|
Given at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, 141 Greene Street, New York, NY 10012 Part II. Thought
About a
Father
Sara Coleridge had a father who, as Eli Siegel once described Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "was a force for beauty in England." He wrote some of the greatest poetry in the English language, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Christabel," "Kubla Khan"; he dealt with some of the largest subjects in the world so importantly, philosophy, religion, and especially, poetry and the poetic imagination. And too, there was, as Mr. Siegel put it so exactly and kindly, his "wish to get away from the world through using laudanum, after seeing that it had alleviated his pain." Sara Coleridge felt deeply hurt, Mr. Siegel showed, because of her father's absence from home--he never formally separated from his wife, but travelled and lived with friends. "There was a constant feeling in Sara Coleridge," said Mr. Siegel, that she and her father had been unjustly separated and while she tried to understand it, she also was angry." No one has understood this important relation of a father and daughter as Eli Siegel did. Mr. Siegel explained what they felt to themselves: When
Samuel Taylor Coleridge gave attention it was real attention, it was
sincere, but he forgot he gave it...What I imagine is that he was so
concerned
with thoughts of his, that he wasn't too interested in his youngest
daughter. So we have a father deeply affecting
a daughter and getting away from her too easily...What's a daughter to
do with that? That she succumbed to anger and bad imagination
there I feel is true. But Mr.
Siegel said, From what I know of
Sara Coleridge's life, she had a great desire to make sense
of her father. It is one of the greatest
daughter-father hopes.
Thirteen
years after Samuel Taylor Coleridge's death, Sara Coleridge
wrote an
introduction and editorial notes for an 1847 edition of her father's
”Biographia Literaria.” In this historic
work are passages by Coleridge that, Mr. Siegel said, "are as near as
English literature had gotten to saying poetry was the oneness of
opposites." The power that is in
poetry and all art, Eli Siegel was the first person to explain, is the
power we
want in our lives all the time--the oneness of opposites. Of
this I am sure, that no one ever studied my Father's writings earnestly
and
so as to imbibe the author's spirit, who did not learn to care still
more for
Truth...
III.
Good Will Is
the
Oneness of Kindness and Criticism Good will is the one
purpose that makes our minds work well. "Good
will is the deepest instinct," Mr. Siegel
explained, "and
the highest point in intellect in a person." He
writes in TRO 71 "Good Will is
Waiting":
One definition of good will is the oneness of kindness and criticism in a person's mind. Sara Coleridge's introduction is a oneness of kindness and critical exactness. Coleridge has passages in the Biographia Literaria which are his translations from the German philosopher Schelling--but some are not quoted as such and appear as if they are part of his own thought. An article in Blackwood's magazine in 1840 charged him with defrauding Schelling of his due, and though the author admits he does not believe there was intentional plagiarism, he writes anyway as if Coleridge were, as Sara Coleridge describes it, an "artful purloiner and selfish plunderer". Sara Coleridge did the work to find and footnote the origin of these passages in the German; she was learned, and Mr. Siegel says "she was a sleuth." She is passionate and exact as she explains though there is criticism of her father as to how the uncredited passages came to be, Coleridge describes his debt to the work of Schelling in the Biographia Literaria, and in fact did a great deal to have Schelling valued truly. She quotes her
late husband,
Coleridge's literary executor, who said of Coleridge, "in thinking
passionately
of the principle, he forgot the authorship," and she says: “.…no
attempt
is here made to justify my Father's literary omissions and
inaccuracies....I
would only maintain that this fault has not been fairly reported or
becomingly commented
upon...” Sara
Coleridge is seeing something crucial in good will—that there were two
distinct things working in her father, and both need to be seen
exactly, not one
used to obliterate the other, which is ill will, and what most people
do. She continues, "Marked gifts are often
attended by marked deficiencies." She
is passionate about not letting people use the faults they find in
Coleridge to
lessen what was sincerely good and great. His
heart was as warm as his intellectual being was lifesome and
active,--nay
it was from warmth of heart and keenness of feeling that his
imagination
derived its glow and vivacity, the condition of the latter, at least,
was
intimately connected with that of the former.
"This will be the
keynote of criticism in the future," said Mr. Siegel, "kindness
and love will be seen more
valuably one with keenness and intellect."
© Aesthetic Realism Consultant Nancy Huntting. All rights reserved |