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Article: An experiment in honesty: Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Friend.(Conservative Minds Revisited)(Samuel Taylor Coleridge's conservatism can be observed in The Friend, a serial publication)
- Article from:
- Modern Age
- Article date:
- September 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Intercollegiate Studies Institute Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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CONSERVATIVES TODAY OWE A debt of gratitude to Russell Kirk for rightly seeing in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's mature thought a great deal more than the epithet "romantic poet" might suggest. Still, some may wonder how exactly Coleridge--notorious for his opium addiction, youthful enthusiasm for the French Revolution, intellectual fixation with German Romanticism, estranged family life, amorous obsessions, bohemian lifestyle, plagiarisms, and long-held interest in establishing a utopian community--found a place among Kirk's pantheon of conservative minds. To imagine the one-time wayfarer of the Lake District and author of the laudanum-inspired "Kubla Kahn" in Kirk's "august ...