Coleridge's Variety

COLERIDGE'S VARIETY Bicentenary Studies COLERIDGE'S VARIETY Bicentenary Studies Edited by JOHN BEER With an Introduction by L. C. KNIGI-ITS M © John Beer 1974 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1974 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. First published 1974 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD London and Basingstoke Associatedcompanies in New York Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras ISBN 978-1-349-02306-6 ISBN 978-1-349-02304-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-02304-2 Contents Preface and Acknowledgements vii Notes on Contributors X Abbreviations xiii Introduction L. C. Knights xvi Coleridge's Poetic Sensibility George Whalley 1 2 Coleridge as Revealed in his Letters Earl Leslie Griggs 31 3 Ice and Spring: Coleridge's Imaginative Education John Beer 54 4 Coleridge: A Bridge between Science and Poetry Kathleen Coburn 81 5 Coleridge and the Romantic Vision of the WorId M. H. Abrams 101 6 Coleridge's Anxiety Thomas McFarland 134 7 Coleridge on Powers in Mind and Nature Dorothy Emmet 166 8 Coleridge and Kant D. M. MacKinnon 183 9 Coleridge's Enjoyment of Words Owen Bar~eld 204 10 A Stream by Glimpses: Coleridge's later Imagination John Beer 21 9 Notes 243 Index 257 Preface and Acknowledgements Shortly before the bicentenary of Coleridge's birth, several members of the English Faculty in Cambridge felt that it would be appropriate to commemorate the occasion not only in his College, but in the Faculty as well. This feeling was prompted partly by the fact that while no geographical centre is closely associated with him (in the way that Grasmere, for example, is associated with Wordsworth) Cambridge has had a series of intellectual links with his thought and work, both through theologians such as Julius Hare and F. J. A. Hort in the nine teenth century and through a line of distinguished literary critics, beginning with Quiller-Couch and Richards, in the twentieth. Accordingly, it was agreed that, in addition to the commemorative lecture to be given in Jesus College, a series should be arranged to which distinguished scholars outside the Faculty should be invited to contribute. The Committee which was set up was greatly impressed by the response to its invitations . A number of scholars proved willing to rearrange their plans or otherwise put themselves to inconvenience, even at short notice, in order to come to Cam bridge during the Michae1mas Term of 1972. Professor Kathleen Coburn, who was committed to lecture elsewhere, was able to offer an informal seminar, and Professor David Erdman gave an informal lecture on Coleridge's journalism, based on his work as editor of Essays on his Times in the Collected Coleridge. Far from being, as we had feared, a deterrent, the lack of a geographical focus proved to be a positive stimulus to com memoration. Events were arranged at Christ's Hospital, Bristol, The Royal Institution, The British Museum and Highgate (to mention only those known to us). Some of the lectures included in the various programmes were committed for exclusivepublica tion elsewhere; but those which were not proved to complement each other remarkably well and to constitute, in the sum. an viii Preface and Acknowledgements interesting and unusual conspectus of approaches to Coleridge. This is not, perhaps, surprising. It may be that a man of Cole ridge's mercurial and multifarious gifts is best apprehended through the contributions of a group of critics, each in turn recording what he or she has gained from a sustained engage ment with his intelligence. One further topical event may be mentioned for the benefit of future readers. It happened that the chief publishing event to mark the bicentenary in England was the publication of Norman Fruman's book, Coleridge, the Damaged Archangel. Some of those associated with the lectures had already reviewed the book on its appearance in the U.S.A. (see, e.g., Owen Barfield, 'Abysses of Incomprehension', The Nation, 12 June 1972; 1. C. Knights, 'Coleridge: the Wound without the Bow', New York Review of Books, 4 May 1972); others felt the need to make some reference to Mr Fruman's charges in so far as they related to the topics of their particular lectures. The original lectures took place in October and November 1972, and except where the place of delivery is otherwise in dicated in a footnote, they were given before the University of Cambridge. Some are printed as delivered, others have been extensively revised; some, therefore, show the immediacy of the lecture-room, others are in the more reflective mode of the writ ten article. The editor and contributors would like to express their thanks to the Master and Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge; the Headmaster and Governors of Christ's Hospital; the President and Members of the Royal Institution; the Trustees of the Coleridge Memorial Trust at Highgate; and the Faculty Board of English in the University of Cambridge, for both sponsoring particular lectures and giving permission for their publication. We should also like to thank the Master and Fellows of Peter house, the President and Fellows of Clare Hall and the following individuals for their help in arranging the lectures and accom panying events: Professor J. A. W. Bennett; Professor M. C. Bradbrook; Dr Howard Erskine-Hill; Professor John Holloway; Professor Graham Hough; Dr Ian Jack; Dr Duncan McKie; Mrs Sita Narasimhan; Sir Denys and Lady Page; Lady Radzinowitz; Mr Basil Savage; Dr Elinor Shaffer; Mrs Sheila Sibson-Turnbull; Mr Graham Storey; Mr Richard Tuck; Mr George Watson and Preface and Acknowledgements ix Dr Raymond Williams. Several people gave ready assistance with a few problems of annotation which overtook us in the final stages; we are particularly grateful to Professor R. 1. Brett, Professor Craig Miller, Mr Basil Savage, Dr Donald Sultana, Dr Judith Wardle and Professor Basil Willey - and more especially so to Dr A. J. Harding who, in addition, constructed the index at very short notice. Among the many other Coleridgeans whom we should have liked to include in the list of lecturers, two in particular should be mentioned. Professor 1. A. Richards had originally hoped to contribute a paper but later found that it would be impossible for him to be in Cambridge at that time; Professor Basil Willey, with characteristic modesty, declined our invitation on the grounds that his new book had just appeared. No acknowledge ments would be complete, nevertheless, which did not mention how much Coleridge studies owe to them. It also gives us great pleasure that Professor 1. C. Knights, whose name should head the list of those who have given the lectures their encourage ment, who has been constantly active in Coleridge studies both in and out of the university, and for whom the Coleridge bi centenary coincided with his concluding year as King Edward VII Professor of English at Cambridge, has consented to intro duce the collection with a short essay of his own. J. B. B. Notes on Contributors M. H. Abrams, Class of 1916 Professor of English Literature at Cornell University, is the author of The Milk of Paradise, The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition, and Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature, and editor, among other things, of The Poetry of Pope, Literature and Belief, English Romantic Poets: Modern Essays in Criticism and Wordsworth: A Collection of Critical Essays. Owen Barfield is author of What Coleridge Thought, History in English Words, Poetic Diction, Saving the Appearances and other books. Mr Barfield has spent the greater part of his active life in the practice of the law. Since retiring about ten years ago he has from time to time resided at Brandeis and other American universities as a Visiting Professor in Litera ture and Philosophy. John Beer is Lecturer in English at Cambridge and Fellow of Peterhouse. In addition to writing Coleridge the Visionary, The Achievement of E. M. Forster, Blake's Humanism and Blake's Visionary Universe, he has edited Coleridge's Poems for Everyman's University Library and is editing Aids to Re~ection for The Collected Coleridge. Further studies, now in preparation, concentrate on Wordsworth, and on Cole ridge's psychological theories. Kathleen Coburn, editor of the Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and General Editor of the Bollingen edition of the Collected Works, has also edited a volume of Coleridge's hitherto unpublished Philosophical Lectures 1818-19, and a selection from his prose writings, published and unpublished, entitled Inquiring Spirit, in addition to her various articles on Notes on Contributors xi Coleridge, Wordsworth and Hazlitt. She is Professor Emeritus in Victoria College in the University of Toronto and Hon. Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford. Dorothy Emmet, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy in the Univer sity of Manchester, Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge and Honorary Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, has published Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism; The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking; Function, Purpose and Powers; Rules, Roles and Relations, and a number of articles, including 'Coleridge on the Growth of the Mind' (Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 1952) and 'Coleridge and Philo sophy' (in S. T. Coleridge, ed. R. 1. Brett, 'Writers and their Background'Serie~. Earl Leslie Griggs was, before his recent retirement, Professor of English at the University of California at Los Angeles. In addition to his edition of Coleridge's Collected Letters, his publications include biographies of Hartley Coleridge and of Sara Coleridge (Coleridge Pille), the Letters of Hartley Coleridge and over forty other books and articles on Cole ridgean and related matters.

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