STUDY OF A POET

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 154, 25 March 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

STUDY OF A POET

S. T. Coleridge’s Early Life

“The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge —The Early Years,” by Lawrence Hanson (London: Alien ami ‘Unwin). To most schoolchildren, the name of Samuel Taylor Coleridge brings memories of hours spent learning "The Ancient Mariner." How many thousands of children have lisped the strong, colourful stanzas about the benighted old seaman is open to conjecture. It is on “The Ancient Mariner,” “Christabel,” and a few other poems that Coleridge’s fame rests. He was not a prolific writer, and of ail that he wrote, only a portion is widely known. But those poems that are read by many are loved by many, and there is a clear-cut, vigorous imagery in his great works that has captivated many generations, and, it is safe to say, will do for many generations to come. It was not only as a poet that Coleridge was great. He was great also as a man, with all those human qualities, that warmth and tenderness of feeling that shine in his verse. Mr. Lawrence Hanson, in this book, has drawn a picture of the man and the poet. It may be too detailed a picture for many, who find the subtlety of omission more pleasing. To some the study may seem overburdened with detail, and the book will probably appeal more to the student and connoisseur than to the general reader. Besides giving a careful study of Coleridge himself, the book abounds in sidelights on the man’s contemporaries —Southey, Poole, Davy, the Wedgwoods and the Wordsworths —and it is this association of the outstanding men of a period in English literature that makes it of great interest. ■ The work is based upon material in the possession of the Rev. G. 11. B. Coleridge, ami is the first patt of the first comprehensive life of Coleridge ever written.

The book is finely illustrated with pictures of English writers of Coleridge’s day.