Two Modes of Apprehending Nature: A Gloss on the Coleridgean Symbol

Abstract

Coleridge maintains a lifelong ambivalence toward nature. As early as the 1795 version of “The Eolian Harp,” he toys with incompatible speculations upon nature and, for the moment, retreats from the pantheistic implications of a bold metaphor. After long worrying about the problem of nature, he arrives at a more stable resolution of his dilemma : in The Stateman's Manual (1816) and in his “Essays on Method” (1817), he employs a traditional distinction between natura naturata and natura naturans. Regarded in this latter aspect, nature becomes a source of sacramental symbols: Coleridge holds that the imagination is peculiarly fitted to create symbols and, hence, to apprehend natura naturans. In 1817, twenty-one years after its original publication, he adds to “The Eolian Harp” a key phrase, “the one Life within us and abroad.” This addition, Coleridge's poetic equivalent of natura naturans, reconciles the poem to his Christian Platonism. Despite a growing dualistic aversion to nature in later life, Coleridge, as witnessed by dated footnotes added to his works in the 1820's, continues sporadically to reassert his sacramental faith in nature. Coleridge's adaptation of natura naturans, though it does not resolve all ambiguities, binds through common assumption a considerable body of his mature writings.