Biographia Literaria
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- University students of English Romantic literature and critical theory
- Researchers interested in poetics, imagination theory, and the history of criticism
- Literature lovers who want to read Coleridge's own account of his thought
- English majors needing primary English texts for essays
Not a good fit for
- General readers expecting an easy biography or linear life narrative
- Readers with limited stamina for English who prefer short popular texts
- Those uninterested in abstract philosophical speculation and critical terminology
Reading tips
- Read the discussion of imagination and fancy around Chapter XIII first to grasp the book's core concepts, then revisit the autobiographical sections.
- Mark Coleridge's evaluations of Wordsworth as you read and compare them with Wordsworth's poems to understand his critical intent.
- You need not proceed chapter by chapter in order; select by theme, then use an introduction or scholarly work to map the book's structure.
- After each chapter, summarize the argument in a few sentences to avoid losing the main thread in the digressions.
About the publisher
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.
Contents
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
- 74
- 75
- 76
- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
FAQ
Is this an autobiography by Coleridge?
What background should I have before reading?
Does the Gutenberg edition include notes or an introduction?
Is the distinction between imagination and fancy important?
Comments
Find this book
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
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.
