Question:

Which of the following terms are used by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his theory of imagination?

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Remember Coleridge's threefold classification: Primary Imagination, Secondary Imagination, and Fancy—core to Romantic literary theory.
Updated On: Aug 29, 2025
  • Primary imagination, secondary imagination, and fancy
  • Negative capability, Hellenism, and impersonality
  • Egotistical sublime, oversoul, and pantheism
  • Unacknowledged legislation, atheism, and anarchy
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The Correct Option is A

Solution and Explanation


Step 1: Coleridge's theory of imagination.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in his Biographia Literaria (1817), distinguished between three faculties: - Primary Imagination: the living power of perception, a repetition of the infinite act of creation in the finite mind.
- Secondary Imagination: an echo of the primary imagination, but operating consciously with will, shaping and unifying artistic creation.
- Fancy: a mechanical faculty of association, dealing with fixity, memory, and ornamentation rather than creativity.

Step 2: Eliminate other options.
- (B) Negative capability (Keats), Hellenism (Arnold), impersonality (Eliot).
- (C) Egotistical sublime (Keats on Wordsworth), Oversoul (Emerson), pantheism (general philosophy).
- (D) Unacknowledged legislation (Shelley), atheism/anarchy (political concepts). Only (A) belongs to Coleridge. \[ \boxed{\text{Option (A) is correct.}} \]

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