Conclusion: ‘Dejection. An Ode’ in the Morning Post as a Palimpsest

Abstract

This chapter reads the publication of ‘Dejection. An Ode’ in the Morning Post of 4 October 1802 in the light of the research presented in the previous chapters. It argues that the differences between the April ‘Verse Letter’ and the October newspaper version are not so much a matter of contrasts between so-called private and public versions, but of cumulative layering and resonance, a palimpsest in which the shifts in emphases and addressees are not so much replacements as expansions and incorporations of previous versions. The publication of ‘Dejection. An Ode’ in the Morning Post had been a long time coming, longer than most biographies and critical studies have indicated. In the Morning Post Coleridge found a place for the performance and circulation of his frustrations and afflictions. By taking the location of publication as the unifying focus of my discussion, I have tried to shed new light on the intricacies of Coleridge’s life and work between 1799 and 1802.