ABSTRACT
The terms ‘fancy’ and ‘imagination’ are generally associated with the name of Coleridge, especially when they are distinguished from or contrasted with each other. But, of course, they were both used before Coleridge and to understand the precise meanings he attached to them and the distinction he drew between them, it is necessary to look at the history of critical theory. The two terms belong to the various attempts which have been made to explain a work of art by reference to the mental processes involved in artistic creation and, when applied to works of literature, are related to what we call composition. Some critics have held that such accounts of how a work is produced cannot help us to judge its literary merit; or to put their point in more philosophical language, a genetic account has no reference to value. Coleridge believed otherwise, but we must leave this question for later discussion.
