First published in 1966

Despite the intense interest in Coleridge in the twentieth century, this book represents the first study of Coleridge’s poetry to be published in Britain. It is also the first to be based upon the conclusion that Coleridge’s greatness as a poet is a matter of achievement rather than aspiration and to argue that his literary career was nearly half a century long, consisting of more than just well-known texts like The Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. The author argues the formality of the romantic achievement and its success in creating whole and fully realised poems in the established literary kinds.