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Selected Poems

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Edited by William Empson and David Pirie

Cover Picture of Selected Poems
Categories: 18th Century, 19th Century
Imprint: Fyfield Books
Publisher: Carcanet Press
Available as:
Paperback (220 pages)
(Pub. Nov 1989)
9780856358159
Out of Stock
  • Description
  • Excerpt
  • Author
  • Contents
  • ...that hour I would wish'd to die.
    If thro'the shuddering midnight I had sent
    From the dark dungeon of the Tower time-rent
    That fearful voice, a famish'd Father's cry -
    Lest in some aftre moment aught more mean
    Might stamp me mortal! A triumphant shout
    Black Horror scream'd, and all her goblin rout
    Diminish'd shrunk from the withering scene!

    from To the Author of 'The Robbers'

    In this unusual selection, one of the great poet-critics of the twentieth century encounters and re-appraises the greatest poet-critic of the nineteenth. William Empson, assisted by David Pirie, chooses from Coleridge's vast and uneven ouevre the salient poems, and edits and annotates them. Here is a classic example of Empson's techniques of creative and scholarly reading and the best possible introduction to the work of one of the most haunting poets in the English language.

    'The pith of my system,' says Coleridge, 'is to make the senses out of mind - not the mind out of the senses, as Locke did.'
    Table of Contents

      Introduction by William Empson

    To the Author of 'The Robbers'

    Monologue to a Young Jack Ass in Jesus Piece

    The Eolian Harp

      From Reflections on Entering into Active Life

      From Religious Musings

      From The Destiny of Nations

    This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison

    The Foster-mother's Tale

    The Dungeon

    On a Ruined House in a Romantic Country

    The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

    Christabel

    Fire, Famine and Slaughter

    Frost at Midnight

      From Fears in Solitude

    The Nightingale

    Kubla Khan

    Lines Composed in a Concert-Room

    Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie

    The Mad Monk

    A Letter to....

    Chamouny; the Hour Before Sunrise

    The Pains of Sleep

    Phantom

    Psyche

    Human Life

    On Donne's Poetry

    Work Without Hope

    Song

    Epitaph

    Fragments



      Textual Commentary by David Pirie

    Notes by David Pirie

    Index of First Lines

    Illustrations


    1. The Sailors and the Albatross

    2. Why We Omit the Marginal Glosses

    Samuel Taylor Coleridge
      Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Ottery St Mary, Devon in 1772. He was the youngest son of the local vicar. He attended Christ's Hospital School in London as a charity boy. In 1791 he went to Jesus College, Cambridge, but did not complete a degree. He began to publish ... read more
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