About the Book

For the first time, a monographic study of Coleridge’s work extensively uncovers the connections of his poetry with the Hindu view of life. This study investigates Coleridge’s philosophical and spiritual itinerary; it originally contributes in showing the strong impact the first translations of some texts of Hinduism had on the author’s psyche, philosophical approach and poetical inspiration. In addition, Coleridge’s unpublished manuscript notes found in one of the Abbé J. A. Dubois’ seminal studies of India are here presented as proof of the poet’s long standing interest in and frequentation of Hinduism.

Inclined to investigate the complexities of the human condition, both poetically and philosophically, Coleridge has tried to resolve the extremes of human existence through a synthesis of both Western and Oriental visions through which the universe ultimately emerges as an organic cosmos rhythmically unfolding through an intricate web of influxes, echoes and correspondences.

Contents

1. Coleridge’s Philosophical and Metaphysical Ideas

    i. A Visionary Universe

    ii. Philosophical and Spiritual Itinerary/ies: East and West

    iii. Coleridge, India and Hinduism

    iv.  “Yet There Must be a Oneness, an Absolute Unity”

    v. Bhakti: Love as Devotion within a Pure Heart

    vi.  Tandra or Sleep-like Consciousness

    vii.  The Invisible Sun Within Us

    viii.  Coleridge’s Rejection

2. Conversation and Other Poems

    i.  “Sonnet to the Autumnal Moon”

    ii.  “Life”

    iii.  “To the Evening Star”

    iv.  “The Aeolian Harp” and the One Life

    v.  “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison”

    vi.  “Frost at Midnight”

    vii.  “Dejection: An Ode”

    viii.  “Hymn Before Sun-Rise in the Vale of Chamouni”

    ix.  “To Nature”

    x.  “Epitaph”

3. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

    i.  Dancer in the Tempest

    ii.  The Mariner, the Wedding Guest, the Bride, the Minstrels, the Feast

    iii.  “Some-thing” Shoots the Arrow

    iv.  “All Peoples’ Destiny is Tied to Their Neck”

    v.  Magic and Poetry

    vi.  The Wedding Guest Again

    vii.  “They Lived On”

    viii.  Sun/Moon

    ix.  The Poetic Word as Imprint of the Soul

    x.  Reason Surrenders

    xi.  The Native Country, the Church, the Tower, and the Psychopompous Hermit

    xii.  Absolve Yourself          

4. “Kubla Khan” or a Vision in a Dream

    i.  An Owl that Won’t Bear Daylight

    ii.  The Impracticable Garden

    iii.  The Inner Sanctuary

    iv.  The Orphic Cosmic Egg

    v.  Intimate Vision

    vi.  Mythic Circuit

5. “Christabel” – Women and Vision

    i.  Women’s Fairy-tales

    ii.  Prayer, Invocation, Oak, the Other

    iii.  A Tightrope, a Threshold

    iv.  The Key of Knowledge

    v.  Nakedness of Body and Soul

    vi.  The Hermit Maiden, or the “The Youthful Hermitess”

    vii.  The Wounded King

    viii.  Vision in a Dream: the Serpent and the Dove

    ix.  The Divine Child, the Nimble Elf, Another Enchantment, the Dance of Life

 By Way of Conclusion – Composing Fragments Together

About the Author / Editor

Antonella Riem Natale is Full Professor of English Literature at the University of Udine, Italy, and heads International Cultural Exchange Programmes with Australia. She studies English, Australian, Indian and West Indian Literatures, postmodernism and postcolonialism, Hinduism in English Romantic Poetry, ‘Orientalism’ in Australian fiction, fable and myth along with the theme of the ‘double’ and diasporic writers from the Italian region of Friuli. She promotes events on Ethnic Literatures and linguistic minorities, and co-ordinates two major international research projects entitled Education towards Partnership: Languages, Cultures and Civilizations: A Cooperative Paradigm and Other Signs – Other Voices of Peace. She has published monographic studies on Richard Adams, Patrick White, Bruce Chatwin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and several collected essays on the theme of the ‘double’ in British fiction, on Partnership, language teaching and education, on Australian and Caribbean Literature and the figure of the Goddess in post-colonial literatures.