[Footnote 15: Coleridge: Biographia Literaria, Chapters I.-IV.,
XIV.-XXII.—Wordsworth: Prefaces and Essays on Poetry, 1800-1815.
Edited by George Sampson, with an Introductory Essay by Sir Arthur
Quiller-Couch. (Cambridge University Press.)]
It may be that the prolixity9 with which he discusses and refutes the poetical11 principles expounded13 by Wordsworth in the preface of Lyrical Ballads14 was due to the tenderness of his consideration for Wordsworth's feelings, an influence to which Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch directs our attention in his introduction. That is honourable15 to Coleridge as a man; but it cannot exculpate16 him as a critic. For the points he had to make for and against Wordsworth were few and simple. First, he had to show that the theory of a poetic12 diction drawn17 exclusively from the language of 'real life' was based upon an equivocation18, and therefore was useless. This Coleridge had to show to clear himself of the common condemnation19 in which he had been involved, as one wrongly assumed to endorse20 Wordsworth's theory. He had an equally important point to make for Wordsworth. He wished to prove to him that the finest part of his poetic achievement was based upon a complete neglect of this theory, and that the weakest portions of his work were those in which he most closely followed it. In this demonstration21 he was moved by the desire to set his friend on the road that would lead to the most triumphant22 exercise of his own powers.
There is no doubt that Coleridge made both his points; but he made them, in particular the former, at exceeding length, and at the cost of a good deal of internal contradiction. He sets out, in the former case, to maintain that the language of poetry is essentially23 different from the language of prose. This he professes24 to deduce from a number of principles. His axiom—and it is possibly a sound one—is that metre originated in a spontaneous effort of the mind to hold in check the workings of emotion. From this, he argues, it follows that to justify25 the existence of metre, the language of a poem must show evidence of emotion, by being different from the language of prose. Further, he says, metre in itself stimulates26 the emotions, and for this condition of emotional excitement 'correspondent food' must be provided. Thirdly, the emotion of poetical composition itself demands this same 'correspondent food.' The final argument, if we omit one drawn from an obscure theory of imitation very characteristic of Coleridge, is the incontrovertible appeal to the authority of the poets.
Unfortunately, the elaborate exposition of the first three arguments is not only unnecessary but confusing, for Coleridge goes on to distinguish, interestingly enough, between a language proper to poetry, a language proper to prose, and a neutral language which may be used indifferently in prose and poetry, and later still he quotes a beautiful passage from Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida as an example of this neutral language, forgetting that, if his principles are correct, Chaucer was guilty of a sin against art in writing Troilus and Cressida in metre. The truth, of course, is that the paraphernalia27 of principles goes by the board. In order to refute the Wordsworthian theory of a language of real life supremely28 fitted for poetry you have only to point to the great poets, and to judge the fitness of the language of poetry you can only examine the particular poem. Wordsworth was wrong and self-contradictory without doubt; but Coleridge was equally wrong and self-contradictory in arguing that metre necessitated29 a language essentially different from that of prose.
So it is that the philosophic30 part of the specifically literary criticism of the Biographia takes us nowhere in particular. The valuable part is contained in his critical appreciation31 of Wordsworth's poetry and that amazing chapter—a little forlorn, as most of Coleridge's fine chapters are—on 'the specific symptoms of poetic power elucidated32 in a critical analysis of Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis. In these few pages Coleridge is at the summit of his powers as a critic. So long as his attention could be fixed33 on a particular object, so long as he was engaged in deducing his general principles immediately from particular instances of the highest kind of poetic excellence, he was a critic indeed. Every one of the four points characteristic of early poetic genius which he formulates35 deserves to be called back to the mind again and again:—
'The delight in richness and sweetness of sound, even to a faulty excess, if it be evidently original and not the result of an easily imitable mechanism36, I regard as a highly favourable37 promise in the compositions of a young man….
'A second promise of genius is the choice of subjects very remote from the private interests and circumstances of the writer himself. At least I have found, that where the subject is taken immediately from the author's personal sensations and experiences the excellence of a particular poem is but an equivocal mark, and often a fallacious pledge, of genuine poetical power….
'Images, however beautiful, though faithfully copied from nature, and as accurately38 represented in words, do not of themselves characterise the poet. They become proofs of original genius only as far as they are modified by a predominant passion; or by associated thoughts or images awakened39 by that passion; or when they have the effect of reducing multitude to unity40, or succession to an instant; or lastly, when a human and intellectual life is transferred to them from the poet's own spirit….
'The last character … which would prove indeed but little, except as taken conjointly with the former—yet without which the former could scarce exist in a high degree … is depth and energy of thought. No man was ever yet a great poet without being at the same time a profound philosopher. For poetry is the blossom and the fragrancy of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.'
In the context the most striking peculiarity41 of this enunciation43 of the distinguishing marks of poetic power, apart from the conviction which it brings, is that they are not in the least concerned with the actual language of poetry. The whole subject of poetic diction is dropped when Coleridge's critical, as opposed to his logical, faculty45 is at work; and, although this Chapter XV is followed by many pages devoted46 to the analysis and refutation of the Wordsworthian theory and to the establishment of those principles of poetic diction to which we have referred, when Coleridge comes once more to engage his pure critical faculty, in the appreciation of Wordsworth's actual poetry in Chapter XXII, we again find him ignoring his own principles precisely47 on those occasions when we might have thought them applicable.
Coleridge enumerates48 Wordsworth's defects one by one. The first, he says, is an inconstancy of style. For a moment he appears to invoke49 his principles: 'Wordsworth sinks too often and too abruptly50 to that style which I should place in the second division of language, dividing it into the three species; first, that which is peculiar42 to poetry; second, that which is proper only in prose; and third, the neutral or common to both.' But in the very first instance which Coleridge gives we can see that the principles have been dragged in by the hair, and that they are really alien to the argument which he is pursuing. He gives this example of disharmony from the poem on 'The Blind Highland51 Boy' (whose washing-tub in the 1807 edition, it is perhaps worth noting, had been changed at Coleridge's own suggestion, with a rash contempt of probabilities, into a turtle shell in the edition of 1815):—
'And one, the rarest, was a shell
Which he, poor child, had studied well:
The Shell of a green Turtle, thin
And hollow;—you might sit therein,
It was so wide, and deep.
'Our Highland Boy oft visited
The house which held this prize; and led
By choice or chance, did thither52 come
One day, when no one was at home,
And found the door unbarred.'
The discord53 is, in any case, none too apparent; but if one exists, it does not in the least arise from the actual language which Wordsworth has used. If in anything, it consists in a slight shifting of the focus of apprehension54, a sudden and scarcely perceptible emphasis on the detail of actual fact, which is a deviation55 from the emotional key of the poem as a whole. In the next instance the lapse56 is, however, indubitable:—
'Thou hast a nest, for thy love and thy rest.
And though little troubled with sloth57,
Drunken Lark58! thou would'st be loth
To be such a traveller as I.
Happy, happy liver!
With a soul as strong as a mountain River
Pouring out praise to th' Almighty59 Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both,
Hearing thee or else some other
As merry as a Brother
I on the earth will go plodding60 on,
By myself, cheerfully, till the day is done.'
The two lines in italics are discordant61. But again it is no question of language in itself; it is an internal discrepancy62 between the parts of a whole already debilitated63 by metrical insecurity.
Coleridge's second point against Wordsworth is 'a matter-of-factness in certain poems.' Once more there is no question of language. Coleridge takes the issue on to the highest and most secure ground. Wordsworth's obsession64 with realistic detail is a contravention of the essential catholicity of poetry; and this accidentality is manifested in laboriously65 exact description both of places and persons. The poet sterilises the creative activity of poetry, in the first case, for no reason at all, and in the second, because he proposes as his immediate34 object a moral end instead of the giving of ?sthetic pleasure. His prophets and wise men are pedlars and tramps not because it is probable that they should be of this condition—it is on the contrary highly improbable—but because we are thus to be taught a salutary moral lesson. The question of language in itself, if it enters at all here, enters only as the indifferent means by which a non-poetic end is sought. The accidentality lies not in the words, but in the poet's intention.
Coleridge's third and fourth points, 'an undue66 predilection67 for the dramatic form,' and 'an eddying68 instead of a progression of thought,' may be passed as quickly as he passes them himself, for in any case they could only be the cause of a jejuneness69 of language. The fifth, more interesting, is the appearance of 'thoughts and images too great for the subject … an approximation to what might be called mental bombast70.' Coleridge brings forward as his first instance of this four lines which have taken a deep hold on the affections of later generations:—
'They flash upon the inward eye
Which is the bliss71 of solitude72!
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.'
Coleridge found an almost burlesque73 bathos in the second couplet after the first. It would be difficult for a modern critic to accept that verdict altogether; nevertheless his objection to the first couplet as a description of physical vision is surely sound. And it is interesting to note that the objection has been evaded74 by posterity75 in a manner which confirms Coleridge's criticism. The 'inward eye' is almost universally remembered apart from its context, and interpreted as a description of the purely76 spiritual process to which alone, in Coleridge's opinion, it was truly apt.
The enumeration77 of Wordsworth's excellences78 which follows is masterly; and the exhilaration with which one rises through the crescendo79 to the famous: 'Last and pre-eminently, I challenge for this poet the gift of Imagination in the highest and strictest sense of the word …' is itself a pleasure to be derived80 only from the gift of criticism of the highest and strictest kind.
The object of this examination has been to show, not that the Biographia Literaria is undeserving of the high praise which has been bestowed81 upon it, but that the praise has been to some extent undiscriminating. It has now become almost a tradition to hold up to our admiration82 Coleridge's chapter on poetic diction, and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, in a preface that is as unconventional in manner as it is stimulating83 in most of its substance, maintains the tradition. As a matter of fact, what Coleridge has to say on poetic diction is prolix10 and perilously84 near commonplace. Instead of making to Wordsworth the wholly sufficient answer that much poetry of the highest kind employs a language that by no perversion85 can be called essentially the same as the language of prose, he allows himself to be led by his German metaphysic into considering poetry as a Ding an sich and deducing therefrom the proposition that poetry must employ a language different from that of prose. That proposition is false, as Coleridge himself quite adequately shows from his remarks upon what he called the 'neutral' language of Chaucer and Herbert. But instead of following up the clue and beginning to inquire whether or not narrative86 poetry by nature demands a language approximating to that of prose, and whether Wordsworth, in so far as he aimed at being a narrative poet, was not working on a correct but exaggerated principle, he leaves the bald contradiction and swerves87 off to the analysis of the defects and excellences of Wordsworth's actual achievement. Precisely because we consider it of the greatest importance that the best of Coleridge's criticism should be studied and studied again, we think it unfortunate that Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch should recommend the apprentice88 to get the chapters on poetic diction by heart. He will be condemned89 to carry about with him a good deal of dubious90 logic44 and a false conclusion. What is worth while learning from Coleridge is something different; it is not his behaviour with 'a principle,' but his conduct when confronted with poetry in the concrete, his magisterial91 ordonnance (to use his own word) and explication of his own ?sthetic intuitions, and his manner of employing in this, the essential task of poetic criticism, the results of his own deep study of all the great poetry that he knew.
[APRIL, 1920.
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1
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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2
garrulity
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| n.饶舌，多嘴 | |
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3
verbiage
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| n.冗词；冗长 | |
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tepid
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| adj.微温的，温热的，不太热心的 | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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6
havoc
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| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
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texture
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| n.(织物)质地；(材料)构造；结构；肌理 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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prolixity
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| n.冗长，罗嗦 | |
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prolix
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| adj.罗嗦的；冗长的 | |
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11
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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12
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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13
expounded
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ballads
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| 民歌，民谣，特别指叙述故事的歌( ballad的名词复数 )； 讴 | |
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honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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16
exculpate
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| v.开脱，使无罪 | |
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17
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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18
equivocation
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| n.模棱两可的话，含糊话 | |
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19
condemnation
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| n.谴责; 定罪 | |
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20
endorse
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| vt.(支票、汇票等)背书，背署；批注；同意 | |
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21
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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23
essentially
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| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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24
professes
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| 声称( profess的第三人称单数 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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25
justify
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| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
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26
stimulates
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| v.刺激( stimulate的第三人称单数 )；激励；使兴奋；起兴奋作用，起刺激作用，起促进作用 | |
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27
paraphernalia
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| n.装备；随身用品 | |
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28
supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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29
necessitated
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| 使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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30
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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31
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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32
elucidated
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| v.阐明，解释( elucidate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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34
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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35
formulates
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| v.构想出( formulate的第三人称单数 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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36
mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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37
favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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38
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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39
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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40
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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41
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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42
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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43
enunciation
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| n.清晰的发音；表明，宣言；口齿 | |
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44
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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45
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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46
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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47
precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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48
enumerates
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| v.列举，枚举，数( enumerate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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49
invoke
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| v.求助于(神、法律)；恳求，乞求 | |
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50
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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51
highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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52
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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53
discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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54
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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55
deviation
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| n.背离，偏离；偏差，偏向；离题 | |
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56
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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57
sloth
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| n.[动]树懒；懒惰，懒散 | |
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58
lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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59
almighty
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| adj.全能的，万能的；很大的，很强的 | |
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60
plodding
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| a.proceeding in a slow or dull way | |
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61
discordant
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| adj.不调和的 | |
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62
discrepancy
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| n.不同；不符；差异；矛盾 | |
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63
debilitated
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| adj.疲惫不堪的，操劳过度的v.使（人或人的身体）非常虚弱( debilitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
obsession
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| n.困扰，无法摆脱的思想(或情感) | |
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65
laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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66
undue
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| adj.过分的；不适当的；未到期的 | |
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67
predilection
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| n.偏好 | |
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68
eddying
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| 涡流，涡流的形成 | |
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69
jejuneness
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| n.幼稚，空洞 | |
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70
bombast
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| n.高调，夸大之辞 | |
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71
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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72
solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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73
burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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74
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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75
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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76
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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77
enumeration
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| n.计数，列举；细目；详表；点查 | |
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78
excellences
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| n.卓越( excellence的名词复数 )；（只用于所修饰的名词后）杰出的；卓越的；出类拔萃的 | |
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79
crescendo
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| n.(音乐)渐强，高潮 | |
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80
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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81
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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82
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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83
stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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84
perilously
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| adv.充满危险地，危机四伏地 | |
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85
perversion
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| n.曲解；堕落；反常 | |
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86
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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87
swerves
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| n.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的名词复数 )v.（使）改变方向，改变目的( swerve的第三人称单数 ) | |
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apprentice
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| n.学徒，徒弟 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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90
dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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magisterial
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| adj.威风的，有权威的；adv.威严地 | |
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