On Coleridge's Theory Of Imagination

As one of the Lakers, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the most influential Romantic poet and thinker in England. His poems and literary criticism theory enjoyed a great prestige in the history of Romantic poetry, and most importantly, his theory of imagination not only made a great contribution to the change from the theory of Aristotle 's mimesis to the Romantic expressionism in the history of western literary theory, but also played a key role in the development of the theory of imagination.This thesis aims at studying Coleridge's theory of imagination generally from the prospect of materialism by means of combining historical study with comparative study. On the basis of analyzing much historical material systematically, this thesis tries to introduce the main content of his theory of imagination by tracing back to the philosophic background. After analyzing Coleridge's poems thoroughly, this thesis intends to draw a conclusion for the characteristics of his theory of imagination and the importance to the modern literary criticism.This thesis is divided into three parts. The first part is an introduction, which gives a brief introduction to Coleridge's life and literary works, including the current study of Coleridge and his theory of imagination at home and abroad. The second part consists of four chapters. Chapter one deals with the social background and philosophic basis of Coleridge's theory of imagination at that time and discusses other important viewpoints about imagination of other writers in literary history, which will lay a foundation for Chapter two. Chapter two discusses the main viewpoints from Coleridge's theory of imagination, including the definition of poetry, the definition of imagination, the distinction between imagination and fancy and the role of imagination in creating poems, and then exploring the importance of his theory of imagination to Romantic poetics. Chapter Three is concerned with...