Ebook: Coleridge's Meditative Art

This study of the meditative poems seeks to define and illustrate the intricate and resourceful play characteristic of Coleridge's mind. Mr. Parker includes significant new material relating Coleridge's art to his personal literary experience, especially with Wordsworth, though Parker's emphasis throughout is on literary interpretation rather than on psychology. He gives full and rigorous readings of five poems: "Frost at Midnight,'' "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," "Hymn Before Sun-rise in the Vale of Chamouny," "Dejection: An Ode," and "To William Wordsworth." These poems, he believes, reveal that Coleridge was a far more subtle literary craftsman than has been previously recognized.