© 2025 Leo van der Sterren
‘In einem Schaukasten des Britischen Museums liegt ein Büchlein in Duodez, mit neunzig Blättern groben Papiers, teils mit Tinte, teils mit Bleistift flüchtig beschrieben, in schwarzes Leder sorgsam gebunden und als Ms. Additional 27 901 signiert. Es soll dem Besucher von der Handschrift des Mannes, der den “Alten Matrosen” dichtete, einde Vorstellung geben; und in der That ist es unter den vielen Autographen, die das Britische Museum von ihm besitzt, das interessanteste.’
Aloys Brandl, ‘S.T. Coleridges Notizbuch aus den Jahren 1795 – 1798. Nach der Originalhandschrift im Britischen Museum zum erstenmal vollständig herausgegeben von A. Brandl. Sonderabdruck aus dem Archive für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, Bd XCVII, Heft 3/4’. Braunschweig, 1896. Blz. 333.
‘In the British Museum is a small manuscript volume of ninety leaves, which is, in my judgment, one of the most illuminating human documents even in that vast treasure-house. It is a note book kept by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, partly in pencil, partly in ink, and always with most admired disorder. There are just two dates from cover to cover, but internal evidence makes clear that it embraces a period of about three years, from the spring of 1795 to the spring or summer of 1798, the years which lead up to and include the magnificent flowering of Coleridge’s genius on which his renown as a poet rests. It was printed thirty years ago by Professor Brandi of Berlin, but it lies so effectively buried in a German philological periodical that the latest English edition of Coleridge refers to it as vaguely as if it had been published in the moon. Yet its value is incalculable, not only for the understanding of Coleridge, but also as a document in the psychology of genius, and as a key to the secrets of art in the making.’
John Livingstone Lowes, ‘The Road to Xanadu. A Study in the Ways of the Imagination’. Boston, New York, 1927. Blz. 5.
‘When I first saw the notebooks they were on open shelves in the library of Lord Coleridge in the Chanter’s House, Ottery St. Mary. That was at the close of 1930.’
Kathleen Coburn, ‘The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Volume 1. 1794 – 1804. Text.’ Abingdon, New York, 2002 [1962]. Blz. xi.
‘The first moment of seeing the man’s own books, notebooks, and handwriting, was like taking a breath of air from some other climate or existence. (…) I was stunned not only by the sensory experience but by the quantity before me.’
Kathleen Coburn, ‘In pursuit of Coleridge’. London, 1977. Blz. 27.
‘Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) is one of the most remarkable writers and thinkers in one of English Literature’s most remarkable periods; and his Notebook is one of its masterpieces – perhaps the unacknowledged prose masterpiece of the age. It is well known to Coleridge scholars, of course, who refer to it habitually; and it has always had some noble champions outside the Coleridgean establishment (Geoffrey Grigson was a great admirer). But, on the whole, it has remained an undiscovered treasure to the general reader, the lover of poetry, and even the non-specialist student. Which is a great pity: for it is an astonishing and eminently readable document, a work, by turns, of philosophical profundity, descriptive beauty, verbal brilliance, and human comedy (and sometimes tragicomedy; and sometimes tragedy). The Notebook was an almost-lifelong companion; and at times – for though a gregarious man, he was often quite alone – it was Coleridge’s only associate, to which he entrusted his most private thoughts.’
‘Coleridge’s Notebooks. A selection. Edited by Seamus Perry’. Oxford, 2002. Blz. vii.
© 2025 Leo van der Sterren
