Coleridge, Collaboration, and the Higher Criticism
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Coleridge, Collaboration, and the Higher Criticism Susan Murley A thesis submitted in confomity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of English University of Toronto O Copyright by Susan Lym Murley, 1999 National Library Bibliothèque nationale l*l of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON KI A ON4 Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada Your fi& Voire reference Our file Notre ret8rence The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Librq of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sel1 reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Susan Murley, Department of English, University of Toronto Coleridge. Collaboration. and the Higher Criticism, P1i.D.. 1999 Abstract Coleridge constructed his later prose \vorl<s tbigh an unusual -'tut-and-paste- method that has generated criticism and controversy ever since these texts were published. Criticism of Coleridge's texts, both verse and prose, has puuled over his largely unacknowledged borrowings 60m other authors. Coleridge's direct use of sources is so widespread that Thomas McFarland and Jerome Christensen have suggested persuasively that the technique cm be considered a full-blown mode of composition. Explmations as to why he might have composed in this manner are less convincing, however, as most critics tend to use the evidence of Coteridge's dependence on other writers as the basis for a moral judgement or for an analysis of his neuroses. Leaving Coleridge's psychological health aside, I argue that Coleridge adapted an historical mode1 for his controversial use of texts. The Higher Criticism suggested that the Bible was not a simple collection of books by known, inspired authors' but a collaborative, composite document containing layers of authorship and redaction within a single biblical book. This radical biblical cnticism described in detail the manuscript culture in which the Bible was formed, and in the process, put forth theones of authorship and textual authenticity to justify their findings and preserve the integrity of the text. A natural collaborator, Coleridge was also imrnersed in both the Bible and this criticism. and adapted the practices of the biblical writers as desct-ibed by the Higher Critics to his own cornpositional methods. The dissertation focuses on Aids ro Reflection, the prose work of Coleridge's which was so admired throughout the nineteenth century. Starting its life as an edition. Aids ro Reflection was based on the work of the "inspired" Archbishop Leighton, and grew to include substantial amounts of Coleridge's and many seventeenth-century theologians' writing, including Coleridge's marginal glosses on Leighton. The work and its biblical mode1 provides us with a fresh way to examine Coleridge's ideas of inspiration and authorship, outside of the rather tired issue of plagiarism. Table of Contents .. Abstract 11 Acknowledgernents v List of Abbreviations vi Introduction 1 Chapter One 35 ModeIs of Authorship in the Higher Criticism Chapter Two 86 Coleridge and Biblical Authorship C hapter Three 122 Marginalia, the Biblical Gloss, and Collaboration C hapter Four 161 "A Motley CoIlection": Aids to Reflectiorz and Biblical Form Appendix A Appendix B C hapter Five 258 "The Last Hour of Inspiration": Leighton, Inspiration, and Aids fo Refeciion Conclusion 286 Works Consulted 319 Acknowledgements 1 would like to thank Heather Jackson, Anthony Harding, and Princeton University Press for their permission to use materials fiom the unpublished volumes of Coleridge's Marginaliu and Noiebook. 1 would also like to th& my supervisor, Heather Jackson. for her judicious yet encouraging comments, her unflagging support, and her ability to return my drafis in almost impossibly short periods of time. My parents have provided me with moral (and occasionally financial) support over the course of my university education. My most heartfelt thanks go to my fiancé Craig Martin, who has edited and proofkad multiple drafts, suggested words when 1 was stuck, made me chicken soup when Iwas sick, and rubbed my head when 1was tired. List of Abbreviations Al1 works are by Coleridge. Publication information may be found in the "Works Consulted at the end of this dissertation. AR Aids ro RefTecrion (CC') BL Biograp hia L iferaria (CC) CC The Collecled Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Princeton UP CL Coilecîed Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Ed. E.L. Gnggs. CM khginalia (CC). References fiom the Marginalia will have the author of the work amotated in smdl capitals, followed by the note number in boldface. The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Ed. Kathleen Cobum: Merton Christensen, and Anthony Harding. CS On the Constitution of the Church and Stafe (CC) EOT Essays on his Times (CC) LS La-v Sermons (CC) N Material fiom the unpublished notebooks, indicated by notebook number, entry number, and foIio number. The Philosophical Lectures of Samuel Tayior Coleridge. Ed. Kathleen Coburn. Shorter Works & Fragments (CC) Table TaZk (CC) Introduction Coleridge constnicted his later prose works through an unusual "cut-and-paste" method which has generated cnticism and controversy ever since these texis were published. Contemporary cntics called Aids to Reflection a "motley collection'' (J.R. de J. Jackson, 1 : 488) and accusations of plagiarkm stemming from Coleridge's liberal and generall y unacknowledged use of sources have dogged the Biographia Literaria since De Quincey's accusations in Tait S Edinburgh Magazine shortly after Coleridge's death. Thirty years ago, Thomas McFarland suggested persuasively that the appropriations were so extensive that we had to re-think our view of them: 'The very multiplicity of instances-far more than at first charged, and by no means as yet al1 identified-suggests the explanation, bizarre though it may seem, that we are faced not with plagiarism, but with nothing less than a mode of composition-composition by mosaic organization rather than by painting on an empty canvas" (Panfheisf,27). Jerome Christensen attempted to refine merthe argument that Coleridge's plagiarisms were a method of writing by proposing that Coleridge "pursues a strategy of indirection by means of a tactic which 1 cal1 a marginal method: a fragmentary, mobile, aggressively rhetorical mode of argument that reads like a series of marginalia on the texts of others" (29). This dissertation attempts to contribute to this debate about Coleridge's use of texts by suggesting a larger histoncal context. W'hile others have tned to explain the borrowings as a "neurotic technique of composition" (McFarland. Pantheist, 34)-that is, based on the adrnittedly guilt-ridden and somewhat unstable personality- of Coleridge4 argue that his compositional techniques are related to those of the figure of the redactor in manuscript cultures, particularly as it was understood in contemporary biblical criticism. These methods are essentially collaborative, as I believe Coleridge's work in general to be. although his collaborations are ofien different from the nom. In Coleridge's methods and biblical practices. the author-editor works with the texts of others, ofien iong dead, rather than being in a dialogue with a living author.' Like Christensen and McFarland, 1 consider Coleridge's use of sources to be an actuai compositional technique. His borrowings are the main subset in a general collaborative practice that also includes his marginalia, his more conventional collaborations with Wordsworth and Southey, and even his famous conversation and his habit of dictating his manuscripts to manuenses. B y situating Coleridge's compositional techniques within comrnon biblical practices, i argue that his borrowings can be seen as a way in which Coleridge critiques rather clumsy notions of literary property. His wrîtings about biblical afithorship and inspiration show that collaboration is not just an accidental process caused by historical circumstances. Instead, it is a method of composition that allows successive generations of writers to add the knowledge of their time to texts while still retaining the wisdom of other cultures and ages. In this introductory chapter, I shall consider concepts of collaboration and multiple authorship generally; define the particular type of "textual [ Jack Stillinger States that "His plagiarisrns constitute a unique form ofmultiple authonhip in English literature" (Stillinger, MuftipfeAuthorsh@, 99). collaboration" which 1 see Coleridge using and discuss his awareness of this type of authorship in the Bible; and look at Coleridge's preference for colIaboration in his compositional and intellectual activities. In a broad sense, al1 texts can be considered intertextual and thus collaborative. Knsteva suggests that "any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any