ABSTRACT
Granting Coleridge's original realism, we see that words precisely used make true statements. The cultural and moral value of poetry depends on this link between precision and truth. Coleridge's definition of 'word' represents language as participating intimately in the complex relation between mind and world: The process of naming and the process of knowing are represented as a single process. For Coleridge, linguistic accuracy is at heart a moral issue, because precisely written texts are a moral resource. And that is the principal issue uniting the Biographica's transcendental philosophy with its literary criticism. Coleridge's idea of language underlies both the textual specificity of his best criticism, and its moral concerns. Coleridge would take quick issue with the notion that words refer only to other words, and not to realities. Coleridge links proper aesthetic pleasure to the reader's imagination when he defines a 'legitimate' or excellent poem.
