ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with some of the original founding expressions of Romanticism, key terms, and definitions of poetry, such as 'emotion recollected in tranquillity', 'willing suspension of disbelief', and the origin in philosophical thought. The key definitions of Romantic poetry were inherited from the Enlightenment. Godwin is a central figure, whose role as a master and intimate counterpoint helps to understand the poetic turn that the first generation of Romantics, and especially Coleridge, consciously brought within the philosophical and literary landscape. The chapter concentrates on Coleridge's modifications of Godwin's treatment of Aristotle's approach of poetry and this in connection with Coleridge's diagnosis of the symptoms of the disease affecting the philosophy and history of his time, namely, the disconnection of imagination and understanding. The nexus of Romanticism and Philosophy revolves around the threefold relationship of Philosophy, History, and Poetry, for these domains are those that articulate and address the idea of a "general" experience of Man and the world.
