6.

The mechanism of the imagination in Coleridge’s writing

Concerning the creative process, there appears to be a connection between
Aristotle's Poetics and Poe and Coleridge. Aristotle seems to believe that
creating art comes by "remixing" artistic elements and devices already in
existence. Coleridge picked up on this and influenced Poe.

For Coleridge (and the Romantics), imagination was essential to the creative
process. He divided imagination into three categories: Primary, Secondary, and
Fancy. This is what he says about the first two: "The primary imagination I hold
to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a
repetition in the finite of the eternal act of creation of the infinite I AM. The
secondary I consider as an echo of the former, coexisting with the conscious
will, yet still identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing
only in degree, and in the mode of its operation." So, what do these three
categories mean? It seems to me that the first, Primary Imagination, is almost
like an out-of-body experience. It is pure imagination; it is spiritual and divine.
Primary Imagination creates pure, new ideas. Coleridge's Secondary
Imagination is that which is filtered by our conscious, rational act of creating.
Hence, it is imperfect and impure. But of course it is entirely necessary and
essential, for there would be no way to capture the primary imagination's
creation without it. And this seems to correlate with Wordsworth's
"spontaneous overflow" that is captured only by being "recollected in
tranquility." Coleridge's third category, Fancy, is rather Aristotelian. Here
imagination creates by remixing already existing things in fresh, new ways--
especially juxtaposing opposite or contrary things. In his Biographia Literaria,
he says the imagination "reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of
opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of general, with
the concrete; the idea, with the image."

In conclusion, we see that all three are essential in the creative process.
Coleridge's Primary Imagination is akin to the organic, and his Secondary and
Fancy categories are akin to the mechanical.