Coleridge's Aids to Reflection was written at a time when new movements in thought were starting to unsettle belief. It was read with admiration by early Victorians such as John Sterling, F. D. Maurice, and Thomas Arnold, contributing to the formation of the Broad Church Movement, and with respect by members of the High Church Movement, including John Henry Newman. Coleridge had intended simply to produce a selection from the writings of the seventeenth-century Archbishop Robert Leighton with comments of his own, but as he worked at the book he found the commentary expanding to take in the fruits of his religious thinking over the years, so that the second, and more important, part of the volume was totally dominated by his thought. In this, the first major edition of Aids to Reflection, the intricate story of Coleridge's changing conception is unfolded by way of an introduction and detailed notes, the surviving materials for the volume being printed in appendixes. The introduction also traces the subsequent influence of the work in England and America; further appendixes include James Marsh's influential preface to the first American edition, which is reproduced in full. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: if he has not from his own personal experience discovered, the (a) sufficiency of the Scriptures in all knowledge requisite for a right performance of his duty as a man and a Christian. Of the labouring classes, who in all countries form the great majority of the inhabitants, more than this is not demanded, more than this is not perhaps generally desire- able?( They are not sought for in public counsel, nor need they be found where politic sentences are spoken.?It is enough if every one is wise in the working of his own craft: so best will they maintain the state of the world. But you, my friends, to whom the following pages are more particularly addressed as to men moving in the higher class of society: ?You will, I hope, have availed yourselves of the ampler means entrusted to you by God's providence, to a more extensive study and a wider use of his revealed will and word. From you we have a right to expect a sober and meditative accomoda- tion to your own times and country of those important truths declared in the inspired writings ( for a thousand generations/ and of the awful examples, belonging to all ages, by which those truths are at once illustrated and confirmed. Would you feel conscious that you had shewn yourselves unequal to your station in society?would you stand degraded in your own eyes; if you betrayed an utter want of information respecting the acts of human sovereigns and legislators? And should you not much rather be both ashamed and afraid to know yourselves inconversant with the acts and constitutions of God, whose law executeth itself, and whose Word is the foundation, the power, and the life of the universe ? Do you hold it a requisite of your rank to shew yourselves inquisitive concerning the expectations and plans of statesmen and state-counsellors?..

A practical and comprehensive reference work, the Oxford Handbook provides the best single-volume source of original scholarship on all aspects of Coleridge's diverse writings. Thirty-seven chapters, bringing together the wisdome of experts from across the world, present an authoritative, in-depth, and up-to-date assessment of a major author of British Romanticism. The book is divided into sections on Biography, Prose Works, Poetic Works, Sources and Influences, and Reception. The Coleridge scholar today has ready access to a range of materials previously available only in library archives on both sides of the Atlantic. The Bollingen edition, of the Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, forty years in production was completed in 2002. The Coleridge Notebooks (1957-2002) were also produced during this same period, five volumes of text with an additional five companion volumes of notes. The Clarendon Press of Oxford published the letters in six volumes (1956-1971). To take full advantage of the convenient access and new insight provided by these volumes, the Oxford Handbook examines the entire range and complexity of Coleridge's career. It analyzes the many aspects of Coleridge's literary, critical, philosophical, and theological pursuits, and it furnishes both students and advanced scholars with the proper tools for assimilating and illuminating Coleridge's rich and varied accomplishments, as well as offering an authoritative guide to the most up-to-date thinking about his achievements.

Exploring the intense relationship between Romantic literature and Methodism, Helen Boyles argues that writers from both movements display an ambivalent attitude towards the expression of deep emotional and spiritual experience. Boyles takes up the disparaging characterization of William Wordsworth and other Romantic poets as 'Methodistical,' showing how this criticism was rooted in a suspicion of the 'enthusiasm' with which the Methodist movement was negatively identified. Historically, enthusiasm has generated hostility and embarrassment, a legacy that Boyles suggests provoked concerted efforts by Romantic poets such as Wordsworth and the Methodist leaders John and Charles Wesley to cleanse it of its derogatory associations. While they distanced themselves from enthusiasm's dangerous and hysterical manifestations, writers and religious leaders also identified with the precepts and inspiration of a language and religion of the heart. Boyles's analysis encompasses a range of literary genres from the Methodist sermon and hymn, to literary biography, critical review, lyric and epic poem. Balancing analysis of creative content with a consideration of its critical reception, she offers readers a detailed analysis of Wordsworth's relationship to popular evangelism within a analytical framework that incorporates Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and William Hazlitt.