Platonic Coleridge

The ambivalent curiosity of the young poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) towards Plato - 'but I love Plato - his dear gorgeous nonsense!' - soon developed into a philosophical project, and the mature Coleridge proclaimed himself a reviver of Plato's unwritten or esoteric 'systems'. James Vigus's study traces Coleridge's discovery of a Plato marginalised in the universities, and examines his use of German sources on the 'divine philosopher', and his Platonic interpretation of Kant's epistemology. It compares Coleridge's figurations of poetic inspiration with models in the Platonic dialogues, and investigates whether Coleridge's esoteric 'system' of philosophy ultimately fulfilled the Republics notorious banishment of poetry.

James Vigus teaches at the Institute for Philosophy, Friedrich Schiller-University, Jena (Germany). His other publications include Coleridge's Afterlives, ed. by James Vigus and Jane Wright (Palgrave, 2008); he is Reviews Editor of the Coleridge Bulletin.