Coleridge, Schiller and Aesthetic Education

248 Pages·2002·2.099 MB·English

by  Michael John Kooy (auth.)

Coleridge, Schiller and Aesthetic Education
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Coleridge, Schiller and
Aesthetic Education
Michael John Kooy
© Michael John Kooy, 2002
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2002 978-0-333-74936-4
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kooy, Michael John, 1969–
Coleridge, Schiller, and aesthetic education/Michael John Kooy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772–1834—Knowledge—Literature.
2. Schiller, Friedrich, 1759–1805—Appreciation—England, 3. Criticism—
Great Britain—History—19th century. 4. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor,
1772–1834—Aesthetics. 5. Literature—History and criticism—Theory,
etc. 6. Schiller, Friedrich, 1759–1805–Aesthetics. 7. Schiller, Friedrich,
1759–1805—Influence. 8. English poetry—German influences. 9. Aesthetics,
Modern—19th century. 10. Aesthetics, Modern–18th century. I. Title.
PR4487.L5 K66 2002
821′.7—dc21
2001036986
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction: Reading Coleridge through Schiller 1
A note on texts and translations
1 Schiller and the Young Coleridge 9
Schiller in the 1790s: Jena and Weimar
Coleridge’s reading of Schiller’s early plays
Beddoes and the Horae
2 Coleridge and Weimar Classicism 33
Coleridge in Göttingen
The aesthetics of Wallenstein
3 British Germanophiles 45
The German Museum
Schiller and the British literary press
Coleridge’s reading of Schiller’s prose
4 Schiller’s Poetry in Coleridge’s Notebooks 67
Gedichte Part 1: dejection and theological speculation
Gedichte Part 2: pantheism, metrics, the ‘beautiful soul’
Coleridge abroad, Schiller abroad
The Muses’ Almanac and the new aesthetics
Three translations
5 Semblance and Aesthetic Autonomy in Coleridge’s
Criticism 95
Coleridge and The Critique of Judgement
Autonomy in the Aesthetic Letters
‘Semblance’ in Biographia Literaria
6 Aesthetic Education in Biographia Literaria, The
Friend and the Lectures on Literature 115
Aesthetic freedom / moral freedom
vii
viii Contents
Biographia and beyond: Schelling or Schiller?
Didacticism
7 Coleridge’s ‘Aesthetic State’ 141
Bildung and politics
‘Cultivation’ and the state
8 The Clerisy and Aesthetic Education 167
Cultivating the nation
Women in the ‘Aesthetic State’
Imagined female figures
9 Epilogue: Bildung and History 193
Schiller’s sublime history
Coleridge, Bildung and providential history
Notes 207
Selected Bibliography 221
Index 231
Acknowledgements
This book began as a chapter in my doctoral thesis, which I wrote
while at Keble College, Oxford, and it grew into its present shape while
I held posts at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and the University
ofWarwick. During this time my work on the subject has been
encouraged by many people; to three of them in particular I owe a
large debt of gratitude: Roy Park, my thesis supervisor, for his inde-
fatigable attention to detail; Elinor Shaffer, for encouraging me not
to underestimate the strength of the Coleridge–Schiller relationship;
and Michael Bell, whose chapter on Schiller in Sentimentalism, Ethics
and the Culture of Feeling (2000) I read just as this book was going to
press, for encouraging me to think about the broader issues in Schil-
ler’s reception and, not least, for kindly agreeing to read and comment
upon a draft of this book.
Lesley Sharpe, Joyce Crick and Stephen Gill also read selections
ofthe book and I am grateful to them for their careful and discrimin-
ating responses. I thank, too, a large number of people whose timely
comments helped to shape this book, probably in ways unbe-
knownst to them: John Beer, Thomas McFarland, Heather Jackson,
Peter Larkin, Anya Taylor, Raimonda Modiano, Nick Halmi, Graham
Davidson, Douglas Hedley, Lucy Newlyn, Geoffrey Rowell, Val
Cunningham, Christine Battersby, Andrew Benjamin, F. J. Lamport
and Paul Hamilton.
The book has also benefited from the intellectual exchange
fostered by the postgraduate seminar at Oxford, ‘Romantic Realign-
ments’, and in particular by two contemporaries of mine, both
Coleridgeans: Tim Milnes and Seamus Perry. Much of the research
for this book was carried out at the Taylor Institution Library,
Oxford, and I am grateful to the librarians there, especially Giles
Barber, Jill Hughes and David Thomas, for their expert advice and for
helping to see me through one, rather lean, year. I also owe adebt of
gratitude to a colleague at Warwick, Martin Warner, whose work on
the relationship between philosophy and literature is a kind of edu-
cation in its own right.
ix