.. is _depth_ and _energy_ of
_thought_. No man was ever yet a great poet without being at the
same time a profound philosopher. For poetry is the blossom and the
fragrancy of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions,
emotions, language.'
In the context the most striking peculiarity of this enunciation of the
distinguishing marks of poetic power, apart from the conviction which it
brings, is that they are not in the least concerned with the actual
language of poetry. The whole subject of poetic diction is dropped when
Coleridge's critical, as opposed to his logical, faculty is at work;
and, although this Chapter XV is followed by many pages devoted to the
analysis and refutation of the Wordsworthian theory and to the
establishment of those principles of poetic diction to which we have
referred, when Coleridge comes once more to engage his pure critical
faculty, in the appreciation of Wordsworth's actual poetry in Chapter
XXII, we again find him ignoring his own principles precisely on those
occasions when we might have thought them applicable.
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