Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Chapter 1 Early life and contexts: 1772–1802
- Chapter 2 Poetry
- Chapter 3 Notebooks
- Chapter 4 Mid-life works and contexts: 1803–1814
- Chapter 5 Language
- Chapter 6 Criticism
- Chapter 7 Later works and contexts: 1815–1834
- Afterword
- Notes
- Further reading
- Index
- Cambridge Introductions to Literature
Chapter 3 - Notebooks
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Chapter 1 Early life and contexts: 1772–1802
- Chapter 2 Poetry
- Chapter 3 Notebooks
- Chapter 4 Mid-life works and contexts: 1803–1814
- Chapter 5 Language
- Chapter 6 Criticism
- Chapter 7 Later works and contexts: 1815–1834
- Afterword
- Notes
- Further reading
- Index
- Cambridge Introductions to Literature
Summary
Coleridge's notebooks – with their 7,000 individual entries, some pages-long, others tiny, brilliant aperçus – have been described as the ‘unacknowledged prose masterpiece of the age’. They have been edited in a series of massive volumes, with notes tracking down most of the quotations in which they abound. Here is a sample entry; the view from Coleridge's study window at Greta Hall on the morning of 21 October 1803.
– A drisling Rain. Heavy masses of shapeless Vapour upon the mountains (O the perpetual Forms of Borrodale!) yet it is no unbroken Tale of dull Sadness – slanting Pillars travel across the Lake, at long Intervals – the vaporous mass whitens, in large Stains of Light…Little wool-packs of white bright vapour rest on different summits & declivities – the vale is narrowed by the mist & cloud – yet thro' the wall of mist you can see into a bason of sunny Light in Borrodale – the Birds are singing in the tender Rain, as if it were the Rain of April, & the decaying Foliage were Flowers & Blossoms. The pillar of Smoke from the Chimney rises up in the Mist, & is just distinguishable from it; & the Mountain Forms in the Gorge of Borrodale consubstantiate with the mist & cloud even as the pillared Smoke/a shade deeper, & a determinate Form.
(CNi. 1603)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Introduction to Samuel Taylor Coleridge , pp. 41 - 61Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010