[1818; publ. 1840] [UNFINISHED]




A DEFENCE OF POETRY

PART I

According to one mode of regarding those two classes of mental
action, which are called reason and imagination, the former may be
considered as mind contemplating the relations borne by one thought
to another, however produced; and the latter, as mind acting upon
those thoughts so as to colour them with its own light, and composing
from them, as from elements, other thoughts, each containing within
itself the principle of its own integrity. The one is the [word
in Greek], or the principle of synthesis, and has for its objects
those forms which are common to universal nature and existence
itself; the other is the [word in Greek], or principle of analysis,
and its action regards the relations of things, simply as relations;
considering thoughts, not in their integral unity, but as the
algebraical representations which conduct to certain general results.
Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; imagination
is the perception of the value of those quantities, both separately
and as a whole. Reason respects the differences, and imagination
the similitudes of things. Reason is to the imagination as the
instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow
to the substance.

Poetry, in a general sense, may be defined to be 'the expression