Orrery Imaginings

Abstract

Chapter 5 looks at how Coleridge articulated the governing dynamics of the imagination in the 1810s and 1820s with persistent reference to gravity and the interaction of centripetal and centrifugal forces. This regulated his thinking about matters as big as idealist philosophy, poetics, the origins of life, and aesthetics, and as small as conversation. It shows that Coleridge used astronomical forces to understand the underlying structure of creative, philosophical, and critical activity, which he illustrated with spider-webs and ripples on the water. Texts given close attention: Biographia Literaria; The Statesman’s Manual; ‘The Theory of Life’; Marginalia; Notebooks; and the Opus Maximum.