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Quote by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“The imagination ... that reconciling and mediatory power, which incorporating the reason in images of the sense and organizing (as it were) the flux of the senses by the permanence and self-circling energies of the reason, gives birth to a system of symbols, harmonious in themselves, and consubstantial with the truths of which they are the conductors.”

Book:Biographia Literaria, Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions

Work

Biographia Literaria, Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions

This work is a reflective and introspective account of the author's journey through literature, combining personal anecdotes with philosophical musings on the nature of art and the creative process. more

Author

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, critic, and philosopher, renowned for his works such as 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and 'Kubla Khan'. A leading figure in the Romantic movement, his work has had a significant impact on English literature. more

Book:The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria

Source: The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poetry, Plays, Literary Essays, Lectures, Autobiography and Letters (Classic Illustrated Edition): The Entire Opus of the English poet, literary critic and philosopher, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, Lyrical Ballads, Conversation Poems and Biographia Literaria

“The secondary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate: or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead.”