Coleridge's Prose Research Articles

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Anglican Church

This book is the first systematic historical examination of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's prose religious works. Coleridge (1772-1834), the son of a clergyman, 'was born and died a communicating member of the Church of England'. He was a prolific writer on the subject of the relationship between church and state. At age twenty-three, Coleridge published his first theological work, Lectures on Revealed Religion, which focused on the concept of reason facilitating virtue. Luke Wright maintains that this theme unites Coleridge's theological writings, including the posthumous Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (1935). Although he was an advocate of radical politics in the 1790s, by the time Coleridge published The Friend (1809), he had become high Tory. His major contribution to Anglican religious discourse was the revival of the Tory position on church and state, which saw the two as an organic unity rather than separate entities forming an alliance. His writings were vigorously opposed by the Whigs. After Coleridge's death in 1834, his arguments were taken up by William Gladstone and carried forward. Wright's careful reconstruction of Coleridge's dedication to church-state issues provides a new perspective on the writer himself and on the intellectual history of early nineteenth-century England.

Traditions of Victorian Women's Autobiography: The Poetics and Politics of Life Writing by Linda H. Peterson (review)

in the limitationsof language, and his recognition that 'only through tryingto state the truth do we realize the impossibilityof doing so' (p. 39). The problem of the nature of language indeed is in many ways central, both in relation to Coleridge's prose style, his preference for winding sentences and obscurities,and in relation to his quest to 'isolate the pre-linguisticessence of subjectiveconsciousness' (p. I42). In his prose he seeksto evoke a sense of the sublime, but 'what he pursuesis in fact the verbalization of an intuition which is always beyond the grasp of language' (p. I65). His anxieties about language are reflected in his sustained interest in desynonymizing termsoften treatedas equivalent, and he has much to say about a number of these, includingenthusiasmand fanaticism,positivenessas distinguished from certainty, thinkingversus thought, and spontaneity, happiness, and pleasure. He also considers Coleridge's wrestlingswith topics such as mysticism, optimism, evolution, and individuality, and writes discriminatinglyon his negotiations with the ideas of Hartley, Priestley,Berkeley,and Schelling. The argumentof the book is entirelyabstract,but, if Coleridgepersistentlyvalues 'thinkingover thoughts', this is, in part at least, related to his continuing concern with practical issues. The book does not touch on such matters. Yet Coleridge's concern with religion begins in his I795 Lectures by discussingthe problem of evil and sin, and he was troubledby hisvivid senseof man as a 'viciousand discontented Animal'(The Collected Works of SamuelTaylorColeridge, Vol. 2. TheWatchman, ed. by Lewis Patton (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, I970), p. I32) in the context of the horrors of war, such as occurred in the barbarities of the suppression of the Royalist uprising in the Vendee, and of the slave trade. His reflections on the theories of evolution and on the possibility of the progression of human nature turned on his desire to establish a fundamental distinction between humans and animals, and this led him to attempt to constructa theory of life. Vallinsdeals with Coleridge'stheoriesin isolationfromthepracticalconcernsthatcontinuallyaffected his thinking, and thus tends to substantiate an image of the poet as a cloudy metaphysician,pursuingintuitionsbeyond the graspof language. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Los ANGELES R. A. FOAKES Traditions of Victorian Ifomen's Autobiography. ThePoetics andPoliticsofLifeWriting.By LINDAH. PETERSON. (Victorian Literature and Culture) Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia. I999. xiii + 256 pp. $38.50. It is apt indeed that Linda H. Peterson, in this cogent and lucidly written study, should quote Elizabeth BarrettBrowning's famous phrase, 'I look everywhere for grandmothersand see none', since her own book is so cruciallyconcerned with the searchfor literaryancestry.Appropriately,Petersonbegins by paying tributeto the pioneering work of the feminist critics who, over the last twenty years, have establishedlife writing by women as a new and vibrant field of study, while at the same time taking issue with Mary G. Mason's categorical statement, in 'Other Voice: Autobiographies of Women Writers'in Autobiography. EssaysTheoretical and Critical, ed. byJames Olney (Princeton,NJ:PrincetonUniversity Press, I980), that 'Nowhere in women's autobiographies do we find the patterns establishedby the two prototypicalmale autobiographers,Augustineand Rousseau'. Augustine'suse of a dramaticstructureof conversion,where the 'selfis presentedas the stage for a battle of opposing forces and where a climactic victory for one force - spiritdefeating flesh- completes the dramaof the self,'is, accordingto Mason, essentiallyalien to women's self-conception; so, too, is Rousseau's 'unfolding self-discoverywhere the characters and events are little more than aspects of the author's evolving consciousness.' (p. 5). in the limitationsof language, and his recognition that 'only through tryingto state the truth do we realize the impossibilityof doing so' (p. 39). The problem of the nature of language indeed is in many ways central, both in relation to Coleridge's prose style, his preference for winding sentences and obscurities,and in relation to his quest to 'isolate the pre-linguisticessence of subjectiveconsciousness' (p. I42). In his prose he seeksto evoke a sense of the sublime, but 'what he pursuesis in fact the verbalization of an intuition which is always beyond the grasp of language' (p. I65). His anxieties about language are reflected in his sustained interest in desynonymizing termsoften treatedas equivalent, and he has much to say about a number of these, includingenthusiasmand fanaticism,positivenessas distinguished from certainty, thinkingversus thought, and...

Coleridge's Republicanism and the Aphorism in "Aids to Reflection"

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, AIDS TO REFLECTION MAY HAVE BEEN Coleridge's most influential work of prose. On both sides of Atlantic, Aids's psychology of Reason (the and substance of truths above sense) and the Understanding (the faculty which judges according to sense) persuaded many readers of value of spiritual as well as intellectual reflection at a time otherwise dominated Wesleyan enthusiasm, Calvinist reaction, and Unitarian rationalism. Perhaps best proof of this 1825 book's inspiration is variety of Victorian intellectual movements it spawned, including Cambridge Apostles, Broad Churchmen, Oxford Movement, American Transcendentalists, and even American Pragmatism.(1) The tremendous reach of Aids into nineteenth century confirms John Stuart Mill's assurance in his 1840 essay on that one has contributed more to shape opinions of those among its younger men.(2) One overlooked but potential source of book's great influence is its genre. A collection of aphorisms, Aids was among first in a small renaissance of form in 1820s and '30s, prompting Mill to examine trend in an 1837 article for Westminster Review. And, yet, no modern critic has examined Coleridge's use of aphorism in Aids. This neglect may seem surprising at first. Why, for example, have no critics investigated apparent paradox of Coleridge's bemoaning in 1817 corruption of metaphysics by certain immethodical aphorisming Eclectics and his turning in 1825 to this practice himself?(3) Two modern critical convictions, I think, make such an investigation seem unnecessary. The first conviction is that Coleridge could finish no project, so that, as Thomas McFarland puts it, choice for him was often between neurotically constructed vehicles and no publication at all. One therefore reads Coleridge's prose with a certain generosity about matters of form.(4) The second conviction--based upon a large critical is that English romantics wrote fragments, not aphorisms (as Coleridge insists on calling them in Aids). Along with maxims, aphorisms are assumed to be part of a wisdom literature that was little more than a fashion in early Victorian period.(5) The first critical conviction--that Coleridge's generic choices were always desultory or localized plans (McFarland 3)--is generally well-founded. However, in letters about production of Aids as well as in Aids itself, Coleridge does state specific reasons for using aphorism that have yet to be explored. These reasons, I will argue, recall distinctly reasons Coleridge gives for using others genres in his experimental newspaper of 1809--10, The Friend. The second critical conviction--that romantics wrote fragments, Victorians aphorisms--will be held to one side for most of this article, which examines instead continuity of Coleridge's thought in 1795 lectures, 1809-10 Friend, and--taking into account purpose of its aphorisms--the 1825 Aids. However, my conclusion--that Coleridge's political legacy to Victorians (based on a brief analysis of Mill's 1840 essay) must be judged as something closer to republican than conservative--suggests that generic periodization supported second conviction obscures what Coleridge was formally and consistently trying to accomplish in his prose writings over course of his career. Modern Republicanism and Coleridge's Early Prose Republicans view humans as political beings who realize their full potential through acts of civic virtue that sustain republics.(6) Republicans therefore prize humans as citizens, those who rule and are ruled, as Aristotle put it. In modern era, historians have identified two versions of republicanism, classical and liberal. Classical republicanism originated with Machiavelli. Noting how professional armies tended to corrupt republics (i. …

Coleridge's philosophy of composition: An overview of a romantic rhetorician

Coleridge criticism has a stormy quality about it, as if what we know about Coleridge is something we see only by flashes of lightning over some dark landscape. In Experience Into Thought, Kathleen Coburn says that Coleridge is irritating to certain tempers, perhaps especially to the curriculum-making academic mind(67). Her statement is ironic. Coleridge was always working on curriculum. His rage for a system that included the irrational and lucky graces forced him into whole courses about thinking and language, whole encyclopedias of knowledge. Still, the plan in most academic circles seems to have been to place Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the canon as a fragment of history and forget him. After long years of reading criticism about Samuel Taylor Coleridge rather than reading his works, it is time to see if there is a Coleridge worth claiming for rhetoric and composition. One problem in validating a Coleridge for our time is reading him. It seems that we have lost the habit of reading his kind of discourse. Perhaps because of his translations and readings of the German Transcendentalists, Coleridge's prose wanders and speculates, opposes its central premises, comments on itself incessantly. Composition scholars see him as an antithesis of the kind of style recommended in our classrooms and in our journals. Also, as composition studies attempt to establish territory in departmental turf wars, Coleridge becomes an easy target for those who would use him to demonstrate how literary concerns should not be included in composition pedagogy. As much as some might want Coleridge to go away, he will not. Linda Flower argues that Coleridge's inspirational model for composition is a threat to the teaching of composition (Problem-Solving). Ross Winterowd asserts that Coleridge is a primary reason for the devaluation of the literature of fact because his theory of composition or rhetoric lacks purpose (64). In both cases, eminent scholars and researchers in the field of composition are reacting to a stereotypical view of Coleridge and his works, as if the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan represent Coleridge's philosophy and theory of composition. But there is more to Coleridge's philosophy of composition than his poems, his theory of imagination in Biographia Literaria, or his criticism suggest. Kenneth

The dramatization of thought in coleridge's prose

The dramatization of thought in coleridge's prose

Coleridge's Prose and a Blake Plate in Stedman's "Narrative": Unfastening the "Hooks & Eyes" of Memory

Previous articleNext article No AccessColeridge's Prose and a Blake Plate in Stedman's "Narrative": Unfastening the "Hooks & Eyes" of MemoryMary Lynn JohnsonMary Lynn Johnson Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Wordsworth Circle Volume 13, Number 1Winter 1982 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/TWC24040844 Views: 2Total views on this site © 1982 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Coleridge's Prose Contributions to the Morning Post

Coleridge's Prose Contributions to the <i>Morning Post</i>

Coleridge's Prose Contributions to the Morning Post

Coleridge's Prose Contributions to the Morning Post

Coleridge and the Encyclopedists

Previous articleNext article No AccessColeridge and the EncyclopedistsAlice D. SnyderAlice D. Snyder Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 38, Number 2Nov., 1940 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/388472 Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Robert Bud “Applied Science”: A Phrase in Search of a Meaning Robert Bud, Isis 103, no.33 (Jul 2015): 537–545.https://doi.org/10.1086/667977

Coleridge's Criticism of Wordsworth

For an admirer of Coleridge's literary criticism it is most unsettling and mortifying to observe that the scholars who have questioned his reputation, though they have been in the minority, are among the most distinguished students of literature in our time. Sometimes, it is true, this distinction has come in Wordsworth studies, which often produce not only the inevitable study of Wordsworth's friendly association with Coleridge but also an unconsciously partisan defence of Wordsworth against the criticism in Biographia Literaria. In other cases one assumes that these doubters of Coleridge's fame have been annoyed by the uncritical and sanctimonious chorus in his praise, and wish to work back toward a more balanced judgment. Yet when Mr. Lucas—to take the most explicit and severe critic for a first instance—ridicules a few selected absurdities of Coleridge without acknowledging his profundities, one does not get the impression of balanced literary criticism but of urbane and deadly satire. Such absurdities as he quotes are numerous enough in Coleridge, no doubt; one might even agree that many of them are not exceptional, but characteristic. But we do not judge Shakespeare by Titus Andronicus or Wordsworth by The Excursion or Keats by Endymion. Even if we consider the whole mind of a great man as the background of his genius, we judge him ultimately only by the genius itself, which can never be more than part of his mind. Surely this is more necessary with Coleridge than with almost any other writer whom one could name, for his ill-health, unhappiness, and slavery to opium, and the instability of his temperament, all clouded his genius so much that it is easier to see the clouds than the light. Students who have collected fragments never intended for publication have given only too ample a field of choice for those who wish to illustrate the dullness or the nonsense of Coleridge's prose, but these students have presumably worked for other students, who wish material for complete historical information. As a finished and sensitive historical student of English and classical literature, Mr. Lucas is surely as fully qualified to select for praise as for blame, though he limits himself to the latter. The illustrations which he so deftly and plausibly presents of “the art of sinking” in criticism might well be matched by similar bits from the poetry, which Mr. Lucas, like Mr. Garrod, praises at the expense of Coleridge's criticism. Yet neither he, nor any one else, has ever offered the poorer poems as a proof that The Ancient Mariner has no excellence.