Introduction

Abstract

Coleridge’s long reflection on language is situated at a crossroads joining tradition and modernity. Behind him, over the horizon, lie the theologically implicated language of Adam and the platonizing etymology of Horne Tooke; before him, in our own condition, linguistic science, pragmatics and the inner life of speech consume the modern imagination. While philosophers since Nietzsche have chafed and wondered at the condition of language, critical arbiters since Richards, Benjamin and Voloshinov have tried to settle on an idea of language adequate to the public vocation of modern literature. Into this futuristic element, checking his footing at every turn, steps Coleridge, a vivid figure of the problem of language — of language as a problem.