The imitation of life in literature was for Aristotle, the
creative revelation of the ideal actively at work in human life. The
tragic hero failed because his composition was less than ideal; but he
could only be a tragic hero if the ideal was implicit in him and he
visibly approximated to it. It is this constant reference to the ideal
which makes of 'imitation' a truly creative principle and the one which,
properly understood, is the most permanently valid and pregnant of all;
it is also one which has been constantly misunderstood. Its importance
is, nevertheless, so central that adequate recognition of it might
conceivably be taken as the distinguishing mark of all fruitful
criticism.
To his sympathetic understanding of this principle Coleridge owed a
great debt. It is true that his efforts to refine upon it were not only
unsuccessful, but a trifle ludicrous; his effort to graft the vague
transcendentalism of Germany on to the rigour and clarity of Aristotle
was, from the outset, unfortunately conceived.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25