The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Vol 1 (of 2)

This is the first volume of the complete poetic works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the tormented genius of English Romanticism who gave us "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Kubla Khan," and "Christabel." Here, gathered in one place, are the poems that redefined what poetry could be: visions of supernatural horror and supernatural beauty, meditative lyrics that drift like mist over English lakes, and dramatic fragments that seethe with forbidden desire. Coleridge wrote as if language itself were a magic trick, and these pages contain every variety of his alchemy. The volume traces his evolution from the young poet intoxicated with revolution and German folklore to the older writer grappling with addiction, depression, and the terrifying vastness of his own imagination. Whether you encounter his conversations with nature at midnight, his grief, his drug-induced dreams, or his furious intellectual ambition, you are reading the work of a man who believed poetry was the highest form of truth. This is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand what the Romantic imagination was capable of.