Coleridge’s Metaphysics of Beauty

Abstract

This article investigates the significance of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s metaphysics of beauty. It addresses both his aesthetic of harmony and his aesthetic of light. Neither of these is a simple repetition of its traditional model. Regarding the former aesthetic, the article addresses the ways in which Coleridge draws on many traditions of philosophy and theology, without forcing these often-divergent strands into an artificial synthesis. While some of the resultant tensions are resolved very suggestively, others are equally suggestive because of the irresolution that is preserved within them. I construe this more complex model of harmony in terms of his serpentine line of beauty – a form which achieves coherence without closure or final resolution. The article also shows that the latter aesthetic, which is often overlooked, has the capacity to clarify some important but otherwise aporetic dimensions of his thought. The interrelationship between these two aesthetics is addressed from a number of perspectives: Coleridge’s emphasis on glimmering light is related to the serpentine line; both aesthetics are shown to be grounded in experience. The article thus demonstrates that Coleridge’s metaphysics of beauty is not posited over and against phenomenology, but exists as an opening onto, and even an impetus toward, a deeper attentiveness to the world of phenomena, materiality, and human experience.