Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia LiterariaColeridge, Samuel Taylor
General
Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 -- Correspondence
When the whole and the parts are seen at once, as mutually producing
and explaining each other, as unity in multiety, there results
shapeliness--_forma formosa_. Where the perfection of _form_ is combined
with pleasurableness in the sensations, excited by the matters or
substances so formed, there results the Beautiful.
_Corollary._--Hence colour is eminently subservient to beauty, because
it is susceptible of forms, _i.e._ outline, and yet is a sensation. But
a rich mass of scarlet clouds, seen without any attention to the _form_
of the mass or of the parts, may be a _delightful_ but not a beautiful
object or colour.
When there is a deficiency of unity in the line forming the whole (as
angularity, for instance), and of number in the plurality or the parts,
there arises the Formal.
When the parts are numerous, and impressive, and predominate, so as to
prevent or greatly lessen the attention to the whole, there results the
Grand.
Where the impression of the whole, _i.e._ the sense of unity
predominates, so as to abstract the mind from the parts--the Majestic.
Where the parts by their harmony produce an effect of a whole, but there
is no seen form of a whole producing or explaining the parts, _i.e._
when the parts only are seen and distinguished, but the whole is
felt--the Picturesque.
Where neither whole nor parts, but unity, as boundless or endless
_allness_--the Sublime.
* * * * *
It often amuses me to hear men impute all their misfortunes to fate,
luck, or destiny, whilst their successes or good fortune they ascribe to
their own sagacity, cleverness, or penetration. It never occurs to such
minds that light and darkness are one and the same, emanating from, and
being part of, the same nature.
* * * * *
The word Nature, from its extreme familiarity, and in some instances,
fitness, as well as from the want of a term, or _other_ name for God,
has caused very much confusion in the thoughts and language of men.
Hence a Nature-God, or God-Nature, not God in Nature; just as others,
with as little reason, have constructed a natural and sole religion.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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