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How Coleridge was Wilder than Byron

How Coleridge was Wilder than Byron NICHOLAS HALMI Among the observers of Lord Byron’s funeral procession as it passed through London on its way to Nottinghamshire on 12 July 1824 were two poets whose reactions on the occasion were recorded. Standing in Oxford Street, John Clare concluded from the size and appearance of the crowd that while ‘the Reverend the Moral and fastid[i]ous may say what they please about Lord Byrons fame and damn it as they list … the common people felt his merits and his power and the common people of a country are the best feelings of a prophecy of futurity’.1 Standing in Highgate High Street, Samuel Taylor Coleridge expressed an equal confidence in the dead poet’s future reputation: ‘according to the noble wont of the English people, Byron’s literary merits would seem continually to rise, while his personal errors, if not denied, or altogether forgotten, would be little noticed, & would be treated with ever softening gentleness’.2 What is remarkable about Coleridge’s prediction, as recorded by the chemist’s apprentice to whom it was addressed, is that it accords so closely with Clare’s, betraying none of the bitterness with which his personal contact with Byron had ended in 1819. At that http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Romanticism Edinburgh University Press

How Coleridge was Wilder than Byron

Romanticism , Volume 10 (2): 144 – Jul 1, 2004

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References (1)

Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press
ISSN
1354-991X
eISSN
1750-0192
DOI
10.3366/rom.2004.10.2.144
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

NICHOLAS HALMI Among the observers of Lord Byron’s funeral procession as it passed through London on its way to Nottinghamshire on 12 July 1824 were two poets whose reactions on the occasion were recorded. Standing in Oxford Street, John Clare concluded from the size and appearance of the crowd that while ‘the Reverend the Moral and fastid[i]ous may say what they please about Lord Byrons fame and damn it as they list … the common people felt his merits and his power and the common people of a country are the best feelings of a prophecy of futurity’.1 Standing in Highgate High Street, Samuel Taylor Coleridge expressed an equal confidence in the dead poet’s future reputation: ‘according to the noble wont of the English people, Byron’s literary merits would seem continually to rise, while his personal errors, if not denied, or altogether forgotten, would be little noticed, & would be treated with ever softening gentleness’.2 What is remarkable about Coleridge’s prediction, as recorded by the chemist’s apprentice to whom it was addressed, is that it accords so closely with Clare’s, betraying none of the bitterness with which his personal contact with Byron had ended in 1819. At that

Journal

RomanticismEdinburgh University Press

Published: Jul 1, 2004

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