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The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1)
The Poetical and Dramatic Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1 Author:Samuel Taylor Coleridge Subtitle: Founded on the Author's Latest Edition of 1834 With Many Additional Pieces Now First Included and With a Collection of Various Readings Volume: 1 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1880 Original Publisher: Macmillan and Co. Subjects: Drama / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh History / General Liter... more »ary Criticism / Poetry Poetry / General Poetry / Anthologies Poetry / American / General Poetry / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: PREFACE TO POEMS PUBLISHED IN 1796. Poems on var1ous subjects written at different times and prompted by very different feelings; but which will be read at one time and under the influence of one set of feelings -- this is a heavy disadvantage : for we love or admire a poet in proportion as he develops our own sentiments and emotions, or reminds us of our own knowledge. Compositions resembling those of the present volume are not unfrequently condemned for their querulous egotism. But egotism is to be condemned then only when it offends against time and place, as in a history or an epic poem. To censure it in a. monody or sonnet is almost as absurd as to dislike a circle for being round. Why then write Sonnets or Monodies ? Because they give me pleasure when perhaps nothing else could. After the more violent emotions of sorrow the mind demands amusement and can find it in employment alone; but full of its late sufferings, it can endure no employment not in some measure connected with them. Forcibly to turn away our attention to general subjects is a painful and most often an unavailing effort. " But O I how grateful to a wounded heart, The tale of misery to impart -- From others' eyes bid artless sor...« less