It was in another direction that Coleridge and his contemporaries
sought escape from the discredit with which criticism was threatened.
This was by changing the issue on which the discussion was to be fought.
In its most general form, the problem of criticism amounts to this:
What is the nature of the standard to be employed in literary judgments?
Hitherto--at least to the Reviewers--the question may be said to have
presented itself in the following shape: Is the standard to be sought
within or without the mind of the critic? Is it by his own impression,
or by the code handed down from previous critics, that in the last
resort the critic should be guided? In the hands of Coleridge and
others, this was replaced by the question: Is the touchstone of
excellence to be found within the work of the poet, or outside of it?
Are we to judge of a given work merely by asking: Is it clearly
conceived and consistently carried out? Or are we bound to consider
the further question: Is the original conception just, and capable of
artistic treatment; and is the workmanship true to the vital principles
of poetry? The change is significant.
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