Biographia Literaria chaper 14 by Coleridge.

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        This blog is part of my classroom activity on Biographia Literaria chaper 14 by Coleridge.

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1)  Poem and prose composition both have the same element but difference between the combinations of those elements. Poem’s composition is distinguished from composition in prose by meter, or rhyme. We see the major difference comes from the immediate and ultimate object of writing in prose and poetry. Prose gives pleasure. A poem is a species of composition and its propose is giving immediate pleasure, not truth: and from all other species it is discriminated by proposing to itself such delight from the whole as is compatible with a distinct gratification from each component part. On the other side the immediate object of prose is to give truth and that of poem is to give pleasure. Poem’s aim is give pleasure. Pleasure is arising from the parts. So, poem and prose both are same and also different. Their elements are same but combination of element is different.

(2) The difference between poem and poetry is not much clear. Both are as like almost same. We have distinguish poetry and poem that “ it is a distinction resulting from the poetic genius itself, which sustains and modifies the images, thoughts, and emotion of the poets mind and poem is an activity of the poet’s own mind’. Poetry is an activity of the poet’s mind. Poem is forms of its expression and also verbal expression of that activity. Poetry is a kind of activity which can be engaged in by painters or philosophers or scientist. Poetry brings ‘the whole soul of man’ with each faculty playing its proper part according to its ‘relative worth and dignity’. Poem is a form of its expression and poetry is basically an activity of the imagination.