What are the merits and weaknesses of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria?

This important work of criticism has been singled out in terms of its importance in marking the Romantic literary age. In it, Coleridge seeks to explore how the concept of literature has changed and developed over time and to place it very firmly in the context of the present. Critics have identified his section in which he attacks Wordsworth's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads and then goes on to extol the virtues of the poems themselves as one of the high points in English literature. In particular, Coleridge's work has been distinguished in the way in which it focuses on the psychology of the creative process, an its discussion of such terms as fancy and imagination.

However, at the same time, critics have questioned the usefulness of some of Coleridge's points, and the rather vague and nebulous way in which he tries to prove his arguments in places. One example would be the difference Coleridge attempts to establish a difference between poem and poetry. Note the following quote:

In short, whatever specific import we attach to the word poetry, there will be found involved in it, as a necessary consequence, that a poem of any length neither can be, nor ought to be, all poetry. Yet if a harmonious whole is to be produced, the remaining parts must be preserved in keeping with the poetry...

Critics have argued that such an attempt to distinguish between poem and poetry actually adds little to his argument and his view of literature and creates an unhelpful layer of complexity. However, overall, in spite of such trifling weaknesses, it is generally accepted that this work of literary criticism has very importantly shaped the understanding of Romanticism.

What is your analysis of Coleridge as a critic in Biographia Literaria?

One of the reasons why Coleridge's text on criticism is so famous is because he is able to show a shrewd understanding of the relative merits of various poets as he reflects on his own education and writings and how they differ from his famous friend and co-writer, William Wordsworth. Note, for example, in Part 1 of this text how Coleridge writes of the merits of Alexander Pope:

I saw that the excellence of this kind consisted in just and acute observations on men and manners in an artificial state of society as its matter and substance, and in the logic of wit conveyed in smooth and strong epigrammatic couplets as its form. Even when the subject was addressed tothe fancy or the intellect... still a point was looked for at the end of each second line...

Coleridge, both in this example and elsewhere, is able to not only express his high regard for Pope's work but also to elaborate and explain why it is that he thinks Pope's work is worthy of such merit and praise. Note that Coleridge refers to both content and form in this observation of Pope, and that he singles out the "strong epigrammatic couplets" as a particular strength in terms of how the "just and acute observations on men and manners" are packaged and delivered. Such astute reflections are a constant feature of Coleridge's criticism in this text, and reach their apex when he elaborates on the differences between his own work and aproach to literature and that of Wordsworth. This text was originally conceived when Coleridge detected, between Wordsworth and himself, a "radical difference in our theoretical opinions respecting poetry,"  and the section where he explores this "radical difference" is recognised as being very subtly argued and well presented. Coleridge therefore distinguishes himself very well as a critic in this text.