Richard C. Sha Summary

Richard C. Sha’s article argues against the common notion during the 19th century that Romantic imagination was abnormal and served no purpose. Critics argued that the imagination was part of materialism and was therefore an ideology. Because of this, Sha claims that imagination was pathologized, and physicians “medicalized it as the source of disease or cure” (403-404). Critics insisted that imagination led to hypothesis, speculation, and theory, and none of which proved anything (404). Unlike the opposition, however, Sha interprets imagination, hypothesis, speculation, and theory as being distinct from one another. Imagination is not the source, but is a cohesive element of each. Imagination is the platform, which fuels innovation, leading

As with the first half of the article, the second article uses the same context of imagination, hypothesis, speculation, and theory. This half discusses Coleridge’s own understanding of imagination and his attempt to redeem Romantic imagination in the eyes of society. Coleridge’s definition of the imagination in his Biographia Literaria was due in part to his fascination with Saumarez, or so Sha argues (411). Coleridge uses physiology to construct a method that disciplined imagination. There is some contention, or irony, in the fact that Coleridge commends the works of Saumarez because physiology was seen as materialism, which Coleridge was critical of. Therefore, because Coleridge was against materialism, imagination and physiology could be reconciled. An argument against this, however, was the practice of experimentation on animals that was required in the practice of physiology. Which begs the question of how someone, namely Coleridge, could praise physiology when it experiments on animals who are a part of

Sha’s argument could have been strengthened if he had focused on a couple of topics rather than flowing to one finding after another to emphasize his argument. Thus, making the first half of his article less of his own argument and more of a stream of thought. That being said, his argument was clear from the start and was nonetheless convincing. The second half of his article was easily digestible because his analysis was contingent with quotes from both Coleridge and Saumarez. He made the connections between the two obvious using his own interpretation. If Sha had been just as engaged as he was in the second half throughout the article the article would have been more