Romanticism and transcendence : Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the religious imagination / J. Robert Barth.

Grounded in the thought of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Romanticism and Transcendence explores the religious dimensions of imagination in the Romantic tradition, both theoretically and in the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge. J. Robert Barth suggests that we may look to Coleridge for the theoretical grounding of the view of religious imagination proposed in this book, but that it is in Wordsworth above all that we see this imagination at work. Barth first argues that the Romantic imagination -- with its profound symbolic import -- of its very nature has religious implications, and notes parallels between Coleridge's view of the imagination and that of Ignatius Loyola in his Spiritual Exercises. He then turns to the role of religious experience in Wordsworth, using The Prelude as a privileged source. Next, after comparing the conception of humanity and God in Wordsworth and Coleridge, Barth considers the role of religious experience and imagery in two of Coleridge's central poetic texts, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. Finally, Barth examines the continuing role of the Romantic idea of the religious imagination today, in literature and all the arts, linking it with the thought of theologian Karl Rahner and literary critic George Steiner. Romanticism and Transcendence brings together literary theory, poetry, and religious experience, areas that are interrelated but are often not seen in relationship. By exploring levels of Wordsworth's and Coleridge's poetry that are often ignored, Barth provides insight into how and why the imagination was so important to their work. He also demonstrates how rich with religious value and meaning poetry and the arts can be. The interdisciplinary nature of this important new study will make it useful not only to Wordsworth and Coleridge scholars and other Romantic specialists, but also to anyone concerned with the intellectual history of the nineteenth century and to theologians in general. Book jacket.

Author Notes

J. Robert Barth, S.J., is the James P. McIntyre Professor of English at Boston College

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Barth's distinguished career at Boston College is based on a series of books dealing with religion and the English Romantic poets, primarily Coleridge and Wordsworth. The present volume revisits the contentious subject, with disappointing results. The author announces early that he writes "as an unabashed disciple of Ignatius Loyola," whose Spiritual Exercises displays "strikingly similar views of the nature of imagination" to Coleridge's writings. Even if this dubious assertion were true, Coleridge had nothing whatever to say about the imagination during the period of his greatest poetry, at which time he was an ardent Unitarian and hostile to Catholicism. As for Wordsworth, his 1802 reference to "a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual aspect" is utterly remote from the almost magical qualities--mainly derived from German idealistic philosophy--later attributed to the concept. The routine references to prayer in the medieval "Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel" do not, as Barth supposes, make them deeply religious poems, nor does the later, orthodox Wordsworth's heavily revised 1850 "Prelude" alter the fact that his magnificent early writings are essentially devoid of religious impulse. ^BSumming Up: Optional. Comprehensive academic collections serving graduate students and faculty. N. Fruman emeritus, University of Minnesota

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Prologue: Imagination and Religious Experience	p. 1
I. Visions and Revisions The Journey to the 1850 Prelude	p. 15
II. The Poet, Death, and Immortality The Prelude, Book 5	p. 30
III. Time and the Timeless The Temporal Imagination in The Prelude	p. 41
IV. "The Feeding Source" Imagination and the Transcendent in The Prelude	p. 56
V. The Role of Humankind in the Poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge	p. 72
VI. "A Spring of Love" Prayer and Blessing in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"	p. 89
VII. "In the Midnight Wood" The Power and Limits of Prayer in "Christabel"	p. 104
VIII. Religious Imagination and the Transcendence of Art	p. 119
Works Cited	p. 137
Index	p. 143

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