SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
(1772-1834)
IV. ON POETIC GENIUS AND POETIC DICTION.
The following passage forms Chapters xiv and xv of Coleridge's
_Biographia Literaria_, published in 1817 It has been selected as
giving a less imperfect impression of his powers as a critic than any
other piece that could have been chosen The truth is that, great in
talk and supreme in poetry, Coleridge was lost directly he sat down
to express himself in prose His style is apt to be cumbrous, and his
matter involved. We feel that the critic himself was greater than any
criticism recorded either in his writings or his lectures The present
extract may be defined as an attempt, and an attempt less inadequate
than was common with Coleridge, to state his poetic creed, and to
illustrate it by reference to his own poetry and to that of Wordsworth
and of Shakespeare. In what he says of Shakespeare he is at his best.
He forgets himself, and writes with a single eye to a theme which was
thoroughly worthy of his powers. In the earlier part of the piece, and
indeed indirectly throughout, he has in mind Wordsworth's famous Preface
to the _Lyrical Ballads_, which is to be found in any complete edition
of Wordsworth's poems, or in his poise writings, as edited by Dr.
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