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The Glorious Faculty: a Critical Analysis of Addison’s Theory of Imagination in ‘the Pleasures of Imagination’

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The Glorious Faculty: A Critical Analysis of Addison’s Theory of Imagination in ‘The Pleasures of Imagination’ Declaration: I declare that this is my original work and I have acknowledged indebtedness to authors I have consulted in the preparation of my paper. (I) An auxilier light Came from my mind which on the setting sun Bestow’d new splendor …[1] - William Wordsworth (II) Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud![2] - S. T. Coleridge The synthesizing ‘essemplastic power’[3] of imagination that bestows ‘splendor’ on beauty, enabling the Romantic poet to transcreate reality in terms …show more content…

Coleridge later defines it in a somewhat similar way; according to him the mind is active in perception and primary imagination is the repetitive ‘act of creation of the finite mind in the infinite I AM’ [194]. Addison describes it in his own logical way: ‘Our imagination loves to be filled with an object, or to grasp at anything that is too big for its capacity…such wide and undetermined prospects are as pleasing to the fancy, as the speculations of eternity or infinitude are to the understanding’ [Addison 19]. One may object to the use of ‘fancy’ instead of ‘imagination’ keeping in mind Coleridge’s definition of ‘fancy’ and ‘imagination’[6] but Addison was not aware of this finer division so he deliberately uses both the words offering the same meaning. As Addison observes the feeling of ‘stillness’ and ‘amazement’ at the encounter of ‘unbounded views’ and effect of objects in motion on our imagination, quite unconsciously he echoes the aesthetic critic of Romanticism Walter Pater: ‘everything that is new or uncommon…fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity.’ [Addison 20] Addison explains that ‘beauty’ immediately diffuses a ‘secret satisfaction, and ‘complacency’ through imagination which gives a finishing touch to everything that is great or uncommon and strikes the mind with a sense of inner joy and spreads cheerfulness and delight in the mind of the readers. This description at once reminds us of

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