The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Vol. 16. Poetical Works: Part 1. Poems

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, J. C.C. Mays (Editor)

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.

Genres: Poetry

1616 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2001

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

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Covering booth volumes)
Even for the greatest of poets, there can be some lesser works in the poems. This is certainly true for Coleridge; his earliest poems in particular are readable, but not striking (the very earliest having rather an obsessive use of the exclamation mark). Coleridge's most famous poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel, along with the unfinished Kubla Khan are justifiably the greatest.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I should have chosen a "Best of" collection instead of this Complete Works. Coleridge's best poems are brilliant but I found the typical poems (especially in the later years) didn't appeal to me as much as Tennyson's.

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This old version of Coleridge has almost everything he wrote. I enjoy romantic poetry, but there is a lot of extra stuff in this volume from 1912. I got a lot of the Romantic poets in high school, and I still appreciate them. It is beautiful poetry.

[Markus]

I found this version on Kindle very difficult to read. I have therefore discontinued it.
I have replaced it with a paper version which I am now reading.