Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the central figure in the dissemination of higher criticism, the analytical and historical study of the Bible begun in Germany in the late 18th century by Lessing, Herder and Eichorn. This movement radically revised the interpretation of the Bible as an inspired book and also helped to redefine the inspiration attributed to poets, since many poets of the period, including Coleridge himself, wished to emulate the prophetic voice of biblical tradition. Coleridge's mastery of this new study and his search for a new understanding of the Bible on which to ground his faith are the focus of this book. Beginning with an exposition of Coleridge's double role as theologian and poet, Anthony Harding analyses the development and transmission of Coleridge's views of inspiration - both biblical and poetic - and provides a history of his theological and poetic ideas in their second generation, in England, especially in the work of F.D. Maurice and John Sterling, and in America in that of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Description:
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the central figure in the dissemination of higher criticism, the analytical and historical study of the Bible begun in Germany in the late 18th century by Lessing, Herder and Eichorn. This movement radically revised the interpretation of the Bible as an inspired book and also helped to redefine the inspiration attributed to poets, since many poets of the period, including Coleridge himself, wished to emulate the prophetic voice of biblical tradition. Coleridge's mastery of this new study and his search for a new understanding of the Bible on which to ground his faith are the focus of this book. Beginning with an exposition of Coleridge's double role as theologian and poet, Anthony Harding analyses the development and transmission of Coleridge's views of inspiration - both biblical and poetic - and provides a history of his theological and poetic ideas in their second generation, in England, especially in the work of F.D. Maurice and John Sterling, and in America in that of Ralph Waldo Emerson.