The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge

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Many books have been written about William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge that cover their biographies and make critical assessments of their work. In Adam Sisman's The Friendship, for the first time the bond between these two poets is given center stage. The friendship flourished in the aftermath of the French Revolution. The poets met in 1795 when both were in their early twenties, two young idealists disappointed by the lack of expected change in their world following the revolution. They wanted to write a poem that would change the world, that would be accessible to all and would fire the imagination of the most humble. This desire led to the publication of Lyrical Ballads, the beginning of the English Romantic movement, which included Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey."

How did their friendship affect their work? Sisman shows the ways that their bond created competitive tension and fueled their creativity to even greater poetic achievement than might have been achieved alone. The political and social situation of the time was very influential on them, as well as their individual families and romances. They were passionate in all regards, reaching great heights and great depths of feeling. Ultimately, the two men became estranged, and then effected a tenuous reconciliation--one much talked about among their friends and acquaintances, because they had both become famous. Although Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy despaired of Coleridge, believing that he would never stop drinking and taking opium, and though their professional differences came to separate them, while they collaborated they created poems of great beauty, encouraging one another to reach lofty heights in the realms of literary expression. For these two, for a glorious time, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. --Valerie Ryan

Book Description

The story of the legendary friendship between Wordsworth and Coleridge

The friendship between William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge produced dazzling results. From it came Lyrical Ballads, the volume that kick-started the Romantic Movement in England. Rarely have two such gifted writers cooperated so closely. They met in 1795 when both were in their early twenties, and in the euphoria of mutual discovery these brilliant and idealistic young men planned a poem that would succeed where the French Revolution failed—a poem that would, quite literally, change the world. In this wonderfully lively and readable account, acclaimed author Adam Sisman explores their passionate and tempestuous bond and the way in which rivalry bred tension between them. Though much has been written about this extraordinary duo, no previous biographer has considered them together. The result offers insights into the rich yet neglected topic of friendship and tantalizing glimpses of the creative process itself.

Customer Reviews:

Our literature benefited from this friendship,,,.......2007-08-07

It's been a long time since I picked up a book on literature that I loved as much as this one. I originally had a major in English Literature, and spent four years of studying most British writers, with an emphasis on the poets and the prose of the time from John Donne to the end of the 19th century. I loved the British romanticist that included both Coleridge and Wordsworth, but I didn't realize how deeply entwined their lives were, and how much their poetry owed to this friendship of theirs.

This book brings to life the poetry they wrote and their relationship during their time together. Two different men who placed such a deep importance on literature to change and effect society. We seem to have lost our respect for the ability of words to heal, even though now we know they can do deep harm whether in music or literature or conversation. These two men lived at a time when life was changing from an agrarian society to one that depended upon industry and many were leaving the land and going to cities to find work. The time period also saw the Revolution in the U.S. and then the one in France, and many British were hoping to see changes in politics and other parts of life, in which people would have more say and more freedom. Unfortunately, the French Revolution did not proceed the way that many expected it to, away from t he monarchy and towards freedom, but it fell in on itself probably because of the violence. It left a very bad taste in the mouths of young men like Wordsworth and Coleridge, who hated the violence that the Revolution spawned.

These men wanted to see a return of man to his roots, to understanding and admiring and valuing the natural world around them. They felt that a simple life without dependence upon things or money was of more worth than the lives so many led in the cities or towns of England and other European countries. I think these two men would be horrified at how far we've left behind the simple life and our dependence upon material things has led towards endangering the natural world that we live on. These men were actually early ecologists...

This book was extremely poignant and sad, mainly because Coleridge like many in the early 19th century was introduced to laudanum, an opium drug, that was used widely as aspirin is used now. It was not understood how addictive it was at that time period, though as Coleridge aged he knew he depended too much upon the drug and on alcohol which was their primary drink of that time period because water was considered unsafe. This addiction caused him to lose not only his family and his friends, but Coleridge's ability to write was lost as he became more addicted and sick due to the drug. It was amazing that he lived as long as he did, and it was due to the care that others took of him including Wordsworth and his sister. It must have been horrible for those who loved him to watch his descent into addiction and to watch him lose his great abilities. It was devestating to him and to his ego to lose his brilliant mind and ability to write, and left him jealous of Wordsworth, who was unable to help his friend.

This is an equisite book looking into the relationships of these two poets and their lives. It brings back a time long lost both in England and in the U.S. where we put as much emphasis on the ability to write well, and society paid more attention to men of learning and ability than to sports heroes and celebrities of little worth...

Karen sadler

The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge.......2007-04-08

A somewhat disappointing read...expected more and earlier in the narrative on the individuals...covered somewhat towards the end of the book but disappointing in the brief treatment of the...Opium addiction of Colridge and Dorothy Wordsworth...the sexuality of Dorothy Wordsworth her brother and Colridge...religion and Colridge...Godwinism and the infulence it had on this/these relationship(s)...the conflict between Southy and Coleridge...Dorothy Wordsworths and Sara Colridges hostile relationship...homosexuality...etc.

All these conditions are well know to readers of the Lake Districk Poets and would have added texture and fabric to the story of literatry colorbation between these two major Poets instead of being left for a generalized dicussion at themend of the book.

A friendship which helped bring into being great poetry .......2007-02-23

Collaboration between poets is a rare phenomenom. Perhaps the most notable instance in the history of English poetry is that between William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. For a brief period of time they worked together and helped inspire each other to new levels in their respective work. In this examination of their collaboration the dramatic center of this work is the annus mirabilis , the brief time of their working together which led to the publication of 'The Lyrical Ballands'in 1797.
The 'Lyrical Ballads' are the great manifesto of English Romantic poetry. They contain the critical preface in which Wordsworth famously defines poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotion recollected in tranquillity." They contain some of the finest poems in the English language including Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey' and Coleridge's masterpiece 'The Ancient Mariner'Sisman explains how Coleridge did much to contribute to Wordsworth's creation of his great poem. Wordsworth supplied two - thirds of the poems and received the thirty guineau payment for them. Wordsworth concentrated on the more simple natural presentations and Coleridge on the supernatural and fantastic.
Both of the poets were to in these early years produce their finest work. Wordsworth went on to staid respectability, to being the Poet Laureate to fifty years of producing relatively uninteresting and mediocre verse. Coleridge's great poetry writing period also did not last long either.
Sisman provides a great deal of political and social background to the friendship especially around the Radical Politics they both shared in their youth. He also tells the story of how Coleridge and Wordsworth moved away from and become disenchanted with each other in their later years.
For all lovers of Poetry this volume should be an incredible treat.

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Very Nice.
Cheap and well done
Beautiful Volume
Marginal Notes
Sorry - The other reviews listed are from another edition.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0486223051

Book Description

Doré's engravings for The Rime are considered by many to be his greatest work. The terrifying space of the open sea, the storms and whirlpools of an unknown ocean, the hot equatorial seas swarming with monsters, the ice of Antarctica, more — are all rendered in a powerful manner. Full text and 38 plates.

Customer Reviews:

Very Nice........2007-04-28

This is a great version of this classic poem at a reasonable price. Very lovely illustrations and just the right amount of annotation of antiquated phrases. A great book for adults who have not read the story, or to get children interested in poetry.

Relic113

Cheap and well done.......2007-01-14

Dover puts out quite the book. This edition being in the $5 range is no exception. It's the size of a large coloring book with the writing on the left and the pictures on the right. Printed well and bound to last a great number of years with plenty of space to write commentary of your own if you are a student.

There is added text, printed very small, to the left of the actual poem. Some of it is interesting and some of it is superfluous. Very easy to ignore if you're not a 'footnote' reading person.

The plates run to the full edge of the paper and there is no white border if you are the 'cut it our of the book and hand it on my wall type'. No bashing here this book is cheap enough to buy one to read and one to be artistic with.

Beautiful Volume.......2006-07-23

If you're familiar with the poem this illustrated volume is well worth having in your library. The drawings by Gustave Dore are beautiful and perfectly complememnt the text. A book that you can enjoy many times over whenever the mood strikes you.

Marginal Notes.......2006-05-10

"It's the structure of the reader's experience rather than any structures available on the page that should be the object of description" , says Stanley Fish in his essay. In parallel with Fish's this claim, Coleridge presents his poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", with marginal notes, each of which actually reifies the perspective of an "intended reader, the reader whose education, opinions, concerns make him capable of having the experience the author wished to provide". Coleridge gives a reading of his poem by creating an ideal reader, thus creating another kind of poet who "restructures" the poem. Therefore, the side notes should be thought to be an organic part of the poem "having meaning" rather than "leading to meaning". And this brings in a new understanding of the poem which is almost imposed on the actual reader by Coleridge's ideal one.
The marginal notes of the poem, at first sight, seem to be the short summaries of the stanzas. However, when they are read closely, the first thing that strikes the eye is that some of them include some details and deductions which are not suggested in the poem. These details and deductions go beyond the borders of a summary and turn into commentaries which express the perspective of a certain individual. And this perspective reflects the tendencies of a reader who is inclined to emphasize certain points of the poem by giving extra details and making deductions. Coleridge's ideal reader makes all the deductions that the poet wants to provide in his lines. Even at the very beginning of the poem he gets the supernatural tone of the lines that Coleridge wants to give. For instance, the fifth stanza of the first part suggests that:
"The wedding-guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but to hear;
Thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner." (Part I, V, 17-20)
And the marginal note gives the explanation of the stanza with these words: "The wedding guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale" (61). The related stanzas of the poem don't include any word directly related to "be spelled". It is true that a reader might come to such a conclusion but there is a possibility that s/he might not. As Fish says, there are different "interpretive communities" that can lead to different interpretations of a literary work. Therefore, a reader can explain the behavior of the wedding-guest in psychological terms while a different reader, for example the owner of the commentaries, can explain it in supernatural elements. The commentator's insistence upon supernatural explanation of the poem almost forces the readers to think in supernatural terms while they may interpret the experiences of the mariner, for instance, as products of hallucination or neurosis. The possible reason of this effect is that the marginal notes give a much more convincing impression as they don't seem to be parts of the poem and this caused them to lose their fictional side in the reader's eye. The reader unconsciously sees the commentator as an authority. For example, when the mariner kills the albatross without any reason, the weather and other conditions get worse. The mariner, an old man who kills a harmless albatross without any sensible reason, definitely believes that the conditions get worse so as to punish him for his crime. However, this approach to the changing conditions becomes more convincing when the commentator points out that, "And the Albatross begins to be avenged" (67). Moreover, the mariner never tells it as directly as the commentator although it is apparent that he believes it to be so. Coleridge, by creating his own ideal reader and giving his commentaries as marginal notes, almost forces the readers of the poem to believe in the "supernatural" experiences of the mariner. And he manages it without using the actual lines of the poem.
In his article, Stanley Fish points out that, "In a sequence where a reader first structures the field he inhabits and then is asked to restructure it by changing an assignment of speaker or realigning attitudes and positions" . In parallel with Fish's suggestion, Coleridge's reader, the commentator, changes the actual lines of the poem by giving extra details just like the end notes of an author. For instance, in the second part of the poem, the following stanza describes the temporary good conditions just after the mariner kills the albatross:
"The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea." (Part II, V, 103-106)

And the marginal note of this stanza suggests that, "The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward, even till reaches the Line" (67). It is apparent that the related lines of the poem don't include any information about the exact location or direction of the sail. However, the ideal reader of the poem is capable of locating the ship exactly on the Pacific Ocean and of giving its exact direction to the north. The commentator, as Fish suggests, "restructures" the lines of Coleridge by "realigning" the suggested directions of the wind which provide only ambiguous information about the location. And through his own experience, he himself creates the exact location of the sail as "the reader's experience is itself the product of a set of interpretive assumptions". Another example that shows the commentator's restructuring the lines of the poem is related to bad omens after the mariner's killing of Albatross. The related stanza in the second part of the poem says:
"And some in dreams assured were
Of the spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow." (Part II, XII, 131-134)

And the commentary of the stanza gives a detailed information about the features and origins of the spirit: "One of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus...may be consulted. They are very numerous,...."(69). As it is apparently seen, the commentator makes the interpretation of the stanza by using his own experience and education. He presents his background, imagination and his own point of view to other readers; therefore he offers his own interpretation and understanding of the poem. He changes or "realigns" the apparent meaning of the poem by bringing in a new perspective just like a painter's use of light on his/her painting from different angles. Thus, the commentator, like a gleam of light, illuminates the poem from a certain angle and creates a new appearance of it.
While creating a specific perspective in the understanding of the poem, some of the commentaries have their own poetical tone although they just seem to be small summaries of the stanzas. The owner of the commentaries prefers to use a literary language with phrases in a melodious harmony with each other and with a perfect choice of words. For example, in the fifth part of the poem, the mariner describes the resurrection of the crew not with their own souls but spelled by the spirits. And he describes it with the following lines:
"...`T was not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest." (Part V, XIII, 347-349)

When the commentary of these lines is read, almost a new poem with harmonious phrases and with a poetical tone comes out. When the commentary is turned into the lines of a poem, the poetic side of it becomes much more obvious:
"But not by the souls of the men,
Nor by demons of earth or middle air,
But by a blessed troop of angelic spirits,
Sent by the invocation of the guardian saint." (81)

As it is clearly seen, the commentary owns a structure easily convertible into a stanza. Moreover, the phrases have a perfect parallelism with each other and there is a regular repetition of "by" in each line. And this tone and poetical structure of the commentary convincingly shows that Coleridge's ideal reader manages more than just understanding the poem and making comments on it. He becomes an indispensable part of the poem by getting closer and closer to the poet and by adopting his creative tone. He internalizes the poetical world of the poem and starts to read it with the energy of a poet which eventually leads to a harmonious language and rhetorical structure. He starts to ask rhetorical questions which encourage other readers of the poem to think on the poem, to question it and to deduce some conclusions. When the mariner describes the ship approaching "without a breeze, without a tide" (Part III, VI, 169), the ideal reader of Coleridge asks, "Can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide?" (71) so as to make other readers realize the strangeness of the situation and conclude that there must be a spiritual intervention. Therefore, the commentator emerges as a guide who tries to shape the reader's opinions and deductions.
In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Coleridge creates his ideal reader in the small summaries of the poem in order to clarify the meaning he wants to provide by means of his ideal reader's experience, education and perspective. Coleridge, through his commentator, imposes the certain understanding of the poem on other readers who can have completely different interpretations and deductions. The commentator clarifies, interprets and "restructures" certain lines, asks questions and directs other readers in a way which his creator, Coleridge, wants them to follow. He almost forces the readers to look at the poem from one perspective and he manages it by using his position as an ideal reader and commentator endowed with authority by Coleridge himself. And throughout the poem, he ends up with being one of the poets of the poem by using his rights to interpret and "restructure" the actual lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Sorry - The other reviews listed are from another edition........2006-05-08

I was suprised when I received The Modern Critical Interpretations edition of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

There are no woodcuts or any other pictures, there are no silver pages, there is no poem at all!

This book is only modern critical interpretations - nothing more. Buy it if you are a scholar - and refer to a separate copy of the poem.

I should have known from the edition but the editorial reviews were from a different book that was an edition of the actual poem.

The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Vol. 16. Poetical Works: Part 2. Poems (Variorum Text). 2 VOLUME SET (Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

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The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Vol. 16. Poetical Works: Part 2. Poems (Variorum Text). 2 VOLUME SET (Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0691004846

Book Description

Poetry in its many guises is at the center of Coleridge's multifarious interests, and this long-awaited new edition of his complete poetical works marks the pinnacle of the Bollingen Collected Coleridge. The three parts of Volume 16 confirm and expand the sense of the Coleridge who has emerged over the past half-century, with implications for English Romantic writing as a whole. Setting new standards of comprehensiveness in the presentation of Romantic texts, they will interest historians and editorial theorists, as well as readers and students of poetry. They represent a work of truly monumental importance.

The second part presents the same 706 poems as the first, in the same chronological sequence, but differently records in each case all known textual information in collated form--allowing for alternative construals of the reading texts. An additional 135 items are inserted into the same sequence, comprising poems mistakenly ascribed to Coleridge or of dubious authenticity and poems that remained only in the planning stage or that are referred to but have not been recovered. The index of titles and first lines incorporates the full range of variants.

All told, the Collected Coleridge variorum sequence collates over a third more additional texts--in more detailed and accurate form--than those found in the previous standard edition, by E.H. Coleridge. The presentation method in this second part will interest editorial theorists as well as those interested primarily in Coleridge and/or the making of poetry. The unusually detailed textual information also reveals changes in such areas as linguistic and grammatical usage, patterns of transcription and circulation among anthologists, and contemporary publishers' house styles.

The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 5: 1827-1834 (Bollingen Series (General))

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The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 5: 1827-1834 (Bollingen Series (General))
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0691099073

Book Description

This final volume of Bollingen Series L covers the material Coleridge wrote in his notebooks between January 1827 and his death in 1834. In these years, Coleridge made use of the notebooks for his most sustained and far-reaching inquiries, very little of which resulted in publication in any form during his lifetime.

Twenty-eight notebooks are here published in their entirety for the first time; entries dated 1827 or later from several more notebooks also appear in this volume. Following previous practice for the edition, notes appear in a companion volume.

Coleridge's intellectual interests were wide, encompassing not only literature and philosophy but the political crises of his time, scientific and medical breakthroughs, and contemporary developments in psychology, archaeology, philology, biblical criticism, and the visual arts. In these years, he met and conversed with eminent writers, scholars, scientists, churchmen, politicians, physicians, and artists. He planned a major work on Logic (still unpublished at his death), and an outline of Christian doctrine, also unfinished, though his work toward this project contributed to On the Constitution of the Church and State (1830) and the revised Aids to Reflection (1831).

The reader of these notebooks has the opportunity to see what one of the most admired minds of the English-speaking world thought on several issues--such as race and empire, science and medicine, democracy (particularly in reaction to the Reform Bills introduced in 1831 and 1832), and the authority of the Bible--when he wrote without fear of public disapprobation or controversy.

Philosophical and Theological Opinions (Volume 2 of The Cmplete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Philosophical and Theological Opinions (Volume 2 of The Cmplete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Classic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0742633640

Statesman's Manual (The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (7 Volumes) [Volume 1])

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Statesman's Manual (The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (7 Volumes) [Volume 1])
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Classic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0742633713

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Excellent, but
Bringing Coleridge to Life
How does Richard Holmes do it?
Well-researched, tasteful modern biography
A wonderful biography - long-awaited sequel

Coleridge: Early Visions
Richard Holmes
Manufacturer: Viking Adult
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0670804444

Customer Reviews:

Excellent, but .......2006-09-15

This treatment of Coleridge's early life is excellent in scope & detail; in fact, it won a prize. But its strength-- objectivity-- is its weakness. Holmes expresses no imaginitive sympathy for his subject. He writes about Romanticism with the detatchment of an entymologist examining a butterfly. And while he treats Coleridge's pathology in an overtly psychological manner, he fails to identify the pathologies he describes -- like a doctor who collects symptoms without making a diagnosis.

The result is an outstanding example of conventional literary biography, but one that is insensitive to growth, imagination, and mind in the act of making the mind -- or why Coleridge was passionate about them. Those interested in these must seek elsewhere, but this volume remains a good place to learn the facts of Coleridge's life, despite its dry prose.

Bringing Coleridge to Life.......2005-03-13

This is the Coleridge I thought I knew through his poetry. Holmes brings him to life in this first volume of Coleridge's early years. The book makes you wish you had known Coleridge personally and shared in his life. His life is complex and challenging and so it must have been for Holmes to research and write Coleridge's life. In fact, Holmes seems to have a special knowledge into the life of one of the greatest poets of the English language. This book gave me insights into Coleridge's works I had not had before. If you want to learn more about Samuel Taylor Coleridge, his life and his works, this is the book to read.

How does Richard Holmes do it?.......1999-12-13

Somehow Holmes produces scholarly biographies that make compulsive reading. He never fictionalizes or puts thoughts in his subjects' heads that he has no authority for - and yet he keeps us turning those pages. Is it the subjects he choses? Shelley and Coleridge both had strongly "plotted" lives. Coleridge married the sister of Southey's wife and fell in love with the sister of Wordsworth's wife. I liked his comment on Coleridge's father's predecessor in the the benefice of St Mary's Ottery.

Well-researched, tasteful modern biography.......1999-06-01

The general reader and the scholar should enjoy this book. Holmes does set Coleridge talking.

Don't miss Owen Barfield's WHAT COLERIDGE THOUGHT if you want to explore the matephysician.

A wonderful biography - long-awaited sequel.......1998-10-24

If you think Coleridge was finished by 1804, think again. True, all his great poems had been written but an astonishing life of triumph and tragi-comedy lay ahead. "Coleridge, Darker Reflections" is the long-awaited second half of this award-winning biography of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It covers the period 1804-1834 - a time when, according to popular belief, Coleridge's fertile imagination had dried up and he faced a slippery slide to an opium-induced decline. But not according to the author Richard Holmes, described as "Our best post-war biographer". He is a superb story teller and unlike so many biographers before him, deeply in touch with his subject. His first volume, "Coleridge Early Visions" introduced the poet to a new generation of admirers (including myself who was fired into writing a play for children about the poet's early magical years). This wonderful book will surely establish STC as a troubled but gigantic genius of the 19th century. Holme's own genius is to show us Coleridge the man. "Always on the knife edge between tragedy and comedy" said Holmes at the London book launch this week (21st October 1998) Holmes has worked assiduously through STC's vast notebooks. Like his namesake, Sherlock, the author clearly enjoys the detection element of biography. His is a personal search for the man, his millieu and his place. Holmes retraces STC's footsteps around England - echoing the desperate perambulations of the wandering poet. Holmes tells this astonishing story at a cracking pace - he has the thriller-writer's gift for making you turn the page. We follow STC through his Malta years - a wonderful evocation of Coleridge's chaotic life. The years of tragic opium decline in London are brought to life (I challenge you not to cry) - and yet there are so many triumphs - the marvellous late poems that Holmes has championed in an earlier collection, the seminal lectures on Shakespeare, Coleridge the thinker and radical, Coleridge the father (not a very good one), the years of relative happiness in Highgate where we find Coleridge the guru. Above all is Coleridge the man. Holmes as only the greatest biographers can, brings his subject completely to life and shows us why Coleridge was such a tour de force in the Romantic movement and why Byron called Wordsworth "a fixed star" but Coleridge "a meteor". There is so much to love in this book - it is hard to know what to recommend. If you have never read a biography before, make this your first. If you think you are familiar with the life of STC, this book, so full of new discoveries and insights, will make you reassess the poet. Holmes is clearly enamoured of his subject. It is a book that will make you laugh out loud in places. You will see exactly why Charles Lamb said of his great friend "He is an archangel, damaged."

The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics)

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Good collection of Coleridge's works

The Major Works (Oxford World's Classics)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0192840436

Book Description

This authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together a unique combination of Coleridge's poetry and prose - all the major poems, complemented by important criticism, letters, and marginalia - to give the essence of his work and thinking. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic, and radical thinker, exerted an enormous influence over contemporaries as different as Wordsworth, Southey and Lamb. He was also a dedicated reformer, and set out to use his reputation as a public speaker and literary philosopher to change the course of English thought. This collection represents the best of Coleridge's poetry from every period of his life, particularly his prolific early years, which produced The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, and Kubla Khan. The central section of the book is devoted to his most significant critical work, Biographia Literaria, and reproduces it in full. It provides a vital background for both the poetry section which precedes it and for the shorter prose works which follow. There is also a generous sample of his letters, notebooks, and marginalia, some recently discovered, which show a different, more spontaneous side to his fascinating and complex personality.

Customer Reviews:

Good collection of Coleridge's works.......2006-10-14

S.T. Coleridge is an interesting poetic figure. An opium addict who imaged an imaginary country called 'Xanadu', based on an Asian legend about one of the descendants of Genghis Khan, Coleridge's visions are very scattered and lacking in unity. His poems, while some soar to great heights, are often confusing or pedestrian, and in this regard he is a lesser poet than Blake or Milton.

Despite this and his constant dabblings in various religions and his unsystematic attempts to grasp a deep unity in the universe and in all knowledge in the realm of the spirit, along with some beautiful poems like the Ancient Mariner and some good essays and prose works (such as the Biographia) make Coleridge an essential part of any canon of English literature. He is a genius, even if not an outstanding one, and worth reading at least once.

The Oxford Collections are generally of very high standard and worth purchasing for every canonical author.

Romanticism and Religion: The Tradition of Coleridge and Wordsworth in the Victorian Church

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Romanticism and Religion: The Tradition of Coleridge and Wordsworth in the Victorian Church
Stephen Prickett
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521210720

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Lyrical Ballads (Penguin Classics)
William Wordsworth , and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0140424628

Book Description

Twenty-three poems that transformed English poetry

Wordsworth and Coleridge composed this powerful selection of poetry during their youthful and intimate friendship. Reproducing the first edition of 1798, this edition of Lyrical Ballads allows modern readers to recapture the book's original impact. In these poems—including Wordsworth's “Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey” and Coleridge's “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere”—the two poets exercised new energies and opened up new themes.

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