Customer Reviews

Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 1804-1834

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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.

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. Maybe a fourth: he is the architect of a conservative critique of modernity that probably continues to deserve a place in the conservative intellectual tradition.

But, but, but, but - what a dreadful human being! Not dreadful in the sense of mean, spiteful, combatitive. No: dreadful in the sense of lachrymose, self-pitying and an epic-proportions sponge. It is that last that takes one's breath away. Blanche DuBois had the good grace to depend on the kindness of strangers. Coleridge cheerfully victimizes his nearest and dearest, and even makes friends out of those he is newly victimizing.

The amazing part is, of course, that they put up with it - his wife Sara (who refused to divorce him even when he asked her to); his poetical companion, William Wordsworth, and any of half a dozen less easily identified but no less important benefactors. Over and over, they report that they were dazzled by his presence, not least in his conversation. Indeed on the testimony of these friends, he must have been one of the world's all-time great conversationalists. And here Holmes has another problem not of his own making: conversation is the most ephemeral of arts (even more so than cooking). And while we have any number of testimonials to his conversational ability, we have little or no direct evidence of what he actually said.

Having archly complained about the excess of detail in this book, I suppose it may seem inconsistent of me to ask for more. Yet I will do so: Coleridge lived in turbulent times and he becomes involved, at least as a "commenting intellectual," in that turbulence. Holmes adverts to the social and political background. It might have helped had he applied his considerable powers of description and analysis to sketching out more thoroughly the political landscape in which he lived.

Samuel Johnson said of Milton's "Paradise Lost" that none have ever wished it longer. I guess I can see why this remark comes to mind while reading Holmes on Coleridge. I was happy to pick it up, and happy to read it. And happy to put it down.

Let me just add my voice to the chorus of yea-sayers for both the first and second volumes of this wonderful biography. Holmes does a fantastic job fleshing out the human side of Coleridge's genius and of giving the low-down on his masochistic relationship with the inferior (and rather creepy) William and Dorothy Wordsworth. We find that Coleridge could have been a stellar performer in matters of British colonialism in Malta, had he only chosen to. We find that he was in love with Sarah Hutchinson (his beloved Asra) and that he had a fling with a beautiful opera singer, while penning poems to Asra all the while. And above all, we're given a key to Coleridge's bouts of dejection and depression: his near-constant humiliation because of his inability to move his bowels, brought on by his opium habit. Many of these items I'd heard of, or divined from the standard texts I'd read before--but that last item was a real revelation to me! This book is packed full of such revelations! Coleridge steps forth from the pages in all his grubbiness and all his glory! We must finally scratch our heads and admire such a rare creature that once roamed the fields of the lake district and the streets of London and environs. Read it!

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). Other topics handled with astonishing skill and grace: his complicated, co-dependent relationship with Wordsworth, his marriage, the effect of opium on his writing, and plagiarism. Coleridge was an extraordinary man and this is an extraordinary book--you will not regret having read it.

Richard Holmes' marvellous book is the sequel to his Coleridge: Early Visions. For fifteen years, he has been constantly engaged with Coleridge's ideas, poems, plays and philosophical writings. He traces Coleridge's lifelong dialogues with the greatest of English poets, Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth, and also with the finest German writers, Goethe and Schiller.

Coleridge was that rare creature, a superb poet who could also grapple with the deepest of philosophers. He could brilliantly summarise the two basic possible lines in philosophy: "The difference between Aristotle and Plato is that which will remain as long as we are men and there is any difference between man and man in point of opinion. Plato, with Pythagoras before him, had conceived that the phenomenon or outside appearance, all that we call thing or matter, is but as it were a language by which the invisible (that which is not the object of our senses) communicates its existence to our finite beings ... Aristotle, on the contrary, affirmed that all our knowledge had begun in experience, had begun through the senses, and that from the senses only we could take our notions of reality ... It was the first way in which, plainly and distinctly, two opposite systems were placed before the mind of the world."

Although Coleridge adhered to Platonism, he honestly admitted, "All these poetico-philosophical Arguments strike and shatter themselves into froth against that stubborn rock, the fact of Consciousness, or rather its dependence on the body."

Like other notable literary biographies - one thinks of Holmes' earlier one of Shelley, Richard Ellman's of Oscar Wilde, Peter Ackroyd's of Charles Dickens, Tim Hilton's of John Ruskin, E. P. Thompson's of William Morris, and Leon Edel's of Henry James - this wonderful book arouses our enthusiasm for literature. It shows us again how a great writer's work can help us both to enjoy and to make sense of the world.

Long awaited but worth the time spent by author,Richard Holmes, who has crowned a lifetime of biograhical writing with what the Observer has rightly labelled a masterwork. The second half of Coeridge's life has traditionally be seen as no more than a coda to the "Early Visions" Not so, what Holmes has achieved is the chronicling of the continued growth and march of genius, albeit in many sometimes wayward directions - oftimes painfully fuelled by the opium addiction which despite what was for the time a progressive treatment regime, Coleridge never quite conquered. The volume explores in sometimes disturbing detail Coleridges relationships with his supporters,antagonists and family - the latter occasionally falling into both camps! The quarrel with Wordsworth is covered in full and led to a breach between the two great Lake poets for many years. However relationships were fortunately restored to the extent that they revisited Germany together on a rather uncomfortable trip in later life. By that stage Coleridge had become the sage of Highgate whose later life this sagacious labour of love records to perfection.

Coleridge: Darker Reflections, by Richard Holmes, HarperCollins, 1998. Hardback. 622 pages. ISBN 000 255577 8

Richard Holmes' marvellous book is the sequel to his Coleridge: Early Visions. For fifteen years, he has been constantly engaged with Coleridge's ideas, poems, plays and philosophical writings. He traces Coleridge's lifelong dialogues with the greatest of English poets, Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth, and also with the finest German writers, Goethe and Schiller.

Coleridge was that rare creature, a superb poet who could also grapple with the deepest of philosophers. He could brilliantly summarise the two basic possible lines in philosophy: "The difference between Aristotle and Plato is that which will remain as long as we are men and there is any difference between man and man in point of opinion. Plato, with Pythagoras before him, had conceived that the phenomenon or outside appearance, all that we call thing or matter, is but as it were a language by which the invisible (that which is not the object of our senses) communicates its existence to our finite beings ... Aristotle, on the contrary, affirmed that all our knowledge had begun in experience, had begun through the senses, and that from the senses only we could take our notions of reality ... It was the first way in which, plainly and distinctly, two opposite systems were placed before the mind of the world."

Although Coleridge adhered to Platonism, he honestly admitted, "All these poetico-philosophical Arguments strike and shatter themselves into froth against that stubborn rock, the fact of Consciousness, or rather its dependence on the body."

Like other notable literary biographies - one thinks of Holmes' earlier one of Shelley, Richard Ellman's of Oscar Wilde, Peter Ackroyd's of Charles Dickens, Tim Hilton's of John Ruskin, E. P. Thompson's of William Morris, and Leon Edel's of Henry James - this wonderful book arouses our enthusiasm for literature. It shows us again how a great writer's work can help us both to enjoy and to make sense of the world.

It is interesting that Richard Holmes should have taken off time from the completion of this brilliant biography to write a book on Samuel Johnson, for it exhibits much the same profound fellow feeling and moral insight that Johnson brought to his own biography of Richard Savage, another troubled poet. Holmes is one of the very best biographers now working and this two-volume biography of Coleridge is his best yet. On every aspect of Coleridge's life and career he is splendidly incisive. A must for anyone interested in his fascinatingly difficult subject or the art of biography.

Few people know that Coleridge followed the great achievement of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" with a cookbook describing his experiences and adventures in backyard barbecuing that was equally brilliant, entitled "The Rind of the Ancient Marinator." Coleridge also includes his famous recipes on Yorkshire pudding, haggis, and steak and kidney pie. Today unfortunately out of print, it's worth finding by all backyard barbecue enthusiasts who want the inside scoop on the lost art of British barbecue.

Magisterial, magisterial, magisterial. YES, THIS BIOGRAPHY OF COLERIDGE IS MAGISTERIAL! It's right up there with Gibbon and Johnson. All we reviewers agree upon this point. And I'm sure it will cement Holmes' name in the annals of academia 'til the blowing of the trumpet of the Lord and the end of time altogether....And,no doubt, a man of Holmes' talent has every right to be as magisterial as he likes, in order that these things may come to pass....But, as Holmes well knows, one reads for other things aside from being assured that what he is reading is being cast in marble for all posterity. His books on Shelley (Footsteps) and Johnson and Savage are evidence of this knowledge. Readers read to be carried away to a different time and place where seemingly magical things actually happened, "Did you see Shelley plain?.." (apologies to R.B.) In these former books, Holmes does just that and creates an enjoyable read which produces more of a communion with the author in question than many a heavy tome....Any of us who have studied English Literature know the basic facts of Coleridge's life:But here they are again with all sorts of minutiae and dates and maps and God knows whatnot. But I don't feel that much closer to the author the way I did, for instance after reading Holmes' book on Johnson and Savage...The only section that grabbed my attention was the lectures on Hamlet, which truly were just as much about Coleridge's conviction of the play's Platonic essence as it was about Coleridge himself, and his own Platonic insights. And I think Coleridge was right, by the way. You can't give a magisterial volume any less than 4 stars. But, Mr. Holmes, when you finish all this up, howsbout coming back and writing those other type of books that give us a good read, stimulate our sense of the mystery of the author's times and truly strengthen our mystical bond with him?...