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While the story of "the man from Porlock" disturbing the opium reverie which fueled Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" is one of the best known pieces of literary historico-mythology, Richard Holmes plugs significant gaps in his fine biography. He covers the man's small but radiant poetical opus marvelously and, as the title suggests, does not shy away from dealing with the dark side of the drug-addicted genius. Coleridge's de Quinceyesque appetite for opium was problematic to say the least: it seems that the brawl with Charles Lamb in a Gottingen bierkellar in 1805 may have had less to do with a disagreement over interpretation of German Romantic aesthetics (as Dr Nattarajan suggests in her biography) and more to do with Coleridge's stash going missing. Holmes provides an intriguing insight into the context of the composition of "Dejection: An Ode" - by 1802 Coleridge was pimping a stable of 15 prostitutes in order to feed his habit, and was heartbroken when close friend and fellow leading-light in English Romanticism, William Wordsworth, poached 2 of his top-earning girls. At times a certain naivete of approach is evident, such as when Holmes attributes the poet's 1811 armed robbery of an alehouse in Putney to "a work of epiphenomena, or particular emanations, of a singular mind of visionary genius and the development of a then completely new and 'organic' form of creativity" rather than seeing the act as the cold-turkey induced stick-up it most surely was. But otherwise, this is a work of solid scholarship and penetrating insight.
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Here are some things you probably don't know about London's Royal Institution, whose 14 Doric columns dominate the north end of Albermale Street: virtually from its founding in 1799, its programs of lectures "achieved international status." The lecture hall "held up to 500 people in a hemisphere of steeply tiered seats, with a gallery above and a circle of gas lamps ... the attention of the audience was sustained by various creature comforts: green cushioned seating, green baize floor coverings, and the latest in central heating systems using copper pipes." Indeed "the popularity of the Institution's lectures so often jammed Albermale Street with carriages that it eventually became the first one-way thoroughfare in London." Some will find that this rich texture of detail adds substance and conviction to Holmes' account of Coleridge's later years. Others will find it a bit over the top. It's a matter of taste, but if you like this sort of thing, then you will get your fill of it in this biography. Holmes makes his choices as to detail, of course. He has less choice with the character of his subject. Coleridge seems to have made at least three capital contributions to the history of English literature. First, he crafted a number of weirdly unforgettable lyrics, notably "The Ancient Mariner," and "Christobel" and "Kubla Khan." Second, he introduced German idealistic philosophy (Kant, and particularly Schelling) to an untutored island race. And third, he produced a body of criticism, shrewd and insightful in itself, but also the first (in England, at least) ever based on an explicit intellectual framework.Read more ›
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A masterpiece--really fine, fine writing. I am not a Coleridge scholar (an interested amateur though) so I am unable to comment on the accuracy, balance, or whatnot of Holmes' scholarship. I do know this though: Biography is not like fiction--the biographer, particularly one who intends to earn a living by selling their books, constantly faces the question of what to include and what to leave out, and in this case these decisions are all the more difficult since Coleridge left behind an ocean of jornals, letters and other unpublished writings (not to mention what he did publish), as well as a huge body of scholarship about the man and his writings. But Holmes seems to have gotten it just right--the text clicks along at 10,000 feet, just enough to make out the terrain, then quickly nosedives in for a closer look and then before you can get lost in the detail, back up again. The detail seemed always seems relevant and entertaining--never tedious. For instance, when Coleridge set sail for Malta from the U.K. in 1804, Holmes discussed in detail Coleridge's accomodations, his travelling companions (two other people and some farm animals in the same little "cabin") as well as a little scene (initially of course recorded by Coleridge himself in his notebooks) in which Coleridge becomes constipated due to massive doses of opium. A surgeon from a nearby vessel had to come on board and administered an enema to Mr. Coleridge--all described by Coleridge and faitufully reiterated by Holmes. Aside from the very serious point that to Coleridge this condition was an ugly metaphor for the intellectual block he felt at the time (also, Coleridge believed, caused by opium), Holmes told the story with extraordinary and unexpected humor (kind of dry British wit).Read more ›
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