This book extensively investigates Samuel Taylor Coleridge's profound ties with the Oriental Tales he read throughout his life, from a philosophical, poetical and metaphysical point of view. It is the only comprehensive and dedicated study on how Hindu works, in particular Charles Wilkins's first translation of the Bhagavadgītā into English (1785), influenced Coleridge's poetic imagination, affecting all his writings, his poetry above all. In analysing Coleridge's quest for what he calls the "One life", the author's wish is that readers may find some "joyance" in reading this book, and feel inspired to go deeper into the anāhata nāda, the unstruck sound of the heart, fully enjoying the subtle inner resonances of Coleridge's poetic word.

While postcolonial studies of Romantic-period literature have flourished in recent years, scholars have long neglected the extent of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's engagement with the Orient in both his literary and philsophical writings. Bringing together leading international writers, Coleridge, Romanticism and the Orient is the first substantial exploration of Coleridge's literary and scholarly representations of the east and the ways in which these were influenced by and went on to influence his own work and the orientalism of the Romanticists more broadly. Bringing together postcolonial, philsophical, historicist and literary-critical perspectives, this groundbreaking book develops a new understanding of 'Orientalism' that recognises the importance of colonial ideologies in Romantic representations of the East as well as appreciating the unique forms of meaning and value which authors such as Coleridge asscoiated with the Orient.

This book extensively investigates Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s profound ties with the Oriental Tales he read throughout his life, from a philosophical, poetical and metaphysical point of view. It is the only comprehensive and dedicated study on how Hindu works, in particular Charles Wilkins’s first translation of the Bhagavadgītā into English (1785), influenced Coleridge’s poetic imagination, affecting all his writings, his poetry above all. In analysing Coleridge’s quest for what he calls the “One life”, the author’s wish is that readers may find some “joyance” in reading this book, and feel inspired to go deeper into the anāhata nāda, the unstruck sound of the heart, fully enjoying the subtle inner resonances of Coleridge’s poetic word.

The first survey of the connections between literature, religion, and intellectual life in the British Romantic period.

This new collection enables students and general readers to appreciate Coleridge's renewed relevance 250 years after his birth. An indispensable guide to his writing for twenty-first-century readers, it contains new perspectives that reframe his work in relation to slavery, race, war, post-traumatic stress disorder and ecological crisis. Through detailed engagement with Coleridge's pioneering poetry, the reader is invited to explore fundamental questions on themes ranging from nature and trauma to gender and sexuality. Essays by leading Coleridge scholars analyse and render accessible his extraordinarily innovative thinking about dreams, psychoanalysis, genius and symbolism. Coleridge is often a direct and gripping writer, yet he is also elusive and diverse. This Companion's great achievement is to offer a one-volume entry point into his incomparably rich and varied world.

Few figures who were active in the English Romantic Movement are as fascinating as Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). Aside from his own visionary verse, Coleridge is famous for his colourful friendships with fellow-poets Wordsworth and Southey, and above all for his well documented drug-taking and creative use of opium. But it is less widely appreciated that he was also a key figure in Anglican thought, whose writings are continually referred to by modern Anglican theologians. Coleridge's journey from the Unitarianism of his father towards a later commitment to Anglican Trinitarianism of a type he had rejected in his youth involved a rigorous philosophical process of imaginative liberal thinking. Over the last 200 years, that thinking has provided Anglicanism with many valedictory tools as well as a measure of robust self-belief. Offering a major contribution both to religious history and the history of ideas, Graham Neville here charts the particular liberal tradition in British religious thought which stems directly from Coleridge. He shows why Coleridge's thought remains so significant, and traces the ways in which his subject's theological ideas profoundly influenced later British writers and scholars like F.D. Maurice, F.J.A. Hort, F.W. Robertson, B.F. Westcott, John Oman and Thomas Erskine (once called the 'Scottish Coleridge'). Dr Neville further relates the pioneering ideas of Coleridge to current developments in theology and scientific method.

This collection provides the first in-depth introduction to the theory of the religious imagination put forward by renowned philosopher Douglas Hedley, from his earliest essays to his principal writings. Featuring Hedley's inaugural lecture delivered at Cambridge University in 2018, the book sheds light on his robust concept of religious imagination as the chief power of the soul's knowledge of the Divine and reveals its importance in contemporary metaphysics, ethics and politics. Chapters trace the development of the religious imagination in Christian Platonism from Late Antiquity to British Romanticism, drawing on Origen, Henry More and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, before providing a survey of alternative contemporary versions of the concept as outlined by Karl Rahner, René Girard and William P. Alston, as well as within Indian philosophy. By bringing Christian Platonist thought into dialogue with contemporary philosophy and theology, the volume systematically reveals the relevance of Hedley's work to current debates in religious epistemology and metaphysics. It offers a comprehensive appraisal of the historical contribution of imagination to religious understanding and, as such, will be of great interest to philosophers, theologians and historians alike.

The Encyclopedia of Hinduism contains over 900 entries reflecting recent advances in scholarship which have raised new theoretical and methodological issues as well as identifying new areas of study which have not been addressed previously. The debate over the term 'Hinduism' in the light of post-Orientalist critiques is just one example of how once standard academic frameworks have been called into question. Entries range from 150-word definitions of terms and concepts to 5,000-word in-depth investigations of major topics. The Encyclopedia covers all aspects of Hinduism but departs from other works in including more ethnographic and contemporary material in contrast to an exclusively textual and historical approach. It includes a broad range of subject matter such as: historical developments (among them nineteenth and twentieth century reform and revival); geographical distribution (especially the diaspora); major and minor movements; philosophies and theologies; scriptures; deities; temples and sacred sites; pilgrimages; festivals; rites of passage; worship; religious arts (sculpture, architecture, music, dance, etc.); religious sciences (e.g. astrology); biographies of leading figures; local and regional traditions; caste and untouchability; feminism and women's religion; nationalism and the Hindu radical right; and new religious movements. The history of study and the role of important scholars past and present are also discussed. Accessibility to all levels of reader has been a priority and no previous knowledge is assumed. However, the in-depth larger entries and the design of the work in line with the latest scholarly advances means that the volume will be of considerable interest to specialists. The whole is cross-referenced and bibliographies attach to the larger entries. There is a full index.

While postcolonial studies of Romantic-period literature have flourished in recent years, scholars have long neglected the extent of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's engagement with the Orient in both his literary and philsophical writings. Bringing together leading international writers, Coleridge, Romanticism and the Orient is the first substantial exploration of Coleridge's literary and scholarly representations of the east and the ways in which these were influenced by and went on to influence his own work and the orientalism of the Romanticists more broadly. Bringing together postcolonial, philsophical, historicist and literary-critical perspectives, this groundbreaking book develops a new understanding of 'Orientalism' that recognises the importance of colonial ideologies in Romantic representations of the East as well as appreciating the unique forms of meaning and value which authors such as Coleridge asscoiated with the Orient.