Return to the Eternal Recurrence: Coleridge and the "Echo or Mirror Seeking of Itself" Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Reddy, Pavan Kumar Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 30/09/2021 19:29:14 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/612127 1 RETURN TO THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE: Coleridge and the “Echo or Mirror Seeking of Itself” by Pavan Kumar Reddy __________________________ Copyright © Pavan Kumar Reddy 2016 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2016 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Pavan Kumar Reddy, titled “Return to the Eternal Recurrence: Coleridge and the ‘Echo or Mirror Seeking of Itself’” and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Charles E. Sherry__________________________________________________Date: 4/14/2016 Suresh Raval______________________________________________________Date: 4/14/2016 Meg Lota Brown___________________________________________________Date: 4/14/2016 Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. Dissertation Director: Charles E. Sherry________________________________Date: 4/14/2016 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Pavan Kumar Reddy 4 DEDICATION To my father, T. Shantikar Reddy, the best man I have known. And to my mother, Laura Reddy, love and gratitude. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………….8 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………….11 CHAPTER 1: FRACTALS OF MIND…………………………………………………………..37 1. Coleridge and the Intellectual Climate….…………………………………………….39 2. Fruit and Kernel of Coleridge’s Organicism………………………………………….46 2.1 Multeity and Unity…………………………………………………………...52 2.2 Life: Teleology and God’s Blueprint in Nature……………………………...58 2.3 Evolution: Biological and Spiritual………………………………………….62 2.4 Humankind as the Emerging Image of God…………………………………67 3. The Artistry of Organicism…………………………………………………………....72 CHAPTER 2: SPIRIT IN THE MIND…………………………………………………………..82 1. Spinoza and the Allure of Pantheism………………………………………………….83 2. Faith, Reason, and the Christian Doctrine…………………………………………….89 3. Mind Creates its Reality……………………………………………………………….93 3.1 Reason and Faith……………………………………………………………..96 3.2 Matter: The Modification of Intelligence…………………………………..100 3.3 Subject and Object: Spiritual Unity in Multeity……………………………107 4. God’s Will and Individual Free Will………………………………………………...111 6 5. Bildung and Logos…………………………………………………………………...115 6. Aesthetic Education………………………………………………………………….118 6.1 Love, Beauty, Freedom in Art……………………………………………...122 CHAPTER 3: IMAGINATION AND THE “SELF”-CREATING “I AM”……………………126 1. Coleridge’s Theory of Imagination in Context………………………………………128 2. Primary Imagination and the Foundation of (Self-) Consciousness…………………131 3. Secondary Imagination and the Contemplation of Self-Consciousness……………..138 4. The Organic Nature of Poetic Imagination…………………………………………..140 5. Art, Nature, and Truth………………………..………………………..……………..142 5.1 The Symbol………………………..………………………..………………144 5.2 Organicism of Art………………………..………………………..………..149 6. Analogy Between Poet and God………………………..………………………..…..154 CHAPTER 4: INTIMATIONS OF DIVINITY………………………………………………...162 1. “The Eolian Harp” …..………………………..…………..…………………………164 2. LOVE: Will to Separation and Oneness…..………………………..…………..……174 2.1 Love as Will and Intention in Creation…..………………………..………..176 2.2 Individuality in and through Multeity…..………………………..…………178 2.3 Oppositions and Dichotomies: Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces of Love.182 3. Creation, Freedom, and the Ascent of Being…..………………………..…………...186 3.1 Reunion and the Synthesizing Power of Imagination…..…………………..186 3.2 Creation and Evolution…..………………………..…………..……………191 7 CHAPTER 5: CORRESPONDENCES OF THE SELF-SEEKING SPIRIT…………………..198 1. “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” ………………………………………………..200 2. “Frost at Midnight” ………………………………………………………………….205 CHAPTER 6: BEING AND THE “CO-ETERNAL INTER-CIRCULATION OF DEITY”…..235 1. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” ………………………………………………...238 1.1 Lessons of Love…………………………………………………………….245 1.2 Pagan-Christian Synthesis………………………………………………….250 2. Spirit’s Journey………………………………………………………………………254 2.1 Synthesis of Linear and Circular Time……………………………………..258 2.2 Humankind’s Destiny………………………………………………………259 3. Being and Becoming in the Eternal Recurrence of Time in Eternity………………..263 3.1 Time and Eternity…………………………………………………………..263 3.2 Cycles and Repetitions of the Primal Hierophany………………………….265 3.3 Archetypes and Rituals of the Eternal Return………………………………269 3.4 The Mariner’s Transgression……………………………………………….274 3.5 Being and Becoming: Eternity in Time…………………………………….277 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………287 ABBREVIATIONS ……………………………………………………………………………298 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………………..300 8 ABSTRACT “Return to the Eternal Recurrence: Coleridge and the ‘Echo or Mirror Seeking of Itself’” demonstrates how Samuel Taylor Coleridge provides a unique vision of reality in which all entities, processes, and creations are symbiotic parts of a single, all-encompassing world-soul whose existence and growth are rooted in the gradual expression of an innate spiritual power and intention. Following a divine blueprint, life is the germinating expression of God’s imagination, and evolution the progressive emergence of God’s image in creation effectuated through the human mind. Coleridge illustrates how, by utilizing the divine power of imagination, he is able to decipher the images from the material world as characters of God’s symbolic language of self- revelation; subsequently, through the divine “attribute” of reason, he is able to transform them into a corresponding symbolic language of poetry intimating God’s ideas to other minds. He realizes that his creativity is a finite repetition of God’s infinite act of creation in which “spirit,” God’s living and growing power of consciousness implanted in creation, beholds itself in its myriad self-reflections. This project synthesizes and builds upon the theories of the major European Romantics, Idealists, and modern critics to establish a comprehensive explanation of Coleridge’s intricate and evolving philosophical ideas concerning the individual’s organic kinship with God and the role of art and creativity in revealing this kinship. I illustrate not only how the theory of organicism forms the foundation of the complex, reciprocal relationship between artistic expression and self-awareness, but also how there is an organic interrelationship between the individual’s developing self-consciousness and spirit’s growing awareness of its cosmic totality. Coleridge, I argue, self-consciously embodies this process in his life and works. He progressively attains a greater understanding of his developing self-consciousness and intellectual powers 9 through his meditative writings. He becomes cognizant that the process by which he develops his theories on poetry, art, and life is simultaneously a process of self-discovery. This activity mirrors a universal development of spirit in humankind coming to a greater awareness of itself throughout history as propounded by Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, F.W.J. Schelling, among others, and Coleridge himself. Hence, Coleridge’s growing self-awareness contributes to while it is simultaneous subsumed within universal spirit’s progress and self-revelation. Coleridge’s writings, I conclude, reveal that the macrocosmic and microcosmic processes are organically interrelated, interdependent, and symbiotic. Coleridge develops and defines his unique individuality as a philosopher-poet while attempting to reconcile his Christian faith with Spinoza’s pantheism. By revealing how his mind serves as an intellectual channel connecting European philosophy to British Romantic thought, chapters one and two demonstrate how Coleridge is a synthesizing, organic thinker attempting to establish his own “system” that brings “all knowledges into harmony.” This synthesizing activity follows a spiritual mandate as well. I illustrate how Coleridge, following Schelling, contends that all the human senses and faculties, the mind’s constitution, and our resulting understanding of reality are precisely what they ought to be based on God’s structuring