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Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1772–1834 · Poet and critic

I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions … prose = words in their best order; — poetry = the best words in the best order.
I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose = words in their best order; - poetry = the best words in the best order.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge · Table Talk, recorded by his nephew, 1827

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge said this in conversation on 12 July 1827. His nephew Henry Nelson Coleridge wrote it down and printed it in Table Talk in 1835, the year after his death.

Prose puts words in their best order; poetry must also choose the best words. It may be the shortest definition of the craft.

Table Talk, entry for 12 July 1827. Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge [ed. Henry Nelson Coleridge], vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1835), p. 84.

The originals

Portrait of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in middle age with grey hair, in a dark coat and white neckcloth — **The likeness**PAINTED BY WASHINGTON ALLSTON · 1814Our portrait is painted after it.Public domain (painter died 1843; NPG 184; Commons tags it PD and notes third-party claims over NPG photos).

A handwritten letter on pale green paper beginning My dear Madam, headed Grove, Highgate — **A letter from Highgate, 1829**A letter in his own hand from Highgate, where he lived with the surgeon James Gillman from 1816 until his death. He confesses to "the blue devils".Autograph letter to Mrs Bates, Highgate, 1829. Bibliothèque municipale de Nantes, Ms 833/94 (fonds Labouchère), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.