Coleridge on Dramatic Illusion

Coleridge's celebrated theory of dramatic illusion was doubtless formulated to deal with the problem of Shakespeare and “the three unities.” The unities of time, place, and action so dear to the hearts of the French were, he felt, based on a doctrine of literal delusion, mistakenly supposing that the audience is deceived into taking the play as a real happening. In his Preface to his edition of Shakespeare, Dr. Johnson, on the other hand, had maintained that a theatrical audience was never deceived for a moment. The spectator understood that he was viewing a presentation of fictional events, and judged it according to its adherence to sound morality, logical probability, and general human nature. For Coleridge the truth was a reconciliation of these two extreme views: the audience of a play is neither deceived nor wholly undeceived about its reality. It is in a state of illusion, a complex attitude in part self-willed, in part created by the skill of the playwright and the actors.