How did Romantic writers such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge view imagination?

For Romantic writers such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the imagination was considered the defining feature of both aesthetic activity and true insight into the human condition. Moving beyond the earlier Empiricist theories that viewed imagination primarily as a mechanism for associating ideas, these writers elevated it to a fundamental power of the mind.1

Coleridge, in particular, famously described the imagination as a "shaping spirit," a creative faculty essential to the poet’s ability to synthesize experience. For both poets, the imagination was not merely a tool for forming mental images but a vital bridge between the human psyche and the natural world. Their work explored how this faculty allowed for a deeper understanding of humanity, nature, and the self, often positioning the imaginative artist as a central, heroic figure capable of renewing the intellectual climate of their age. This perspective stood in direct opposition to the dominance of analytic reason, which they believed led to a fragmented and dehumanized view of the universe.2