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COLERIDGE M A5T|RS OF IV o R L1) LITERATURE Published: UEORCE ELIOT by Walter Alien OQT.FRIDOE by \\ra1ter Jackson Kate JOILN" KEATi by Douglas Bush JOKN MILTON by Doughs Bush JONATHAN .SWIFT by Mige] Dennis I>A.NTE by Fralieis Fergusson THOMAi HARDY by Irving Howe HONORE DE BALZA'cj liy K. J- Oliver GOLDSMITH by Rirardo -Quintana InPreparation: PBOUST by Barrett FI.AimMIL1 by Jacques Baritm MATTHEW ARNOLD by Douglas Bush SAMUEL JOHNSON by James L. Clifford YEATS by F, W, Dupee JOYCE by Ijion Edel STENDHAI by Wallace Fowlie CONKAn by RlDaheth Hardwick EMERSON by Alfred Kazin SHAKESPEART; by Frank Kermocte JANE AUSTEN by T.ouis Kroncnberger POE by Dwight A[actionaId CHEKHOV by Hcuvard Moss HELIUM] by Midge Potlhoretz HENRY JAMES by Ricll.ird Poirier TOLSTOY by Philip Rahv MELVJLLE by Harold Rosenberg KEN JONSON by Raymond Rosenthal woRDiurc>K.Tn by Idonel Trilling I MASTERS OF WORLD LITERATURE SERIES LOUIS KRONENBERGER, GENERAL EDITOR COLERIDGE *<:<ÿ«:<t:<«:<t:<i:<i:<ÿi:<i:<c: by Walter Jackson Bate THE MACMILLAN COMPANV, MEW YORK COLLIER-MACMILLAN LIMITED, E6XD0N AGKMOWIFDG F.MF.NTS L1.11ti'.LL:L5pn:criL":in Fg} permission ID quote material from The S'vfebonks Qf i. T, Colt-ridge, edited by Kathleen Cnlttirn, Enl- ]LF>)ÿCII Series L, Volume ] (] 6oj). t.’OfjyriffEil 1957 by Uttl- liiifjcn Foundation. Nciv York, is made to Houtlctlgc !ÿ kcgnci Paul, l.n!r and io [he Rollingeu Foundation- Fi>t quotations from lilt 0/ .f. T, Coleridge, edited by E L. Ciigffs, arkcwledjÿltiit in fra.tefulk made to the ClnicmLnii Press. Copyright ig)!<)tiS by Flit; MacmillanCompany All rights lescncd.Mopareot thisbook may be tfproiliKÿ n? trllUilUd in anyform or beanymeans,citeironicOr mechanical.includingphotocopying, recordingor byany information storage and retrievalsystem, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Library of Congress Cntalog Card Xitmbtr: CB-]23§5 FltiT FR.1HT.FMC Thf Macmillan Company, Xew Vo>rk Collie1-MfaitrnilIan Canada Ltd..,Toronto,Ontario Printedinllit CnitrcLStatesof America Contents Prefact ix 1. Early Years; Christ’s Hospital and Cambridge; Marriage 1 II, Nether5ron'i?j SB III, Wordsworth’s Arrival; Coleridge as a Poet & IV, 'The Ancient Mariner" ‘ChrisUtbel" and "Knjilo Khan” 55 * V. Germany and the Move to Keswick; Opium; "Dejection'’ 85 VI. The Dark Years. Malta, The Friend, Lectures, the Biographh; the Problem of Coleridge's Plagiarisms; the Move to Highgate 111 * VII. Coleridge asa Critic;theFunction of Literature; the Imagination 143 VIII, The First Years at Highgate(i816-1820); The Later Poems; Religions Thought, and the Plan for the Magnum Opus 170 IX, Coleridge at Highgate (rSst-iS34): The Later Re¬ ligious Thought; the Final Years a04 Index m i f Preface Coleridge has fascinated the Fnglish-s|*cakLiig world foi over a century and 4 half. To begin with, lie had at least three different cartel's,and if our attention is not caught up byihni in one way, it is in another. He is a major poet, though to tilt writing of poetry tie devoted pnlj a fraction of his time and tibiiiiies. Then, during the painful years from thirty-live to lus late fortius, lit emerged as tine of the supreme critics and interpreters of litera¬ ture, partly because his interests extended so far beyond literature in the narrower sense of the word. With lus fifties, Jie turned more directly to religions speculation, and became—as wt are beginning to realise even more than before- one of tlie seminal religious thinkpfjf oi modern times. In addition lie was versed in the sciences and in the history of philosophy as few men have been who tire not specialists in those Subjects; lie was a political thinker of consitierable influence in the century after his death; and as a psychologist he had as clair¬ voyant an intelligence as any of which we have record. Finally there Is the moving-in some ways deeply disturbing— story of his life, which presents so many baffling problems, espe¬ cially if we refuse to take up the jxtrsunal details of his life in x PREFACE, reductiveisolatibn and apartfrom the many-sidedness of his mind and achievement, RLH exactly this variety of interest presents difficulties for any¬ one attempting a critical biography of Coleridge. Hbw do wc begin tonotice all the interests, as well as Lite personal life, oi so richly endowed a talent? And even supposing this could bedone, how do we keep them all in proportion as we seek the underlying unity? Bill it seemerl to me that a work as necessarily short as this could take heart, especially if one viewed it as only a prefa¬ tory exercise to a longer work. Lt would he taken for granted that we were here following Iris life and thought only In its main and general character, suppressing the argument, substantiation, and nuance that a longer book would be expected to Supply, And If we thus far lack a comprehensive and full-scale treatment to support and protect a mere essay in critical biography like this, there was tire liberty that resulted from the fact that the subject had not yet jelled.One was freer to speculate, Yet everyone who attemptsa short critical biography of a com¬ plex figure ends his work With less jaimtiness than tie began it, As Ire restudics his subject, he finds that modi Ire had earlier thought could be left out or drastically summarized now de¬ mands not only recognition but emphasis, even if lie hopes to deal with tire matter later in more detail. Moreover at each step interrelations between the man's life and work are discovered or need revision. But the writer then finds that to insert discussion of them means that something else lias to be left out or further condensed that he and others already lake for granted as nec¬ essary. My listof obligations is embarrassinglylong forsoshorta book, but this is perhaps inevitable In a work that distilsso much from others and lacks the extensive annotative apparatus in which specificobligationscan be detailed as they arise.1 am particularly indebted to Professor Earl Leslie Griggs, whose magisterial edi- rion of theLetters,with itswealth of commentary, is the basis for any biography or general study of Coleridge. His personal in¬ terest lias greatly heartened me; and, with typical generosity, he PULI'ACE xt sent me the proofs of his concluding volumes of Lfic Letters and! allowed me to draw on Litem, Tor permission to consult the se.it! unpublished later notebooks and! the manuscript of tfic AJVtximum, ] thank Miss Kathleen Coburn, who is so brilliantly editing the Xotebovks, and the authorities of the Victoria Uni¬ versity Library,Toronto. For allowing me to use in Cftaptei Vll an earlier discussion of Coleridge as a critic (in Persfaeiives of Criticism,erl. Harry Levis);!am indebted to Professor Levin and the authorities of ihe Harvard University Press, I'or permission to use a copy of die report of Coleridge's autopsy, 1 thank Dr. John Spiegel ami die library of die Michael Reese Hospital, Chicago, to which Dr. Spiegel presented it. and, for help in in¬ terpreting it, Dr. Lotus Z'Ctiiel and Dr. Lincoln Clark, who J hope will forgive me for condensing intoa few sentences their detailed analyses. I should also thaulc Dr. Clark, one of the foremost American authorities on the psychological effect of drugs, for advising me on the subject at several stages of this hook. For many favors, anti for allowing me toexreed somewhat the length ordinarily expected for the hooks fii this series, I am grateful to Mr. Louis Kronenberger, the general editor, and to Mr. Arthur CregOr -of Macmillan. For permission to tjuole from Coleridge'S Xotebooks, 1 wish to thank the Hullingcn Foundation and Rom- ledge and Kcgan Paul, Ltd., London. For helpful criticism of my pages on Coleridge's later religious thought, I am indebted to J. Robert Ifcmti. whose own book, Coleridge and Christian Doctrine, is .soon to be published. From the time I first began to read Coleridge with some care, the influence of two tearhers has remained with me and to some extent—however different they were from each Other—coalesced. I hope I may be allowed to speak of them briefly here. One was John Livingston Lowes, the memory of whom has been con¬ stantly present as I tried to reconsider Lhe poetry and the earlier yearsof Coleridge. Like so many others, 1 also learned from him to prije the union of Style and erudition as well as die Longinian ideal of genius. Tin? oilier teacher was Alfred North Whitehead, whose majestic reinterpretation of the organic philosophy of xii PKLCACE nature for- (lie modern era lit up fur us an immense of possi¬ bilities, cleared the ground of trivia, and led us toward the level of generality for which Coleridge himself hungered. 1 should add that neither of these nien would have drought it strange that a student concerned primarily with the eighteenth century should also he interested in the greater Romantics, who after all were born in that century and were very much the products of it, They assumed that one of the principal interests of a period was the youth it produced and educated. Finally I express my debt, extending over many years, to the following friends: Professors Douglas lkish, Harry Levin, Earl Wztssemian, Robert Penn Warren, Harold Bloom, Rcntf Wellck, M, H, Abrams, Geoffrey TiElotson, and the three colleagues to whom I inscribe tin'ssmall book—Jerome H, Buckley, David Per¬ kins, and J. A. Richards. Here 1 should es|sectally mention the notable Harvard seminars in Coleridge conducted by Professor Perkins in 19114 and igfi.e; in which liisdetailed reconsideration of Coleridge as a mind helped to shake us free of routine concep¬ tions and brought us hack to a renewed and deeper sense of Coleridge's own quest for unify, W.J.B. Cambridge, Massachusetts May,196j