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Biographia Literaria, Or, Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions
Biographia Literaria Or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge Subtitle: And Two Lay Sermons: I. the Statesman's Manual, Ii. Blessed Are Ye That Sow Beside All Waters General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1894 Original Publisher: George Bell Subjects: Poetry Criticism Literary Criticism / Poetry Philosophy / Aesthetics Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Rel... more »igion / Sermons / Christian Religion / Christian Ministry / Preaching Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. Supposed irritability of men of genius -- Brought to the test of facts -- Causes Hud occasion of the charge -- Its injustice. 1HAVE often thought, that it would be neither uninstructive nor unamusing to analyze, and bring forward into distinct consciousness, that complex feeling, with which readers in general take part against the author, in favour of the critic; and the readiness with which they apply to all poets the old sarcasm of Horace upon the scribblers of his time: " Genns irritabile vatum." A debility and dimness of the imaginative power, and a consequent necessity of reliance on the immediate impressions of the senses, do, we well know, render the mind liable to superstition and fanaticism. Having a deficient portion of internal and proper warmth, minds of this class seek in the crowd circum fana for a warmth in common, which they do not possess singly. Cold and phlegmatic in their own nature, like damp hay, they heat and inflame by co-acervation; or like bees they become restless and irritable through the increased temperature of collected multitudes. Hence the German word for fanaticism (such at least was its original import) is derived from the swarming of bees, namely, schwarmen, schwarmerey. The passion being in an inverse proportion to the insi...« less