The concept of ‘Willing suspension of Disbelief’ in Coleridge’s poetry:

About the Poet:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was one of the founding figures of the Romantic Movement in England. He was also a member of the Lake Poets. His well known Romantic poems are, Kubla Khan, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel.  He was immensely influenced by the ideals of the French Revolution. Ode of France was the last of his poems which was written by him under the influence of the French Revolution.He is also known for his critical writing Biographia Literaria.

About the idea:

In the chapter XIV of Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, he used the phrase, ‘willing suspension of disbelief, to describe ‘ the state of receptivity and credulity desirable in a reader or member of an audience’. The reader should be persuaded to believe the evidently imaginary story narrated by the poet. Coleridge possibly adapted the idea from French sceptic Francois de la Monte La Vayer(1588-1672), who referred to the wisdom of the sceptic in his phrase ‘cetle belle suspension d’ esprit de la sceptique.’(J.A.Cuddon)

According to him,there are two possible subjects for poetry. Coleridge admitted it himself that the plan of the Lyrical ballads was chalked out with the notion that his poems will concentrate on delineating persons and characters, and incidents supernatural in nature. He writes-‘It was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature ,a human interest and a semblance of truth, sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination, that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.

 According to Coleridge, the most controversial issue is the philosophical definition of a poem and poetry. In conversation with William Wordsworth, Coleridge discovered cardinal points of poetry. The first point is the power of exciting the sympathy and genuine feelings of the readers. The second one is the power of capturing the reader’s interest by offering something new by modifying colours of imagination, like ‘sudden charm’ an interplay of light and shade, or like the moonlight and the sunset makes the landscape look. He defined these descriptive imaginations ‘poetry of nature’. Coleridge also added that, poems can be composed in two ways. The subjects or agents or incidents of a poem must have some supernatural attribute. The subjects should be chosen from the ordinary lives and characters, and incidents that happen in real life. His technique often aimed at achieving the excellence that lies on the fact that such dramatic truth of such emotions and situations would seem real to the reader. The poet would raise the interest of the reader by the dramatic truth of those emotions. This would naturally accompany such situations that seem real to the readers. So real, that they will be, in way deluded and forced to believe them under the supernatural agency.