Osorio, A tragedy

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Richard Herne Shepherd (Creator)

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Genres: Plays

Paperback

First published January 1, 1797

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Keerthi Vasishta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly until the very confusing last dialogue and action. Does Alhadra kill him? Or is that just a dialogue?
No wonder the thing got rejected for the missing end. Better than The Borderers at any rate, this actually a play. Despite my belief that Coleridge is an inferior poet to Wordsworth (by virtue of his never finishing the good poems), he surpasses Will as a dramatist.

[Elizabeth Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moors, disguise, and sorcery--oh my! While certainly not known for his dramas, Coleridge provides a fairly entertaining one here. Very much influenced by elements of the gothic, a genre popular around the time he wrote Osorio, the plot of the play follows a typical gothic plot. There are political elements to this play as well, as it was written during an interesting political period in England. Wordsworth and Godwin were more vociferous on these political issues, but Coleridge weaves his views here into his play Osorio. For Coleridge fans, this is a must read--especially for fans of his more gothic works (Rime, Cristabel, etc.).