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Home CCSU Theses & Dissertations Samuel Taylor Coleridge : the reconciliation of imagination and faith / Beth Anne Cooke

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge : the reconciliation of imagination and faith / Beth Anne Cooke

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Identifier	Thesis 1521
Author	Cooke, Beth Anne
Title	Samuel Taylor Coleridge : the reconciliation of imagination and faith / Beth Anne Cooke
Publisher	Central Connecticut State University
Date	1999
Resource Type	Master's Thesis
Notes	This thesis proposes the Samuel Coleridge's poetry attempts to forge an interdependent relationship between imagination and faith. In the Biographia Literaria Coleridge suggests that the imagination is an entity separate from man and similar to the divine, defining the primary imagination as "the living power and prime agent of all human perception..a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM" (313). Later in the Biographia, Coleridge maintains that the desire for Christian faith is "the true foundation of [man's] spiritual edifice"(480). These definitions create a difficult and contradictory relationship between imagination and faith: the foundation of man's spirituality is his desire for faith, yet he has no access to that faith except through the imagination which shapes his perception of all things. Through an examination of four Coleridge poems, we see that Coleridge attempts to forge an interdependent relationship between the opposing notions of imagination and faith by incorporating allegory into his poetry. Within this allegory, Coleridge creates a pattern or formula in which man falls away from faith and embraces the non-absolute, an entity that is not God. This non-absolute is most often the imagination itself. Chaos ensues when man makes a commitment to the imagination rather than to faith or the divine. If man is to deliver himself from this post-fall chaos, he must redirect his imagination so that it serves to illuminate faith. Ultimately, however, Coleridge's allegory serves not to illuminate the relationship between the imagination and faith, but to confuse it further. The thesis compares Coleridge's use of allegory with Edmund Spenser's allegory in The Faerie Queene in which he defines clearly the relationship between Christianity and art, or imagination, by maintaining a Christian hierarchy in which art is subordinate to Christian doctrine. Coleridge disrupts this hierarchy by attributing equal value to Christianity and imagination. He eventually debunks his own attempt at synthesis by creating an imagination that is so powerful that it often slips out of his control. In "The Eolian Harp" "Lime Tree Bower My Prison" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" Coleridge attempts to adhere to this pattern of fall and reconnection with faith through imagination. The successful completion of the formula synthesizes imagination and faith, but this study concludes that each of Coleridge's attempts ultimately fails. Coleridge's overwhelming fascination with and love for the power of the imagination precludes him from completing the pattern successfully. Finally, in "Christabel" Coleridge concedes that the pattern cannot succeed because the imagination is more powerful than the desire for faith.
Subject	Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 -- Criticism and interpretation
Department	Department of English
Advisor	Nunn, Mary Anne
Type	Text
Digital Format	application/pdf
Language	eng
OCLC number	42412024
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Samuel Taylor Coleridge : the reconciliation of imagination and faith / Beth Anne Cooke

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