Coleridge's Literary Life, a talk by Seamus Perry

One of the greatest books of prose from the Romantic age was published in 1817. Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria is at once an autobiography, recounting with special vividness his relationship with Wordsworth, and a work of literary criticism, containing famous pages about Shakespeare and Milton, as well as a philosophical reflection on the nature of the human mind. It is a rambling and disorganised book, and most of Coleridge’s contemporaries, including Wordsworth, were deeply puzzled by it. What does it have to tell us, two centuries on, about human creativity, the value of poetry and, in particular, the genius of Wordsworth?
Dr Seamus Perry is Professor of English Literature at Balliol College, Oxford and a Trustee of the Wordsworth Trust. His research interests are principally in the field of English Romantic poetry and thought, especially Coleridge and Wordsworth, and in post-Romantic English poetry.
Recorded at the Jerwood Centre at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, on Saturday 6 May 2017.

[@alialsaffar7389]

A significant lecture as this one should have been given more attention in terms of camera position. Yet it’s very informative

[@purpledanny1958]

Perry is a wonderful scholar. But the recording is too grating and noisy. What a shame !