Quote #117

While [Shakespeare] darts himself forth, and passes into all the forms of human character and passion, the one Proteus of the fire and the flood; [Milton] attracts all forms and things to himself, into the unity of his own ideal. All things and modes of action shape themselves anew in the being of Milton; while Shakespeare becomes all things, yet ever remaining himself.

More from Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  1. No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.
  2. Our myriad-minded Shakespeare.
  3. It has been observed before that images, however beautiful, though faithfully copied from nature, and as accurately represented in words, d…
  4. The best part of human language, properly so called, is derived from reflection on the acts of the mind itself.
  5. This power...reveals itself in the balance or reconcilement of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of the gener…
  6. Now Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, architecture and music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature and man. I…
  7. The poet, described in ideal perfection, brings the whole soul of man into activity, with the subordination of its faculties to each other …
  8. The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols.

All Samuel Taylor Coleridge quotes