Coleridge and the geometric idiom : walking with Euclid / Ann C. Colley, SUNY Buffalo State University.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Colley, Ann C., author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 139.

Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 139

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834--Criticism and interpretation.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.

Landscapes in literature.

Geometry in literature.

Mathematics and literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xii, 193 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Summary:

When Coleridge described the landscapes he passed through while scrambling among the fells, mountains, and valleys of Britain, he did something unprecedented in Romantic writing: to capture what emerged before his eyes, he enlisted a geometric idiom. Immersed in a culture still beholden to Euclid's Elements and schooled by those who subscribed to its principles, he valued geometry both for its pragmatic function and for its role as a conduit to abstract thought. Indeed, his geometric training would often structure his observations on religion, aesthetics, politics, and philosophy. For Coleridge, however, this perspective never competed with his sensitivity to the organic nature of his surroundings but, rather, intermingled with it. Situating Coleridge's remarkable ways of seeing within the history and teaching of mathematics and alongside the eighteenth century's budding interest in non-Euclidean geometry, Ann Colley illuminates the richness of the culture of walking and the surprising potential of landscape writing.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 23 Feb 2023).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9781009271769 (ebook)

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.