clauses, operates in much the
same way that those Coleridgean passages which gain their
chief effects from parallel items do. A sense of polish,
of finished workmanship immediately strikes the reader,
and he is able to glide over the smoothly rhythmical
sentence with greater speed than he is able to in some of
122
the subordinate sections. This sentence also parallels
Coleridge’s practice of giving the reader the illusion of
watching the thought growing as he reads. First, the
reader thinks about the miseries attendant upon a man
groaning "in a fit of the stone"; then this concept grows
to the greater miseries involved with the "distractions of
a troubled conscience"; and finally the reader’s ideas
progress to the yet greater miseries of "a careless merry
sinner."
For places in which Taylor wishes to manipulate
the growth of the reader's thought mainly by weight of
argument, he uses a device very prevalent in Coleridge,
cumulation. Sentence number three of the passage which
we are analyzing contains an excellent example of this
device, in the series of items introduced by "how many."
It should be noted, though, that this sentence, while
cumulative like so many of Coleridge's, is strongly period
ic, as opposed to the loose structure of much of
Coleridge's prose.
We have already discussed Coleridge's view of the
ability of the seventeenth-century writers to mold their
thoughts into an organically unified whole. This being
the criterion of excellence, we easily can see why
Coleridge particularly admired the passage presently under
discussion. For the last sentence masterfully weaves the
cumulated items of the previous sentences into one
123
succinct conclusion. In this way, Taylor achieves the
goal, strongly endorsed by Coleridge, of weaving multeity
into unity; of combining the separate syntactic organs of
the passage into one unified body. And yet the plentiful
cumulated items are not mere padding, which could be trim
med off to leave only the conclusion; for the conclusion
would be only a hollow-sounding, sweeping generalization
without the impressive weight of specifics which went
before. Thus, conclusion and material summarized interact
inseparably with one another; they are unified organically.
Thus far we have seen how well matched Coleridge’s
ideas about the larger structural units are with Taylor’s.
The smaller units are equally well matched. The last
sentence of the passage selected from Taylor illustrates
his propensity to organize everything into two's, just as
Coleridge does. He writes of "sorrows and tears," of
"evils " and "calamities;" the evils are "great" and the
calamities are "constant"; there are both "affections" and
"preparations."
And, like Coleridge, one of Taylor's fortes is his
ability to draw the sometimes startling and nearly always
apt and incisive comparison. Taylor normally thinks in
conceits; his comparisons are usually far more extended
than are Coleridge's quick passes of metaphor. But the
same verve is present in the images offered to the reader
by both men. The "harmony that is made by a herd of
124
evening wolves when they miss their draught of blood in
their midnight revels" is even short enough that, if we
did not know whose figure it was, we would not hesitate to
ascribe it to Coleridge as easily as we would ascribe it
to Taylor. Granted all these similarities of practice in
the writing of prose, it is not surprising that Coleridge
took to Taylor with enthusiasm.
Another seventeenth-century divine to whom Coleridge
became much attached was Hooker. As we can tell by the
tenor of his introductory remarks to the following citation,
it must have been among his favorite passages:
Another and very different species of style is
that which was derived from, and founded on, the
admiration and cultivation of the classical writers,
and which was more exclusively addressed to the
learned class in society. I have previously mentioned
Boccaccio as the original Italian introducer of this
manner, and the great models of it in English are
Hooker, Bacon, Milton, and Taylor, although it may
be traced in many other authors of that age. In all
these the language is dignified but plain, genuine
English, although elevated and brightened by super
iority of intellect in the writer. Individual words
themselves are always used by them in their precise
meaning, without either affectation or slip-slop....
Take the following sentence as a specimen of the
sort of style to which I have been alluding:—
Concerning Faith, the principal object whereof
is that eternal verity which hath discovered the
treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ; concerning Hope,
the highest object whereof is that everlasting good
ness which in Christ doth quicken the dead; concerning
Charity, the final object whereof is that incompre
hensible beauty which shineth in the countenance of
Christ, the Son of the living God: concerning these
virtues, the first of which beginning here with a weak
apprehension of things not seen, endeth with the
intuitive vision of God in the world to come; the
second beginning here with a trembling expectation
125
of things far removed, and as yet but only heard of,
endeth with real and actual fruition of that which
no tongue can express; the third beginning here with
a weak inclination of heart towards him unto whom we
are not able to approach, endeth with endless union,
the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the
thoughts of men; concerning that Faith, Hope, and
Charity, without which there can be no salvation,
was there ever any mention made saving only in that
Law which God himself hath from Heaven revealed?
There is not in the world a syllable muttered with
certain truth concerning any of these three, more
than hath been supernaturally received from the
mouth of eternal God.2^
While this quotation exhibits the full rigor of
balance and parallelism much more obviously than did the
citation from Taylor, it also possesses many of the
stylistic traits of Coleridgean prose. It too establishes
a tension between coordination and hypotasis. The repeated
gerund "concerning" acts as a coordinating device, in that
it introduces the chief concepts in the passage, Faith,
Hope, and Charity; and these two-word sequences function
as the foundation units for the enormously long sentence
in which they appear. They function logically as inde
pendent clauses, though they are not grammatically definable
as such. Counterpointing these units are the subordinate
"which" clauses, that elaborate upon the objects of the
respective virtues.
Like the Taylor passage and like normal Coleridgean
practice, the seemingly disparate elements introduced and
discussed in the course of the apparently interminable
first sentence are drawn into a perceivable relationship
126
of unity at the end; the multeity blends into a picture of
unity. The second sentence from the end closely juxta
poses Faith, Hope, and Charity, the concepts being dilated
upon during the course of the passage. Then, briefly,
Hooker poses the crucial rhetorical question which applies
to them all. This provides a common context and a point
of comparison for them.
Milton, like Taylor and Hooker, attracted
Coleridge's applause for his polished prose. And, like
Taylor and Hooker, Milton's prose has a good deal in
common with Coleridge's. Consider, for instance, the third
sentence from Milton's famous tract on divorce, where he
attempts to explain why custom carries so much force:
Except it be, because her method is so glib and
easy, in some manner like to that vision of Ezekiel
rolling up her sudden book of implicit knowledge,
for him that will to take and swallow at pleasure;
which proving but of bad nourishment in the concoction,
as it was heedless in the devouring, puffs up
unhealthily a certain big face of pretended learning,
mistaken among credulous men for the wholesome habit
of soundness and good constitution, but is indeed no
other than that swollen visage of counterfeit know
ledge and literature, which not only in private mars
our education, but also in public is the common
climber into every chair, where either religion is
preached, or law reported; filling each estate of
life and profession with abject and servile principles,
depressing the high and heaven-born spirit of man far ■
beneath the condition wherein either God created him,
or sin hath sunk him.25
In this passage, as with those which we have examined from
Taylor and Hooker, there is a tension between coordination
and hypotasis. The coordinate elements are introduced
127
with "because," "but," "either," and "or"5 the subordinate
ones with "as," "which," and "where." The tension is less
noticeable than it otherwise might be, however, because
even the syntactically coordinate structures introduce
modifying elements, a practice which in turn furthers the
impression of incessant subordination. This is what
Coleridge very often does; in fact, this passage could,
syntactically, as well have been composed by Coleridge as
by Milton. The fact that’ Milton does not employ a periodic
sentence also strengthens the likeness to Coleridgean
practice. The entire series of subordinations is set up
to explain the opening three-word phrase "Except it be."
As we have seen, this is the way in which Coleridge
operates, first stating a thought and then attaching a
multitude of qualifiers to it.
Although the sentence is not really unified in
the organic manner which Coleridge recommended, the various
ideas expressed in the subordinate sections are all drawn
together at one point, their effects upon man: "depressing
the high and heaven-born spirit of man far beneath the
condition wherein either God created him, or sin hath
sunk him." While this probably would not be sufficient to
satisfy Coleridge, it at least does something to organize
the multeity of elements into some sort of focus, if not
unity.
But if Coleridge might be somewhat dissatisfied
128
with the unity of the passage, he surely would nod
approval at the Miltonic tendency to organize ideas by
two’s. We get "glib and easy"; "soundness and good
constitution"; "knowledge and literature"; "private and
public"; "religion and law"; "life and profession";
"abject and servile"; "high and heaven-born"; and "created"
or "sunk."
Also, Coleridge surely would offer his compliments
to Milton for his use of the conceit. The extended
comparison of knowledge to medicine in this passage
resembles Coleridge’s own comparisons.
Prom the three passages which we have viewed in
detail, we have extracted the elements which in all
probability occasioned Coleridge’s high praise of them:
those most congenial to his own practices. This is not
to say that if a thorough analysis were made of every prose
work of Taylor, Hooker, and Milton, and compared to the
results for Coleridge, all four writers would be found to
write in identical patterns. Still, the results might
reveal a surprising correspondence, judging from the
scanty evidence available at present. ^6 Oliver Elton
thought that this connection could be established without
any evidence at all:
The mere manner of it descends, plainly enough,
from the great pre-Augustan prose-writers, on whom
Coleridge’s sense of construction and rhythm was
nourished; from Jeremy Taylor, in especial, who often
embarks, though with less of Hebrew parallelism, on
129
just such prolonged and musical similes,, perhaps
as a substitute for reasoning.27
Undoubtedly, some allowance (precisely how much
would be a difficult question to resolve), however, must
be made for congeniality in thought as well as congeniality
in style. Coleridge quotes ideas of Bacon, in particular,
nQ
very often and very approvingly. u Yet Bacon is known
for his short, crisp sentences, quite the reverse of the
type written by Hooker, Taylor and Milton:
Costly followers are not to be liked; lest while
a man maketh his train longer, he make his wings
shorter. I reckon to be costly, not them alone which
change the purse, but which are wearisome in suits.
Ordinary followers ought to challenge to no higher
conditions than countenance, recommendation, and
protection from wrongs.29
But Coleridge does not merely ape the seventeenth-
century writers whom he loved so well. He brings to bear
the full force of his critical intellect upon them, and
at times, finds room in their works for improvement:
The philosophers and theologians--we might say,
the prose-writers generally--from the reign of
Henry VIII to the Restoration were faulty in the
other extreme; too abundant in Latinisms, too
artificial in the structure of their periods, and
in the logical cement by which they bound together.
The prevailing foible was to be stately, mechanical,
and connected in excess...31
After a reasoned critical appraisal, however, Coleridge
found much to admire in his favorite seventeenth-century
writers, both in their thought and in their means of
expressing that thought. He subsumed what he found of
value into his own writing, and thereby enriched it. The
130
result is a body of writings of no mean value; a body of
writings which reflects the power of a mind capable of
grappling with knotty problems in a wide range of political
issues5 philosophy5 and literary criticism— and doing a
first-rate job with all of them.
131
NOTES FOR CHAPTER FIVE
^It is difficult even to guess at how many books he
must have read. However, we do have some information con
cerning his library borrowings, and, as L. A. Willoughby
puts it in his article "Coleridge as a Philologist," MLR,
31, no. 2 (April, 1936), . 1 8 3* "It is an imposing list of
books borrowed which has been drawn up for us." For lists
of specific books, see Paul Kaufman, "Coleridge’s Use of
Cathedral Libraries," MLN, 6 5, no. 5 (May, i9 6 0), 395-399j
and "The Reading of Southey and Coleridge: The Record of
their Borrowings from the Bristol Library, 1793-1798," MP,
21 (1923-1924), 317-320; Alice D. Snyder, "Books Borrowed
by Coleridge from the Library of the University of
Gottingen, 1799j" MP, 25 (1 9 2 7-1 9 2 8); and George Whalley,
"The Bristol Library Borrowings of Southey and Coleridge,
1793-98," The Library, 5th Series, 4, no. 1 (June, 1949)*
114-132.
^George Whalley, "Portrait of a Bibliophile VII:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834," Book Collector, 10
(Autumn, 1 9 6 1), 288.
3"Portrait of a Bibliophile VII: Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, 1772-1834," passim.
^Studies in the Evolution of English Criticism,
p. 1 1 0.
^Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 222.
6 A Survey of English Literature, I7 8O-I8 8 1, p. 120.
^Collected Letters, III, 305.
Q
Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 219•
^Notebooks, I, 1275-
1 0Brinkley, p. 254.
i:iTable Talk, pp. 293-294 (Shedd, VI, 520).
12Shedd, IV, 422n.
13The Friend, I, 20.
132
^Collected Letters, II, 877*
^Brinkley, p. 314.
- * - ^Anlma Poetae, p. 230.
^ Coleridge on the Seventeenth Century, p. 125.
-'-^Brinkley, p. 259*
^Literary Remains, III, 205.
^Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 219.
21Table Talk, pp. 138-139 (Shedd, VI, 373). A
similar comment, that images "have the effect of reducing
the multitude to unity," is made in the Biographia
Literaria, p. 177•
^ Miscellaneous Criticism, p. 217.
23The Friend, I, 347-348.
^ Miscellaneous Criticism, pp. 216-217.
2^Works of John Milton, Columbia ed., 18 vols.
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1931-1938), III,
pt. 2 (1931), 367-368.
of,
^uSister Osinski, for instance, has found figures
relating to the word count per sentence of each writer,
and noticed a close correspondence. On p. 87 she lists
the word count for a number of 1 7th century writers whom
Coleridge admired.
2?A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1880,
pp. 1 1 9-1 2 0.
2®In the Biographia Literaria, for instance, see
PP. 31, 33-34, 7 8, 1 5 8, 159, 190, and 252-253. It is
probable that much of Coleridge's approval was related to
Bacon's inductive system of thought, which Coleridge
identified as an excellent instance of the "fixed
principles" upon which he so strongly insisted. See the
Stateman's Manual, pp. 19-20 for an expression pointing in
this direction.
2^The Works of Francis Bacon, ed. James Spedding,
Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath, 15 vols
(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, and Company [.1857-743, XII,
247.
133
3QThe Works of Francis Bacon, VIII, 4l3-4l4.
^Brinkley, p. 4l8.
CHAPTER VI
THE DIFFERENT STYLES
Now that we have examined the basic structural
components of Coleridgean prose and have become acquainted
with some of Coleridge's stylistic idiosyncracies, we can
examine in detail .the variations in structure and in style
which are functions of the types of works in which these
stylistic features appear. Although efforts will be
devoted primarily to illustrating distinctions among the
various types, it is important to remember that all the
works emanate from the same mind, devoted to the same
aesthetic, philosophical, critical, and literary
principles: hence they share a large body of common
attributes.
In the 1920's, two critics recognized stylistic
differences among the various types of Coleridgean writ
ings. Oliver Elton thought of these distinctions in terms
of the appropriateness of the expression to the subject
matter. 1 John Charpentier, writing some nine years later,
made the same point more explicitly:
There exist for Coleridge not only one, but
two, three, four, or five ways of writing— as many
styles in fact as artists have temperaments. Hence
comes his admiration fo£ Rabelais and Cervantes,
for Dante and Milton...
___________________________________ 124__________________________________
135
Since the 1920's, very little effort has been made to
explore the specific differences of one Coleridgean style
from another, although the groundwork had been laid by
Elton. In the remarkably penetrating, though brief sec
tion on Coleridge in his Survey of English Literature,
I7 8O-I88O, Elton found space to note that
Even a stronger will than Coleridge's would
have had much to contend with, in the task of
shaping the rich material given to him by his far-
ranging, accumulative, and illustrative intellect,
which continually throws off new ideas, like the
'vortex-rings' of smoke, that propagate yet others
by a strange process, till they are lost in
vanishing film just as the beauty and structure of
the pattern in eluding our sense. This digressive
spinning of thought out of thought is most marked
when Coleridge is moving amongst theological or
metaphysical ideas; whilst when he is actually
describing mental process, however evanescent, his
hold of lucidity and of language is much greater.3
In our own time, John Colmer has modified the
Elton hypothesis that Coleridge's involution (what Elton
termed "digressiveness") is more pronounced in some works
than in others. Colmer has focused particularly upon the
journalistic writings, and has suggested that there is a
"central ambivalence" in his prose, an ambivalence which
results from the tension between Coleridge's desire to
write for the multitude in the interest of reforming
society and his desire to write only for the middle and
upper classes to avoid inflaming the passions of the many.^
Colmer goes on to suggest that Coleridge attempted to
resolve this central ambivalence by using "the intrinsic
136
difficulty of the thought, and the complex involutions of
his prose style" in order to discourage the lower class
readers, who he thought were potential subverters of the
social order, while yet retaining enough emotional appeal
to have an impact upon the middle-and upper-class readers.5
Although there is a good deal to be said in favor
of Colmer’s analysis, my own findings point in a somewhat
different direction. First, neither the difficulty of the
thought nor the involution of the style is very marked;
consequently, I doubt that Coleridge made any attempt to
shear off the lower-class readers. If we compare the
thought and the style of his journalistic works to the
thought and the involuted style of his philosophical
writings, it is evident that he could have made the
difficulty in conceptual content and the difficulty of
style far greater. Also, the melodramatic passages and
the very vivid metaphors of the journalistic prose make
it less likely that he was much concerned with shearing
off the lower-class readers. Second, I think that it is
much more accurate to view the tension in the prose as a
result of the pull between hypotasis and coordination in
the structure, rather than as a result of an ambivalence
between Coleridge's zeal for reform and his anxiety about
the mob. Coleridge avoids demagoguery by steering clear
of the more extreme devices for irrational emotional appeal
such as the unqualified assertion. This is one of the
137
stocks in trade of a writer like Cobbett:
A Revolution the most extraordinary has taken
place in our country. The Revolution of 1688 was
a nothing, in point of importance, compared with
that which we have now witnessed. Then the Royal
Family and the line of descent of the Crown were
changed, because a tyrant had grossly violated some
of the fundamental laws of the land; but now, all
the fundamental laws of the land stand abrogated
by Acts of the Parliament.°
We have got nothing but perpetual imprisonment
at pleasure, and these sanguinary monsters recommended
death at pleasure.7
We must have a reform of the Parliament; without
it the whole thing will fall to pieces. 8
...If I had been brought up a milksop, with a
nursery-maid everlastingly at my heels, I should
have been at this day as great a fool, as inefficient
a mortal, as any of those frivolous idiots that are
turned out from Winchester and Westminster School,
or from any of those dens of dunces called Colleges
and Universities.9
One of the chief tools for Cobbett's unqualified
assertions is extremely abusive diction. As we shall see,
Coleridge’s diction gets abusive at times, too, but
nothing like Cobbett’s:
First, there were the everlasting paragraphs in
the "Courier" and such-like, including the writings
in that sanguinary publication, the "Quarterly
Review," conducted by the renegado, SOUTHEY, and
the hireling, WILLIAM GIFFORD.10
These vile writers; these execrable tools of
the Borough-mongers; these murderers of their
country's freedom; these bravos in the cause of
Despotism, who must answer for their deeds when
ever the day of justice shall arrive, stick at no
falsehood in point of fact, at no sophistry in
point of argument, at no consideration whatever
with regard to the means which they recommended
to be employed.I1
138
These unqualified assertions, marked by abusive
epithets, lend themselves well to a highly melodramatic
manner. Cobbett does not rest his melodramatic appeal at
this point, however. He contrasts the extreme statements
that he has made in such a way as to make the "system"
(establishment) appear totally bad and the people
"victimized" by it appear totally good:
But, it required this infernal system to render
every wholesome regulation nugatory; and to reduce
to such abject misery a people famed in all ages for
the goodness of their food and their dress.12
In resorting to the black and white presentation of issues
typical of melodrama, Cobbett is trying to make his approach
as simple and direct as possible. He further favors the
rhetorical over the ratiocinative appeal by constantly
reasoning in anecdotes:
Some of these foresters keep cows, and all of
them have bits of ground, cribbed, of course, at
different times from the forest; and, to what better
use can the ground be put? I saw several wheat
stubbles from 40 rods to 10 rods. I asked one man
how much wheat he had from 10 rods. He said more
than two bushels. Here is bread for three weeks,
or more, perhaps; and a winter's straw for the pig
besides.13
After evening lecture, at Horncastle, a very
decent farmer came to me and asked me about America,
telling me that he was resolved to go, for that, if
he staid much longer, he should not have a shilling
to go with. I promised to send him a letter to a
friend at New York, who might be useful to him there,
and give him good advice.14
When we recall that Coleridge always reasons in metaphors
which involve different levels of abstraction, the force
139
of the contrast with Cobbett, who always reasons in the
most palpable terms, is particularly strong.
At times, in an attempt to strengthen even more
the directness of his appeal and to become even more
concrete, Cobbett will address the reader in the second
person:
They, or any one out of three of them, have the
power to send for either of you at any hour; to cause
you to be conveyed away to any jail in the kingdom;
to be put into any dungeon or cell; to be deprived of
pen, ink, and paper; to be kept from all communication
with wife, child, friend, or anybody else; to be
locked up in a solitary cell; to be kept in a damp
or stinking hole; and to be kept without any limit
as to time other than what their own sole will and
pleasure may dictate.15
While Cobbett's main concern was to appeal in the most
rhetorically effective way to his audience, Coleridge's
manner of approach was determined less by his audience
than by the subject matter at hand.
Certainly Coleridge's critical theory called for
him to try to tailor the manner of his expression to the
subject matter at hand. We might begin with his general
statement about the handling of means in order to achieve
a specific end. From this it follows that different types
of writings, since they have different purposes (ends) call
for different styles (means):
In all aggregates of construction therefore,
which we contemplate as wholes, whether as integral
parts or as a system, we assume an intention, as the
initiative, of which the end is the correlative....
Between the purpose and the end the component parts
are included, and thence receive their position and
I character as means, i.e., parts contemplated as parts. |
: It is in this sense, we will affirm, that the parts,
as means to an end, derive their position, and therein
their qualities (or character)— nay, we dare add,
their very existence as particular things--from the j
I antecedent method, or self-organizing PURPOSE.1° i
| More specifically thought of as a philosophical
I concept, this principle took form in Coleridge's mind as
| the relationship which should be established and maintained
I
| between language and thought. In a number of places he
I
I explicitly states his belief in this connection:
i
; Language & all SYMBOLS give OUTNESS to Thoughts/
! & this the philosophical essence & Purpose of
| Language/17
| Language is the armoury of the human mind] and at
once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons
; of its future conquests. 18
|
| Cwords or symbols are the wheels of the intellect]
! which Ezekiel beheld, when the hand of the Lord was
upon him, and he saw visions of God as he sate among
the captives by the river of Chebar. Whithersoever
the Spirit was to go, the wheels went, and thither was
their spirit to go: for the spirit of the' living
■ creature was in the wheels also.i^
i
j Among the aids to reflection, place the following
1 maxim prominent: let distinctness in expression
| advance side by side with distinction in thought. 20
It is evident from the pains which he took to
ground the connection philosophically that Coleridge highly
valued the relationship of means and ends, of language and
thought. This high value carries over to the connection
between subject and style, since, as Coleridge himself
states, the proper relationship between subject and style
is a corollary of the proper relationship between means
141
In order to form a good style, the primary rule
and condition is, not to attempt to express ourselves
in language before we thoroughly know our own meaning;
— when a man perfectly understands himself, appropriate
diction will generally be at his command either in
writing or speaking. In such cases the thoughts and
words are associated.21
He even makes some specific applications of this principle.
In one place he attempts to delineate some of the concep
tions appropriate to the highest sort of style: "Worthy
of the highest style are the highest things, such as
Safety, Love, and Virtue, and those other things, our
conceptions of which arise from these; provided that they
be not degraded by any accident."22 another place he
mentions a specific writer, Addison, and tells what class
of thoughts and feelings would not be appropriate to his
style:
Yet it must be evident to you, that there is a
class of Thoughts & Feelings, and these too, the
most important, even practicably, which it would be
impossible to convey in the manner of Addison: and
which if Addison had possessed, he would not have
been Addison. Read for instance Milton's prose tracts,
and only try to conceive them translated into the style
of The Spectator--or the finest parts of Wordsworth's
pamphlet.2 3
Before we can launch into an extensive discussion
of the journalistic style, it is necessary to ascertain
just what works we are talking about. For the purpose of
analysis, I define "journalistic works" not only as those
which appeared (or were meant to appear) in a periodical
publication, but add the supplementary requirement that
they be concerned with the issues of the day— in short
142
that they be political in nature. These requirements
embrace alike the private and the public journalism,
including the "Conciones ad Populum," the articles from
The Watchman, the contributions to the Morning Post and the
Courier. These were collected by Sara Coleridge into the
Essays on His Own Times shortly after her father’s death,
and it is this three-volume set which I use as my text for
all the articles except those from The Watchman, for which
the definitive Bollingen text is now available.
The question of the three-volume set entitled The
Friend, however, is somewhat more perplexing. The Friend
does consist of a series of essays, often very little if
any longer than newspaper articles. These essays do in
large part deal with political questions, such as the war
with France and taxes. There are even essays taken wholly
or in part from Coleridge's newspaper contributions. On
the other hand, Coleridge has provided an overall outline
for the work and billed The Friend as "a Methodical
Cemphasis minej series of essays." And a substantial
portion of the contents consists of reflections upon
philosophical or religious subjects. Consequently, I
think it is best to leave in abeyance any too rigid
classification of The Friend, and simply note here that in
many places my comments about the journalistic traits will
apply* and ln many places the comments about philosophical
traits will be more germain.
143
During one of those unseemly squabbles which
occasionally punctuate the careers of literary figures,
Coleridge advanced the claim that he had been responsible
for increasing considerably the circulation of the
Morning Post.^ Whether this claim is ultimately just
ifiable or not, it certainly is credible enough to provoke
serious consideration. For Coleridge was a masterful
writer of journalistic prose; his newspaper essays fascinate;
even the reader of today, though the issues about which
they were written have long since lost their viability.
The following remarks examine in detail the journalistic
efforts of Coleridge, and inquire into the structural
devices and the larger organizational patterns by which
the effectiveness of the journalistic prose is achieved.
The structural devices include the use of appropriate
diction, and the use of the short sentence, repetition,
rhetorical devices, vivid metaphors, and a wide range in
tone. The larger organizational patterns include
Coleridge's strategy for the whole essay, his organic
development of the argument, and his integration of
various tones into a coherent pattern appropriate to a
given essay.
Not least important among these devices is the use
of a more freewheeling diction than in his more philo
sophical writing. Ordinarily in these writings, Coleridge
will only use irony to attack an idea or a person, even
144
one which he views with a good deal of indignation. But
in the journalistic writings, Coleridge does not hesitate
to wade right in to deliver some stinging blows via the
direct epithet:
This mode of evading an adversary's argument
is fashionable among the aristocratic faction, when
they speak of the French writers; and has been
applied with nauseous frequency to the writings of
Edmund Burke by some low-minded sophisters who
disgrace the cause of freedom.25
This spicy diction retains the reader's attention; he
continues with the article if for no other reason than to
find out what the writer will call his opponents next.
Even when he does not go so far as to become abusive,
Coleridge is very often much more flamboyant about his
expressions than he would be in a more metaphysical work.
He will say something like:
Or are we, Sir, to confine both our sentiments
and our expression of abhorrence to PETTY villains
trembling beneath the foot of the law, and have
nothing but CAMDOUR and RESPECT for the Traitor who
has abused the reputation won for him by the
enthusiasm for equal laws to set himself above the
laws, nay, to trample all law, human and divine,
beneath the bestial hoof of military despotisms.26
Another important contribution to the lucidity of
the journalistic prose is the increased use of patches of
short sentences. This contrasts with his practice in the
philosophical works of relying primarily upon the more
involuted structures to carry the major weight of the
argument, with only an occasional short sentence thrown in
for the sake of variety. Though the reader cannot steam
145
along on a fluid flow of words, he also has no worry about
being able to navigate the many channels of subordination.
The gain in clarity more than offsets the occasional
falling off in fluidity, as in this sentence:
It required indeed all the warmth of friendship
to entertain a doubt on so palpable a point. Very
lately you re-affirmed your intention of persevering
in this secession. If you shall hereafter attend
your duty in parliament, your character will there
fore not stand clear of the charges of lightness and
inconsistency.— But attend, Sir! You must. Secession
now will be infamy. You have long been styled our
DEMOSTHENES.27
In his quest for maximum communicativeness,
Coleridge takes more than usual care to be sure that
enough repetition of ideas is present so that the reader
does not miss his meaning. In the process, he usually
manages to build up a highly cumulative structure, thus
giving the impression of massive documentation as well as
transparency in expression. In this example, he is able to
attain both clarity and cumulation by citing numerous
classes of instances, any one of which would have been
sufficient to establish both his meaning and his case:
Bonaparte is endeavoring to heal the wounds of
the revolution; he has associated in his government
all the men of abilities and moderation; he has
repressed public vice, tolerated religion, and
relaxed the severe laws against immigrants and
other unfortunate persons of that description; he
has foreborne any measures of terror or extortion
in finance; and if he has not been so successful
as he wished in recruiting the armies, it is a
proof that he has not used cruel or tyrranical
measures for that purpose; he has sought peace
in the spirit of peace with humbleness and
conciliatory la n g u a g e . 28
146
When we widen our focus of attention from the
specific devices to the larger structural patterns of the
journalistic essays, we find the same painstaking attention
to the craftsmanship of construction. What at first seems
like a haphazard piece turns out to be a tightly controlled,
carefully planned unit. This is true of the philosophical
essays as well as the journalistic ones; so the analysis
that follows is applicable to the pattern of the philo
sophical essays, except that the philosophical essays are
often more extended and usually more complex.
Coleridge's usual strategy in the journalistic
essay is to begin with an efficient recounting of facts
pertaining to the issue at hand, much as a news column of
a modern newspaper would do. Then he sets about an
analysis of the reasons either for all these conditions or
for some one or several of them. His method is organic;
that is, he begins from a premise and then either considers
a subordinate part of it, and then a further subordinate
part of the first subordinate part, or generalizes about
the initial statement. Either way, the effect is of
spiraling argument, either inwards towards the more
specific or outwards towards the more general. After
completing one segment of an argument ordered in this way,
he may jump to another premise, coordinate in the
rhetorical structure of the entire issue with the premise
with which he started. He will also develop this second
147
premise in a spiraling manner. After he has either treated
the issue to his satisfaction or been forced by the limita
tions of space to terminate his discussion, he will pull
the implications of the premises discussed into a concluding
statement. This organic ordering of his material evinces
a high degree of coherence in spite of its complexity.
Normally it is possible to outline Coleridge’s arguments
so that they form a clear, step-by-step treatment of an
issue. If we bear the abstract of his argument in mind
as we analyze his organically-organized essays, we will be
much less prone to think of him as a "meandering,"
digressive writer. We will be better equipped to appre
ciate the assistance which his organic ordering lends to
the establishment of cause-and-effect relationships
between the various parts of the argument because we will
not have to work so hard at keeping the hierarchical
structure of the treatment straight. Often, but not
always, the organic development unfolds in a thesis-
antithesis-synthesis pattern. Although variations in the
specific pattern of organization occur, depending upon
subject matter and space limitations, in all his writings
Coleridge uses an organic approach.
His essay of February 22, 1800, criticizing
ministerial pressures to continue the war with Napoleon,
is typical of the organization of the journalistic essays.
We might outline its arguments in this way:
148
I. The minister's arguments for continuing the war have
been refuted consistently by events
A. Austria's supposed zeal for the war has been dis
proved by the Emperor's peace negotiations with
Napoleon
B. The supposedly flourishing Chouan allies have been
either pacified or disarmed
C. The minister's implication that a Russian Flotilla
could hover along the coasts of France is
ridiculous
D. Bavaria in all probability will not. receive aid to
fight Napoleon
1. Bavaria is coupled with Austria politically
2. Bavaria apparently is more afraid of Austria
than France
3. Bavaria is coupled with Russia politically, and
Russia has seceded from the war effort
4. Bavaria's security depends upon neutrality
a. Otherwise Austria may give her to France
b. Or France may give her to Austria as a
compromise
c. If she is neutral, she will have common
interest with neutral Prussia and North
Germany, and so have the advantage of
common defence
5. No doubt the same interests which motivated
Russia to withdraw from the war effort are
applicable to Bavaria
II. The minister can argue in answer to all this that no
harm can come of showing Britain ready to fight, and
that if the cause of monarchy is given up it is there
fore the fault of her allies--but this argument of the
minister is invalid.
A. The Parliament is injured by appearing to be blind
to political realities
1. The lower classes will lose faith in the
dignity and independence of Parliament
2. The lower classes will consider Parliament an
organ of the ministers, acknowledging only
those facts which ministers choose to put
before them, and ignoring all others
B. The dignity and independence of Parliament are
necessary for national quiet and content
III.The minister's defence of the war on grounds of
security is absurd
A. This defence is too vague and general to be satis
factory
B. Peace will not impair security; it will not
annihilate the population, commerce and the
insularity of Great Britain, or her navies
IV. In spite of all these reasons to the contrary, the
149
ministers have opted for war, the outcome of which can
not under any circumstances be favorable
A. If France wins, she will become more ambitious
B. If France is defeated, she will become Jacobinical
C. But ministers will rationalize that whichever
result actually materializes pre-existed, thus
justifying the war
When the arguments are laid out in this way, it is
easy to see how Coleridge logically proceeds from a dis
cussion of the foreign considerations which militate
against prosecution of the war to the domestic reasons,
and finally to those reasons which involve both. He then
climaxes his argument by shifting from the "ought" to the
"is." When discussing the various arguments, his treatment
remained theoretical; what the ministers should do. Then,
in the conclusion he dramatically climaxes (and greatly
increases the force of) his theoretical arguments with
the exclamation,
But it is done I ministers have dashed the
budding olive-branch to the ground; and if, by
the natural magic of that very act, it should,
like the rod of Aaron, be turned into a serpent,
they will then snatch an apology from the effects
of their own insolence.29
The careful craftsmanship of this strategy is
more apparent when we realize that this climactic section
has only the second use of figurative language (and this
by far the more extensive of the two) in the whole essay.3°
The already dramatic shift from the "ought" to the "is"
is considerably intensified by the sudden appearance of
metaphor.
150
As we are reading the essay, however, we are not
aware of how tightly controlled the strategy is. Though
we do notice that the method of these sentences is
antithesis, we do not immediately observe that the entire
essay follows a thesis-antithesis-synthesis pattern. We
are, however, impressed with the quick, efficient presenta
tion in the opening sentences of the requisite facts which
support the premise, "It has been the fate of our minister,
that he has almost uniformly stated some reason for the
continuance of the war just on the eve of the event which
flatly contradicted that reason."3-1 - But following the
statements which illustrate this main point, the statements
that "He was urging Parliament how rich in zeal Austria
was, and how fit therefore it must be that a loan should
be granted to the Emperor, just at the time that the
Emperor himself was making peace," "Even so late as the
debate on the dispatches from France, the formidable and
flourishing state of the Chouans was urged as a main
argument for the rejection of the French proposals: and
lol the Chouans are pacified and disarmed and their chiefs
destroyed or reconciled," and "And still the minister
talks as fluently of a moveable maritime force, as if an
army of forty or fifty thousand Russians could remain
hovering on the Western Coasts of France, as easily as
half a dozen fishers1 skiffs!" the difficulty in following
the organization begins.
151
Coleridge, in elaborating so much more upon the
Bavarian situation than he has upon any of the three pre
ceding reasons why the minister's statements have been
contradicted by facts, is establishing a tension between
the logical hypotasis and the emphatic coordination of
this section. Because so much time is spent upon it, we
tend to forget that it really is a sub-point, equal to the
other three supporting reasons which were disposed of in
a sentence. When the subordinate sub-points about Bavariate
security depending upon her neutrality are included in
order to develop the sub-point, it makes the Bavarian
situation seem even more like a major premise, since 1 ft is
analyzed in so much depth. Its emphasis tends to make us
think of it as coordinate with the major premise that the
minister's statements are continually contradicted by the
facts, but logically it is still a sub-point. He lets
the nature of the material determine the time to be spent
upon it, and does not let the logical outline of the
material, an outline imposed from without, affect its
emphasis.
He includes in the next part of his essay an
analysis of the domestic results to be expected from the
minister's policy. The argument is ongoing, continuous;
Coleridge continues to pile reason upon reason for
rejection of the minister's policy. But at the same time
he widens the scope of his argumentation as well as
152
continues it in a forward direction. For now he states the
minister's counter-arguments and demolishes them. What
results is the feeling that we have heard a thesis (the
minister's statement contradictory to known facts) stated
and discussed and then an antithesis (that no harm is done
by Britain's willingness to aid her allies) presented and
discussed.
This prepares the way for a third aspect of
Coleridge's attack on ministerial policy, his attack on
the argument that the war is being undertaken in the
interests of Britain's national security. This argument
functions as a synthesis, inasmuch as it draws together the
arguments concerning the world conditions unfavorable to
the war (the premises of the thesis) and the arguments
concerning the effects of the war (the domestic premises
of the antithesis) into the argument concerning the
rationalization for the war (the synthesis). The metaphor
comparing Britain to a fortress under siege, which
Coleridge severely criticized, suggests the conditions of
the war given in the synthesis, already characterized as
external. But the supposed effects of the capitulation of
the fortress— the annihilation of the population, the
commerce, the insularity, and the navies of Britain— are
internal, recalling the emphasis of the antithesis upon
domestic conditions.
The theoretical portion of Coleridge's reasoning
153
has thus been rounded off. He has logically led the reader
through the steps of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis,
thus satisfying his critical principle of reconciliation
of opposites into an harmonious whole. But he does not
stop with the theoretical portion of the argument. Not
only should his "system" of argument include the largest
number of theoretical relationships possible, but it
should also deal with the factual side. We have already
been introduced to the factual side of the beginning, when
Coleridge listed the events which contradicted the
minister’s statements. Now he comes back to the factual
side abruptly, with the announcement that the ministers
have opted for war, in spite of all the theoretical argu
ments against it. Now we have set up a second thesis-
antithesis series in the essay. The "thesis" here involves
the theoretical arguments, the antithesis the actual
events which he reports. The "synthesis" comes in the
series of hypothetical statements near the end, which are
theoretical insofar as they are predictions of events
which have not yet occurred, but factual insofar as they
deal with events and not with principles or causes of
action.
In the course of this essay, then, Coleridge makes
use of two major principles to achieve an organically
unified essay. First, he permits the material itself to
dictate the amount of attention which it receives. Second,
154
he employs the basic pattern of reconciliation of opposites
into an organic whole. But, as we have seen, he does not
permit organic pattern to conflict with logical coherence;
his arguments are easily put into strict hierarchical
pattern and strict sequential order.
In the same careful way that he marshals his argu
ments, he manipulates the various tones of the individual
essay. The essay which we have just analyzed for its
organization of arguments also affords us an opportunity
to examine the way in which Coleridge uses the tone to
reinforce the effect of his argument. He begins with a
straightforward, expository approach appropriate to the
stating of facts. Up to the point at which domestic
issues are discussed, the tone remains straightforward,
only varying occasionally and then only slightly when an
exclamation or rhetorical question is introduced. This
calm exposition gives the reader a chance to adjust to the
arguments of the article and to weigh their value before
an emotional appeal is made.
Coleridge becomes more impassioned, however,
immediately upon turning from foreign to domestic events.
He builds the emotion by penning a series of rhetorical
questions, in which the repetition of "is it no injury"
has a cumulative effect. The increase in emotional pull
is culminated with the simile which compares the ministers
to "a hollow statue in the oracular temples of the
155
ancients."32 This combination of rhetorical questions and
figurative language builds the section to a dramatic
climax, emphasizing the gravity of the domestic situation.
Momentarily, the intensity abates as we read the
low-key statement "This is no ordinary time,"33 and the
following, "Far be it from us to deduce arguments of
irritation from the internal calamity which threatens us."
This slight pause gives the reader an opportunity to relax
for a moment and then prepare himself for the rising
emotion which will continue until near the end of the
essay. This increase in emotional appeal is begun as
Coleridge shifts from attacking ministerial arguments to
what almost amounts to an ad hominem attack on the minister
himself. He questions, in the minister's own words,
whether the minister is not "shamefully ignorant" of the
laws that regulate the soul of man and accuses him of
fulfilling a promise to particularize only by stating a
generalization. This attack culminates with the rather
abusive rhetorical question, "is it possible (we reply)
that any but children can be deluded with so puerile a
sophism as that which is made up by connecting and con
founding a metaphor and a reality?"3^ Here, we have added
to the previous attacks upon the minister's judgment and
the strength of his arguments an accusation that he has
indulged in a "sophism" (an intentional attempt to
mislead) and a "puerile" one at that.
156
Coleridge then twists the knife he has just
finished sticking in the minister when he makes the switch
from theoretical to actual events. The "But it is done!"
emphasizes the folly of the minister even more by relating
that he not pnly believed and propounded the erroneous
policy, but he acted upon it as well. The effect on the
credibility of the minister is utterly devastating.
The tone shifts from rough abuse to studied
eloquence at this point. This is necessary because
Coleridge does not want to end his appeal on a note of
abuse only. Having already sufficiently attacked the
minister, he wants to leave the reader with a final
eloquent appeal, since this sort of appeal is more last
ingly effective than a simple raking over the coals of one
individual. Following the presentation of the metaphor,
then, which is effective in establishing quickly the pitch
of the tone, Coleridge presents the dramatic dilemma with
which the essay closes— no matter whether the war is lost
or won a highly undesirable consequence will ensue. And
finally, at the very last Coleridge pounds the nails in
the coffin-lid of the minister’s policy by the bitter,
yet highly eloquent exclamation "confidently adduced by
ministers as justifications for their having rejected a
peace!"35 This parting shot is an adroitly conceived one,
since it handles the minister's policy roughly, and yet
carries the force of the eloquent tone in which it is
157
encased; it is effectively abusive while seeming eloquent,
or at worst, justifiably bitter.
The ability to use tone to build a climactic
emotional appeal for an argument is typical of Coleridge’s
journalistic essays. In the essay which we have just been
discussing, we have looked only at straightforward,
abusive, and eloquent tones. In the next few pages, we
will see how Coleridge uses other types of tone in trying
(and usually succeeding) to be both lucid and appealing.
In spite of efforts to be both clear and effective,
though, Coleridge is yet Coleridge. There are times when
he simply can’t resist the temptation to over-intellect-
ualize. He writes whole passages in Latin; he constructs
a confusingly complex clause structure; he lets his
diction run away from him into a sort of over-inflated
pseudo-magniloquence.
One place in which he laboriously and pedantically
substitutes Latin for English is in "A Second Essay on
the Intercepted Correspondence:"
Quintilian recommentfe as a duty of the first
importance in a good advocate "IN ALIAM El PERSONAM
TRANSEUNDUM EST CONTRA PROTEST, QUIDQUID RECIPIT IN
EJUSMODI DISCEPTATIONE NATURA. OPTIMUS EST IN DICENDO
PATRONUS INCREDULUS." Let us not then be blamed, if
being skeptical we attempt that as a DUTY, which it
would have been for the INTEREST of the cause to have
done, had we been believers. We shall therefore
proceed fearlessly "interrogare quam INFESTISSIME
ac premere," if only on this account, that "DUM
OMNIA QUARIMUS, ALIQUANDO AD VERUM, UBI MINIME
EXPECTAVIMUS, PERVENIMUS. " 3°
158
One of several points at which clause structure
becomes so complex as to become vague and weaken the chain
of Coleridge’s argument is in the essay on "Bonaparte,
in his Relations to England":
It might, indeed, have been urged by the advocates
for the war in France, that the avowed hatred of the
English Minister to the existence of a French Republic
rendered a peace with England insecure and dangerous;
and that in the present unsettled state of French
parties, it was better that the revenues of Great
Britain should be expended in expeditions to
Quiberon, Holland, and the West Indies, than in
the corruption of Frenchmen, and those counter
revolutionary intrigues, to which a nominal peace
would but facilitate the means instead of removing
the propensity.37
And among the examples of over-inflated, bombastic
rhetoric, this one might be selected:
What the wisdom of Agur wishes, the inhabitants
of Wyoming enjoyed--they had neither riches nor
poverty; their climate was soft and salubrious, and
their fertile soil asked of these blissful settlers
as much labour only for their sustenance, as would
have been otherwise convenient for their health. The
fiend, whose crime was ambition, leapt over into this
paradise— hell-hounds laid it waste. ENGLISH generals
invited the Indians "to banquet on blood:" the
savage Indians headed by an Englishman attacked it.38
It is evident, then, that in many places flaws in the prose
style are to be found. What prevents these flaws from
marring the readability of the journalistic prose?
To put it in general terms first, Coleridge has a
great'knack for the public debate. He is familiar with
all the weapons of the rhetorician, and can summon just the
one needed for the occasion at hand. He makes the sharp,
quick distinction; he always seems to have at his finger-
159
tips the very expression the reader would have used had he
been able to think of it in time; and perhaps most
importantly, he is able to undercut the idea of the person
whom he is opposing without seeming to go out of his way
to do so. All of these attributes are exhibited in this
passage.
There is a class of men, Sir, who make a point
of rejecting or disregarding all arguments that are
enforced with warmth of feeling and illustrated by
the lights of the imagination. (The latter is
indeed the effect of the former; for the boldest
figures of speech are the natural language of profound
feeling and a heart affected in good ernest.) These
persons seem to rank wisdom and truth among the
Alpine flowers, which can flourish only amid ice and
snow, and where all other qualities of intellect are
notoriously wanting, they charitably clothe the naked
with the substantial praises of judgment and calm
good sense.39
More specifically, Coleridge’s success in this sort
of controversy is attributable to his assured mastery of
the necessary rhetorical techniques. The reconciliation
of a variety of opposing ideas is effected in his essays
by the harmonious interaction of the multitude of these
devices which he uses to convey his ideas. Of those
discussed in Chapter II, the ones best lending themselves
to his debating needs include the whole range of irony
and satire, from low-key to obtrusive; the frequent
patches of rhetorical questions and exclamations; and
the more unrestrained diction. Once in a while, he even
practices specific rhetorical techniques, as here, where
he says that he will not talk about the horrors resulting
160
from the war, and then he proceeds to talk about them:
I mean not to describe the distressful stagnation
of trade and commerce; I direct not your attention to
the wretches that sadden every street in this city,
the pale and meagre troop, who in the bitterness of
reluctant pride, are forced to beg the morsel for
which they would be willing to 'work their fingers to
the bone' in honest industry; I will not frighten
you by relating the distresses of that brave army,
which has been melted away on the continent, nor
picture to your imaginations the loathsome pestilence
that has mocked our victories in the West-Indies; I
bid you not hear the screams of the deluded citizens
of Toulon...^-0
Certainly, however, by far the single most import
ant device is the expert manipulation of metaphor. We
might recall Erdman's comment, referred to earlier in this
study, about Coleridge's use of metaphor as a stylistic
"signature." I agree with Erdman (and for that matter
with Sara Coleridge) that Coleridge's use of metaphor
"makes" his style; with it he is, as a prose writer,
formidable throughout, superb in spots; without it he would
sink a good deal toward mediocrity. The large number of
the metaphors, the aptness of the individual metaphor to
both the subject and the tone of the passage which it
graces, and his "thinking" with the metaphor, rather than
just using it as a decorative or analogous device are
responsible for what can only, if justice is to be done,
be called Coleridge's greatness as a craftsman of metaphor.
In Essay VIII of The Friend, for instance, he is speaking
about truth. The extended metaphor of truth as a fountain
develops as Coleridge thinks of truth and as he
l6l
continuously develops the metaphor to correspond with each
new insight about truth:
In fine. Truth considered in itself and in the
effects natural to it, may be conceived as a gentle
spring or watersource, warm from the genial earth,
and breathing up into the snow drift that is piled
over and around its outlet. It turns the obstacle
into its own form and character, and as it makes its
way increases its stream. And should it be arrested
in its course by a chilling season, it suffers delay,
not loss, and waits only for a change in the wind to
awaken and again roll onwards.41
Truth is like a fountain in that both bubble up from a
source; the fountain from the earth, the truth from man's
mind. Both melt the obstacles they meet; the fountain the
physical snow drift, truth the resistance of indifferent,
entrenched custom or hostility. Both reduce these
obstacles in their paths to their own forms and both
increase in size as they proceed. Both can be restrained,
but not destroyed; their progress is only a question of
time, not possibility. The metaphor (actually, technically
speaking, a simile) is not merely added to an idea to
achieve polish or elegance; the metaphor becomes the idea.
Coleridge is actually thinking with the metaphor; truth
is being conceptualized in terms of the metaphor. Hence,
the metaphor becomes a means of perception and development
of an idea as well as a means of expressing it.
When he succeeds in artistically weaving together
all the rhetorical devices in the course of a single
passage, Coleridge is truly eloquent. There are passages
162
which are breathtakingly beautiful; such a passage is this
one:
What is Greece at this present moment? It is the
country of the heroes from Codrus to Philopoemen; and
so it would be though all the sands of Africa should
cover its corn fields and olive gardens, and not a
flower were left on Hybla for a bee to murmur in.42
In Chapter II, I alluded to the wide range in tone
to be found in Coleridge's writings, particularly in the
journalistic writings. I cited examples from the journal
istic writings of ironic, satiric, whimsical, straight
forward, bombastic, boasting, and defensive tones. All
these are frequently encountered. But the two most pre
valent attitudes are ridicule and righteous indignation.
When he is in the mood for ridicule, Coleridge directs
devastating verbal shafts at the target which he has
selected (frequently the ministers) and fortifies his own
position by assuming in connection with the position being
attacked an air of "how could anyone be foolish enough to
suggest this seriously?" It is at this point that irony
begins to turn the corner towards lampoon, and satire to
transform into caricature. On the ever-volatile "Irish
Question," for instance, Coleridge achieves great success
with this tone:
We have been much amused with the variety of
Philo-Catholic prize-fighters, which the Morning
Chronicle has brought forward on its stage, as
champions for the Irish Petition. It gave us the
hint of a small legion of honour to be composed of
the awkward squads of all the different County
Militias. Cambrians, Caledonians, Hibernians, and
163
Anglo-Saxons, and one Lengthy gentleman (excuse an
Americanism on so motley a subject), who with an
enormity of stride, which reduces the Rhodian
Colossus to a mere idol of Lilliput, places one foot
on this, and the other on the opposite shore of the
Irish channel, and entitles himself Hibern-Anglus.4-3
The tone of righteous indignation appears whenever
Coleridge feels that his target is vicious, not merely
ludicrous. On the subject of the war against Prance,
which until about 1802 he considered an unjust and merely
ministerial action, costing millions of British lives,
Coleridge avows that "These arguments have been urged to
satiety— a British senator has sneeringly styled mere
COMMON-PLACE against wars. I could weep for the criminal
patience of humanity."^ There are times when even this
stance does not seem to Coleridge to be quite enough to
express his feelings. He often verges upon, or definitely
slips into, melodrama, frequently by using a highly-
charged metaphor. While again discussing the war with
France he writes:
The august and lofty tree, which, while it rose
above the palace of the monarch, sheltered the distant
dwelling of the cottager, stripped of its boughs, now
stands the melancholy memorial of conquered freedom.—
We can only water its roots with our tears, or look
forward with anxious eye to the distant springtide,
when it shall branch forth anew!45
certain flamboyance in diction, a wide range in tone, vivid
metaphors, short sentences, repetition, and rhetorical
devices,*}, the philosophical style is exactly the reverse.
If the journalistic style is characterized by a
164
Its principles of construction are a conservative diction
(except in the coining or adapting of technical terms), a
limited range in tone, drab metaphors, long sentences, and
a scarcity of rhetorical devices. The works exhibiting
these characteristics most plainly are the Aids to Reflec
tion, the Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, and On the
Constitution of Church and State, although the philosophi
cal style also is present in places in The Friend, and in
the Biographia Literaria.
The diction which predominates in those works
composed in the philosophical style can be represented by
the opening sentence of the Aids to Reflection:
In philosophy equally as in poetry, it is the
highest and most useful prerogative of genius to
produce the strongest impressions of novelty, while
it rescues admitted truths from the neglect caused
by the very circumstance of their universal
admission.46
Very often, when Coleridge turns to the discussion of
metaphysical issues, the diction becomes considerably more
complex and technical, as here:
1. Verb substantive = Prothesis, as expressing the
identity or co-inherence of act and being.
2. Substantive = Thesis, expressing being.
3. Verb = Antithesis, expressing act.
4. Infinitive = Mesothesis, as being either sub
stantive or verb, or both at once, only in different
relations.
5. Participle = Synthesis.^7
The difficulty of the more complex philosophical
165
prose is boosted by the longer, more ganglinous sentences.
Unlike the Journalistic prose, in which there are numerous
patches of short sentences, easily graspable, the
philosophical prose depends largely upon extended sections
of lengthy sentences, only punctuated occasionally with
smaller structures. This is not surprising, considering
the greater number of conceptual alternatives and the
greater complexity of the alternatives which have to do
with philosophical, as opposed to political, issues.
Coleridge feels bound to provide the reader with all the
conceptual choices, and to trace the entire chain of logic
for each choice which he makes. As he talks of the
demonstrations of the existence of God, for instance, he
scrutinizes the weaknesses of each type of argument, and
even supplies an analogue for the third type:
I hold then, it is true, that all the so called
demonstrations of a God either prove too little, as
that from the order and apparent purpose in nature;
or too much, namely, that the World is itself God:
or they clandestinely involve the conclusion in the
premises, passing off the mere analysis or explication
of an assertion for the proof of it, a species of
logical legerdemain not unlike that of the jugglers
at a fair, who putting into their mouths what seems
to be a walnut, draw out a score of ribbon— as in
the postulate of a First Cause.^8
This pattern of increased length, ascertainable in
the sentences, also holds for the larger structural
patterns of the philosophical prose. In the Aids to Re
flection, this drawing out of the length is visible in
the bulky notes which Coleridge frequently affixes to what
166
he considers important passages. The note from which
footnote two was taken, for instance, runs to 121 lines of
small type— and it is by no means the only one of this
approximate size.
On a yet larger plane, the overall conception of
the Aids to Reflection, the Confessions of an Inquiring
Spirit, The Friend (and for that matter the Biographia
Literaria) points towards increased length. In order to
cover the large area of "reflection," for instance,
Coleridge deems it necessary to discuss many subjects about
which one should reflect, not merely set forth general
principles illustrated with a few examples. This causes
the Aids to Reflection to consist of a series of
"aphorisms" (many of which are far longer than the ordinary
aphorism). It is because Coleridge finds it necessary,
particularly when dealing with a metaphysical subject, to
try to supply the reader with all possible insights into
the subject at hand, that his prose gives one this impres
sion. If the reader can step back enough to embrace a
perspective which includes the entire work, the over
arching structural pattern emerges— the trees all blend
into the metaphysical forest. Although this larger per
spective is needed when reading any work of Coleridge, it
is especially needed when dealing with the most complex,
the most abstract, and the most technical of his writings--
the philosophical prose. The degree of ordering, however,
167
varies widely from work to work. The Aids to Reflection
and The Friend, for instance, are miscellanies, lacking the
organization of the Biographia Literaria.^9 The scope of
the reflections contained in them, however, provides for a
fairly comprehensive, if not logically sequential, treat
ment of their respective subject matters. Even in the
cases of these more desultory works, however, Coleridge's
continual thrust towards the over-arching structural
pattern is evident; as, for instance, in his efforts when
he revised the periodical essays of The Friend for publica
tion in book form. Griggs summarizes the three types of
changes that he made, all of which work towards the
establishment of structural patterning:
The difference between the two editions may be
listed under three classifications. First, the
haphazard order of the 1809 edition is rectified.
In the first edition formal arguments are often
interrupted by impertinent interludes; in his
'rifacciamento' of 1 8 1 8, Coleridge divided his work
into essays and sections, thus maintaining a clear
and logical development of his ideas....
In the second place, there are numerous omissions
in the 1818 edition; most of them are poems, unsuitable
quotations, translations, etc....
In the third place, there are the additions which
Coleridge made in l8l8.50
Among the most important of these additions are eight
essays on method, adapted from the Treatise on Method
written the year before for the Encyclopaedia Metropoli
tan . These essays, as their title implies, concern the
necessity for "fixed principles" for one's values and
beliefs. In addition to providing a foundation for his
168
comments upon the political, philosophical, and religious
matters which are discussed in The Friend, these essays
outline the need for methodical procedure for whatever a
person thinks or does. Both the subject matter of these
essays and the specific use to which they are put, then,
are indications of Coleridge’s thrust towards over-arching
structural patterns for his work.
The philosophical prose also lacks the built-in
aid of the numerous brilliant metaphors which are
sprinkled liberally into the journalistic work. Not that
metaphors are absent; they are to be found and they are
typically Coleridgean. But they are both less common and
less vivid than they are in the journalism. These, for
instance, may strike us as almost humdrum when compared
to some' of the exquisite ones which we have encountered
in the Essays on His Own Times:
Awakened by the cock-crow— (a sermon, a calamity,
a sick bed, or a providential escape)--the Christian
pilgrim sets out, in the morning twilight, while yet
the truth (the vofos ti) (los6TfcZtevjep/ *s')±s below the
horizon.51
Thus in the most ancient books of the Brahmins,
the deep sense of this fact, and the doctrines
grounded on obscure traditions of the promised
remedy, are seen struggling, and now gleaming, now
flashing, through the mist of Pantheism...52
As a result of the more conservative diction, the
longer sentences, the larger structural patterns, and the
plain metaphors, there is a good deal less variation in
tone than in the journalistic works. Of those tones
169
present in the journalistic writings* only the straight
forward and in a very much smaller degree the bombastic
are present in any measurable quantity in the philosophical
works. Irony* satire* whimsy* boasting* and defensiveness
are almost nonexistent in the philosophical prose.
Surely the very nature of the subjects of the
works have a good deal to do with the greater conservatism
of the philosophical writings. But granting this* I think
that the presentation of the philosophical works owes at
least as much to Coleridge's conscious tailoring of manner
to matter as it owes to the demands of the material itself.
This suggestion becomes credible if we note the isolated
passages in the philosophical works which are every bit as
colorful as those in the journalistic works.
We find the rhetorical devices* for example. In
the following brief section we get a pair of rhetorical
questions and a pair of exclamations--abbreviated versions
of the patches of rhetorical questions and the patches of
exclamations so much more common in the journalism:
And what was the result? How was this necessity
provided for? God himself— my hand trembles as I
write I Rather* than let me employ the word* which
the religious feeling* in its perplexity* suggested
as the substitute--the Deity himself was declared
to be the real agent* the actual gravitating power I^3
On occasion* also* we encounter the familiar patch of
short sentences:
But the end of religion is the improvement of
our nature and faculties. I sum up the whole in
one great practical maxim. The object of religious
170
contemplation* and of a truly spiritual faith* is
the "ways of God to man. "54-
Even more occasionally Coleridge will make use of
all of his great powers of rhetorical eloquence* as he does
so often in the journalism. In the following excerpt* he
speaks of man's propensity to pry into God's disposal of
worldly affairs:
...and so leave him to ward off shadowy spears
with the shadow of a shield* and to retaliate the
nonsense of blasphemy with the abracadabra of pre
sumption. He that will fly without wings must fly
in his dreams: and till he awakes* will not find
out that to fly in a dream is but to dream of flying.55
Again* Coleridge speaks of his fellow men*
...who* if no redemption had been provided* after
inheriting the pains and pleasures of earthly exis
tence during the numbered hours* and the few and
evil— evil yet few— days of the years of their mortal
life* would have fallen asleep to wake no more*--
would have sunk into the dreamless sleep of the
grave* and have been as the murmur and the plaint*
and the exulting swell and the sharp scream* which
the unequal gust of yesterday snatched from the
strings of a wind-harp.5©
This rhetorical eloquence is the exception rather than the
rule in the philosophical prose because upon these subjects
Coleridge wishes to make his appeal primarily to the head*
not to the heart. He realizes that a stance of righteous
indignation or scorn is effective only when dealing with
events or people; hard reasoning is necessary for treating
difficult intellectual constructs. But as we have seen*
he occasionally uses the rhetorical appeal to the heart
in order to reinforce an argument which he has been making
171
to the head.
Complicated though it normally is, Coleridge’s
appeal is winning. As lost as we sometimes are in a syn
tactic and/or metaphysical underbrush, and as annoyed as
we are with one of his many defensive, bombastic, or
pedantic poses, it is never long before we are reminded
unmistakably of the power and breadth of his mind, and of
the brilliance with which he could manipulate the struc
tures of language, particularly metaphorical ones.
172
NOTES FOR CHAPTER VI
^•A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1880, p. 120.
2Coleridge: The Sublime Somnambulist, trans. M.
V. Nugent (New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company, 1929)a
p. 2 7 0.
3pp. 1 2 0-1 2 1.
^"Coleridge and the Communication of Political
Truth," English Studies in Africa, 1 no. 2 (September,
1958), 132-133.
5"Coleridge and the Communication of Political
Truth," p. 133.
£
"A History of the Last Hundred Days of English
Freedom," in Selections from Cobbett's Political Works:
Being a Complete Abridgment of the 100 Volumes Which
Comprise the Writings of "Porcupine" and the "Weekly
tical Register, 1 1 ed. John M. Cobbett and James P. Cobbett,
b vols (London: Ann Cobbett, 1 8 3 5), V, 2 0 3.
^"History of the Last Hundred Days of English
Freedom," p. 262.
^Rural Rides in the Southern, Western, and Eastern
Counties of England, Together With Tours in Scotland and
in the Northern and Midland Counties of England, and
Letters from Ireland, ed. G. D. H. and Margaret Cole, 3
vols (London: Peter Davies, 1930), I, 2 5.
^Rural Rides, I, 93*
10"History of the Last Hundred Days of English
Freedom," p. 262.
^"History of the Last Hundred Days of English
Freedom," p. 262.
l2Rural Rides, I, 26.
13Rural Rides, I, 26.
173
^Rural Rides, II, 6 5 6.
15"History of the Last Hundred
Freedom/' p. 204.
Days of English
l6The Friend, I, 498-499-
^Notebooks, I, 1387-
- ^ B i o g r a p h i a Literaria, p. 182
•
-^statesman’s Manual, p. 3 5.
20Aids to Reflection, p. 31-
^Miscellaneous Criticism, pp. 2 2 0-2 2 1.
2 2Notebooks, II, 3011.
23collected Letters, III, 281.
2^Biographia Literaria, p. 120 •
25The Watchman, p. 30.
2^Essays on His Own Times, II,
645-
27Essays on His Own Times, II, 584.
pfi
Essays on His Own Times, II, 406-407.
29Essays on His Own Times, II, 309-310.
3®The first occurrence is on p «
UJ
0
00
•
3^ 3says on His Own Times, II,
u>
0
•
32Essays on His Own Times, II,
( J O
0
00
•
33Essays on His Own Times, II, 3 0 8.
3^Essays on His Own Times, II,
3 0 9.
S^Essays on His Own Times, II, 3 1 0.
3^Essays on His Own Times, II,
3 7 5.
37Essays on His Own Times, II, 3 8 5.
3®Essays on His Own Times, I,
35.
39Essays on His Own Times, II, 649-6
^°Essays on His Own Times,
I, 38.
^The Friend, I.
> 6 5. 1
^Essays on His Own Times, II, 661.
^Essays on His Own Times,
III5 905.
^Essays on His Own Times,
Ij 39.
^^Essays on His Own Times, I, 4l.
^Aids to Reflection, p. 1.
^Aids to Reflection
^8Aids to Reflection
^9see Chapter VII for a more extended discussion
of the Biographia Literaria * s organization.
5°"The Friend: 1809 and 1818 Editions," MP, 35
(1937-1938), 369-370.
5lAids to Reflection,
P.
H
CO
•
5^Aids to Reflection,
PP
. 217
53Aids to Reflection,
P-
318.
5^Aids to Reflection,
P-
i4o.
55Aids to Reflection,
P-
126.
56Aids to Reflection,
P-
240.
CHAPTER VII
THE CONSISTENCY OF THE
BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA
As we have examined stylistic practices in units
ranging from the single sentence to the complete essay,
we have discovered that these practices are not merely
idiosyncratic or haphazard. Whether by fortunate intuition
or careful, conscious design, they are a logical outgrowth
of Coleridge's critical principles in aesthetics,
philosophy, science, and literary criticism. These
stylistic practices result in essays which are coherent,
not rambling; incisive, not meandering. And this pattern
holds true for the extended essay as well. The States
man's Manual, On the Constitution of Church and State, the
Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, and the reconstructed
Treatise on Method all follow a logical pattern, such as we
saw in the Morning Post essay of February 22, 1800. When
we come to the Biographia Literaria, however, the logic
becomes harder to follow, due both to the larger bulk of
the work itself and to the much wider range of subject
matter which the larger compass of the work allows. The
Essays on His Own Times, being a collection of topical
___________________________________ 175___________________________________
176
newspaper articles written over a long period of time and
for specific occasions, and the Aids to Reflection, being
a miscellaneous collection of religious aphorisms, should
be excepted from consideration here, since they do not form
thematic or structural patterns at all. The Friend,
while loosely organized into sections of "General Intro
duction," "Principles of Political Knowledge," "Grounds of
morals and religion," and "Landing Places," is no more
designed to be a continuously flowing discussion than the
Aids to Reflection or the Essays on His Own Times. It is
basically a collection, as are the other two. Let us take
a more detailed look at the organization of the Biographia
Literaria, the one major work which is not a miscellany, to
see how Coleridge organically unifies an entire book.
Because of its prominence in the Coleridgean canon,
the Biographia Literaria has come in for a large share of
the criticisms directed towards his "meandering," "obscure"
style. In the case of the Biographia Literaria, there is
an even stronger stimulus behind this criticism than the
already strong one provided by Coleridge’s self-condemna-
tory remarks about his prose works in general. Mary Lamb
had gotten from Mrs. Morgan an inaccurate version of what
Coleridge had told her husband about his procedure in
writing the work, and had spread it about that Coleridge
had set out to write a brief preface to his two-volume
collection of Poems but had gotten carried away and
177
written a digressive work several hundred pages long.'1 *
Maurice Carpenter's commentary typifies the sort of
criticism which sprang from this belief about the disor
ganization of the book:
The Biographia is a long monologue, starting
from the idea of justifying himself with a book
proceeding to his youth when he published a volume
of juvenile poems and found by accident he was a
poet, reminiscing on his school-days, on Bowles,
and the university, some remarks on the irritability
of men of genius, remarks on critics, a defence of
Southey's works, back to the Lyrical Ballads, to the
distinction of the Fancy and the Imagination, back
to first principles and his own consideration of
Hartley's Law of Association, Dualism, Materialism,
his indebtedness to Immanuel Kant, a chapter of
digression, advice to young authors, anecdotes of
his literary life, a Shandy-like Affectionate
Exhortation, then back to first principles and a
definition of the imagination, which for conciseness
he rechristened the Esemplastic power, and to the
Lyrical Ballads, on to Shakespeare's poetic power,
back to his main purpose, Wordsworth's use of
rustic diction, and so on and so on, with the
Satyrane Letters from Germany and a Critique of
Bertram and the German drama which he had handy to
fill up. It is the most exasperating book in the
English Language.2
Modern critics like George Whalley,3 George
Watson,^ and Sister Mary Osinski have attempted to counter
act this erroneous opinion of the garrulity of the work
and the irrelevance of some of its parts. Sister Osinski,
for example, points out that Coleridge states his
intentions right at the beginning of the work, and then
carries out these intentions in the course of the book:
(actually, the content of the work is not so
fortuitously brought together as one might be led
to think; the inclusion of politics, religion, and
philosophy, together with the questions of poetic
178
diction and the character of the poet, is all announced
in the opening paragraph of Chapter I). Coleridge
intends from the outset to devote more of his writing
to a discussion of his understandings than to his
experiences in arriving at these; he sets out to
record his opinions in greater detail than his life.5
Still, this does little to defend the organization
of the materials concerning politics, religion, and
philosophy; and Carpenter's summary (which is an accurate
one) of the order of the topics looms as a large question
concerning the book's coherence. If we think of the work
as unfolding organically, however, much of this difficulty
disappears. As he progresses chronologically with the
narration of his life and literary opinions, Coleridge
reaches out on all sides to include the influences which
contributed to his literary development, regardless of
whether those influences were literary, political,
philosophical, or religious. Consequently, if we approach
the book expecting a topical treatment, Coleridge's
organization will seem like a checkerboard of reflections
about literary criticism, politics, philosophy, and
religion. But if we realize that he is moving lineally
only in chronology, and moving in a spiral in all other
respects, the work will seem to make much more sense.
This view of the Biographia Literaria will help
with understanding the proportions of the various subjects,
as well as the nature of the subjects. Coleridge explains
the relative scarcity of biographical fact as due to a
179
desire to place emphasis upon his principles, not his
personal life: "It will be found that the least of what
I have written concerns myself personally. The large
weighting of politics, religion, and philosophy in the
work he also explains at the outset:
I have used the narration chiefly for the purpose
of giving a continuity to the work, in part for the
sake of the miscellaneous reflections suggested to me
by particular events; but still more as introductory
to the statement of my principles in politics,
.religion, and philosophy, and the application of the
rules deduced from philosophical principles to
poetry and criticism.7
The last approximately one-third of the Biographia,
which is almost exclusively concerned with literary
criticism, has thus been carefully prepared for by
Coleridge’s extensive treatment of those events which
influenced his life and molded his principles. These
principles have now been explained carefully. The last
portion of the work, dealing with literary criticism, is
the most sustained treatment in the book of a single
subject. This, too, Coleridge had intended from the
beginning:
But of the objects which I proposed to myself,
it was not the least important to effect, as far
as possible, a settlement of poetic diction, and
at the same time to define with the utmost impartial
ity, the real poetic character of the poet by whose
writings this controversy was first kindled and has
been since fuelled and fanned.°
Granted this explicit statement of the nature of
the work, a reassessment of the too prevalent unfavorable
i8o
opinion of the Biographia Literaria is called for, since
as we have seen, it is well-planned and written according
to the announced plan.
Thematically as well as structurally the Biographia
Literaria forms a coherent expression. Three types of
thematic elements— personal, philosophical, and critical--
are woven together to produce a cogent and compelling
statement. The personal aspect of the work is present for
two reasons: because Coleridge felt that it was necessary
to answer the attacks (often virulent) of reviewers and
other critics and because it helps to provide a concrete
grounding for his often abstruse philosophical arguments.
As the quotations from Hazlitt, Peacock, and Byron
in the brief history of Coleridge criticism in the opening
chapter indicate, Coleridge's contemporaries did not always
distinguish between criticism of a man's literary produc
tions and criticism of the man himself. As Coleridge
justifiably complains,
But no one of these motives, nor all conjointly,
would have impelled me to a statement so uncomfortable
to my own feelings, had not my character been repeat
edly attacked by an unjustifiable intrusion on my
private life, as of a man incorrigibly idle and who,
intrusted not only with ample talents but favored
with unusual opportunities of improving them, had
nevertheless suffered them to rust away without any
efficient exertion either for his own good or that
of his fellow-creatures
To answer the charges levelled against his theories of
poetry, then, he felt it necessary also to answer the
l8l
charges levelled against himself. This accounts for
sections of exculpation like those found in chapters ten
and eleven, dealing with the difficulties of the profes
sional author and advising the budding young writer to
obtain a secure income, writing only in his spare time.
These sections detail the hardships awaiting the
professional writer in such a way as to imply strongly that
there was good reason why Coleridge, beset with problems,
did not produce more than he did.
The sections of fiery attack upon anonymous
reviewers can be explained similarly. Coleridge felt that
he needed to take the offensive, if he were to explain
satisfactorily the serious charges lodged against him.
Consequently, he included sections like this one, sections
that today seem to "protest too much:"
And hence individuals below mediocrity, not
less in natural power than in acquired knowledge;
nay, bunglers that have failed in the lowest mech
anical crafts and whose presumption is in due
proportion to their want of sense and sensibility;
men who, being first scribblers from idleness or
ignorance, next become libellers from evy and
malevolence, have been able to drive a successful
trade in the employment of the booksellers; nay,
have raised themselves into temporary name and
reputation with the public at large by that most
powerful of all adulation, the appeal to the bad
and malignant passions of mankind. 10
One tack which the charges against Coleridge often
took was to suggest that he was somewhat "strange," or even
a lunatic. This charge, of course, was not brought only
against Coleridge; it was pressed regularly against most
182
of the practitioners of the "romantic school" of litera
ture, especially the Lake Poets. But Coleridge, dealing
much more with abstruse philosophical principles than many
of the others, provided one of the best targets. This
magnificent bit of abuse by Peacock is more extreme than
many such criticisms, but states the charges clearly:
While the historian and the philosopher are
advancing in, and accelerating, the progress of
knowledge, the poet is wallowing in the rubbish
of departed ignorance, and raking up the ashes of
dead savages to find gewgaws and rattles for the
grown babies of the age. Mr. Scott digs up the
poachers and cattlestealers of the ancient border.
Lord Byron cruizes for thieves and pirates on the
shores of the Morea and among the Greek islands.
Mr. Southey wades through ponderous volumes of
travels and old chronicles, from which he carefully
selects all that is false, useless, and absurd, as
being essentially poetical; and when he has a
commonplace book full of monstrosities, strings
them into an epic. Mr. Wordsworth picks up village
legends from old women and sextons; and Mr.
Coleridge, to the valuable information acquired
from similar sources, superadds the dreams of crazy
theologians and the mysticisms of German metaphysics,
and favours the world with visions in verse, in
which the quadruple elements of sexton, old woman,
Jeremy Taylor, and Emmanuel Kant, are harmonized into
a delicious poetical compound. Mr. Moore presents us
with a Persian, and Mr. Campbell with a Pennsylvanian
tale, both formed on the same principle as Mr.
Southey's epics, by extracting from a perfunctory
and desultory perusal of a collection of voyages and
travels, all that useful investigation would not seek
for and that common sense would reject.H
To counteract the force of statements like these,
Coleridge is careful to stress the rationality of his
arguments. One way to do this is to describe the steps
by which he came to form his opinions. He does this in
the first chapter, as he describes the progress of his
183
education under Boyer. His constant emphasis upon fixed
principles and the processes of logic is also an attempt
to underscore his rationality. At the beginning of the
Biographia Coleridge makes the first of many explicit
affirmations of his recognition of the need for logical
rigor: "I learnt from him [.Boyer3 that poetry, even that
of the loftiest, and, seemingly that of the wildest odes,
had a logic of its own as severe as that of science; and
more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and
dependent on more and more fugitive causes." 12
The interjection of personal anecdotes and comments
into what is essentially a work of literary criticism, in
addition to answering personal attacks, is also called for
by the terms of Coleridge's rejection of the Hartlean
Associationist system. He rejects it not only because of
the logical flaws which he detects in it, but also because
it is completely depersonalized: "Yet, according to this
hypothesis {the Hartlean systemj, the disquisition to
which I am at present soliciting the reader's attention
may be as truly said to be written by Saint Paul's church
as by me...nl3 A similar remark occurs in the same
context: "The sum total of my moral and intellectual
intercourse dissolved into its elements is reduced to
extension, motion, degrees of velocity and those diminished
copies of configurative motion which form what we call
notions, and notions of notions."1^ Lest his transcen-
184
dental system sound equally remote and indifferent, he
punctuates its presentation with references to himself.
Here, he speaks of the mystics almost as though he was
personally acquainted with them, as he contrasts their
vitality with the spiritual deadness of the Hartlean
mechanical philosophy:
They contributed to keep alive the heart in
the head; gave me an indistinct, yet stirring and
working presentment, that all the products of the
mere reflective faculty partook of death, and were
as the rattling twigs and sprays in winter into
which a sap was yet to be propelled from some root
to which I had not penetrated, if they were to
afford my soul either food or shelter.15
In addition to being in consonance with his dis
tinction between the vital personalism of the organic
theory and the dead dehumanization of the mechanic theory,
Coleridge’s occasional personal intrusions are good
strategy. For they help to prevent the highly abstract
arguments which he uses from appearing to be only the
baseless fabric of a vision, mere cloud castles with no
connection to human existence. When one is arguing in
terms like these,as Coleridge is in so many places, some
more palpable grounding is helpful:
This is principium commune essendi et cognoscendi,
as subsisting in a will or primary act of self-dupli
cation, is the mediate or indirect principle of every
science; but it is the immediate and direct principle
of the ultimate science alone, i.e. of transcendental
philosophy alone.1°
For reasons involving both his literary and personal
integrity and the effectiveness of the presentation of
185
some of his most cherished philosophical opinions, then,
Coleridge included the personal elements in his work.
The validity of the claims of the philosophical
and literary portions to a place in a published work do
not usually excite so much skepticism. But the logical
connection between the portions of the book dealing with
philosophy and those dealing with literary criticism is
often doubted. There is no very good reason why so much
doubt should exist, however, since Coleridge explicitly
connects the two in Chapter IV. He explains that he is
presenting the philosophical grounding of his literary
theory in answer to those who have assumed rashly either
that his criticism (and the principles of composition of
his own and Wordsworth's poems, stemming from this
criticism) was mere eccentricity, based upon no grounds
whatever, or that it was moonshine, based upon a few
strange notions:
Those at least, let me be permitted to add,
who have taken so much pains to render me ridiculous
for a perversion of taste, and have supported the
charge by attributing strange notions to me on no
other authority than their own conjectures, owe it
to themselves as well as to me not to refuse their
attention to my own statement of the theory, which
I c3o acknowledgej or shrink from the trouble of
examining the grounds on which I rest it, or the
arguments which I offer in its Justification.17
Furthermore, the presentation of his literary theory would
provide the anonymous critics, who had made these charges
out of ignorance, with a viable set of criteria with which
186
they could reassess both his own and Wordsworth's work.
It would serve the positive function of an alternative,
not merely the negative one of a refutation: "It would
in its immediate effects furnish a torch of guidance to
the philosophical critic, and ultimately to the poet
himself
Coleridge felt that the necessity for presenting
a new theory of literary criticism, bulwarked by such a
mass of philosophical disquistion, resulted from the new
subject-matter emphasis of the Romantic poets, Wordsworth
in particular. Coleridge stresses the attention of these
poets upon the humble, the rustic, and the commonplace:
Who has not a thousand times seen snow fall on
water? Who has not watched it with a new feeling from
the time that he has read Burns' comparison of
sensual pleasure:
To snow that falls upon a river
A moment white— then gone for ever!
In poems, equally as in philosophic disquisitions,
genius produces the strongest impressions of novelty
while it rescues the most admitted truths from the
impotence caused by the very circumstances of their
universal admission....
This excellence, which in all Mr Wordsworth's
writings is more or less predominant and which
constitutes the character of his mind, I no sooner
felt than I sought to understand. 19 [my italicsj
The linking of poetry to philosophy in the italicized
section of the preceding quotation prepares the way for
the statement in Chapter XIV that the new subject matter
of poetry cannot be covered adequately by existing
literary criticism because the philosophy upon which that
literary criticism is based is inadequate to explain the
187
function of the poet in the Romantic Period. What
Coleridge has taken such extensive pains to explain and to
substantiate, in the many intervening pages, is the to us
shopworn thesis that the Augustan poet, working from
Hartlean (ultimately Lockian) associationist principles,
saw himself as a joiner, a manipulator of already existing
and fixed poetic counters. His originality stemmed from
combining these already existent entities in new ways.
But the Romantic poet, working with organic (ultimately
German transcendental) principles, saw his role as creator
of new material, including subject matter, for poetry.
The Augustan theory was, then, unable to account for the
emphasis of the Romantic poets upon the humble, the rustic,
and the commonplace, domains which previously had not been
considered fruitful of subjects for serious poetry.
Consequently, to the Augustan critic, the direction taken
by the leading Romantic poets (Wordsworth most conspicu
ously) seemed to be towards the trivial. This perception,
in turn, drew forth the scathing attacks upon Romantic
theory and practice which Coleridge makes it his business
to refute in the Biographia Literaria.
In Chapter XIV, Coleridge culminates his arguments
in such a way as to emphasize the connection between the
metaphysics which have just been presented and the
application of these metaphysical principles to poetry for
the remainder of the book. His famous definition of the
188
poet involves the concept "imagination*" which so much
philosophy has been necessary to explain:
The poet* described in ideal perfection* brings
the whole soul of man into activity* with the sub
ordination of its faculties to each other* according
to their relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a
tone and spirit of unity that blends and (as it were)
fuses* each into each* by that synthetic and magical
power to which we have exclusively appropriated the
name of imagination. 20
A few pages earlier* his definition of imagination involved
the perceptual and creative processes of the Romantic poet*
those processes grounded in German transcendentalism:
"The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and
prime agent of all human perception* and as a repetition
in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the
infinite I AM ." 21 He then opposes the Romantic principles
of composition* based upon "imagination*" to the idea of
"fancy*" which he defines in such a way as to represent
the main principle of Augustan poetic theory: "Fancy* on
the contrary* has no other counters to play with but
fixities and definites. And he closes the argument by
connecting the principles of composition embraced by
"fancy" to the Hartlean philosophy: "It must receive
all its material ready made from the law of association."23
When this has been done* Coleridge*s thorough
job of presenting his case becomes clear. He has drawn
into the discussion those personal elements necessary to
refute personal attacks upon him and his work. He has
189
devoted time to explaining the hazards of the professional
author and the flaws of the institution of anonymous
criticism in order to explain the vulnerability of any
poet to attack, and to explain the severity of the attacks
launched against Romantic poets. These explanations make
Coleridge's calm, philosophical defence even more effective
than it otherwise would have been. It gives the reader the
impression that Coleridge, in spite of difficulties and
only provoked by outrageous ad hominem attacks, still is
willing to defend himself methodically and fairly from
those talking from the unfair advantage of anonymity. He
has methodically taken apart the Hartlean associational
theory, upon which the bitter attacks upon Romantic poets
were based. And he has carefully and thoroughly presented
the organic theory, upon which the practices of the
Romantic poets were based. The literary criticism and the
philosophy now appear to be part and parcel of one another.
Having made this clear, Coleridge is free to spend the
rest of the book discussing the specific applications of
the organically grounded literary principles to
Wordsworth's poetry.
This transition from philosophic grounding to
specific application of principle occurs in the famous
letter of Chapter XIII, which Coleridge himself wrote.
This letter is, contrary to popular opinion, not the
excrescence or whim that it may first appear to be. First,
190
it provides a very welcome relief from the metaphysics to
which the long Chapter XII is devoted. It is an example
of Coleridge’s use of a personal reference in order to give
a sense of reality to the abstractions which have just been
presented. The reader feels that two living persons, the
writer of the letter and Coleridge, take a vital interest
in the matter which the writer of the letter, for one,
would like to see presented in far greater detail. This
eagerness for a more detailed presentation of the meta
physics, in turn, is a sly goad to the reader of Chapter
XII, who by this time is, if I may judge by my own initial
reaction, very tired, and feels that this matter has been
discussed far too long already. After this burst of
enthusiasm on the part of the writer of the letter, the
reader feels somewhat abashed at being so quickly saturated
with the worthwhile and stimulating philosophy being
presented, and feels that he, too, should be eager to read
a book-length treatment of it. The reader is nudged
towards a feeling of disappointment that Coleridge hasn't
presented more philosophy, instead of less.
Third, the letter is a clever way of fending off
potential criticism. Anyone who might be tempted to
attack any of Coleridge's philosophical discussion would
only need to be reminded that this discussion was frag
mentary ; any criticism would have to await a "complete"
presentation in his projected work on the Logos. In this
191
connection, it is worth noting that the discussion which
the letter purports to interrupt is for all intents and
purposes complete. In the preceding chapter, Coleridge
has presented the ten theses requisite for transcendental
philosophy, and in Chapter XIII has had time to present
the principle of reconciliation of opposites, the one
remaining principle requisite to an application of the
transcendental philosophy to literature. At the point of
the insertion of the letter, Coleridge has started to veer
off into a needlessly detailed explanation of how the
opposed forces are generated,.an explanation peripheral to
the principle of reconciliation of opposites. If any more
relevant detail were to he provided, it surely would deal
with the reconciliation process, not with the causes of
the two opposing forces. The definitions of "imagination"
and "fancy" which follow the conclusion of the letter
contain no principles not prepared for in the previous
discussion of transcendental philosophy.
Fourth, the letter in unmistakable terms marks the
transition between the two major parts of the work, the
discussion of the philosophic groundings of poetry, and the
discussion of the application of the organic theory to
Wordsworth's poetry. It provides the reader a few minutes
in which to relax and to prepare his mind for a new subject
When the literary criticism begins in the ensuing chapter,
the reader is not still ruminating upon philosophical
192
matter.
A close inspection of the thematic development of
the Biographia Literaria, then, reveals much the same
result that the inspection of the structural development
did. The work is not a jumble of miscellaneous subjects,
but a product of careful thought and careful presentation
of that thought. It would seem, then, that a reassessment
of traditional opinions about the Biographia Literaria
is long overdue.
In fact, a reconsideration of traditional opinions
concerning Coleridge's prose in general is long overdue.
For many facets of his work, this reconsideration already
has been made or is being made. As early as 1930, John
Muirhead's book Coleridge as a Philosopher^ went a
considerable distance towards reversing folk opinions of
Coleridge as a drugged dreamer of empty fantasies. Such
works as Coleridge as a Religious Thinker2^ have pointed
to Coleridge's rightful place in his history of religious
thought. And books like Colmer's Coleridge; Critic of
Society have emphasized the activity of Coleridge's
political mind. By and large, however, only scattered and
passing comments previously have been made in an attempt
to underscore the value of Coleridge, the writer of prose.
If we will only take the time to follow the turn
ings of the prose patiently and uncomplainingly, we will
be rewarded by the apprehension of subtle thoughts,
193
beautifully expressed. We will appreciate the same
mastery of rhythm, the same control of metaphor, the same
power of literary imagination that produced "Kubla Khan,"
"Christabel," and the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner." For,
as J. B. White has put it, "The prose works are not a
secondbest, save as brother may be second best to his
sister. They are of the same parent, and the same spirit
breathes in them."2^
194
NOTES FOR CHAPTER VII
- * -Biographia Literaria, p. xiii.
2The Indifferent Horseman; The Divine Comedy of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (London: Elek Books, 1954), p.
- j -
3ln "The Integrity of the Biographia Literaria,,"
Essays and Studies Collected for the English Association. ,
VT (London: John Murray, 1953)» 07-1017 Whalley makes two
particularly significant points concerning the unity of
the Biographia Literaria: (1) that Coleridge had been
entertaining the idea of such a book at least since 1 8 0 2;
hence, the book could not possibly be only a spontaneous
elaboration upon a preface, done with no prior thought and
(2) that the philosophical sections pertaining to associa-
tionism were put in to rectify what Coleridge considered
to be Wordsworth’s indistinct notions on the subject;
hence, they are necessary to the discussion of Wordsworth’s
poetic theory, operating on associationist principles, a
discussion which occupies the last approximately one-third
of the volume. In this chapter, I expand upon this latter
point, and demonstrate the coherence of the Biographia
Literaria as a whole.
^Biographia Literaria, p. xii.
^Structures of Coordination, p. 75.
£
Biographia Literaria, p. 1.
^Biographia Literaria, p. 1 .
^Biographia Literaria, p. 1.
^Biographia Literaria, p. 124.
10Biographia Literaria, pp. 22-23.
^ Peacock’s Four Ages of Poetry, Shelley's Defence
of Poetry and Browning's Essay on Shelley, ed. H. F. B.
Brett-Smith, The Percy Reprints, no. 3 (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell, 1929; reprinted from the 2nd edition of 1923;
originally published, 1 9 2 1), pp. 1 5-1 6.
195
12Biographia Literaria,
P* 3.
•^Biographia Literaria,
P. 69.
- ’ -^Biographia Literaria,
P- 69.
15Biographia Literaria,
P- 83.
l^Biographia Literaria,
P. 153.
^Biographia Literaria, P- 53.
- ’ -^Biographia Literaria,
P- 51.
- ’ -^Biographia Literaria,
P- 49.
20Biographia Literaria,
PP
. 173-174.
2- ’ -Biographia Literaria,
P.
1 6 7.
22Biographia Literaria,
P*
1 6 7.
23Biographia Literaria,
P-
1 6 7.
24(London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.).
25james D. Boulger (New Haven: Yale University
Press-, 1 9 6 1).
26
The Political Thought of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (London: Jonathon Cape, 193d), p. 24.
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Creator Grow, Lynn Merle (author)

Core Title The Prose Style Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program English

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Literature, General,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

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Advisor Schulz, Max F. (committee chair), [Veil], George R. (committee member), Eggenschwiler, David L. (committee member)

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