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In Chapter 13 of the Biographia Literaria, the speaker describes the philosophic and poetic geniuses which differ "from . . . talent, not by degree, but by kind," suggesting that since neither can be destroyed, when they meet, they create a "finite generation" which is "no other than an interpenetration of the counteracting powers, partaking of both" (300).[2] Abruptly, a line of asterisks halts his discourse. Following the asterisks is a paragraph detailing Coleridge's supposed receipt of a letter from a friend. The letter hints at a "great book on the CONSTRUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY," as well as at a discourse which "looks . . . like the fragments of the winding steps of an old ruined tower" of approximately 100 pages in length (302-03). The careful "friend" suggests that the Coleridge's chapter on the imagination is too "abstruse" to be printed with the work at hand. Coleridge reprints the rest of the "friend's" comments, concluding with one paragraph on the Primary and Secondary imaginations, one paragraph on Fancy, and the promise that other material on the "powers and privileges of the imagination" will be found in a discourse which he presents as a "prefix" to "The Ancient Mariner" (306).
In their discussions of Coleridge's development of a concept of the Imagination in Chapter 13 of the Biographia Literaria, scholars such as Jonathan Wordsworth, Gyung-Ryul Jang, J. H. Haeger, and Jean-Pierre Mileur comment on the gap Coleridge leaves in his argument about the Imagination, but they mention the letter only in passing.[3] Due to its odd placement and the hole it leaves in his argument, however, the letter draws attention to itself. Donald Reiman discusses the letter in terms of the double identity Coleridge gives himself in Chapter 13, but very briefly, and from a biographical point of view.[4] Gayatri Spivak discusses the letter as an instrument by which "the chapter declares its own inaccessibility rather than its proper absence."[5] According to her view, Coleridge must insert the letter "because the Biographia is an autobiography and a preface, [so] it must be suppressed."[6] The letter also functions as a place where "the self split and disguised as the Other, can . . . dictate the author's course of action and make it possible for the law to be erected."[7] Yet readers may examine the letter in other ways. According to the speaker of Chapter 13, the mind of a friend brought forth this letter, and the receipt of it caused him to reconsider the discourse he is attempting.[8] This letter, however, works in more than one way. The letter is not a moment in which Coleridge splits himself and asserts the law over his discourse. Instead, the letter is a moment when Coleridge rebels against the law of the father represented in language. In this essay, I will discuss the letter as a text of practicality and of self-love, both of which it pretends not to be.
While discussing the text at hand, the letter, of which it is a part, actually makes a large sequential gap in the text. Preparing us for this disruption is a line of asterisks followed immediately by a paragraph detailing how the letter reached the speaker. These asterisks indicate a new thought and a new section. However, as typographical markers, not letter-signifiers, they convey nothing more than an interruption in the text. The asterisks distinguish between the argument that precedes them and the explanatory paragraph and letter that follow them. As such, the asterisks function as a difference between letters. This difference (gap) will never be filled. The asterisks can only indicate the gap; they cannot complete it. So, the asterisks point both behind them and in front of them, while paradoxically pointing to themselves.
After the line of asterisks, poet's persona explains the brief history of the letter. But, how the paragraph describes the letter subverts what the paragraph tells about the letter. In the paragraph preceding the letter, the speaker uses terms which presume a respondent of separate identity. Until he revealed his deception in a letter to Thomas Curtis,[9] readers had held that, indeed, a friend of such "taste and sensibility" did exist. According to the poet's persona, the letter came from a friend "whose practical judgement I have had ample reason to estimate and revere" (300). According to the letter writer, the speaker of the argument has little practical judgment. In fact, the poet's persona finds it necessary to construct this letter because he cannot manage time well.[10] His statement, however, suggests the opposite of his practical circumstances in which his publisher is pressing for his text.[11]
One footnote number at the end of the paragraph implodes the "I." The accompanying note to our text tells us that the poet's persona wrote the letter, constructing an other, writing to himself. The "I," then, caves in. In light of the fact that the poet's persona does not have enough time to complete the discussion of Imagination, he tells his audience that he will summarize his points based on the advice of his other which "preclude[s] all the excuses which my self-love might possibly have prompted me to set up" (300). The awareness that the other is not other forces the signifieds to slide. The sub-text slithers under the signifying letter(s), implying exactly the opposite of the speaker's statement. The other in the letter is a text of self-love that the poet's persona has set up as an excuse not to finish his argument.[12] Out of self-love, the speaker writes this letter to explain the sudden abridgment of his discourse and to meet the practical demand that he must get this text to the printer in order to gain sustenance (money). By drawing attention to his exclusion of excuses, the poet's persona creates a hole in the text through which the sub-text of self-love appears. Paradoxically, the written construct of self-love, the letter, is an excuse for the speaker not to print his thoughts. So, the letter, the text of the other, is and is not an excuse to preserve those thoughts in printed form.
Yet, the signifiers contain traces of other meanings: perhaps the construction of the letter is a practical move, designed to complete the text in the most time-efficient manner; perhaps it hides the speaker's lack of understanding of his own argument; perhaps it "obscure[s] the problems of deriving critical methodology from a Philosophy whose ability to generate such a principle is . . . itself problematic."[13]
The text of the other, in the letter, subverts the text of the "I" and its own text. The letter writer refers to "myself," "my understanding [sic]," and "me" (301). In this way, the "letter-I" firmly establishes himself as a respondent that is and is not the "I" who wrote the text "On the Imagination." By so doing, the text of the other undermines the text of the poet's persona. The letter thus reveals the sub-text of self-love. In the same moment the text of the other shifts perfidiously under itself as well. The letter writer states that
your opinions and method of argument were not only so new [sic] to me, but so directly the reverse of all I had ever been accustomed to consider as truth, that even if I had comprehended your premises sufficiently to have admitted them, and had seen the necessity of your conclusions, I should still have been in that state of mind, which in your note, p. 72, 73, you have so ingeniously evolved, as the antithesis to that in which a man is, when he makes a bull [sic]. (301)
The letter suggests that the text of "On the Imagination" is "new" to the other. However, because the respondent is not the other but the writer, the text cannot be "new." According to the letter, "On the Imagination" was already written before the letter and is not "new" to the poet's persona. But since the other is a new text, "On the Imagination" is "new" to the other.[14] Due to the nature of the sub-text, the signifier "new" slides, containing at least two opposed signifieds. These two signifieds are also signifiers suggesting two separate speakers who are not two, but one. So the letter writer subverts his text and himself at the same moment.
The other also complains that the poet's persona's "opinions and method of argument" are "directly the reverse of all I had ever been accustomed to consider as truth" (301). The signifiers slide suggesting that the text of the poet's persona, "On the Imagination," reverses all that the respondent "had ever been accustomed to consider as truth," thus implying that the text "On the Imagination" is not true. However, the word "accustomed" implies that "truth" is not "Truth," but that truth is determined by custom. Thus, the poet's persona can show truth to "directly reverse" itself simply by changing his method or argument. In this way, the poet's persona subverts through language that truth to which he is accustomed and writes a new truth. Because the speaker of "On the Imagination" and the letter are one, the text "On the Imagination" subverts itself. Thus the letter, which though different from the text is still part of the text, states that the text is both true and not true.
Like the text, "On the Imagination," the letter is both true and not true. Because the other in the letter is constructed by language, the letter subverts itself. The other "writes" a letter suggesting that its writer does not "comprehend" or "[see] the necessity of [the] conclusions" in "On the Imagination." However, the writer of "On the Imagination" and the letter writer are one and the same. This split identity logically leads to the conclusion that the writer of the letter does indeed understand the text created by the speaker of "On the Imagination," and that he does realize the necessity of the conclusions presented therein. Therefore, the statement of the written/writing other that he does not understand attests to his understanding. But, the signified slides once again. Not only is it possible that the other understands, but it is also possible that the writer of "On the Imagination" tells the truth through the voice of the other in the letter. This possibility makes the letter (and hence the other) an excuse produced by self-love in order to camouflage the poet's persona's own lack of understanding and save him from the embarrassment of admitting that he does not understand or comprehend his own text. Yet this prospect subverts the statement in the paragraph preceding the letter which suggests that the text of the other precludes all such self-loving excuses.
The knowledge that the letter originates with the poet's persona and not an other also forces the slide of the signified of "friend." The "Friend" is the other who is not the other but a linguistic construct. The only way the speaker knows his other is by the letter which records the dialogue between the two who are not two but one. This dialogue, then, exists and does not exist. The other is the mirror image of the speaker, created out of (the) letter(s). By taking the advice of this mirror other, the speaker seeks to incorporate his other, and so return to a state of unity with the other. This other is irrevocably other because it exists in language. At the same time that language constructs the speaker who creates the other, language holds the speaker in the difference between himself and an other whose voice is both the same as and different from his own. The shift in signifieds makes the other always elusive--never admitting the possibility of being fully known in unity.
But, the desire for unity with the other indicates self-love which can be fulfilled in the letter. The letter is a text of self-love. The other, created by the letter, is a "friend," and as such, exists in a love relationship. This love relationship, however, only exists between the writer and the text--linguistic construct--he inscribes on the page. The linguistic marker, then, is not an other, but an other self of the writer. The linguistic structure marks and defines two speakers who are one, a writer who is and another writer who is not. The writer becomes Narcissus, desiring unity with himself. The poet's persona constructs a mirror which reflects an other who is not other whom he can love. In other words, the mirror provides a reflection of himself that both is and is not himself. The image is himself because it is his reflection, but it is not himself because it is his unconscious sub-text. He can only perceive his sub-text in the absences (gaps) of "On the Imagination." In the text of Chapter 13, the letter itself marks a hole in the argument--an absence in the text. The speaker places his reflection in that absence. Because the image in the mirror-text is not a physical other, the writer achieves unification. He can define himself in terms of himself instead of using other(`s) terms to establish difference. He, as the signifier, can bestow meaning upon himself, thus becoming the signified. Once he is both signifier and signified, he transcends the slithering sign and thus achieves unified identity. In the reflection-other the poet's persona can experience the unity of the conscious with the unconscious self. Thus the desire for union with the other can be fulfilled because the other is not other. The writer loves himself, and the letter is narcissistic.
Paradoxically, the writer is not narcissistic, and the letter is not a text of other-love. The conscious self does not and cannot know the unconscious self. Therefore, the unconscious self is other at the same time as it is not other. The separation between the conscious and the unconscious selves makes the text of the letter a text of other-love. The signified of "other-love" slides, however, carrying self-love within itself because the speaker loves in the other that which he loves in himself. The other can only be present in the letter/mirror, which is itself the presence of absence. The letter then becomes a non-narcissistic text since the other is outside the text of the writer. Irretrievably other, the poet's persona "I" cannot achieve union with an other. "I" can only create a letter which indicates the absence of the other. The letter eludes "I's" grasp, and the signified slides in two opposite directions, pointing both at the presence of the other (in "I" himself) and the absence of the other (in the letter). The speaker's desire for unity with the other remains constantly deferred from one letter to the next, always sought but never found.
For the poet's persona, the other will always be an absent presence. The speaker will never achieve unity with the other-self in part because he rejects the feminine principle. In the letter the writer creates a male other. With the pen/phallus, the male speaker can write an other, using the letter to create a non-threatening other. Since the other is his creation, he has authority over it. However, the writer did not anticipate the skidding sign; he constructs an other and differentiates himself from that other in the act of creating. As a result, that other writes him in return. Both the writer and the other exist in the play of the letter(s). The letter creates the separation--the otherness. This otherness is not the product of a union, but the product of a separation. The letter divides the self. The poet's persona, then, falls into the myth of male parturition, [15] seeking creative union [16] with an other constructed by letter which turns out to be not an other at all, but only an unconscious self.
In light of the paradox that the other is and is not other, the letter writer must refuse to promise to accompany the poet's persona into the creative womb where union might occur. The letter writer says "[o]nly I will not promise to descend into the dark cave of Trophonius with you, there to rub my own eyes, in order to make [sic] the sparks and figured flashes, which I am required to see [sic]" (302). As a separate entity, the other cannot accompany the speaker on his search to return to the womb, to the experience of full unity with the (m)other. The letter, after all, is what has disrupted this unity in the first place, dividing the self. By his very nature, therefore, the letter writer must refuse this descent. Since the union between the poet's persona and the (m)other exists without language, the letter cannot be part of such a union, nor can an other self, originating in a letter, participate in such a union. As a signifier, the letter can only point to the desire and suggest the union. The letter can signify deferred desire but not the fulfillment of desire, because the letter's temporal nature prohibits it from signifying exactly the same signified twice.
The poet's persona and the other come from the letter, and by its nature, the letter can only be inscribed with the pen/phallus. In desiring union with the (m)other, the poet's persona wields his pen in rebellion against the authority of the letter. That is to say, the speaker subverts the letter of the law (the father-figure), attempting to reach union with his (m)other by writing the (m)other--creating the (m)other in discourse. In so doing, the speaker uses the very instrument of separation and differentiation for the purpose of bringing together (unity).[17] In an oedipal fashion, the poet's persona seeks to displace the author-father in the affections of the created-(m)other. Language, however, defeats the writer. He must project his desire for unity with the mother into a desire for unity with the other.
The nature of the letter as male also reveals an unconscious fear of the feminine principle. Trophonius died because the earth-(m)other swallowed him. Union with the other indicates the loss of separate identities. The other, then, while the opposite against which the speaker may construct himself, is also the (m)other with the power to swallow that identity. By creating the other with letters, making gaps through which his unconscious may reveal itself, the poet's persona avoids giving up his identity. He can maintain his autonomy in the face of the other because the other is not other, but a letter. Paradoxically, he risks his identity because the other-letter eludes his control, writing him in return.
The letter takes on a will of its own, refusing to descend into the cave of creation the womb. The letter writer refuses to participate in the act of creation. He requires an other outside of himself, stating, "I will not . . . rub my own eyes, in order to make the sparks and figured flashes, which I am required to see [sic]" (302). Unlike the poet's persona, he will not "make" images, "figured flashes," of himself by himself. The unconscious, already subsumed by a conscious other, does not fear union with an other. The letter points to the presence of an absent other, but this other is nothing more than that constructed by a letter. In the letter, the unconscious' desire for union differentiates itself from the conscious' unconscious fear. Such a statement forces a skid in the signified of "the speaker" which points to at least two signifieds, the unconscious and the conscious. Language then, becomes empty; the signifiers refer to themselves, entirely disjoined from signifieds. The absent other is constantly deferredalways already absent. The union that the speaker desires and fears will never occur.
Union cannot occur because the letter marks the presence of a not-other other. The letter subverts itself, disjoining signifier from signified. One signifier points to two opposing signifieds. The letter indicates the poet's persona and his other, existing as the message between them. Yet, the letter also indicates the division of the speaker's self. The "I" of the paragraph introducing the letter is the "I" of the letter but not the "I" of the letter. The poet's persona builds the letter out of letters, but the signified of the letter is not an other, it is himself. Each letter refers to another letter, and another letter, and so on. The signified is endlessly deferred. Thus the letter tells the tale of an "I" who is and is not an "I." The letter constructs and deconstructs itself at the same moment. It eludes the authority of the poet's persona, constructing and deconstructing him into the speaker and the other. There is no subject or other outside of language. The "I" is not "I," and only the letter (tale) remains in the pitiful state of difference.