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[Coleridge makes a thorough distinction between the ‘Moral Principle’ on the one hand, and ‘Sensibility, i.e., a constitutional Sympathy with Pain and Pleasure’, which is ‘not even a sure pledge of GOOD HEART’ (AR, 57–58) on the other. Sympathy, understood as sensibility, has ‘passive nature’ and is linked to the ‘effeminate Selfishness’ pertaining to an ‘over-stimulated age’ (57–58). All these stand in sharp contrast with ‘Choice’ and ‘Reflection’, which, according to Coleridge, constitute ‘Morality’ (58–59). In other words, sympathy, if it translates an ‘excessive and unhealthy sensitiveness’, and results in the ‘contagion of pleasurable or painful Sensations in different persons’ (58) goes against the Kantian tenets of Coleridgean morality, against its emphasis on the active faculties of the human mind, and, particularly, on the Free and Responsible Will (OM, 17). As we have seen, ‘The Ancient Mariner’ does inspire sympathy: in fact, the Mariner’s listener experiences sympathy precisely as a kind of contagion; the Wedding Guest loses his ‘free agency’ (F I.,, 509), he cannot ‘choose but hear’, and becomes mesmerised, contaminated by the Mariner’s tale.1 However, having listened to the tale, he becomes both a ‘sadder’ and a ‘wiser’ man: he is able to recuperate his person-hood or, identity, and can, therefore, undergo the ‘organic’ process of cultivation that the Mariner, even after his ‘conversion’, still has to fail.]
Published: Dec 21, 2015
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