The Active Universe Pantheism and the Concept of Imagination in the English Romantic Poets

by Piper, H. W.

• ISBN13: 9781472514714
• ISBN10: 1472514718
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-05-08
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

This book is a study of ‘Romantic Pantheism' and its part in the development of the Romantic theory of the Imagination. The crucial point in the history of English Romanticism came when the philosophical concept of the ‘active universe' met the developing theory of the Imagination. In its leading sense, Imagination meant full response to, and implication with, the living qualities of natural objects. That is why it was able to assimilate and transform contemporary theories of merely passing interest into an important poetic approach to the universe.

Author Biography

Table of Contents

1 Introduction
2 Coleridge: the Unitarian Poet 1794-6
3 Wordsworth and the Religion of Nature 1794-6
4 Nature and Imagination in The Ancient Mariner
5 Nature and Imagination in The Ruined Cottage
6 Imagination and Fancy
7 The Influence of The Excursion: Spirit and Form
8 The Influence of The Excursion: The ‘Stream of Tendency’
Epilogue: The Imagination from a Non-Romantic Viewpoint
Appendix A: Coleridge’s views on Evolution in 1795
Appendix B: Hyperion and The Excursion
Bibliography
Index