Coleridge's Concept of Poetry

  COLERIDGE’S CONCEPT OF POETRY Two important and remarkable tendencies of English poetry have been Classicism and Romanticism. Both the tendencies stand different rather opposite to each other. Wordsworth and Coleridge belong to Romantic age which is marked with the dominance of passions, emotions and feelings. Both the writers, as poets, share the salient features of their age but they, as critics, go contrary to each other in their views on the concept of poetry. Prior to discuss Coleridge’s concept of poetry, let’s take a look at how Wordsworth defines poetry;   “The spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings recollected in tranquility.”  (Preface, 126)   Coleridge gives a very sane and convincing opinion that poetry must be a combination of passions and thoughts. Neither it should be an embodiment of mere sensuous feelings nor should it be an emblem of only profound and philosophical thoughts. He defines poetry as;   “The excitement of emotions for the purpose of im