"The poet . . . diffuses a tone and spirit of unity, that blends, and
(as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical
power, to which we have exclusively appropriated the name of
imagination. This power . . . reveals itself in the balance or
reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness,
with difference; of the general, with the concrete; the idea, with
the image; the individual, with the representative; the sense of
novelty and freshness, with old and familiar objects; a more than
usual state of emotion, with more than usual order; judgement
ever awake and steady self-possession, with enthusiasm and feel-
ing profound or vehement. . . ."

Coleridge, Biographia Literaria

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