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The broad goal of this study is to examine how authorial identity is formed. Coleridge presents a unique challenge in this regard, first, because his life and various public personae are rife with apparent contradic­tions, and, second, in that there are considerable stakes in determining which Coleridge prevails. Which Coleridge is dominant in itself is not a question that is or can be settled, and much of the focus of this book will be on the historical processes that constructed Coleridge at various moments both throughout his lifetime and especially in the first dec­ades following his death. I do not mean to suggest that Coleridge was simply subject to blind historical forces, a kind of Althusserian night­mare.¹ Coleridge's agency, the exercise of his will, is at the centre of his philosophy, and his efforts to re-fashion himself were complex and sprang from his understanding of his capacity for, and growing faith in, self-reflection. The book begins, then, with an analysis of several of Coleridge's efforts at reinvention by examining them as the complex interplay of Coleridge the subject and specific historical events, which combine to form Coleridge the author.

DOI: 10.1057/9780230283091_1

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