Coleridge as Poet and Religious ThinkerIn the nineteenth century there was a definite divide between those who read Coleridge as a religious thinker and those who read him as a poet. Even now, readers and critics find it hard not to consider one aspect of his work to the exclusion of the other. Here David Jasper considers Coleridge as a poet, literary critic, theologian and philosopher, seeing him as occupying a representative place in European and English Romantic thought on poetry, religion and the role of the artist. His earliest writings are closely linked to his mature religious and critical thought, and his greatest poems, ‘Kubla Khan’, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and the ‘Dejection’ Ode, are a necessary prelude to the prose writings of the middle period of Coleridge’s life. Self-reflection upon the processes of creating poetry and art, particularly in the Biographia Literaria, is an important development in Coleridge’s sense of the relation of the finite to the infinite through the inspiration of the poet. Attention to the nature of inspiration, imagination and irony in creative writing leads directly to his later discussions of man’s need of a divine redeemer and the nature of divine revelation. In the later poetry, attention is given to the theme of self-reflection in which spiritual growth is part and parcel of poetic development, each balancing the other. The final part of the book considers Coleridge’s later prose, linking his reflections upon poetry with an epistemology, which he learnt principally from Kant and Fichtee in a discussion of revelation and radical evil. In conclusion, Coleridge’s religious position is summed up through the late, and still unpublished notebooks, and the fragmentary remains of the long-projected Opus Maximum. The last chapter links Coleridge with a more recent debate on the nature of inspiration, poetic and divine, which arises out of Austin Farrer’s Bampton Lectures The Glass of Vision. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 27
Page 1
... artist, called his Dreams, and which record the scenery of his own visions during the delirium of a fever. Some of them (I describe only from memory of Mr. Coleridge's account) represented vast Gothic halls: on the floor of which stood ...
... artist, called his Dreams, and which record the scenery of his own visions during the delirium of a fever. Some of them (I describe only from memory of Mr. Coleridge's account) represented vast Gothic halls: on the floor of which stood ...
Page 2
... artist in his finitude and suggests a possible escape into infinity for the man who would persevere against terrible ... artist is repeatedly rediscovered, his figure reflected time and again until lost in the indistinctness of the upper ...
... artist in his finitude and suggests a possible escape into infinity for the man who would persevere against terrible ... artist is repeatedly rediscovered, his figure reflected time and again until lost in the indistinctness of the upper ...
Page 3
... artist as inspired creator. In Coleridge's own time, De Quincey was aware of tensions in his thought between aesthetics and poetry, Christianity and philosophy, 'their occasional connections or approaches, and their constant mutual ...
... artist as inspired creator. In Coleridge's own time, De Quincey was aware of tensions in his thought between aesthetics and poetry, Christianity and philosophy, 'their occasional connections or approaches, and their constant mutual ...
Page 5
... artist like Blake or Shakespeare will eventually produce what seems much more found than deliberately fashioned (p. 55). Thus many artists speak of inspiration, and thus it would be odd to make the will central, although a willed act of ...
... artist like Blake or Shakespeare will eventually produce what seems much more found than deliberately fashioned (p. 55). Thus many artists speak of inspiration, and thus it would be odd to make the will central, although a willed act of ...
Page 6
... artist between these two traditions, the Platonic and the Judaeo-Christian. The result is described by Milton Nahm. From the perspective of such a reconciliation, the value of the theory of unlimited and unrestricted creative power ...
... artist between these two traditions, the Platonic and the Judaeo-Christian. The result is described by Milton Nahm. From the perspective of such a reconciliation, the value of the theory of unlimited and unrestricted creative power ...
Contents
8 | |
20 | |
KUBLA KHAN THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT | 43 |
S THE CRITICAL PROSE | 73 |
THREE LATER POEMS | 103 |
THE LATER PROSE AND NOTEBOOKS | 116 |
INSPIRATION AND REVELATION | 144 |
Notes | 156 |
Bibliography of Secondary Sources | 178 |
Index | 191 |
Other editions - View all
Coleridge as Poet and Religious Thinker: Inspiration and Revelation David Jasper Limited preview - 1985 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Aids to Reflection Ancient Mariner artist Austin Farrer Biographia Literaria Boehme Christ Christian Coleridge's Coleridge's writings Confessio Fidei consciousness context creation creative Dejection described divine doctrine Eolian Eolian Harp Essays eternal experience faith Farrer finite fragment Friedrich Schlegel Friend(CC Glass of Vision God’s Hartley Helen Gardner human Ibid ideas individual infinite infinity inspiration intellectual intuition irony John John Thelwall Kant Kant's Kermode Kubla Khan language Lectures letter Lewesdon Hill Limbo literary criticism literature London M. H. Abrams man’s Mary Midgley McFarland metaphysical mind moral mystery narrative nature object Opus Maximum Owen Barfield Oxford perceived philosophical Piranesi's poem poet poetic poetry Polar Logic principle prose reader reading religion religious revelation Romantic S. T. Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge Schelling secondary Imagination self-reflection sense Spirit suggests symbol theology theory things thought tradition truth unity universal Wordsworth