Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T17:31:59.592Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12 - Religious thinker

from Part II - Discursive modes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Lucy Newlyn
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Get access

Summary

The categories according to which Coleridge's various admirers and critics have represented him often appear irreconcilable: he has been portrayed, for example, as a radical Unitarian, a mystic, a theosophist and an orthodox Anglican with conservative leanings. Such descriptions sometimes reflect the nature of a critic's interest in a particular period of his life, or in one aspect of his thought and often as much evidence can be found to challenge as to support them. This is not only because of the complexity of Coleridge's evolving ideas but also because he was convinced that truth is revealed only by means of apparent oppositions, because of 'the polarizing property of all finite mind' (Friendi, 515n). Even his early lectures, given at Bristol, contained a mixture of radical and conservative views. However, the development of his thinking, when traced across the spectrum of letters, notes and marginalia, is coherent and cogent. It shows the close relationship between his current reading and the religious ideas and questions which preoccupied him, and also his vast erudition and rigorous power of analysis and argument. He was always unwilling to subordinate his critical faculties to dogma of any kind, whether that of revolutionary radicalism, evangelical 'bibliolatry' (see below) or established Anglican convention. For this reason it is likely that his work and moral character would have attracted criticism from one quarter or another even if his private life had been respectably regular and conventional, which it was not. Yet it was precisely this wide-ranging critical spirit, blended with an intense desire for truth, which gave his writing on religion such penetrative power and which influenced and inspired many of both his own and succeeding generations.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×