Samuel Taylor Coleridge is best known as a great poet and literary theorist, but for one, quite short, period of his life he held real political power - acting as Public Secretary to the British Civil Commissioner in Malta in 1805. This was a formative experience for Coleridge which he later identified as being one of the most instructive in his entire life. In this volume Barry Hough and Howard Davis show how Coleridge's actions whilst in a position of power differ markedly from the idealism he had advocated before taking office - shedding new light on Coleridge's sense of political and legal morality.
The most sustained criticism and ambitious theory that had ever been attempted in English, the Biographia was Coleridge's major statement to a literary culture in which he sought to define and defend all imaginative life. This book offers a reading of Coleridge in the context of that culture and the institutions that comprised it.
Volume 1 of 2. Coleridge's Shorter Works and Fragments brings together a number of substantial essays that were not long enough to require volumes to themselves, among them his "Theory of Life," "Essays on the Principles of Genial Criticism," "Treatise on Method," "Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit," "On the Passions," and "On the Prometheus of Aeschylus." To these are added more than four hundred other pieces, some of them fragementary, many of them previously unpublished, ranging in date from school essays of the early 1790s to a discussion of the bullion controversy in 1834. As might be expected, the subject matter includes literature and language, theology, philosophy, politics, and science, but in many less predictable topics (such as child labor laws, marriage, suicide, church history, the abolition of slavery, the state of the colonies) also appear. By gathering this material and presenting it in chronological order, Shorter Works and Fragments reveals the development and major characteristics of Coleridge's seemingly inexhaustible variety. H.J. Jackson and J.R. de J. Jackson, Professors of English at the University of Toronto, are the editors of Coleridge's Marginalia and Logic, respectively, in the Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Bollingen Series LXXV Originally published in 1995. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Though left uncompleted, “Kubla Khan” is one of the most famous examples of Romantic era poetry. In it, Samuel Coleridge provides a stunning and detailed example of the power of the poet’s imagination through his whimsical description of Xanadu, the capital city of Kublai Khan’s empire. Samuel Coleridge penned “Kubla Khan” after waking up from an opium-induced dream in which he experienced and imagined the realities of the great Mongol ruler’s capital city. Coleridge began writing what he remembered of his dream immediately upon waking from it, and intended to write two to three hundred lines. However, Coleridge was interrupted soon after and, his memory of the dream dimming, was ultimately unable to complete the poem. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.
Coleridge is such a celebrity that many who have never read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" have a fair idea who he was, and yet the common impression of him is not flattering. He is typically seen as a youthful genius transformed by drugs and philosophy into a tedious sage. It is time for a change of image. A Book I Value offers a one-volume sampling of Coleridge's encyclopedic marginalia, revealing a figure more complex but also more humanly attractive--clever, curious, playful, intense--than the one we are used to. This book makes a convenient introduction to Coleridge's life, the intellectual issues and contemporary concerns that held his attention, and the workings of his mind. The marginalia represent an unintimidating sort of writing that Coleridge famously excelled at (often in books borrowed from friends). "A book, I value," he wrote, "I reason & quarrel with as with myself when I am reasoning." Unlike the complete Marginalia in six volumes arranged alphabetically by author, this representative selection is chronological and footnote-free, with a contextualizing introduction and brief headnotes that outline Coleridge's circumstances year by year and provide essential historical information. Our own cultural taboo against writing in books is slackening in light of new interest in the history of the book. It will be weakened further by the extraordinary and now accessible example of Coleridge, who was a remarkably shrewd but at the same time a remarkably charitable reader.
A biography of the original of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, a sailor by the name of Simon Hatley. In 1719 Simon Hatley, a sailor on the Speedwell rounding Cape Horn, shot an albatross in a 'melancholy fit' and his scheming captain, George Shelvocke, wrote about the incident. Samuel Taylor Coleridge read Shelvocke's book seventy-eight years later and was inspired to write his famous poem The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere. Robert Fowke, working from contemporary documents, uncovers for the first time in over two hundred years the true identity of Simon Hatley/the Ancient Mariner and gives an enthralling account of his adventures. Simon Hatley sailed to the Pacific on two of the most dangerous privateering voyages of the early eighteenth century, was implicated in an act of piracy, twice imprisoned by the Inquisition and, in 1709, sailed on the same ship with Alexander Selkirk, the model for Robinson Crusoe, and William Dampier, mentioned in Gulliver's Travels as 'my cousin Dampier'. The models for the Ancient Mariner, Robinson Crusoe and, to some extent, Gulliver were once all shipmates together. The tale of Hatley's adventures illuminates events behind this strange literary coincidence. Contents: Preface Hatley: the discovery of Simon Hatley/the Ancient Mariner's identity, his childhood and family background. The Language of the Sea: about the extraordinary voyages and books of buccaneer authors and shipmates of Simon Hatley, such as William Dampier, how they exploited their credentials as seamen for literary and commercial gain. The Hand of the most High: how religious tension was reflected on the high sea, and the broader politcal/religious context behind early-eighteenth-century pirate, buccaneering and privateering voyages into the Pacific. The Voyage of the Cinque Ports: William Dampier's privateering expedition into the Pacific at the start of the War of the Spanish Succession, when Alexander Selkirk (Robinson Crusoe) was marooned on the Juan Fernandez Islands. The Voyage of the Duke and Duchess: Hatley sails as Third Mate, the rescue of Selkirk, capture of Guaykil, Hatley lost at sea. Good Dogs were Tories: return of the Duke and Duchess, formation of the South Sea Company, litigation and dissension. Hatley lost at sea. Lima and the Ancient Mariner: tortured by the Inquisition. Gentlelam Venturers: the voyage of the Speedwell. The Albatross: the shooting of the albatross and other adventures Crusoe and Gulliver: the South Sea Bubble bursts, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver and Shelvocke's book are written. Last information on Simon Hatley. Coleridge: the genesis of the poem. Bibliography Endnotes Index
One of the highly praised Lakeland poets, alongside his friend William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a founder of the Romantic movement in England. His work - still popular today - includes such classics as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan as well as the beautiful early poem Frost at Midnight: 'Or if the secret ministry of frost, Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.' Despite the great beauty of his work, he suffered from bouts of depression and today it is speculated he may well have had bipolar disorder. For both mental and physical ailments he was treated with laudanum which led to a lifelong addition to opium. Coleridge's influence was widespread - he was a major influence on Ralph Waldo Emerson - indeed, he invented the phrase suspension of disbelief. This collection is a fascinating insight into his life, as well as his work.
