According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, fancy is the act of combining different things into pleasing shapes, but not fusing them into a new creation. He considered fancy to be inferior to imagination, which is the power to shape and unify.
Coleridge believed that fancy is a repository for lust and the source of baser desires.
He considered fancy to be an acquired talent, while imagination is related to innate genius.
Coleridge was the first critic to distinguish between fancy and imagination, and to define their roles.
Coleridge believed that imagination is the soul of poetic genius, while fancy is its drapery.
