The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 2

This volume opens a lively portrait of Samuel Taylor Coleridge as a teacher, correspondent and literary detective. In his own hand he recounts the excitement of delivering a fresh series of Shakespeare lectures, teasing out paradoxes that once shocked his audience and still resonate today. Through extracts of letters to friends and former students, he reveals the restless curiosity that drove him to probe the poet’s judgment, genius and the very shape of drama.

Beyond Shakespeare, the collection gathers Coleridge’s meticulous notes on Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and even ancient Greek tragedy, offering concise summaries and provocative observations. Scattered throughout are personal missives that illuminate his method and the scholarly community of his day. For listeners who enjoy hearing a great thinker explain literature in his own words, these fragments provide a vivid, approachable glimpse into the mind that helped define Romantic literary criticism.