“there was a split,” quoth he: equality and unity in biographia literaria

7/28/2019 There Was a Split, Quoth He: Equality and Unity in Biographia Literaria

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There Was a Split, Quoth He: Equality and Unity inBiographia Literaria

Either explicitly or implicitly, both Coleridge and Wordsworths prose attempts at

outlining their standards for good literature often reveal just as much about their standards for

good government. Reading Wordsworths and Coleridges seminal works of literary criticism,

the preface to the second edition ofLyrical Ballads andBiographia Literaria respectively, as

discourses on the politics of the time has helped fashion an image of Coleridge as a conservative

thinker, as he uses several of the latter chapters of theBiographia to distance himself from

Wordsworths stated purpose of using humble and rustic life as a subject to speak a plainer

and more emphatic language (Lyrical Ballads, 48). This apparent backpedaling from

Coleridges earlier support forWordsworths project of extending literature to lower classes has

allowed critics like Michael Tomko to question the Biographias literary philosophy as a

reactionary attempt to relieve Coleridges anxiety over his own past and politics (Politics,

Performance, and Coleridge's "Suspension of Disbelief," 1). However, this approach ignores

Coleridges concern inBiographia Literaria about Wordsworths estimation of the language of

real life, which points out the divisive wedge that Wordsworth drives between the feelings of

the rural class specifically and the feelings of human nature in general (Biographia Literaria

338). Building on Coleridges history of using literature to promote unity among social classes, I

intend to support a more egalitarian reading of Coleridges approach to literature. Specifically, I

will argue that Coleridges split with Wordsworth represents his radical view of the inherent

worth of every social class in finding the basis of truth in literature and philosophy.

In order to understand Coleridges split from Wordsworth, we must understand the ways

in which the preface toLyrical Ballads presents a political ideology through its discussion of

Wordsworths purpose in the collection of poetry. Indeed, Wordsworth makes this connection


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between the goals of literature and the goals of politics early in the preface. Wordsworth explains

that hispreface is not a systematic defense of his literary theory because such a task would

require pointing out, in what manner language and the human mind act and re-act on each

other and retracing the revolutions, not of literature alone, but likewise ofsociety itself (47).

Such a task, he claims, would take a length of paper unsuited to a preface, but even in this

dismissal of justifying his purpose, the proximity of literary taste to revolution reveals

Wordsworths belief that language and the human mind are inextricably linked to the

formation of society itself. And this is not, according to Wordsworth, a simple relationship

between literature and society: because they act and react on each other, the form of each is

always dependent on the other. Here Wordsworth gives consequence to his literary theory, which

he goes on to explicate, by saying that it is necessarily the same as his theory of the way society

ought to look.

By looking at the preface as Wordsworthspolitical tract, we gain a new understanding of

his assessment of the role of lower, rural classes in poetry and of the grounds on which Coleridge

might oppose this assessment. Considering that Wordsworth views the structure of literature as

vitally affecting the structure of society, his literary proposal is telling of his political ideals.

Wordsworth explains that the principal object of his collection is to uselanguage really used

by men and that he favors low and rustic life as a subject becausein that condition, the

essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity and,

consequently, may be more accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated (48).

Not only does Wordsworth bring the lower classes to the foreground of his literary experiment,

he also implies that due to their station in society, they are a superior literary subject to any other

classification of person. Additionally, by referring to their language as the kind really used by


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men, Wordsworth includes this class as an exemplary part of society as a whole. In doing this,

Wordsworth extends political importance to the lower classes by extending them literary

importance. This attempt at a more democratic society through poetry focused on a

disenfranchised class exemplifies Wordsworths earlier connection between politics and

literature, and it reveals his radical stance towards the rigidly class-based politics of his time.

Because this passage so neatly confesses Wordsworths radical views, Coleridges

opposition to the same passage in chapter XVII ofBiographia Literaria tends to paint him in a

conservative light. In fact his disapproval of the wide diffusion of literary criticism seems to be

an exact opposite to Wordsworths inclusive approach to poetry. Coleridge explains that when

Wordsworths theory is adopted by the public,it is possible, that with [Wordsworths]

principles others may have been blended, which are not equally evident; and others which are

unsteady or subvertible from the narrowness or imperfection of their basis (334). In this

criticism, Coleridge does not attack Wordsworths theory itself, but his focus is on the negative

effect on literary theory as a whole that he believes results from including the public in the

academic reading of literature. If we take Coleridges literary concerns to be reflective of

political concerns, as they are in Wordsworth, then this objection can be read as a conservative

Coleridge warning against the masses and their ability to dilute a school of thought that is better

inhabited by a more exclusive class of thinker.

Indeed, Michael Tomko takes on this conservative reading of Coleridge and uses it to

suggest that any practical application of Coleridges literary theory inBiographia Literaria is

stunted by this clear political agenda. By way of example, Tomko points to the play Bertram,

which Coleridge reviewed upon its release and comments on in chapter XXIII. Tomko argues

that Coleridges comments, despite attempting to establish an objective literary approach to


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theatre, are thinly veiled political attacks on a Jacobin-minded play. Tomko adds that as a result

of this breakdown of objective criticism, theBiographia [is] a fissured work, split between

the radical Coleridge of 1798 and the fretful conservative of 1816 (9). Tomkos outline of the

political commentary that seeps into theBiographiaplaces Coleridge somewhere between two

radically divided political ideologies. This structure creates a frame through which we can see

Coleridges desire to distance himself from Wordsworth: Coleridge, according to Tomkos view,

is maintaining a strict division between those who should be included in literary thought and

those who should not because this division is the same one that separates those who should and

should not be involved in politics.

However, this estimation of Coleridge as defending the conservative side of an argument

against the inclusion of the masses in politics or literature starts to dissolve if we look at

Coleridges discussion of what he sees as a surplus of literary critics. It is difficult to read

Coleridges lament over the multitude of books and the general diffusion of literature as

anything but an attempt to maintain the literary scene for the upper classes (176). But as he

further identifies these enemies of literature, the class distinction becomes less salient. Coleridge

says of the growing number of literary voices that all men being supposed able to read, and all

readers able to judge, the multitudinous public sits nominal despot on the throne of criticism

(188). Ostensibly this is a comment that more readers and writers means poorer literature, and

the unflattering description of the tyrannical public implies a preference for an elite class that

would more properly inhabit the role of critic. However, the heart of the criticism in this passage

is not in the social class of the multitudes; instead, Coleridge primarily concerns himself with the

way in which these critics read and judge literature. Certainly Coleridges assessment of the


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literary stage is exclusive to those that fit a certain description, but that description isnt

necessarily one of wealth, education or even political party.

As the chapter continues, Coleridge becomes less and less interested in the social

standing of these literary critics, and he turns instead to the way they criticize literature as the

source of their damage to the school of thought. In fact, issues of class no longer resonate at all

in Coleridges assessment of the inconstant standard by which critics of his time ruin the study of

poetry. He laments the fact that if in a volume of poetry the critic should find poem or passage

that he deems more especially worthless, he is sure to select and reprint it in the review and that

the copies of a fashionable review are more numerous than those of the original book (189).

This criticism of reviews is still a concern with literary theory in the hands of the public, but it is

the reviewers tendency to focus on the negative aspects of a work and the ease of publication

that troubles Coleridge. This is the structure of widespread criticism that, according to Coleridge,

harms literature as an art: when reviewers have more power than poets in affecting the

perception of poetry, massive participation will always tend to be more destructive than helpful.

Additionally, the solution Coleridge offers for this oversaturated critical landscape has no

mention of excluding anyone that wishes to partake in criticism; instead he offers that

widespread criticism can exist when the reviewers support their decisions by reference to fixed

canons of criticism, previously established and deduced from the nature of man (190). Here

Coleridge creates a lens for viewing the problem of literary criticism in which the critics are

subject to a universal standard of literature itself. It is through this lens of concern, not with

which classes inhabit the role of critic, but with adherence to a purpose larger than any individual

critic or workthat we can understand Coleridges view of the publics role in literature and

politics.


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nature of poetry. This is where Coleridge finds a vital point on which to disagree with

Wordsworth. In his chapters examining the poems within theLyrical Ballads, Coleridge avers,

The thoughts, feelings, language, and manners of the shepherds-farmers in the vales of

Cumberland and Westmoreland may be accounted for the causes, which will and do produce

the same results in every state of life, whether in town or country (335). Rather than

appreciating the subject that Wordsworth has chosen, Coleridge insists that the merit in

Wordsworths poems is in a human truth that transcends the class status of their subjects. Here

we begin to see Coleridges concern with the way Wordsworth takes one class of people and

raises it above all others in literary importance.

The more we see Wordsworths treatment of his subject in the preface as the most

powerful influence on his poetry, the more we can understand Coleridges disagreement with

Wordsworths literary theory, which also encompasses Wordsworths political views. In one of

the prefaces passages that receives a great deal of criticism by Coleridge, Wordsworth further

outlines the effect that his choice of subject has on his poetic experiment: He claims the purpose

of the use of low, rustic classes is to throw over [the poems] a certain coloring of imagination,

whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and to make these

incidents and situations interesting by tracing in them the primary laws of our nature (48). In

the structure of Wordsworths literary formula, the subjectof the poems gives coloring to the

poems themselves. This relationship again suggests that Wordsworth views the role of his

subject, in this case the low-class people that Wordsworth sees as the most fit subject, as the

primary tool for creating a literary effect. The goal of this use of subject becomes larger,

however, as it leads to the discovery of the very laws of our nature. Since Wordsworth has

already granted that his literary and political theories are linked, it is not difficult to see a


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political purpose behind this structure: the low class, whom Wordsworth gives political power

through literary attention, determines our ability to reach a universal, eternal understanding of

human society.

In the literary theory Coleridge presents inBiographia Literaria, we see an almost exact

inversion of Wordsworths model of the overall structure being dependent on the subject in a

literary work. In chapter XV of theBiographia, Coleridge offers an analysis of Shakespeares

Venus and Adonis in which Coleridge implies divergence with Wordsworth: Coleridge praises

Shakespeares power of reducing multitude into unity of effect. Additionally, Shakespeare

spurs Coleridge to take up the issue of subjects in literature when Coleridge adds, I have found,

that where the subject is taken immediately from the authors personal sensations the

excellence of a particular poem is but an equivocal mark, and often a fallacious pledge, of

genuine poetic power (321). In both of these principles, the component parts that make up the

literary work are contingent on the effect of that work. In other words, the subject, images and

any other literary device must work together to produce the overall effect, which is the driving

force behind the entire piece. Particularly, the latter principle seems to contradict Wordsworth, as

the subject of literature, according to Coleridge, can actually diminish a literary works value if it

is given too much power over the work.

It is in this aspect of Coleridges literary theory, that the component parts of a thing must

be subject to its overall purpose, that we begin to see the foundation of his political theory. Even

in works outside ofBiographia Literaria, Coleridge proposes a theory of societal unity that

mirrors his theory of literary unity and explains the necessity of his ideological split from

Wordsworth. As Daniel Fried points out when analyzing Coleridges sermons on the value of a

state-run church, Coleridge saw religion as the great mediator, not only of letter and spirit but


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also of social classes. In the Constitution of Church and State, Coleridge lists the national

church's two prime functions as offering the hope of social advancement to lower classes and

integrating those classes into the life of the nation through its civilizing mission (The Politics of

the Coleridgean Symbol, 11). Coleridges emphasis on the unity of the component parts

contributing to the whole is as clear here as it is in his analysis of Shakespeare: far from viewing

the lower classes as a destructive force in society, Coleridge sees the necessity for protecting

them and integrating them into the overall function of civilization. Coleridges interest here for

fitting the lower classes into a certain role within society reveals his belief that each social class

has a particular and equally vital part to play within a nation.

Given this understanding of Coleridge as valuing the social classes equally, we gain a

fuller understanding of why he takes such pains to break from Wordsworth in theBiographia

Literaria. Where Wordsworth places the lower classes at the very top of literary importance by

insisting that they provide a better soil for the essential passions of the heart to be more

accurately contemplated, and more forcibly communicated than in any other class, Coleridge

claims that in poetry, apparent individualities of rank, character, or occupation must be

representative of a class; and that the persons of poetry must be clothed with generic attributes,

with the common attributes of the class; not with such as one gifted individual might possibly

possess, but such as from his situation it is most probable beforehand, that he would possess

(337). Just like in his sermon, Coleridge does not believe in the merits of one class as being

superior to another; instead, he insists that any character of one class in a poem must be

representative of the entire class. By straying away from praising any one class over another,

Coleridge implicitly points out an inequality in Wordsworths theory. Even if Wordsworths goal

in theLyrical Ballads appears beneficial because it extends political power to a disenfranchised


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class, Coleridge, through his emphasis on finding a role for each class in the workings of society,

suggests that Wordsworths focus on a single component of a complex society rather than the

function of the whole is disruptive.

We begin to see how heavily this concept of focusing on the whole is built into the

Biographia as echoes of this argument appear in Coleridges discourse on philosophy. In

tracking Coleridges place in the larger context of philosophical thought in the nineteenth

century, Ayon Roy explains Coleridges fascination with the need for a strong foundation to any

philosophy. Thus, Roy rationalizes Coleridges dislike of materialism: What Coleridge

attacksis materialism's reliance on a ground (namely, matter) that is merely given rather than

rigorously understood (The Specter of Hegel in Coleridge'sBiographia Literaria, 16). We can

see here, in Coleridges dislike of philosophy that does not adhere to a strictly understood

foundation, the same kind of disagreement that he has with Wordsworth, and this allows us to

understand that disagreement on a deeper level. Much like Coleridges dislike with poetry that is

manipulated by changes in secondary aspects like subject and imagery, Coleridge seems to

divorce himself from philosophy that does not submit itself to a universal standard for

understanding.

Coleridge airs a similar condemnation of Hartleys philosophy of association that helps to

build a consistency between Coleridges position on philosophy and his arguments on literature.

Coleridges polemic against Hartley spans several chapters, but the argument comes to a head

when Coleridge states that Hartleys belief in associations between small concepts coming

together to make up all knowledge in the universe excludes the existence of God. Coleridge

writes that because, in Hartleys system, reality is based on the senses and the sensations again

[derive] all their reality from the impressions ab extra [from the outside]; a God not visible,


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audible or tangible, can exist only in the sound and letters that form his name and attributes

(Biographia Literaria,220). The structure of Coleridges argument here mirrors the arguments

that he makes for his literary and political theory: he sees the universal standard, in this case

God, as the only solution to bringing unity to the function of art and society. Coleridges

disagreement with Hartley then can stand as an explanation of Coleridges political stance:

Coleridge denounces the disorder that must result from allowing the transitory, uncontrollable

fragments of an overall effect, such as the senses are to an overall experience, to control the

direction of that overall effect.

Coleridges philosophybuilds Coleridges literary argument by adding context to the

problems he addresses with Wordsworth. We can now look at Coleridges concern with the

general diffusion of Wordsworths theory with a more holistic view of Coleridges reservations.

Again, Coleridge asserts of Wordsworth that it is possible, that with [Wordsworths] principles

others may have been blended, which are not equally evident; and others which are unsteady or

subvertible from the narrowness or imperfection of their basis (334). This concern with many

different versions of Wordsworths theory combining to make a wholly new and imperfect

theory is certainly similar to Coleridges polemic against Hartley. In fact, the blending of

subvertible and imperfect theories seems to present the same problem as the senses serving

as the primary receptors through which all knowledge is obtained, namely that when a theory or

experience is built solely on inconstant, incongruous bits of information, the end result cannot

become as universally applicable as a theory of literature, politics or philosophy must be.

Additionally, we can see Coleridges split from Wordsworth as not a purely political reaction, for

even in this disagreement with Wordsworth, Coleridge does not descry the idea of using a lower

class as a literary subject. Instead, Coleridges disagreement is consistent with an all-


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encompassing belief, established throughout theBiographia Literaria in establishing a

thoroughly understood and objective foundation as the chief goal of any literary, philosophical

or political project.

For the purpose of this paper, it will be enough to have offered that Coleridge cannot be

dismissed as a stereotypically conservative, classist thinker. Indeed, such a view of Coleridge

would undermine the validity ofBiograohia Literaria, as Michael Tomko has suggested.

However, the reason that a conservative understainding of Coleridge would undermine his

literary theory in theBiographia is not simply because it would color his literary tracts with

unnecessary political commentary. Instead, it is necessary to dispel such an understanding of

Coleridge because the idea of value one class, despite whether it is low or high on the social

spectrum, over another is inconsistent with every avenue of thought that Coleridge builds in the

biography of his literary life. Indeed, his theory of philosophy, literature, politics, and even

education are dependent on this concept that all the parts of a thing must be subject to the whole.

Furthermore, the very structure of his argument defies the idea that he would believe in one

component part of a civilization being inherently more useful or important than another;

throughout the meandering chapters of poetry, letters and philosophy, Coleridge uses each of his

argument as equal components in making this overall statement of the need for an objective

foundation to understanding any theory.

Works Cited

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, and H. J. Jackson. "Biographia Literaria." Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

The Major Works. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. 155-482. Print.


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Fried, Daniel. "The Politics of the Coleridgean Symbol." Studies in English Literature 46.4

(2006): 763-80.MLA International Bibliography. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.

Jackson, Noel B. "Critical Conditions: Coleridge, "common Sense," and the Literature of Self-

experiment."ELH. Baltimore 70.1 (2003): 117-50.Literature Online. Web. 22 Nov.

2012.

Roy, Ayon. "The Specter of Hegel in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria."Journal of the History of

Ideas 68.2 (2007): 279-305.Literature Online. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.

Tomko, Michael. "Politics, Performance, and Coleridge's "Suspension of Disbelief"" Victorian

Studies 49.2 (2007): 241-50.Literature Online. Web. 19 Nov. 2012.

"University of Pennsylvania | Department of English." Preface.Preface to Lyrical Ballads. 2nd

ed. Vol. 1. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. University of Pennsylvania | Department of English.

Web. 15 Nov. 2012.

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“there was a split,” quoth he: equality and unity in biographia literaria

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