Between Hoax and Ideology: Theory and Illusions of Imagination in Chapter XIII of Coleridge´s Biographia Literaria

Abstract

Coleridge´s hoax (his “quoting” from a non-existent manuscript treatise on imagination and from a letter of its fictitious reader) is no mere trick performed in order to avoid the philosophical elaboration of the notion of imagination. Rather, it is a liberating gesture, giving art a position above philosophy, and a different dimension to the preceding metaphysical reflexions and the following definition of imagination.

This gesture is also an “involuntary sign” (Deleuze), which forces us to seek a deeper meaning of imagination.