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

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.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Literary criticism.

Physical Description:

xii, 193 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

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"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

1. Coleridge walks: the measure of the landscape

2. Lines of motion

3. A geometric frame of mind

4. Arts poetica

5. Youth and age: Coleridge and the shifting paradigm of geometric thought

Afterword: an organic geometry.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 181-189) and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Colley, Ann C. Coleridge and the geometric idiom

ISBN:

9781009271752

100927175X

9781009271745

1009271741

OCLC:

1341210493