Organic Aesthetics In Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism

British Romantic poet and literary critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) left a considerable amount of Shakespearean criticism. It has a high status both in the history of western poetics and history of Shakespearean criticism. British Shakespearean critics before Coleridge, such as Jonson, Dryden, Pope, and Johnson, followed the neoclassical doctrine. They could not deny Shakespeare's talent, but did not recognize the artistic value of his work. They were stuck in the dilemma of neoclassical mechanic aesthetics. Under the guidance of a new organic aesthetics, Coleridge started a new era of Shakespearean criticism.The prominent feature of Coleridge's Shakespearean criticism is the perspective of organic unity for literature. It is this theory that terminated the neo-classical Shakespearean criticism, and turned the direction for criticism, so rendered a huge influence in both western history of Shakespearean criticism and poetics. This dissertation probed into the basic meaning of organic unity, and penetrated into the main contents of Coleridge's criticism to trace the clues of organic unity, which is the foundation stone for the success of his Shakespearean criticism. It also combined the development of Coleridge's poetics and the history of Shakespearean criticism to examine the growing soil and life of this new theory, and aimed at the meeting of theoretical and historical horizon.Coleridge's Shakespearean criticism can be divided into four parts, namely, the dramatic language, form, morality, and dramatis personae. In the discussion of dramatic language, Coleridge offered living language to combat with Lock's theory of arbitrariness in language representation. Words were not only signified objects, but the same with objects. Words had their own life and evolution. Language carried the author's feeling and thought. Coleridge developed a theory of symbol to oppose Lock's image language. A symbol was translucent, it revealed the truth for poets only, and it realized a unity of words and things, universal and particular, subjects and objects, etc. By desynonymy, Coleridge redefined traditional poetic terms, and endowed them with meanings of organic aesthetics. He held that poetry should follow the logic of passion, not the logic of grammar. The conceits and puns in Shakespeare's drama were the proper expression of feelings.Coleridge's argument about the organic form of Shakespeare's dramas was coherent. He first defined poetry as a reconciliation of parts and whole and defined Shakespeare's dramas as dramatic romance. The"son of nature"was a clumsy praise for Shakespeare, for his works were imitation but not copy. Imitation calls for differences, and it could get the essence of things and produce pleasure. Shakespeare's dramas were masterpieces of imagination, which had an esemplastic power for the reconciliation of opposites. The three unities were not suitable for Shakespeare, who put a unity of interest in his works. The theory of imitation and imagination that Coleridge developed from his criticism reconciled man and nature, subject and object, and made a great contribution for western poetics.Coleridge said that Shakespeare's artistic judgment was equally important to his talent. Talent was not only nature's endowment, but a combination of consciousness and unconsciousness. The germs in Shakespeare's works proved his lofty artistic judgment. From a didactic tradition, the neoclassical critics thought that Shakespeare had no sense of morality. Coleridge argued that Shakespeare might be coarse, might violate the decorum, but never be immoral. In his dramas we could find a balance of moral forces, the purity of love, and the nobility of women, these could not be evaluated by a mechanic moral standard of retribution.Coleridge was probably the first one to use psychoanalysis in criticism. He said that Shakespeare's dramatis personae were the products of meditation, not merely products of observation. They had an organically formed personality and balanced elements of disposition. The nature of Hamlet's procrastination was his rich inward activity that prohibited outward action. This was the first integral interpretation for Hamlet. Coleridge said that Shakespeare's characters were"a class individualized"; this reconciled the neoclassical type theory and romantic individual theory. His"willing suspension of disbelief"in the theory of dramatic illusion reconciled neoclassical theory of delusion and Johnsonian theory of sober-mindedness.In a time of Johnson's Shakespearean criticism overwhelmed, Coleridge was urged to defend for Shakespeare and rebuild his fame. Benefited from the view of organic unity, he successfully terminated the neoclassical era in the history of Shakespearean criticism. His organic unity went beyond the organic analogy, and reached a height of thinking modes. Though some defects, his theory had its own life, established a special horizon for interpreting Shakespeare, and solved many long obsessed problems. Organic unity gave Coleridge's Shakespearean criticism the unprecedented breadth and depth, and made it a milestone in the history of Shakespearean criticism. Organic unity could become an influential poetic theory, was Coleridge's contribution to western poetics.