Introduction

Abstract

Coleridge and the Daemonic Imagination is about Coleridge’s poetry, and the forces that made him the poet and thinker he was. It joins a vast literature that accommodates many versions of the author and his inexhaustible works. Given the sheer diversity of Coleridge’s achievement, it is inevitable that for every version brought to light, others have remained in the shadows. Criticism, however, provides an opportunity and a device for redistributing the light and shadow of a familiar universe to reveal new constellations and alignments. The dark matter essential to the very fabric of Coleridge’s writing has always been there, but if the conditions are not right, then it will not be seen—or even if it is, might be regarded as something that, according to the prevailing theories, should not have been there in the first place.