Notebooks

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Quelle belle Chose que l’Urine, dans un Pot, d’un brun jaune, transparente, avec le reflet, en forme de losange, d’une Chandelle, surtout lorsque je viens d’y vider les Éteignoirs, et que la Cire flotte, peignant des Ombres multiformes sur le fond.”

Coleridge a tenu ses Notebooks pendant plus de trente ans, de 1794 à 1826. Ces carnets, qui comportent plusieurs milliers de pages, offrent un aperçu irremplaçable de l’intimité de Coleridge. De ce vaste ensemble hétéroclite, nous livrons une sélection représentative : des observations sur la société, des croquis satiriques, des épigrammes mordantes se mêlent à des réflexions philosophiques ou scientifiques et à des passages introspectifs.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

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

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The notebooks, sorry, the Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge are well worth falling into, but they'll cost you plenty. I have one Bollingen volume bought which tempted me to mow lawns and sell salve all summer for the rest, but a dozen eggs these days costing $49.99 at H-E-B has shuffled my priorities.

In the meantime I've settled for this selection. It's enough to whet your appetite, I guess, but they couldn't have put out a fatter edition in paperback?

Coleridge had wide-ranging interests. Though these are not formal or intended for publication, these entries aren't jottings. Coleridge was rarely "off". These notebooks are instructive for anyone simply enjoying his language, here knotty, here flowing freely. Yes, opium is often present as an influence, but these isn't "drug-writing". This is spiritual wrestling, consuming and being consumed. Some of these read as beautiful prose poems. Some of these are declarations of position on current events, criticism of contemporaries, predecessors, etc. There are dream-records. It's a mix you can dip into an entry at a time or spend an afternoon with.

Interested folks can find the Anima Poetae, which is that fatter selection but free, online here: https://archive.org/details/animapoet...