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Special Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Final Year; Semester 1)
Outline:
This module will explore the varied writings and concerns of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the
context of contemporary political and intellectual pressures. It will consider his youthful protoMarxist philosophy in the form of his Pantisocracy letters and poems, his lectures on the slave
trade delivered at Bristol, the many examples of his meditative poetry, his Gothic and opiuminspired writing, his drama, his literary criticism and notebooks, as well as his final work of
political philosophy, On the Constitution of Church and State.
Vacation Reading:
If you have time, I suggest you get ahead with reading some of the primary texts we will be
studying over the summer. Almost all of the texts are widely anthologized, in general Romantic
resources, or in Coleridge-specific collections such as Coleridge’s Poetry and Prose, eds. N.
Halmi, P. Magnuson and R. Modiano (London: W. W. Norton, 2004), which you may wish to
purchase.
Seminar Programme:
Wk. 1
THE ‘PANTISOCRACY’
Primary Reading:
A selection of materials relating to Coleridge and Southey’s ‘Pantisocracy’ scheme
(to be provided on Study Direct).
Secondary Reading:
David Perkins, ‘Compassion for Animals and Radical Politics: Coleridge’s “To A
Young Ass”’, ELH, 65:4 (Winter, 1998): 929-44.
Robert Sayre, ‘The Young Coleridge: Romantic Utopianism and the French
Revolution, Studies in Romanticism, 28:3 (Fall, 1989): 397-415.
Wk. 2
LECTURES ON THE SLAVE TRADE
Primary Reading:
‘Lecture on the Slave Trade’;
‘The Ancient Mariner’ (both to be provided on Study Direct).
Secondary Reading:
Alan Bewell Romanticism and Colonial Disease (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1999), pp. 97-109.
John Livingstone Lowes, The Road to Xanadu (London: Pan, 1978).
Wk. 3
THE CONVERSATION POEM 1
Primary Reading:
‘Effusion XXXV’;
‘The Eolian Harp’ (both are versions of the same poem; both widely available).
Secondary Reading:
Paul Magnuson, ‘“The Eolian Harp” in Context’, Studies in Romanticism, 24:1 (Spring,
1985): 3-20.
William H. Scheurle, ‘A Reexamination of Coleridge’s “The Eolian Harp”’, Studies in
English Literature, 1500-1900, 15:4 (Autumn, 1975): 591-99.
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Wk. 4
THE CONVERSATION POEM 2
Primary Reading:
‘Frost at Midnight’;
‘This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison’ (again, both widely available).
Secondary Reading:
Judith Thompson, ‘An Autumnal Blast, a Killing Frost: Coleridge’s Poetic
Conversation with John Thelwall’, Studies in Romanticism, 36:3 (Fall, 1997): 427-56.
Anne K. Mellor, ‘Coleridge’s “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” and the Categories
of English Landscape’, Studies in Romanticism, 18:2 (Summer, 1979): 253-70.
Wk. 5
GOTHIC 1: OPIUM
Primary Reading:
‘Kubla Khan’ (widely available).
Secondary Reading:
John Livingstone Lowes, The Road to Xanadu (London: Pan, 1978).
Donald Pearce, ‘“Kubla Khan” in Context’, Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900
21:4 (Autumn, 1981): 565-83.
Wk. 6
GOTHIC 2: VAMPIRES
Primary Reading:
‘Christabel’ (widely available).
Secondary Reading:
Anya Taylor, ‘Coleridge’s “Christabel” and the Phantom Soul’, Studies in English
Literature, 1500-1900, 42:4 (Autumn, 2002): 707-30.
Markman Ellis, The History of Gothic Fiction (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
2000).
Wk. 7
READING WEEK
Wk. 8
DRAMA
Primary Reading:
Remorse (to be provided).
Secondary Reading:
Judith Pascoe, ‘Romantic Drama’ in Nicholas Roe (ed.), Romanticism: An Oxford
Guide’, (Oxford: OUP, 2005), pp. 409-25.
Reeve Parker, ‘“Osorio’s” Dark Employments: Tricking Out Coleridgean Tragedy’,
Studies in Romanticism, 33:1 (Spring, 1994): 119-60.
Wk. 9
LITERARY CRITICISM
Primary Reading:
Biographia Literaria (extracts to be provided).
Secondary Reading:
Paul Hamilton, Coleridge’s Poetics (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983).
Lawrence Buell, ‘The Question of Form in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria’, ELH, 46:3
(Autumn, 1979): 399-417.
Wk. 10 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Primary Reading:
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On the Constitution of Church and State (extracts to be provided).
Secondary Reading:
Peter Allen, ‘S. T. Coleridge’s Church and State and the Idea of an Intellectual
Establishment’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 46:1 (Jan-Mar, 1985): 89-106.
John Morrow, ‘The National Church in Coleridge’s Church and State: A Response to
Allen’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 47:4 (Oct-Dec, 1986): 640-52.
Wk. 11 REACTIONS & AFTERLIVES
Primary Reading:
Anna Letitia Barbauld, 'To Mr Coleridge';
Mary Robinson 'To the Poet Coleridge';
William Hazlitt, 'Mr Coleridge';
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 'The Poet' (all to be provided).
Secondary Reading:
Anne K. Mellor, Romanticism and Gender (London: Routledge, 1993).
John M. Anderson, '"The First Fire": Barbauld Rewrites the Greater Romantic
Lyric', Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 34:4 (Autumn, 1994): 719-38.
Stanley Cavell, 'Emerson, Coleridge, Kant', Emerson's Transcendental Etudes, ed.
D. J. Hodge (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), pp. 59-82.
Wk. 12 RETROSPECTIVE & ESSAY WORKSHOP