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Esemplastic Power: Esemplastic Is A Qualitative Adjective Which The English Romantic Poet Samuel Taylor

Coleridge coined the term "esemplastic" to describe the unifying power of the imagination. He argued that good literature employs imagination, which has the ability to extract hidden meanings from data and shape different ideas into a cohesive whole. Coleridge established esemplastic as criteria for good writing, distinguishing imagination from "fancy" by describing imagination as having a mysterious power to simplify complex ideas. The term has since been used to describe the process by which poets and great minds are able to unify various images, words and emotions into a single, cohesive work through an enormous effort of imagination.

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336 views1 page

Esemplastic Power: Esemplastic Is A Qualitative Adjective Which The English Romantic Poet Samuel Taylor

Coleridge coined the term "esemplastic" to describe the unifying power of the imagination. He argued that good literature employs imagination, which has the ability to extract hidden meanings from data and shape different ideas into a cohesive whole. Coleridge established esemplastic as criteria for good writing, distinguishing imagination from "fancy" by describing imagination as having a mysterious power to simplify complex ideas. The term has since been used to describe the process by which poets and great minds are able to unify various images, words and emotions into a single, cohesive work through an enormous effort of imagination.

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Mohamed bamarni
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Esemplastic Power

Esemplastic is a qualitative adjective which the English romantic poet Samuel Taylor


Coleridge claimed to have invented. Despite its etymology from the Ancient Greek word
"to shape", – the interweaving of opposites – and implies the process of an object being
moulded into unity. The first recorded use of the word is in 1817 by Coleridge in his
work, Biographia Literaria, in describing the esemplastic – the unifying – power of the
imagination.
Coleridge establishes a criterion for good literature, making a distinction between the
imagination and "fancy". Whereas fancy rested on the mechanical and passive operations
of one's mind to accumulate and store data, imagination held a "mysterious power" to
extract "hidden ideas and meaning" from such data. Thus, Coleridge argues that good
literary works employ the use of the imagination and describes its power to "shape into
one" and to "convey a new sense" as esemplastic.
Use of the word has been limited to describing mental processes and writing, such as "the
esemplastic power of a great mind to simplify the difficult",[4] or "the esemplastic power
of the poetic imagination". The meaning conveyed in such a sentence is the process of
someone, most likely a poet, taking images, words, and emotions from a number of
realms of human endeavor and thought and unifying them all into a single work.
Coleridge argues that such an accomplishment requires an enormous effort of the
imagination and, therefore, should be granted with its own term.

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