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Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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One of the major figures of English Romanticism, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) created works of remarkable diversity and imaginative genius. The period of his creative friendship with William Wordsworth inspired some of Coleridge's best-known poems, from the nightmarish vision of the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and the opium-inspired "Kubla Khan" to the sombre passion of "Dejection: An Ode" and the medieval ballad "Christabel". His meditative 'conversation' poems, such as "Frost at Midnight" and "This Lime-Tree Bower Mr Prison", reflect on remembrance and solitude, while late works, such as "Youth and Age" and "Constancy to an Ideal Object", are haunting meditations on mortality and lost love. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Penguin kindle version gibberish
This current kindle version prepared by Penguin is simply unendurable. The line numbers (every tenth line) are set to the right margin WITHIN and INTRUDING INTO the text of the poems themselves. Penguin has made a business decision to offer many of their Classics in ebook form, and good for that. Unfortunately they gave the task in many instances to persons with no feeling for how the result looks. Given that they're charging nearly full price, there's no excuse for offering a product so shoddy.

Wholly underappreciated master
It never fails to stun me how utterly underrated Coleridge's life and works are. Granted, he was a complex figure whose poetry and prose range from romantic idealism to mysticism and philosophy, most of which is still little read and/or understood. That being said, it is for the power and beauty of his works alone that Coleridge's reputation should lie.

Many, many reviews will tell one that Coleridge was a once 'important' poet, that his greatest work was Kubla Khan or The Rime, that his talent faded into obscurity after they were conceived. Many reviewers will compare him unfavourably to Wordsworth or Keats. Pay little attention, opinions though they may be, until you have read his work for yourself and truly experienced the screaming soul that drove his words.

For me, the peak of romantic literature lay beneath Coleridge's hands while he mused on his sleeping son, his village, his childhood, in the astonishingly lyrical Frost at Midnight, or while he frantically scrawled his Letter to__(Sara Hutchinson), April 4, 1802, as he watched a storm roar over the Lake District and finally poured out his love for Asra in its most pure and perfect form.

Each poem is a masterwork in and of itself. Coleridge deserves more than a small pocket of academic study and appreciation. He deserves to be read, to be truly absorbed and appreciated, as the words of a friend would be, while walking amongst green hills or by sunset in a lime-tree bower or as the accompaniment to the language of birds. Try it for yourself. It may well stay with you forever.

Love his poems!
I just received this book earlier today and all I can say is wow! A complete and total genius!This is a must have for your library of poetry.As soon as you get it I would recommend you to fully reading the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

This just blew me away;

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

Genius with words and master of painting pictures with them to really make you think and envision what he is trying to show you!The list goes and the poems are just amazing!You need to buy this book!

The Penguin Complete Poems of Coleridge
I bought this collection of Coleridge's poems sight unseen on the assumption--which proved correct--that it would have scholarly apparatus similar to that of the other more recent Penguin editions of major poets.There is nothing else that comes close to it except for the hugely expensive Princeton edition.Everything most readers need to know about these poems is in the scrupulous notes of the editor, William Keach.I'd throw my old Modern Library selection into the garage sale heap, except that it has "Biographia Literaria" complete, though with no notes or other aids.

Book
So far a good book.I haven't been able to put it down. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published 200 years ago, "Lyrical Ballads" is published here as it was compiled by Wordsworth and Coleridge. Accepted as one of the most influential books of English poetry, it includes "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey". ... Read more

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic, and radical thinker, exerted an enormous influence over contemporaries as varied as Wordsworth, Southey and Lamb.He was also a dedicated reformer, and set out to use his reputation as a public speaker and literary philosopher to change the course of English thought.
This collection represents the best of Coleridge's poetry from every period of his life, particularly his prolific early years, which produced The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, and Kubla Khan.The central section of the book is devoted to his most significant critical work, Biographia Literaria, and reproduces it in full.It provides a vital background for both the poetry section which precedes it and for the shorter prose works which follow.There is also a generous sample of his letters, notebooks, and marginalia, some recently discovered, which show a different, more spontaneous side to his fascinating and complex personality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

great collection, weak binding
this is an excellent collection of coleridge--i used it for my MA thesis and it had all the major works that i needed.i was extremely disappointed in the binding, however.it is not the usual OWC binding, which is one of my favorites, but a cheaper, less resiliant one.for a collection of this size, this is somewhat problematic.

Good collection of Coleridge's works
S.T. Coleridge is an interesting poetic figure.An opium addict who imaged an imaginary country called 'Xanadu', based on an Asian legend about one of the descendants of Genghis Khan, Coleridge's visions are very scattered and lacking in unity.His poems, while some soar to great heights, are often confusing or pedestrian, and in this regard he is a lesser poet than Blake or Milton.

Despite this and his constant dabblings in various religions and his unsystematic attempts to grasp a deep unity in the universe and in all knowledge in the realm of the spirit, along with some beautiful poems like the Ancient Mariner and some good essays and prose works (such as the Biographia) make Coleridge an essential part of any canon of English literature.He is a genius, even if not an outstanding one, and worth reading at least once.

The Oxford Collections are generally of very high standard and worth purchasing for every canonical author. ... Read more

Product Description
Collected together in this collection are the most famous of all the poems written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This includes the following: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, Christabel, The Eolian Harp, Reflections on having left a Place of Retirement, This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison, Frost at Midnight, Fears in Solitude, The Nightingale, Dejection: An Ode, The Pains of Sleep, and To William Wordsworth. Written between 1795 and 1807 these poems represent the best of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. ... Read more

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His greatest works.From the Introduction: "Coleridge's search, throughout his life, was after the absolute, an absolute not only in thought but in all human relations, in love,
friendship, faith in man, faith in God, faith in beauty; and while it was this profound dissatisfaction with less than the perfect form of every art, passion, thought, or circumstance, that set him adrift in life, making him seem untrue to duty, conviction, and himself, it was this also that formed in him the double existence of the poet and the philosopher, each supplementing and interpenetrating the other. " According to Wikipedia: "Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834) was an English poet, critic and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as his major prose work Biographia Literaria." ... Read more

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This volume contains much of Coleridge's poetry, the complete `Biographia Literaria', substantial extracts from other prose works, and a generous sampling of his more informal writings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Great Collection, Incredible Value
Though now the least known and read of the great English Romantic poets, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote some of the language's most immortal poems, including "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." William Wordsworth's contemporary, he exercised a profound influence on the better-known writer and the younger Romantics, the latter being especially impacted by his fascinations with the occult and supernatural as well as his innovations with form. Coleridge indeed originated or perfected many genres that soon became English poetry standards, such as the conversation poem (e.g., "This Lime Tree Bower my Prison"), while works like "Christabel" were simply revolutionary on technical grounds. Also, with Wordsworth, he helped bring ballads back into vogue. More important than all this is that his best poems still stand up as remarkable instances of a singular vision - dramatically engaging, technically competent, intellectually respectable, and thematically intriguing. Though not in English poetry's upper echelon, Coleridge remains an important writer with whom anyone seriously interested in poetry must be familiar.

This great collection has a generous selection - thirty-five poems over 133 pages. It is not merely representative but essentially comprehensive, containing nearly all of Coleridge's notable poems. This moves it beyond a mere primer; everyone but hard-cores and scholars will be fully served except those wanting substantial supplemental material. As this is an inexpensive edition, we get only a table of contents and a chronology; anyone wanting biographical or critical material, notes, or line numbers must look elsewhere. There are many such editions, but this will certainly satisfy most. The packaging is actually quite nice, especially considering the price; the book is a hardback with strong binding and even a built-in bookmark. Some may dislike its smallness, though the print is relatively large, but at least as many will be glad it can be pocketed. All told, anyone wanting anything less than a critical and/or comprehensive edition could do no better.

OUR YOUNG FOLK DO NEED THE EXPOSURE TO THIS WONDERFUL POETRY!
I cannot think of a better way to introduce the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge than this small volume.The selection is excellent and of interest you the young reader.The commentary is quite relevant as are the pictures which accompany it.I find that often now, our young people go all the way through the early grades in school and many of them have never heard of Coleridge,much less read his poetry.This was the sort of stuff my generation and the generation before it grew up on and cut our teeth on.I truely feel I would be much less richer had I not read it and had it read to me.I do not feel I am any worse for the wear.I am fearful that we are bringing up an entire generation (rightfully or wrong, although I feel it is the later) of young folks who will have no appreciation to this great art form and will miss a lot.This book helps.This entire series helps, as a matter of fact and I certainly recommend you add this one and the others to your library.Actually, it is rather fun reading these with the young folk and then talking about them.Not only do you get to enjoy the work your self and perhaps bring back some great memories, but you have the opportunity to interact with your child or student.It is actually rather surprising what some of the kids come up with.I read these to my grandchildren and to the kids in my classes at school.For the most part, when I really get to discussing the work with them, they enjoy it.Recommend this one highly.

Good Poetry
Thoroughly enjoyed this book.I absolutely love the old style of poetry.I highly recommend this book to poetry lovers.

The compositions if the greatest Romanticist ever
The Romantics redefined english literature, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the leaders. Between he and William Wordsworth, they WERE the movement. His vision, and glorified writing style still tantalize me tothis day. ... Read more

Product Description

Biographia Literaria has emerged over the last century as a supreme work of literary criticism and one of the classics of English literature. Into this volume poured 20 years of speculation about the criticism and uses of poetry and about the psychology of art. Following the text of the 1817 edition, the editors offer the first completely annotated edition of the highly allusive work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Function of the Poet: The Duty of the Man
STC's original purpose for BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA was to account for the major influences in his development of both his philosophy and literary technique. But as he progressed, his real goal was to discuss at mind-numbing length intellectual problems and issues and to provide the world a pulpit for his literary criticism with comments on specific works. His book is truly a long conversation ranging over poetry, drama, philosophy, and psychology. He opens the book by praising the Reverend James Bowyer, who had taught him logic and rhetoric years earlier. He notes that in his youth he developed a taste for the `pre-romantic' vogue of lyrics rather than the traditional styles of Pope and other Augustan poets.Throughout, he mentions the harsh attacks of critics who saw in him (and Wordsworth) as poetic vulgarizers. It is no surprise then that he often went on to a spirited counterattack. Early in the book, he considers a favorite series of topics: perception, sensation, and the human thought processes.He does not make it easy for the modern reader to catch his drift since he assumes that his readers have an intimate knowledge of the popular theories of psychology and philosophy of his day. He ponders, among others, Hobbes, Aristotle, Descarte and Kant. He describes his business failure with a literary journal "The Watchman" that he founded. Had his friends not bailed him out with timely loans, he might have wound up in debtor's prison. He notes that his 1798 trip to Germany provided him with invaluable first-hand knowledge of literature and politics. A return to England exposed him to the joys of journalism.Later in the text, he returns to philosophy. He was quite concerned with distinguishing between the perceiver and the perceived.He also distinguished imagination (You can always spot his unique prose style since he invariably spells "imagination" and "fancy" in upper case) into the Primary Imagination and the Secondary Imagination. The former perceives and recognizes objects while the latter enables its host to produce new thoughts: `It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate.' Coleridge invents a new word that he calls `esemplastic' to refer to this Imagination that can balance or reconcile the apparent opposites in experience. Next he writes that with reference to poetry, its immediate object is `pleasure, not truth.' Next, he discusses the function of the poet, who, via his imagination, brings unity out of diversity by reconciling `sameness, with differences; of the general, with the concrete; the idea, with the image; the individual, with the representative; the sense of novelty and freshness, with old and familiar objets; a more than usual state of emotion, with more than usual order; judgment ever awake and steady self-possession, with enthusiasm and feeling profound or vehement.'Coleridge was not bashful about criticizing his good friend Wordsworth, who valued the speech of low and rustic life as the natural language of emotion. Coleridge praised Wordsworth for the purity of his language and the freshness of his thoughts. BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA emerges as a penetrating glimpse into a man who saw a universe in a manner that not many others did, not even his literary soulmates.

At Last: A Reader's Biographia Literaria
Anyone interested in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's work could not receive better advice than to buy the Princeton University Press paperback edition of Biographia Literaria (1817), the closest thing that this most brilliant but also most erratic of all the English romantic poets produced by way of a summa of his life and critical theories.If you've tried it in a cheap edition (e.g., the Modern Library) and set it aside scratching your head over the constant flow of obscure allusions, untranslated quotations in Latin, Greek, and, especially, German, and hundreds of references to other writers, now is the time to give it another shot.The editors, James Engell and Walter Jackson Bate, have meticulously glossed every one of these obscurities in footnotes (not endnotes)that are a model of clarity and concision.The volume has everything you need to appreciate this great work: a thorough and highly readable editors' introduction, a chronology of Coleridge's life, appendices on related correspondence and on passages Coleridge appropriated from the German philosophers, and a complete index. This edition is not, by ordinary standards, new: as volume 7 of Princeton's Collected Works of STC, it's beenaround as a two-volume hardcover since 1983 and a single volume paperback since 1984.But considering how long it took to produce a usable version for the ordinary reader, it might as well have come out yesterday.

Awesome erudition
I am almost as much in awe of the erudition of the editors (James Engell and W Jackson Bates of the Bolingen edition) as that of Coleridge himself. I think it is often easier to parade one's ownwide reading than to recognize someone elses's references. These editors track down the most obscure of Greek, German and Latin quotations and it's an education to read their notes.
There are really three themes in the book. One part is philosophy, one is literary criticism, and one is straight autobiography. These are dispersed throughout.
As regards the philosophy I am probably what he would have called "ignorant of his understanding."Coleridge shows a remarkable knowledge of German philosophy, read in the original language. As far as I know his philosophical ideas have not been highly regarded by pure philosophers.
The literary criticism is the most powerful and original part although the texts he uses will be unfamiliar and even anaccessible to most modern readers.
The fragments of autobiography such as chapter 10 and the first of the Satyrayane's Letters are the most readable.
While this is an unboubted work of genius I have denied it the fifth star because of a certain lack of redability. It is not, for the modern reader, a page-turning work of entertainment. It contains many gems, and much wit, but is one of those we take up today for instruction rather than diversion.

From a "universal mind"
Bede Griffiths, in his book The Golden String, referred to STC as "one of the most universal minds in English literature."

I don't know of anything comparable to Biographia Literaria.At times it's the narrative of a great poet's life.He may veer off into literary criticism or even parody (see the, to me, hilarious section in which he gives "The House that Jack Built" in the rhetorical manner of a recent poet).He powerfully attacks the positivism of his age (and ours).He evokes the wonder of being human.

This scholarly edition is the one to get, if you're going to put in the time to read this rich classic at all. ... Read more

Product Description
Coleridge combined the genius of a poet with the mind of a philosophical critic. His writings are wide-ranging in form and content, and vast in number. Norton's long-awaited edition is the most comprehensive and user-friendly student edition available. Supporting apparatus includes detailed headnotes, footnotes (both Coleridge's and the editors'), biographical register, glossary, and an index of poems and first lines. "Criticism" includes twenty assessments of Coleridge's poetry and prose by British and American authors.

About the series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehensive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

What is good poetry?
This edition contains, as well as the poetry, Coleridge's critical essays.For those who often find themselves wondering "is that a good poem?" he provides welcome and sensible guidelines on which to base judgement. ... Read more

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Poetry in its many guises is at the center of Coleridge's multifarious interests, and this long-awaited new edition of his complete poetical works marks the pinnacle of the Bollingen Collected Coleridge. The three parts of Volume 16 confirm and expand the sense of the Coleridge who has emerged over the past half-century, with implications for English Romantic writing as a whole. Setting new standards of comprehensiveness in the presentation of Romantic texts, they will interest historians and editorial theorists, as well as readers and students of poetry. They represent a work of truly monumental importance.

The first part presents the reading texts of 706 poems in chronological sequence. Its blend of newly discovered and newly collected poems, presented in light of all known evidence and where practicable in unrevised forms, offers a fresh and original Coleridge: less inhibited by Victorian ideas about what poetry should be, moving easily and productively between genres and levels of seriousness. In texts that remained fluid and exploratory to the end, Coleridge alternates between lyric and satire, prophecy and conversation, symbol and allegory.

Each poem is accompanied by a headnote and commentary that together provide its historical-biographical context and offer key textual variants. The book opens with an introduction and chronological tables. The three appendixes position individual poems in the contexts in which they appeared during Coleridge's lifetime. Illustrations such as contemporary scenes and portraits bring this rich collection, like the companion volumes, all the more to life. ... Read more

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The aim and purport of this edition of the _Poetical Works_ of Samuel Taylor Coleridge is to provide the general reader with an authoritative list of the poems and dramas hitherto published, and at the same time to furnish the student with an exhaustive summary of various readings derived from published and unpublished sources, viz. (1) the successive editions issued by the author, (2) holograph MSS., or (3) contemporary transcriptions. Occasion has been taken to include in the Text and Appendices a considerable number of poems, fragments, metrical experiments and first drafts of poems now published for the first time from MSS. in the British Museum, from Coleridge's Notebooks, and from MSS. in the possession of private collectors. ... Read more

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The table of contents links to each and every poem.According to Wikipedia: "Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772–25 July 1834) was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as his major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on Shakespeare, is highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. He coined many familiar words and phrases, including the celebrated suspension of disbelief. He was a major influence, via Emerson, on American transcendentalism." ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

not my speed
I am sorry but I failed to get on a wave length with this writer.I found the style of writing very dry and gave up after about thirty pages.At one point I thought I should get someone to translate it for me because I can see a lot of effort went into it.Sentences too long and difficult to understand. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

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Coleridge's weekly miscellany called The Watchman ran for 10 numbers in 1796. A rare work, The Watchman is reprinted in its entirety. ... Read more

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This final volume of Bollingen Series L covers the material Coleridge wrote in his notebooks between January 1827 and his death in 1834. In these years, Coleridge made use of the notebooks for his most sustained and far-reaching inquiries, very little of which resulted in publication in any form during his lifetime.

Twenty-eight notebooks are here published in their entirety for the first time; entries dated 1827 or later from several more notebooks also appear in this volume. Following previous practice for the edition, notes appear in a companion volume.

Coleridge's intellectual interests were wide, encompassing not only literature and philosophy but the political crises of his time, scientific and medical breakthroughs, and contemporary developments in psychology, archaeology, philology, biblical criticism, and the visual arts. In these years, he met and conversed with eminent writers, scholars, scientists, churchmen, politicians, physicians, and artists. He planned a major work on Logic (still unpublished at his death), and an outline of Christian doctrine, also unfinished, though his work toward this project contributed to On the Constitution of the Church and State (1830) and the revised Aids to Reflection (1831).

The reader of these notebooks has the opportunity to see what one of the most admired minds of the English-speaking world thought on several issues--such as race and empire, science and medicine, democracy (particularly in reaction to the Reform Bills introduced in 1831 and 1832), and the authority of the Bible--when he wrote without fear of public disapprobation or controversy. ... Read more

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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more