The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Vol 1 and 2

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.7

Word count: 2.6M words
Chapters: 261

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Vol 1 and 2 by Coleridge. Author: Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834. Language: English. Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature. Release Date: Jun 11, 2009

Editor's review

This is the two-volume electronic edition of Coleridge's complete poetical works, released by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain English literary resource. Its core value lies in the completeness and searchability of the text: readers can find Coleridge's poetry in one place, making it easy to read through, compare, and conduct thematic research. As a major poet of the Romantic period, Coleridge writes with compressed language and rich imagery, with long poems and short pieces side by side, suited to slow reading and repeated revisiting. The electronic edition removes the page-turning burden of a print book and is especially good for searching by poem, excerpting lines, and organizing notes. One caveat: the complete works are substantial, and reading page by page can be tiring, so it is best to proceed in batches by interest or theme; the arrangement and annotation conventions of older poetry editions differ from contemporary anthologies, so readers may wish to keep a modern selected edition on hand for reference. Overall, this is a complete poetical works suited to keeping within reach for casual reading and reference over the long term, rather than a book to finish in one sitting.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students of English and American literature and researchers of Romantic poetry
Self-learners who need Coleridge's original poems for quotation and comparison
Poetry lovers who enjoy long and philosophical poems and are willing to read slowly and closely
Collector-type readers who want a public-domain electronic edition of an English poetry collection

Not a good fit for

Beginners who only want a few famous poems and need a selected edition with introductory guidance
Young readers unfamiliar with the language of 19th-century English poetry
Readers expecting modern annotations and detailed background on the poems' composition

Reading tips

Start by picking poems of moderate length to sample, then decide the order for reading through.
Keep a notebook to record recurring images and themes for easy cross-reference.
Read long poems in several sessions, summarizing each section in a few sentences afterward.
Read alongside the annotations in a modern selected edition to reduce the difficulty posed by the older edition's arrangement.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Do I need to read the two volumes in order from beginning to end?

Not necessarily. A complete poetical works is better read by choosing poems according to interest, theme, or length. You can start with short poems to build familiarity with the language, then move on to the long ones; or you can search across volumes around a particular image or theme to form your own reading thread.

Can I understand it without annotations?

Some poems involve mythology, philosophy, and the background of the era, and the lack of annotations makes them harder to understand. It is advisable to keep a modern annotated selected edition for reference and to look up allusions and unfamiliar words as you go; do not feel you must understand everything in one reading.

Is the electronic edition suitable for research citation?

The Project Gutenberg edition is easy to search and copy from, making it suitable for preliminary citation and textual comparison. For formal academic citation, however, you should still verify line and page numbers against an authoritative edition and note the electronic source you relied on.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 Author

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was a major English poet and critic of the Romantic movement. The library holds 21 of his works, including complete poetical collections, a single long narrative poem, selected poems, and prose criticism. His best-known work, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, is distinguished by its strange sea narrative, supernatural imagery, musical language, and rich imagination. Biographia Literaria sets out his critical ideas on imagination, fancy, and poetic language, exerting a lasting influence on later literary theory. His poetry often blends philosophical reflection, religious feeling, and natural description, combining the simplicity of ballad form with meditative speculation. Public information is limited, so this note relies mainly on the library's holdings to describe his subjects, style, and literary influence without inventing biographical details.