Overview

This volume explores ‘the labyrinth of what we call Coleridge’ (Virginia Woolf): his poems and prose, their sources, interpretation and reception; his life, troubled marriage and fatherhood, conversation, changing intellectual contexts and legacy.

Major Works

Major entries cover such canonical works as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, Kubla Khan, the conversation poems and Biographia Literaria. But a fuller understanding of Coleridge must embrace many lesser-known poems – lyrics, satire, comical squibs.

Prose and Influences

The prose – critical, philosophical, political, religious – ranges from his early radical writings to the more conservative On the Constitution of the Church and State, his influential Shakespeare lectures, and the vast resource of the notebooks. Coleridge read widely throughout his life and engaged extensively with the work of, among many others, Milton, Fielding, Berkeley, Priestley, Kant, Schelling.

Relationships and Reputation

One of his most important relationships was with William Wordsworth. Another was with Sara Hutchinson. Entries trace Coleridge’s changing reputation, from brilliant young activist to the Sage of Highgate to the later apostle of the theories of the imagination and of Practical Criticism.

Additional Topics

Other topics covered include opium, plagiarism, the French Revolution, Pantisocracy, Unitarianism, and the Salutation and Cat tavern.