From Library Journal
Weissman (Washington Psychoanalytic Inst.) provides the quintessential psychobiography: Coleridge was guilt-ridden, sexually ambivalent, drawn to the Cain/Abel theme, a drug abuser, and a victim of Mood Disorder. No surprises here. This book is both more and less than it implies. It is a good, solid biography, easily read. It does not, however, offer radical psychological or literary insight. Yes, "Kubla Khan" contains bisexual imagery, but not necessarily as we today connote bisexual. Yet Weissman does not really say how he is using the term. Similarly, regarding Coleridge's relationship with Wordsworth: Was it obsessive or "unconsciously homosexual"? Or "sexual" in what way? If we have wondered before, we wonder still. For collections strong in the Romantic period or wanting a good current biography of Coleridge.
-Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
-Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, N.Y.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
