Question

Biographia Literaria-explain

Answer 1

Biographia Literaria, or in full Biographia Literaria; or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions, is anautobiography in discourse by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which he published in 1817, in two volumes.

Biographia LiterariaAuthorSamuel Taylor ColeridgeLanguageEnglishPublished1817

It has twenty-three (23) chapters.

Structure and tone

The work is long and seemingly loosely structured, and although there are autobiographical elements, it is not a straightforward or linear autobiography. Instead, it is meditative.

Content

The work was originally intended as a mere preface to a collected volume of his poems, explaining and justifying his own style and practice in poetry. The work grew to a literary autobiography, including, together with many facts concerning his education and studies and his early literary adventures, an extended criticism of William Wordsworth's theory of poetry as given in the preface to the Lyrical Ballads (a work on which Coleridge collaborated), and a statement of Coleridge's philosophical views.Critics have reacted strongly to the Biographia Literaria. Early reactions were that it was a demonstration of Coleridge's opiate-drivendecline into ill health. Recent re-evaluations have given it more credit. While contemporary critics recognize the degree to which Coleridge borrowed from his sources (with straight lifts from Schelling), they also see in the work far more structure and planning than is apparent on first glance.


Bibliography

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. (1817) Edited by Nigel Leask. (London: J. M. Dent, 1997) ISBN 0-460-87332-6