Product Description

Great title poem plus "Kubla Khan," "Christabel," 20 other sonnets, lyrics, odes: "Sonnet: To a Friend who asked how I felt when the Nurse first presented my Infant to me," "Frost at Midnight," "The Nightingale," "The Pains of Sleep," "To William Wordsworth," "Youth and Age," many more. All are reprinted from an authoritative edition published by Oxford University Press. Alphabetical lists of titles and first lines.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #94625 in Books
• Published on: 1992-09-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 80 pages

Customer Reviews

Timeless Classics
This review refers to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Other Poems" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge....

Get swept away to a world of dreams in this beautiful collection of Coleridge's best poetry.Open this book to any poem and you will immediatly be transported to fantastick worlds and mysterious voyages.You will find no need to get caught up in trying to anaylze, you'll just be caught up in his words.The reader can identify their own experiences within his works, and make their own interpertations.

Coleridge will stir your imagination with such great works as the adventurous and ghostly voyage of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"(in the entire 7 parts),the dream land of "Kubla Khan", and my personal favorite,the sadly unfinished other worldly fairy tale of "Christabel".

You'll find many others of his classic poetry that emcompasses both worlds of dreams and reality. "The Pain of Sleep", ""The Fruit Plucker" and "Time, Real and Imaginary" are examples of these.Other works included are "If I Had But Two Little Wings","Songs from 'Zapolya'", "Youth and Age", and the beautiful "Frost at Midnight", all stories of love and life.

There are many more wonderful writings to be found here and they are both ageless and to be enjoyed by any age. There are poems to be read aloud almost as songs.There are poems to read to yourself as well.

"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."...
From"The Ancient Marnier"

A great gift for yourself or the poetry lover in your life...enjoy..Laurie

Nice selection
Coleridge is the only English Romantic poet I like, and Rime of the Ancient Mariner is the main reason. However, this collection also contains another long poem that is often overlooked--Christabel. This a very haunting poem which was unfortunately unfinished when Coleridge died. As for the rest of the selections, Kubla Khan is really the only short poem of the same quality as Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Coleridge Expresses Some Surprisingly Modern Viewpoints
Samuel Taylor Coleridge produced nearly all of his best poetry in a two year period, 1797-1798, including The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan. After writing Ode to Dejection (1802), his farewell to the Muse of Poetry, he wrote few poems and concentrated almost exclusively on literary criticism and political, philosophical, and theological essays.

This short, inexpensive Dover publication offers a broad sampling of the poetry of Coleridge - imaginative poems, lyrical ballads, witty poems, and more serious poetry on literary topics and political events. I expected more fantastical poems like Kubla Khan and I was unprepared for his serious, contemplative, and somewhat difficult poetry. Coleridge was more like Keats and Wordsworth than I had realized.

I was surprised by Coleridge in another way. He confronted political and social issues that are just as relevant and controversial today. Fears in Solitude, written in 1798 during the alarm of a possible invasion by France, criticizes the public's naïve willingness to undertake military conflict, while arguing that Coleridge's criticism was neither unpatriotic nor mistimed. "I have told most bitter truth, but without bitterness."

Similarly, in France: An Ode he tells of his unbridled enthusiasm for the revolution in France, followed by his bitter disappointment as the cause of liberty was betrayed by a revolution gone awry. In his short poem The Dungeon Coleridge challenges the practice of incarcerating prisoners in dark, dismal dungeons. He questions whether more humane treatment might be more curative.

His short, witty poem Cologne should earn him honorary membership in the Sierra Club. In observing how the Rhine River washes away the sewage of Cologne, he asks a question not fully answered today: But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine shall henceforth wash the River Rhine?

After reading his better known poetry, I suggest that you skip around to other poems of interest. But do come back to the more challenging poems. They will likely require multiple readings, but the effort will be rewarded.