Customer Reviews

The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

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This Penguin collection compares very well with my own Oxford Edition of 1935, and I particularly like the fact that the price is reasonable, so more people may decide to buy the book instead of just getting the two or three poems available in a typical anthology. Samuel Taylor Coleridge suffered a lot during his life: unrequited love, drug addiction, inferiority complex. Yet what a wonderful legacy for all of us fortunate enough to read his verses. My favorite poem is Christabel and I can't help picture the entire poem in my mind as if it were a gothic-horror film. The Ryme of the Ancient Mariner is his most famous work, but all of his other great and not-so great works are here, too: Dejection, an Ode; To Mathilda Betham from a Stranger; Kubla Khan; Ode to the Departing Year; The Nightingale; A Stranger Minstrel, etc. Coleridge represents the departure from the Neo-Classic and the introduction to the Romantic. He and his friend Wordsworth are pivotal in achieving that change. His religious poems may seem odd to a modern reader, but mysticism was nothing new back then, and the man was trying to make sense of his very difficult life, anchoring his hopes in his religion. Anyone who purchases, or borrows, this book, must know that hundreds of pages worth of poetry tell us a lot about the poet, since we are reading his life's work. Excellent book dedicated to the labor of a great author, and at a very convenient price. If you like the Romantics, or are interested in the period, this is a book for you.

I bought this collection of Coleridge's poems sight unseen on the assumption--which proved correct--that it would have scholarly apparatus similar to that of the other more recent Penguin editions of major poets. There is nothing else that comes close to it except for the hugely expensive Princeton edition. Everything most readers need to know about these poems is in the scrupulous notes of the editor, William Keach. I'd throw my old Modern Library selection into the garage sale heap, except that it has "Biographia Literaria" complete, though with no notes or other aids.

Plagued by alcohol and drug addiction, Samuel Taylor Coleridge lived in a world of fear and sorrow. All of his agony comes out in his works. The most imaginative mind of the Romantic period, Coleridge had the uncanny ability to transport one to foreign realms and mystical places. Whether it be aboard a ship of dead men, in a bedchamber where a maiden lays with a vampire, or the pleasure dome with caves of ice at Xanadu, Coleride has a rich style and a unique vivdness that leaves a definate impact on the reader.

Whether exploring his Wordsworthian pantheism and panpsychism as in "Sonnet: To a River Otter" or "The Eolian Harp" or delving deep into the vision that haunted an addict in "Kristabel" and "Kubla Khan", the works of Coleridge are among the finest literary achievments of the English language.

Coleridge's greatness as a poet is in part his capacity to create lines which ring in and return to the mind over and over again. He is one of those poets whose poetry loves to be remembered.

"It is an Ancient Mariner and he stoppeth one of three /By thy long grey beard and glittering eye/ Wherefore thou stoppest thou me?"

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure Dome decree/Where Alph the Sacred River ran/ through caverns measureless to Man/ Down to a sunless sea/

"He prayeth best who loveth both/ All things both great and Small /For the Great God who madeth us / He loveth and madeth us all. /

Coleridge wrote some of the greatest poems written in the English language . "The Ancient Mariner" "Kubla Khan" "Dejection:An Ode" "

With Wordsworth he in "The Lyrical Ballads 1798" initiated the Romantic Movement in English poetry, with Wordsworth concentrating on the everyday in simple language, and Coleridge the mysterious and supernal in fantastic language.
This complete collection of his poetry is as uneven and varied in interest as his own remarkable if unsteady mind was.
The complete collection gives the reader the chance to reread and repossess the great works often anthologized, and explore further less well - known poems which nonetheless have their own value.

This current kindle version prepared by Penguin is simply unendurable. The line numbers (every tenth line) are set to the right margin WITHIN and INTRUDING INTO the text of the poems themselves. Penguin has made a business decision to offer many of their Classics in ebook form, and good for that. Unfortunately they gave the task in many instances to persons with no feeling for how the result looks. Given that they're charging nearly full price, there's no excuse for offering a product so shoddy.

I just received this book earlier today and all I can say is wow! A complete and total genius! This is a must have for your library of poetry. As soon as you get it I would recommend you to fully reading the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

This just blew me away;

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

Genius with words and master of painting pictures with them to really make you think and envision what he is trying to show you! The list goes and the poems are just amazing! You need to buy this book!