Oxford English Monographs
1 total work
As a young man, Coleridge lived in an era of great social change. The political upheavals in America and France, Britain's Industrial Revolution and man's rapidly expanding knowledge of the natural order had a profound effect on his work. From 1795 Coleridge speculated that natural philosophers would transform society, and looked to scientists such as Franklin in the United States, Lavoisier in France and Priestley in England to inaugurate the Age of Reason. This book charts Coleridge's speculations on science and society through the critical years 1794-1796. It explains how his complex poem "Religious Musings" became the vehicle for his ideas, and shows how these views were incorporated in the poetry of his later years.