LC 2 Assignment 1

JINNAH UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN
Student name: Maryam Khan

Enrollment no: 2018/BS/ENGLISH/23033
Department: English
Semester: 6th
Class: BS (fall)
Year: 3rd
Course title: Literary Criticism ll
Course code: Eng-3162
Course incharge: Ma’am Salma Niazi
Submitted to: Ma’am Salma Niazi
Date: 31-05-2021
Assignment no: 1
Q. Elaborate the concept of fancy and imagination presented by Coleridge.
Introduction:
The above concept of fancy and imagination is given by a romantic age writer St Coleridge in
his work biographia literaria.
Author’s introduction:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet who was best known of his day as a literary
critic and philosopher. He was immensely influential in English literature as one of the
founders of the English Romantic Movement, and when it comes to "The Romantic Poets" it
is Coleridges. As a young man, Coleridge met another young poet, William Wordsworth, and
his sister Dorothy. This meeting resulted in a poetic association that would change the face of
English poetry. They worked on a project, a book of poetry called Lyrical Ballads, to which
everyone contributed poetry. It was a conscious attempt to move away from the civil poems
of the time and to write poems in simple everyday language. The collection had a dramatic
impact on the future of English poetry. Two of Coleridge's poems, The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner and Kubla Khan, are possibly the two most famous poems in the English language.
Anyone who has studied English poetry will have found it. Although not as well known,
some of his other poems are equally good. Coleridge was not just a poet, he was an academic
and intellectual, and wrote on various philosophical subjects. His most famous prose work is
Biographia Literaria, a literary autobiography that is still used as a textbook for literary
criticism and analysis in universities. most of his adult life due to depression. He became
addicted to opium and died in Highgate at the age of fifty-two.
Biographia literaria:
The literaria biographia of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in 1817, is autobiographical
in nature and analyzes Coleridge's sense of the stages a poet goes through during his life,
albeit not in chronological order. Preference for compound words as asign of maturity. He
points out that even famous writers like Milton and Shakespeare moved away from such
articulations as they developed. Coleridge notes that even in his early days as a poet he turned
to strict phrasing, saying that the simplicity of expression in his earlier works was inspired by
Greek poets and that, although he wasnot mature enough, he was able to use the abstract and
metaphysicians whom he had chosen to fully understand about his judgment in choosing the
right subject he prides itself on. The Biographia Literariawas the mostimportant literary
critical work of English Romanticism, whichunited philosophy andliterary criticismin a new

way and hada lasting influence. The full name of the book is "Biographical Sketches of My
Literary Life and My Opinions".
Concept of fancy and imagination:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is one of the greatest literary critics in the history of English
literature. His greatness as a poet and critic is almost universally recognized. At the beginning
of his "Biographia and Literaria" he gives us an idea of fancy and imagination. Imagination
has two forms, primary and secondary: Primary imagination is simply the power of receiving
impressions from the outside world through the senses; It is the power to perceive the objects
of the senses both in their parts and as a whole; it is an involuntary act. The human mind
unconsciously and involuntarily receives impressions and sensations from the outside world,
imposes a kind of order on these impressions, reduces them to shape and size, so that mine
can generate a clear picture of the outside world.In this way, a clear and coherent perception
is made possible, the primary imagination is universal, it is possessed by everyone, on the
other hand, the secondary imagination can also be possessed by others, but it is the peculiar
and characteristic feature of artists. It is the secondary imagination that makes creation
possible; the secondary imagination is more active and conscious in its activity; it requires an
effort of will, will, and conscious effort; it works with what the primary imagination
perceives; Its raw material is the sensations and impressions delivered by the primary
imagination.Through the exertion of the will and the intellect, the secondary imagination
selects and orders the raw material, reconfigures it, and models it into objects of beauty. It is
an active ingredient that dissolves, diffuses and scatters to create. This secondary imagination
stands on the roof of all poetic activities, it is this force that harmonizes and reconciles
opposites, which is why Coleridge calls it a magical synthetic force. This unifying power of
the imagination is best shown by the fact that it synthesizes or fuses opposites. different
abilities of the soul, perception, intellect, will and emotion; This also connects the inner with
the outer nature and the spiritual with the physical or material; It is through the play of this
unifying force that nature is colored by the poet's soul. The poet's soul is permeated by
nature.The identity that the poet discovers in man and in nature results from the synthesizing
activity of the secondary imagination. The primary and secondary ideas do not differ from
one another in their nature. The difference between them is degree. Fantasy has no other
drawbacks to playing. but firm and firm; In reality, it is not a type of memory that is
emancipated from the order of time and space; but like ordinary memory, it must receive all
of its materials, which come from the law of associations. These are two kinds of activities:
Imagination is not a creative force at all, it just combines what it perceives in a beautiful
way.But like the imagination, it does not fuse and unite. The difference between the two is
the same as the difference between a mechanical mixture and a chemical bond. Several
ingredients are combined in a mechanical mixture. They mix but do not lose their individual
characteristics. They still exist as separate identities. On the other hand, the different
ingredients together form something new in a chemical compound. The different ingredients
no longer exist as separate identities. They lose their respective properties and merge. to
create something new and completely different. A connection is an act of creation, but a
mixture is simply a combination of a number of separate elements.In this way, the
imagination creates new parts and origins of beauty by bringing together and uniting the
various impressions it receives from the outside world. Imagination is not creative, it is a kind
of memory, it randomly collects images, even when they are put together, it manages to keep
them separate and individual characteristics. You will not get any coloring or change of mind.
It's just a mechanical coexistence and not a chemical fusion. Coleridge makes the point by
quoting two passages from Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis". The purpose of this poem is
to illustrate the imagination.In these lines, the images are extracted from memory, but they do
not interpenetrate. The following lines from the same poem "Venus and Adonis" illustrate the
power and function of the imagination: "Look! Coleridge says that many images and feelings
are collected here effortlessly and without discord. The beauty of Adonis, the quickness of
sight, the longing but the helplessness of the in love spectator and a gloomy ideal character.
Conclusion:
To conclude, according to coleridge, imagination os the faculty associated with creativity and
the power to shape and unify. And fancy is a common possession of man, is not creative. It’s
a mechanical process which receives the elementary images which come to it ready made and
without altering these, fancy reassembles them into a different order from that in which it was
received.

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JINNAH UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN

Student name: Maryam Khan

critical work of English Romanticism, whichunited philosophy andliterary criticismin a new

Concept of fancy and imagination:

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