Coleridge and Emerson
A Complex Affinity
by Sanja Sostaric
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(free download) Synopsis
This work elaborates R. W. Emerson s modification of S. T. Coleridge s central
philosophical-aesthetic notions, such as imagination, reason, genius and symbol.
Although Kant s and Schelling s idealistic philosophy, various pantheistic
theories and Neoplatonism are identified as Coleridge s and Emerson s congenial
intellectual and spiritual background, the author draws yet more attention
to subtle differences between the English Romantic Coleridge and the American
transcendentalist Emerson, which allow us to recognize that we deal with two
distinct philosophical and poetic theories. The first part concentrates on
Coleridge s intellectual development from the eager empiricist disciple to
a philosopher dedicated to the impossible enterprise of formulating the unified
theory of life, which would incorporate Kant s transcendental philosophy, pantheism
and Christianity. Coleridge s letters, diary entries and notebook citations
reveal a thinker unwilling to sacrifice neither the fervor of his Christian
belief nor the poetic potential of pantheistic doctrines to the cool intellectuality
of any single philosophic system. The outcome of Coleridge s synthesizing effort
was thus the Romantic aesthetics which was not a substitute for religion, but
religion artistically redefined. Within this context, particular attention
has been given to Coleridge s radical adjustment of Kant s differentiation
between reason and understanding on the one hand, and of the neoclassicist
differentiation between imagination and fancy on the other hand, to his own
needs. Coleridge s tendency to use Christian arguments as the cohesive force
that would secure the unity of his theory made Coleridge over-emphasize the
spiritual dimension at the cost of the intellectual and thus fascilitate a
significant shift in thinking, which was responsible for the creative misinterpretation
of his theories by the next generation of thinkers in the United States. As
it is shown, James Marsh's publication of Coleridge's Aids to Reflection!,
in which Coleridge elaborates his concept of the spiritual religion and of
the notion of reason which approximates the inner light theories
and nearly erases the Christian balance between the Creator and the Creation,
plays an exceptionally important role in this process.
In the second part, the author delineates Emerson's transformation from the Unitarian
to the transcendentalist and explores in detail to what extent Emerson's formulation
of his transcendentalist philosophy derived from his inclination to read Coleridge
as a mystic, that is, to regard Coleridge's Christian bias as a whim which does
not essentially affect the core of Coleridge's theory. It is shown that Emerson,
neglecting flatly Coleridge's careful distinctions aimed at preserving the balance
between dualism and monism, resolves Coleridge's theoretical ambiguity by exclusively
concentrating on the part of Coleridge's system which favors the irrational and
the unconscious dimension. As a consequence, Emerson's philosophy and aesthetics,
with their emphasis on reason and imagination understood as inspiration, that
is, the inflow of the divine into the mind of the artist, represent a radicalized
version of Coleridge's neatly supressed monistic tendencies. In Emerson's interpretation,
Coleridgean imagination becomes equated with Plotinian soul, that is, Coleridgean
reason becomes a synonym for the utter mystical depersonalization. Finally, the
delicate and easily overlooked Emersonian shifts with regard to Coleridge's theory
point at the significance of Emerson's theoretical solutions in the transition
from romanticim to modernism, a transition to which, ironically enough, Coleridge
himself unintentionally and indirectly gave valuable contribution.