Abstract
This chapter examines Sara Coleridge’s dialogic methods of composition in her ‘Introduction’ to STC’s Essays on His Own Times, in which she argues for a Christian system of political economy. The chapter then discusses the unpublished Dialogues on Regeneration. Schofield analyses Sara Coleridge’s innovative appropriation of Socratic dialogue: how liberal inclusivity is enacted in the form of her work, and how a predominantly genial tone represents its thematic ethic. Referring in detail to her presentation of women characters in Dialogues, the chapter explores her construction of gender in relation to prevailing sectarian assumptions and differing forms of religious experience. Sara Coleridge’s use of didactic poetry in Dialogues is examined, and is considered in relation to both her religious aesthetics and her prioritization of ‘practical Christianity’.
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Notes
- 1.
John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (London: Toovey, 1845, p. 39).
- 2.
Robert Southey , Sir Thomas More: Or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, 2 vols (London: Murray, 1829), I, p. 26.
- 3.
From ‘The Order of Holy Communion’, in The Book of Common Prayer.
- 4.
Aubrey de Vere, English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds (London: Murray, 1848), p. 105.
- 5.
‘Sara Coleridge’s “Critique of Dante and Milton”’, ed. by Peter Swaab, Wordsworth Circle, 44 (2013), 20–30 (p. 28, p. 29).
- 6.
John Henry Newman, ‘Home Thoughts Abroad’, British Magazine, 9 (1836), 236–248 & 357–369 (p. 238).
- 7.
See STC’s Literary Remains, III, pp. 109–110.
- 8.
WPTV, p. 208, ll. 15–16.
- 9.
Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: an Enquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), p. 82.
- 10.
Henry William Burrows, The Half-Century of Christ Church, St. Pancras, Albany Street (London: Skeffington, 1887), p. 67 n.
- 11.
Fran Carlock Stephens, Hartley Coleridge Letters; A Calendar and Index (Austin: The University of Texas, 1978), p. 63.
- 12.
Hartley Coleridge, Poems, ed. by Derwent Coleridge, 2 vols (London: Moxon, 1851), II, pp. 337–387.
- 13.
Mark Knight and Emma Mason, Nineteenth-Century Religion and Literature: An Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 97.
- 14.
See Swaab’s notes on the Dialogues on Regeneration poems in Poems, pp. 239–242.
- 15.
G. B. Tennyson , Victorian Devotional Poetry: The Tractarian Mode (Cambridge, Massachusetts; Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 38.
- 16.
John Henry Newman et al., Lyra Apostolica, 2nd edn (Derby: Mozley; Oxford: Parker; London: Rivington, 1837), pp. 28–29.
- 17.
Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, Two Poets of the Oxford Movement: John Keble and John Henry Newman (London: Associated University Press, 1996), p. 168.
- 18.
Jeremy Morris, F. D. Maurice and the Crisis of Christian Authority (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 82 n. Maurice’s emphasis.
- 19.
The text is taken from the manuscript of the Dialogues. The version in Poems (p. 192) is from Sara’s ‘Red Book’: see Poems, p. 240. There are two small differences between the texts: line 2 of the version in Poems has ‘hopes to fill’ instead of ‘thinks to fill’; the end of the fourth line of stanza 2 has a comma after ‘glow’, not a semi-colon.
References
Bibliography of Works by Sara Coleridge
This section includes original writings by Sara Coleridge contained in editions of S. T. Coleridge. Her major extended contributions to these editions are cited individually.
Coleridge, Sara. 1847. Introduction. In Biographia Literaria, or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Second Edition Prepared for Publication in Part by the Late Henry Nelson Coleridge, Completed and Published by His Widow, 2 vols, I, pp. v–clxxxvii. London: Pickering.
———. 1848. Extracts from a New Treatise on Regeneration. In S.T. Coleridge, Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character, ed. H.N. Coleridge, 6th ed., 2 vols, II, 249–232. London: Pickering.
———. 1850a. Introduction. In Essays on His Own Times, Forming a Second Series of the Friend, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edited by His Daughter, 3 vols, I, xix–xciii. London: Pickering.
———. 1850b. Preface. In Essays on His Own Times, Forming a Second Series of the Friend, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edited by His Daughter, 3 vols, I, xi–xvii. London: Pickering.
———, ed. 1850c. Essays on His Own Times, Forming a Second Series of the Friend, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edited by His Daughter, 3 vols. London: Pickering.
———. 1850–51. Dialogues on Regeneration. Unpublished manuscripts in the Sara Coleridge Collection, MS 0866, Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin.
———. 1873. Memoir and Letters of Sara Coleridge Edited by Her Daughter. 2nd ed., 2 vols. London: King.
———. 1989. On Mr. Wordsworth’s Poem Entitled “Lines Left on a Yew-tree Seat”. In Sara Coleridge: A Victorian Daughter. Her Life and Essays, ed. Bradford Keyes Mudge, 217–230. New Haven: Yale University Press.
———. 2007. Sara Coleridge: Collected Poems. Carcanet: Manchester.
———. 2012. The Regions of Sara Coleridge’s Thought: Selected Literary Criticism, ed. Peter Swaab. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2013. Sara Coleridge’s “Critique of Dante and Milton”, ed. Peter Swaab, Wordsworth Circle 44: 20–30.
General Bibliography
Bakhtin, M.M. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, ed. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Burrows, Henry William. 1887. The Half-Century of Christ Church, St. Pancras, Albany Street. London: Skeffington.
Chadwick, Owen. 1997. The Victorian Church, Part One, 1829–1850. 3rd ed. London: SCM Press.
Coleridge, Hartley. 1851. Poems, ed. Derwent Coleridge, 2 vols. London: Moxon.
———. 1908. The Complete Poetical Works of Hartley Coleridge, ed. Ramsey Colles. London: Routledge.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. 1836–39. The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Henry Nelson Coleridge, 4 vols. London: Pickering.
———. 1976. On the Constitution of Church and State, ed. John Colmer, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 16 vols, X. London/Princeton: Routledge/Princeton University Press, 1969–2002.
———. 1993. Aids to Reflection, ed. John Beer, The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 16 vols, IX. London/Princeton: Routledge/Princeton University Press, 1969–2002.
De Vere, Aubrey. 1848. English Misrule and Irish Misdeeds. London: Murray.
Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning. 1996. Two Poets of the Oxford Movement: John Keble and John Henry Newman. London: Associated University Press.
Evans, Eric J. 1994. The Forging of the Modern State: Early Industrial Britain, 1783–1870. London: Longman.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 2013. Truth and Method. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury.
Griggs, E.L. 1940. Coleridge Fille: A Biography of Sara Coleridge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Habermas, Jürgen. 1992. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Enquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Herringer, Carol Engelhardt. 2008. Victorians and the Virgin Mary: Religion and Gender in England, 1830–85. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Johnson, Samuel. 2006. Waller. In The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets; With Critical Observations on Their Works, ed. Roger Lonsdale, 4 vols, II, 27–59. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 2007. Critique of Pure Reason, ed. Marcus Weigelt. London: Penguin.
Keble, John. 1827. The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays Throughout the Year. London: Oxford University Press and Longmans Green and Co.
Knight, Mark, and Emma Mason. 2006. Nineteenth-Century Religion and Literature: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Macovski, Michael. 1994. Dialogue and Literature: Apostrophe, Auditors and the Collapse of Romantic Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McFarland, Thomas. 1969. Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Milton, John. 1968. The Poems of John Milton, ed. John Carey and Alistair Fowler. London: Longman.
Morris, Jeremy. 2008. F. D. Maurice and the Crisis of Christian Authority. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mudge, Bradford Keyes. 1989. Sara Coleridge: A Victorian Daughter. Her Life and Essays. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Newman, John Henry. 1836. Home Thoughts Abroad. British Magazine 9: 236–248; 357–369.
Newman, John Henry, et al. 1837. Lyra Apostolica. 2nd ed. Derby/Oxford/London: Mozley/Parker/Rivington.
———. 1845. An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. London: Toovey.
———. 2012. Loss and Gain, ed. Trevor Lipscombe. San Francisco: Ignatius Press.
Newsome, David. 1966. The Parting of Friends: A Study of the Wilberforces and Henry Manning. London: Murray.
Southey, Robert. 1829. Sir Thomas More: Or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society, 2 vols. London: Murray.
Stephens, Fran Carlock. 1978. Hartley Coleridge Letters: A Calendar and Index. Austin: The University of Texas.
Tennyson, G.B. 1981. Victorian Devotional Poetry: The Tractarian Mode. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vardy, Alan. 2010. Constructing Coleridge: The Posthumous Life of the Author. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wordsworth, William. 1974. The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, ed. W.J.B. Owen and J.W. Smyser, 3 vols, III. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1983. ‘Poems in Two Volumes’, and Other Poems, 1800–1807, ed. Jared Curtis, The Cornell Wordsworth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
The Book of Common Prayer.
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Schofield, R. (2018). Authorial Vocation and Literary Innovation, 1850–1851. In: The Vocation of Sara Coleridge. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70371-8_6
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