Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834),English poet and critic. Coleridge's thoughts and writings on Shakespeare were never collected or collated in any systematic manner, being scattered over several notebooks, mentioned in letters, written in the margin of play-texts, or reported at second hand from conversations and lectures. Editors, including H. N. Coleridge (in Literary Remains, 1836–9), T. M. Raysor (Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism, 2 vols., 1930), and Terence Hawkes (Coleridge's Writings on Shakespeare, 1959; repr. as Coleridge on Shakespeare, 1969), have variously attempted to achieve textual accuracy, the imposition of order, selection and emphasis, and accessibility. It is likely that Coleridge had composed nearly all of his own poetry before expressing the full range of his admiration for Shakespeare. A letter of 6 December 1800 refers to the ‘divinity of Shakespeare’, and thereafter his tone...
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