"The New Poetic Power": The Imaginative Poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Abstract

Traditional interpretors of literature might perceive little justification for discussing the poetry of the English Romanticist Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who lived from 1772-1834, in conjunction with that of the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who lived from 1749-1832. While Coleridge is usually considered one of the most puzzling of all the Romantics, Goethe is generally regarded as a Classicist who wrote with remarkable clarity. Goethe's lengthy career, however, actually spanned a period of vast historical and corresponding aesthetic changes. Although he began composing for the Duke of Saxony under the existing patronage system, the disappearance of this system forced him to reevaluate his position as a poet. Coleridge began writing just as Goethe completed this transformation to a world in which he was no longer under the pressure of anyone but himself to compose; consequently, he could concentrate on establishing and developing this notion of an autonomous poet independent from society. These two authors of different cultures and generations, therefore, often address many of the same concerns about the poetic process as well as about poetry itself. The similarities which arise from their attempts to redefine poetry perhaps can disclose some of the most important traits of the Romantic mind and the creative process which it achieves. [From Introduction]