Notes on Shakespeare - Lectures by Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Description

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was an English poet, theologian, literary critic, philosopher, and co-founder of the English Romantic Movement. He was also a member of the famous Lake Poets, together with William Wordsworth and Robert Southey. Coleridge had a significant influence on the the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson and American Transcendentalism in general, and played an important role in bringing German idealist philosophy to the English-speaking world. He was also an influential critic, garnering particular esteem for his critical work regarding William Shakespeare, which helped usher in a revival of interest in Shakespeare's plays and poetry. This volume contains a collection of Coleridge's lectures on Shakespeare, which he delivered up and down the country. Highly recommended for students and others with an interest in Shakespeare or Coleridge's work. Contents include: “Greek Drama”, “Progress of the Drama”, “The Drama Generally, and Public Taste”, “Shakespeare, a Poet Generally”, “Shakespeare's Judgment Equal to his Genius”, “Recapitulation, and Summary of the Characteristics of Shakespeare's Dramas”, “Outline of an Introductory Lecture upon Shakespeare”, “Order of Shakespeare's Plays”, “Notes on the 'Tempest'”, “'Love's Labour's Lost'”, “'Midsummer Night's Dream'”, “'Comedy of Errors'”, “'As You Like It'”, “'Twelfth Night'”, “'All's Well that Ends Well'”, etc.

Sujets

• Shakespare
• Literary Criticism

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 20 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781528792721
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

NOTES ON SHAKESPEARE
LECTURES BY COLERIDGE
By
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE


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This edition is published by Read & Co. Great Essays, an imprint of Read & Co.
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Contents
SAMUEL TAYL OR COLERIDGE
By Le slie Stephen
DEFINITI ON OF POETRY
GREEK DRAMA
PROGRESS OF THE DRAMA
THE DRAMA GENERALLY, AND PUBLIC TASTE
SHAKESPEARE, A PO ET GENERALLY
SHAKESPEARE'S JUDGMENT EQUAL T O HIS GENIUS
RECAPITULATION, AND SUMMARY OF THE CHARACTERISTICS OF SHAKESPE ARE'S DRAMAS
OUTLINE OF AN INTRODUCTORY LECTURE UPON SHAKESPEARE
ORDER OF SHAKESP EARE'S PLAYS
NOTES ON T HE “TEMPEST”
“LOVE'S LA BOUR'S LOST”
“MIDSUMMER NI GHT'S DREAM”
“COMED Y OF ERRORS”
“AS YOU LIKE IT”
“TW ELFTH NIGHT”
“ALL'S WELL THA T ENDS WELL”
“MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR”
“MEASURE FOR MEASURE”
“CYMBELINE”
“TITUS ANDRONICUS”
“TROILUS A ND CRESSIDA”
“CORIOLANUS”
“J ULIUS CÆSAR”
“ANTONY AN D CLEOPATRA”
“TIMO N OF ATHENS”
“ROMEO AND JULIET”
SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLISH HIST ORICAL PLAYS
“KING JOHN”
“RICHARD II”
“HENR Y IV—PART I”
“HENRY IV—PART II”
“HENRY V”
“HENR Y VI—PART I”
“ RICHARD III”
“LEAR”
“HAMLET”
“MACBETH”
“WI NTER'S TALE”
“OTHELLO”



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
By Leslie Stephen
A poet and philosopher. He was born 21 Oct. 1772 at Ottery St. Mary. His father, John Coleridge (1719–1781), vicar of the town and master of the grammar school, was a man of learning and simplicity, often compared by his son to Parson Adams. He edified his congregation by quoting Hebrew in the pulpit. In 1768 he published Miscellaneous Dissertations , arising from the 17th and 18th chapters of the Book of Judges; and in 1772 a Critical Latin Grammar , in which the name 'quale-quare-quidditive' was substituted for the old-fashioned ablative. An advertisement appended states that he took pupils at sixteen guineas a year for boarding and teaching. Many anecdotes were told of his absent-mindedness. He was twice married. He had three daughters by his first wife (Mary Lendon). His second wife, Anne Bowdon ( d . 1809), was a sensible woman and a good housekeeper, though not highly educated. He had by her ten children. James, the third son (1760-1836), entered the army, married a lady of fortune, Miss Frances Duke Taylor, and by her was the father of Mr. Justice Coleridge, of Henry Nelson Coleridge, of Edward Coleridge, assistant-master at Eton, of Frances Duke, the wife of Sir John Patteson and mother of Bishop Patteson, and three other children. The fifth and sixth children of John Coleridge, Edward and George, took orders, George ( d . 1828, aged 63) afterwards succeeding to his father's school and benefice. The seventh child, Luke Herman, became a surgeon, and died in 1790, aged 25, leaving one son, William Hart, afterwards bishop of Barbados. The tenth, Samuel Taylor, was singularly precocious and imaginative. 'I never thought as a child,' he says, 'never had the language of a child.' He read the Arabian Nights before his fifth birthday ( The Friend, 1818, i. 252), and preferred day-dreams to active games (for anecdotes of his infancy see Biog. Lit. 1847, ii. 313-28). His father died 4 Oct. 1781. Sir Francis Buller, the judge, a former pupil of the father, obtained for the son a presentation to Christ's Hospital, where the boy was placed 18 July 1782. Here he was protected by Middleton, afterwards bishop of Calcutta, then a 'deputy Grecian,' and became the friend of C harles Lamb.
Lamb describes the school in his Recollections of Christ's Hospital and in Christ's Hospital Thirty-five years ago , one of the Essays of Elia . In the last there is the often-cited description of Coleridge as the 'inspired charity-boy,' expounding Plotinus and reciting Homer in the Greek. The 'poor friendless boy' also represents Coleridge (Gillman, Life of Coleridge , p. 13). Middleton found the boy reading Virgil for his pleasure, and spoke of him to the head-master, James Boyer, often called Bowyer (for whom see Trollope, Christ's Hospital , pp. 136-41), a severe but sensible teacher. Boyer flogged pitilessly, but Coleridge was grateful for his shrewd onslaughts upon commonplaces and bombast. Coleridge became a good scholar, and before his fifteenth year had translated the ‘Eight Hymns of Synesius from the Greek into English Anacreontics ’ ( Biog. Lit. 18 17, i. 249).
In one of his day-dreams in the street his hands came in contact with a gentleman's clothes. On being challenged as a pickpocket, Coleridge explained that he was Leander swimming the Hellespont. His accuser was not only pacified but paid his subscription to a library; whither he afterwards 'skulked out' at all risks and read right 'through the catalogue' (Gillman, pp. 17, 21). His brother Luke was now walking the hospitals. Coleridge was seized with a passion for the study of medicine, begged to hold plasters and dressings at operations, and devoured medical books, learning Blancard's Latin Medical Dictionary almost by heart. From medicine he diverged, 'before his fifteenth year,' into metaphysics. Thomas Taylor's Plotinus concerning the Beautiful , published in 1787, probably fell in his way and affected his speculations (Brandl, S. T. Coleridge , p. 21). Voltaire seduced him into infidelity, out of which he was flogged by Boyer, the 'only just flogging' he ever received (Gillman, p. 24). He was ready to argue with any chance passenger in the streets, and it is doubtless to this phase that Lamb's description of the 'inspired charity-boy' applies. He was recalled from metaphysics to poetry, in which he had already dabbled, by falling in love with Mary Evans, a schoolfellow's sister (Gillman, p. 28; Allsop, 1836, ii. 86), and by reading the sonnets of Bowles, first made known to him by Middleton. Within a year and a half he had made over forty transcriptions of Bowles for presents to friends, being too poor to purcha se the book.
At the same time he incurred permanent injuries to his health by such imprudence’s as swimming the New River without undressing, and neglecting to change his clothes. The food was both scanty and bad. Half his time between seventeen and eighteen was passed in the sick ward with jaundice and rheumatic fever. He rose to the top of the school, having abandoned a passing fancy for an apprenticeship to a friendly shoemaker (Gillman, p. 21), and left Christ's Hospital on 7 Sept. 1790, He was appointed to an exhibition of 40 l . a year in 1791. He was entered as a sizar at Jesus College, Cambridge, on 5 Feb. 1791, and came into residence in the following October, when he became a pensioner (5 Nov. 1791). He matriculated on 26 March 1792. He no doubt came to Jesus to obtain one of the Rustat scholarships, which are confined to the sons of clergymen. He received something from this source in his first term, and about 25 l . for each of the years 1792-4. He became also a foundation scholar on 5 June 1793 (information from the master of Jesus). He was stimulated to work in his first year by his friend Middleton (B.A. 1792); he won the Browne medal for a Greek ode (on the slave trade) in 1792, but failed in 1793. He was one of four selected candidates for the Craven scholarship in 1793, Keate, the famous headmaster of Eton, being another; but it was won by S. Butler, afterwards head-master of Shrewsbury. The chief test of classical excellence at that time, the chancellor's medal, was open only to wranglers and senior optimes. Coleridge's ignorance of mathematics made it improbable that he would even be qualified to compete, and this prospect is said to have discouraged him. Whether from discouragement or indolence, his reading became desultory, while he enjoyed society, was already famous as a talker, and keenly interested in the politics of the day (Le Grice's Recollections in Gent. Mag . for December 1834, pp. 605-7).
Coleridge had taken the liberal side, and shared the early revolutionary fervour. He always disavowed Jacobin principles, but he was an ardent admirer of Fox and of more extreme radicals. From Lamb's letters, it appears that the two friends were rivals in 'adoring' Priestley, then at the height of his fame, whom Coleridge addresses in the Religious Musings (Christmas, 1794) as 'patriot and saint and sage.' In May 1793 William Frend, a fellow of Jesus College, was tried in the vice-chancellor's court at Cambridge for a pamphlet expressing strong liberal opinions both in politics and theology. After various legal proceedings he was banished from the university. Coleridge, a member of the same college, was deeply interested, and is said to have incurred some risk by applauding Frend at the trial. The master of his college afterwards