A Conceptual Understanding of Imagination in Biographia Literaria (Ch. 13)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria stands as a monumental text in literary criticism, offering his insights into the ideas around nature and perception. The thirteenth chapter of this book, ‘On the imagination, or the esemplastic power’, provides his exploration of the concept of imagination, which he heavily contrasts with the concept of fancy. In this essay, we will examine Coleridge’s understanding of imagination, its roots in philosophy, its two forms, and how it differs from fancy. My analysis of this concept will be restrained to material we find in chapter alone, of his writings on imagination.

Biographia Literaria was published in 1817 as an autobiography of the literary mind of Coleridge. This text was a defense of his poetic principles and his understandings of poetry and chiefly, imagination. It was also a response to critics through the framework he provided which suggested his works to be a result of creativity and sophistication. The work outlined the philosophical system that he himself developed but could never complete. It has to be noted that he was a heavy user of opium, something that might have affected his mental and physical health during the writing of this text. We can see this text as his attempt to organise ideas and thoughts that he had on poetry and writing. An attempt and an outline we will attempt to analyse.  

Coleridge constructs his theory of imagination within a complex philosophical framework and not as just a theoretical concept in the literary world. He draws on diverse sources and inspirations to come to his conclusions on the concept of imagination. From the very beginning of the chapter, we see this quality of Coleridge’s thought and meticulousness at work. The excerpt from Milton’s Paradise Lost conveys the idea of progression from diverse forms towards a unified spirit which can be seen as similar to “tertium aliquid,” a result of Coleridge’s theory of imagination. Milton also presents Fancy within a series of ascending faculties while Coleridge separates it by its nature.

He aligns his thought with the ‘transcendental philosopher’, who claims: “grant me a nature having two contrary forces, the one of which tends to expand infinitely, while the other strives to apprehend or find itself in this infinity, and I will cause the world of intelligences with the whole system of their representations to rise up before you”. This statement proves crucial because it foreshadows Coleridge’s argument that the nature of imagination as a product of counteracting forces: one perpetually expanding force while the other seeks to grasp itself within that perpetual expansion. His claims to the understanding of imagination as something living and evolving and not static is then substantiated by “Every other science pre-supposes intelligence as already existing and complete: the philosopher contemplates it in its growth, and as it were represents its history to the mind from its birth to its maturity.” This quote exemplifies the nature of imagination as a ‘growing’ substance.

He aligns his thought with the ‘transcendental philosopher’, who claims: “grant me a nature having two contrary forces, the one of which tends to expand infinitely, while the other strives to apprehend or find itself in this infinity, and I will cause the world of intelligences with the whole system of their representations to rise up before you”. This statement proves crucial because it foreshadows Coleridge’s argument that the nature of imagination as a product of counteracting forces: one perpetually expanding force while the other seeks to grasp itself within that perpetual expansion. His claims to the understanding of imagination as something living and evolving and not static is then substantiated by “Every other science pre-supposes intelligence as already existing and complete: the philosopher contemplates it in its growth, and as it were represents its history to the mind from its birth to its maturity.” This quote exemplifies the nature of imagination as a ‘growing’ substance.

Coleridge takes inspiration from Leibniz for his philosophical framework that he bases his theory on. Leibniz argued that if corporeal things which contained nothing, but physical material would only consist of flux and nothing substantial. Leibniz concluded that “certain metaphysical quantities perceptible by the mind on its own are to be admitted”, with a ‘higher’ principle must be added to mass. This supports Coleridge’s view that the mind’s ability to perceive and engage with reality required a non-material force, something closely resembling his take on the concept of imagination. Coleridge then also takes from Kant’s theory of negative quantities in philosophy. Kant distinguishes between two opposites: logical and real. Logical opposites are absolutely incompatible and produce ‘non-sense'. An example being an object in motion and simultaneously not in motion results in ‘nothing’, producing ‘non-sense’. Real opposites exist without being contradictory, like a body moving in one direction and an equal force in the opposite direction resulting in rest. Rest here is a real and representable value unlike ‘non-sense’.

Coleridge then applies this Kantian framework to establish the nature of forces that generate imagination as a result. The requirements he dictates as conditions for these forces for such a ‘transcendental philosophy’ are two: that the opposition between the forces is inherent and not merely situational, "should be conceived which counteract each other by their essential nature; not only not in consequence of the accidental direction of each, but as prior to all direction, nay, as the primary forces from which the conditions of all possible directions are derivative and deducible", and that they are by nature, infinite and indestructible. This differentiates Coleridge's forces from Kant’s opposites, which are finite and neutralise each other to rest. The problem that then arises is to deduce the product or result of the interaction between both forces. As their power is infinite and nature, indestructible, their result cannot be neutralisation or rest. Coleridge then asserts that no other result or conclusion is possible but that of a product he labels ‘tertium aliquid’ (Latin for ‘a third something’). This ‘tertium aliquid’ is the vital outcome of imagination defined by Coleridge as “an inter-penetration of the counteracting powers, partaking of both”. Imagination is not a simple addition or subtraction of two forces to Coleridge but a creation or ‘synthesis’ born of two opposing forces’ struggle.

Having laid down this extensive philosophical groundwork, Coleridge then defines imagination in two forms: primary imagination and secondary imagination. Primary imagination indicates a universal and unconscious creative power in humans which is of fundamental nature. This way of how we perceive and sense the world around us is described by Coleridge as "the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception". It is understood in the text as “a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM”. While identical with primary imagination in the kind of its agency, secondary imagination is described as an “echo” of it. Co-existing with conscious will, secondary imagination is more artistic, conscious and deliberate, differing from primary imagination only in “degree, and in the mode of its operation”. Coleridge lists the functions of secondary imagination as “dissolve, diffuse, dissipate, in order to re-create” (he uses the term 'esemplastic' to describe this form of imagination). The dynamic of the counteracting forces discussed earlier is directly reflected in this transformative process. This power of this form of imagination by dissolving, diffusing, and dissipating, breaks down the existing to make something new. We see here a manifestation of the indestructible and infinite forces that helps it make new. In simple words, Imagination gives life to the world we perceive by creating meaning, or something new out of it.

When describing his concept of imagination, he provides a contrast to highlight his theory. This contrast is labelled ‘fancy’, a power that deals with fixed and definite counters. Fancy is of a passive and mechanical nature which he equates to the word ‘choice’. He makes this claim by conveying the nature of it as no other than a mode of Memory emancipated from the order of time and space; and blended with, and modified by that empirical phenomenon of the will, which we express by the word CHOICE". The vital and transformative power of imagination that dissolves and recreates by means of its counteracting forces is exactly what lacks in the concept of fancy. While fancy deals with what exists already, imagination creates by drawing on conflicting and deeper forces.

Coleridge’s definition of secondary imagination as transformative and recreative elevated the role of the artist close to that of a creator, departing from a Neoclassical view of artist as a mere imitator. His theory also provided a framework for understanding of how creativity worked from perception to creation, from primary to secondary imagination. Lastly, his ideas influenced later thinkers and artists, emphasising the Romantic ideal of the individual’s subjective experience and creative power (which would be then considered central to art/writing). His conceptualisation of imagination is of a highly complex nature which can also be seen as profound. This condition is reflected on by comments he receives from a ‘friend’ (Coleridge himself). The abstruse nature of his theory is what this friend underscores by saying “so new to me, but so directly the reverse of all I had ever been accustomed to consider as truth, that even if I had comprehended your premises sufficiently to have admitted them... I should still have been in that state of mind... I should have felt as if I had been standing on my head”. Coleridge acknowledges that this thought is unconventional and unsettling while being transformative. A quote he uses to convey his reaction but also describe the process of imagination itself is “If substance may be call’d what shadow seem’d, For each seem’d either!”. Imagination itself holds the ability to dissolve and create using even contradictory elements.

Coleridge’s concept of imagination is situated in an idea of counteracting forces that are infinite, indestructible, and opposite by nature. Based on Leibniz’s concept of vital force and Kant’s distinction of real opposites, we see a carefully crafted theory involving an infinitely expanding force and a force striving towards defining oneself that yields a third something, a tertium aliquid. This product of imagination contains both the primary and secondary form, an inherent creative power as well as creative power that can break down and create back up again. This theory of imagination stands in stark contrast to the mechanical operations of Fancy by being concerned with continuous yet opposing forces which result in a creative synthesis. Coleridge’s insights on the concept of imagination, deeply based on philosophical theories and his original ideas and interpretations, show us a glimpse into the generative power of the human mind. A generative power that no language model can recreate, for the power that the human mind holds to break down and create anew is something technology cannot recreate (it only rearranges existing information, what Coleridge terms ‘fancy’).