Biographia Literaria (Everyman's Library) [Paperback]

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1997 | Series: Everyman's Library

Coleridge's work stands at the very heart of British Romantic Literature. Presenting a sketch of it's author's troubled life and opinions as the context for a series of virtuoso reflections on contemporary poetry and criticism, the "Biographia" embodies the Romantic quest for the unifying imagination.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 303 pages
• Publisher: Orion Publishing Group, Ltd. (March 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0460873326
• ISBN-13: 978-0460873321
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,068,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting compendium of essays on life and literature, August 21, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Biographia Literaria (Everyman's Library) (Paperback)

Coleridge is a writer/thinker whose own life and works, particularly the later ones, seem to defy the eye of future standard, especially in an age of slick convenience. He is looking for "the vast," does not ignore German idealism like so many other Brits, nor philology, and seeks the vast from the socio-political context of a well-booked, if ne'er-do-too-well, remote, clergy-trained, English townsman. Some chapters are almost unbearably (to our age) slow, but don't forget this was the era of the triple decker, and Coleridge's reading (as was his library) was varied and vast. In all it may serve best the reader who keeps STC's religious and political anachronisms in context without relinquishing their flavor. Although this is another one of those disappearing (if at times arcane) gems by dead, white, European males whom we are obliged to ignore these days, yet Coleridge's romanticism, honest pessimism, and philosophical searching will never be passe for the thoughtful. And inasmuch as this title includes some of his lesser known mature work, the rich surpise implicit in that description will happen, recurrently and rewardingly, on the thoughtful reader.