Coleridge and Language Theory

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in relation to language theory. It argues that Coleridge's speculation on linguistic universals anticipates Noam Chomsky's theory of generative grammar. The article suggests that Coleridge's engagement with language theory was vitally important to the intellectual culture of its own time, and that it remains a seminal instance of nineteenth-century speculation on the nature and origin of language.