The True Nature of Poetry

After reading The Biographia Literaria and the notes I made from it last year about the definition of poetry, yesterday I composed a question and wrote the answer. I was inspired a little by question papers for English Literature Optional of the UPSC exam conducted in India.

Question: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's opinion about the true nature of poetry?

Answer: According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge poetry has or ought to have the ability to elicit the sympathy or feelings of approval of the reader by conscientiously adhering to the truths in nature. Poetry also should have the ability to introduce novelty into the situation by changing the colors of the imagination. Here Samuel Taylor Coleridge probably means that poetry helps us look at something in a new way.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge believed that a series of poems may be of two kinds. One kind of poetry had as its subject matter supernatural themes. In another kind of poetry subjects were to be picked from ordinary life. These are ordinary subjects but it needs a meditative eye or feeling eye to notice such subjects.

According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge Poetry is supposed to produce pleasurable interest. Samuel Taylor Coleridge is against the practice of turning prose into poetry. Essential poetry is not the poetry we have read but the poetry we return to again and again.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge believed that if we are able to substitute one word for another word in the same language in a line in a poem without change in meaning or feeling then it is not truly great poetry.

If on the other hand we are not able to change a word or the position of a word in a poem without changing the meaning or the feeling then it is true poetry.