Vigus_13mm:177x254 09/10/2008 20:32 Page 1 V I G U S The ambivalent curiosity of the young Samuel Taylor LEGENDA is a joint imprint Coleridge (1772–1834) towards Plato — ‘but I love Plato — of the Modern Humanities his dear gorgeous nonsense!’ — soon developed into a Research Association and philosophical project, and the mature Coleridge proclaimed Routledge. The series himself a reviver of Plato’s unwritten or esoteric ‘system’. STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE P L James Vigus’s study traces Coleridge’s discovery of a Plato LITERATURE is chosen and A marginalised in the universities, and examines his use of edited by the British T O German sources on the ‘divine philosopher’, and his Platonic Comparative Literature N interpretation of Kant’s epistemology. It compares Coleridge’s Association. It ranges widely I C figurations of poetic inspiration with models in the Platonic across comparative and dialogues, and investigates to what extent Coleridge’s esoteric theoretical topics in literary C ‘system’ of philosophy reflected the Republic’s notorious and translation studies, O STUDIES IN COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 15 L banishment of poetry. accommodating research at E R the interface between I James Vigus teaches at the Institute for Philosophy, Friedrich- different artistic media and D Platonic Coleridge G Schiller-University, Jena (Germany). His other publications between the humanities and E include Coleridge’s Afterlives, ed. by James Vigus and Jane the sciences. Wright (Palgrave, 2008); he is Reviews Editor of the Coleridge Bulletin. James Vigus cover illustration: Coleridge’s annotated copy of Thomas Taylor’s translation of Plato, open to the Timaeus; by kind permission of the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere. Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge Platonic Coleridge legenda legenda, founded in 1995 by the european Humanities Research Centre of the University of Oxford, is now a joint imprint of the Modern Humanities Research association and Routledge. Titles range from medieval texts to contemporary cinema and form a widely comparative view of the modern humanities, including works on arabic, Catalan, english, French, german, greek, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish literature. an editorial Board of distinguished academic specialists works in collaboration with leading scholarly bodies such as the Society for French Studies and the British Comparative literature association. The Modern Humanities Research association (ra) encourages and promotes advanced study and research in the field of the modern humanities, especially modern european languages and literature, including english, and also cinema. It also aims to break down the barriers between scholars working in different disciplines and to maintain the unity of humanistic scholarship in the face of increasing specialization. The association fulfils this purpose primarily through the publication of journals, bibliographies, monographs and other aids to research. Routledge is a global publisher of academic books, journals and online resources in the humanities and social sciences. Founded in 1836, it has published many of the greatest thinkers and scholars of the last hundred years, including adorno, einstein, Russell, Popper, Wittgenstein, Jung, Bohm, Hayek, Mcluhan, Marcuse and Sartre. Today Routledge is one of the world’s leading academic publishers in the Humanities and Social Sciences. It publishes thousands of books and journals each year, serving scholars, instructors, and professional communities worldwide. www.routledge.com edITORIal BOaRd Chairman Professor Martin Mclaughlin, Magdalen College, Oxford Professor John Batchelor, University of newcastle (english) Professor Malcolm Cook, University of exeter (French) Professor Colin davis, Royal Holloway University of london (Modern literature, Film and Theory) Professor Robin Fiddian, Wadham College, Oxford (Spanish) Professor Paul garner, University of leeds (Spanish) Professor Marian Hobson Jeanneret, Queen Mary University of london (French) Professor Catriona Kelly, new College, Oxford (Russian) Professor Martin Maiden, Trinity College, Oxford (linguistics) Professor Peter Matthews, St John’s College, Cambridge (linguistics) dr Stephen Parkinson, linacre College, Oxford (Portuguese) Professor Ritchie Robertson, St John’s College, Oxford (german) Professor lesley Sharpe, University of exeter (german) Professor david Shepherd, University of Sheffield (Russian) Professor alison Sinclair, Clare College, Cambridge (Spanish) Professor david Treece, King’s College london (Portuguese) Professor diego Zancani, Balliol College, Oxford (Italian) Managing Editor dr graham nelson 41 Wellington Square, Oxford ox1 2jf, UK [email protected] www.legenda.mhra.org.uk Studies in Comparative Literature Editorial Committee Professor Peter France, University of Edinburgh (Chairman) Professor Stephen Bann, University of Bristol Dr Elinor Shaffer, School of Advanced Study, London Studies in Comparative Literature are produced in close collaboration with the British Comparative Literature Association, and range widely across comparative and theo­ retical topics in literary and translation studies, accommodating research at the interface between different artistic media and between the humanities and the sciences. published in this series 1. Breeches and Metaphysics: Thackeray’s German Discourse, by S. S. Prawer 2. Hölderlin and the Dynamics of Translation, by Charlie Louth 3. Aeneas Takes the Metro: The Presence of Virgil in Twentieth-Century French Literature, by Fiona Cox 4. Metaphor and Materiality: German Literature and the World-View of Science 1780–1955, by Peter D. Smith 5. Marguerite Yourcenar: Reading the Visual, by Nigel Saint 6. Treny: The Laments of Kochanowski, translated by Adam Czerniawski and with an introduction by Donald Davie 7. Neither a Borrower: Forging Traditions in French, Chinese and Arabic Poetry, by Richard Serrano 8. The Anatomy of Laughter, edited by Toby Garfitt, Edith McMorran and Jane Taylor 9. Dilettantism and its Values: From Weimar Classicism to the fin de siècle, by Richard Hibbitt 10. The Fantastic in France and Russia in the Nineteenth Century: In Pursuit of Hesitation, by Claire Whitehead 11. Singing Poets: Literature and Popular Music in France and Greece, by Dimitris Papanikolaou 12. Wanderers Across Language: Exile in Irish and Polish Literature of the Twentieth Century, by Kinga Olszewska 13. Moving Scenes: The Aesthetics of German Travel Writing on England 1783–1830, by Alison E. Martin 14. Henry James and the Second Empire, by Angus Wrenn 15. Platonic Coleridge, by James Vigus Platonic Coleridge ❖ Jaes Vigus Studies in Comparative Literature 15 Modern HumModern Humanities Research association and Routledge 2009 First published 2009 Published by the Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA LEGENDA is an imprint of the Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © Modern Humanities Research Association and Taylor & Francis 2009 ISBN 978-1-906540-06-7(hbk) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recordings, fax or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Contents ❖ Acknowledgements ix A Note on Texts x Introduction 1 1 Plato’s ‘dear gorgeous nonsense’ 13 2 Coleridge’s Kant: Preparer and Opponent of Platonism 35 3 The ancient Quarrel between Poetry and Philosophy 63 4 Plato in Coleridge’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy 93 5 Restoring Plato’s ‘System’: the Friend and the Opus Maximum 125 Conclusion 167 Bibliography 171 Index 185 for cecilia ACknowledgements ❖ This book is a revision of my Phd thesis, completed at Clare College, Cambridge, in 2006. I wish to thank the arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my research, including a supplementary grant for a four-month research visit to the Freie Universität, Berlin, which I undertook as an erasmus student in 2004. I enjoyed further financial support from the lady Clare Fund (Clare College) and the Tenth Term Completion award (Faculty of english, Cambridge). I have been extremely fortunate in the advice I have received throughout the long process of research and writing. I want to begin by thanking my doctoral supervisor, Fred Parker, for his meticulous reading and judicious encouragement ever since the early days of my undergraduate degree at Clare. Thanks too to douglas Hedley, who has shared his knowledge of Coleridge and Platonism with great generosity. He also arranged my visit to Berlin, which proved a turning point in my research. I thank nigel leask for stimulating my interest in Coleridge at an early stage, and for two useful advisory meetings. Some of my Romantic education took place at the Wordsworth Trust, grasmere, where I received helpful feedback from participants in the conferences organized by the late Jonathan Wordsworth. I would like especially to recall the kindness of the late director of the Wordsworth Trust, Robert Woof. The process of turning the thesis into this book was smoothed by the advice of my examiners, Seamus Perry and Kathleen Wheeler. at legenda, elinor Shaffer offered invaluable criticism of a first draft, graham nelson guided me painlessly through the process of revision, and the final text benefited greatly from nigel Hope’s copy-editing. Some of the material on Milton in Chapter 5 first appeared in ‘ “With his garland and his singing robes about him”: The Persistence of the literary in the Opus Maximum’, in Coleridge’s Assertion of Religion: Essays on the ‘Opus Maximum’, ed. by Jeffrey W. Barbeau (leuven: Peeters, 2006), pp. 97–119. a few pages of Chapter 1 were first published in the article ‘did Cole ridge read Plato by anticipation?’, Coleridge Bulletin, n.s. 29 (Summer 2007), pp. 65–73. I grate- fully acknowledge permission to use this material, and thank the Wordsworth Trust for providing the cover image. Several other friends and colleagues have contributed more than they know to this book. Conversations with Jane Wright, as we collaborated on an essay collection entitled Coleridge’s Afterlives, have been a source of many Coleridgean thoughts. Jeff einboden, graham davidson, and Jeff Barbeau have each commented insightfully on sections of my work. The support of loreta gandolfi, James levine, and Josie von Zitzewitz deserves an acknowledgements page to itself. I am grateful for the for- bearance of my family, and above all my mother’s unflagging encouragement. Finally, I now find it hard to imagine how I could ever have completed this work with out the sustaining presence of Cecilia Muratori — and the book is dedicated to her.