Biographia Literaria - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Advantages: Poetry of Coleridge, Essay by Hughes
Disadvantages: Only 160 pages

...To the memories of Ted Hughes who died in October 1998 and Samuel Taylor Coleridge who died in July 1834. A Choice of Coleridge’s Verse edited and Introduced by Ted Hughes was published by Faber and Faber on March 18th 1996 and is available from most good book shops for £7.99. There are two reasons why this book is so special, the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the introductory essay written by Ted Hughes. Hughes entitled his essay, 'The Snake in the Oak'. Ted Hughes held a belief in the presence of an inner force behind Coleridge’s and indeed his own writing, the Poetic Self. In his essay, Hughes refers frequently to Old Norse mythology and the workings of image and symbol. Hughes suggests that Coleridge was fighting a losing battle between a 'Christian Self' and the 'unleavened Self '. Hughes states that it was whilst... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: lovely collection
Disadvantages: How can there be any disadvantages to poetry

...poll that you may recall was featured on BBC2 for a while to find our favourite poems and is a wonderful collection. There is something about poetry, we have some wonderful writers of it here on ciao but in the hands of a truly skilful writer (and I’m not saying that any one of you isn’t) words can move us, intrigue us and keep us hooked in to the very end, for example the words of number 41 in the poll Samuel Taylor Coleridge In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. If that isn’t an opening to make you wanting to know what happened next I don’t know what is. The forward in the book is written by Griff Rhys Jones, who from memory was one of the public faces of the poll at the time. It includes a poem that was a very popular... Read review

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Advantages: Wonderful reading
Disadvantages: Edited version

...Whilst Samuel Johnson's Dictionary was not the first attempt at creating a dictionary of the English language, it was the first serious attempt by someone who was a skilled lexicographer. It was first published in 1755. The latest edition is not the full version, it is a special edited version produced by Jack Lynch, with selected highlights form the original work. The original publication was 2,300 pages of definitions of words published in two volumes. So useful was it that it remained the definitive dictionary of English for at last 150 to 200 years. The Jack Lynch version is considerably smaller, one volume with only 646 pages. The book starts with an introduction from Steven Leveen, the president of the Levnger Press, which explains why they decided to publish a new edition of the dictionary. There is also a fulsome three... Read review

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