A close and charitable look at the rise and fall of one of the most
famous friendships in literary history.Sisman, who left the
publishing business to write literary history (Boswell's
Presumptuous Task, 2001), traverses a portion of a vast but
well-explored terrain with his latest. Coleridge, Wordsworth-is
there something to add to what already resides in the myriad
volumes about these two men, their writings, their coevals, their
times? Not a lot. Sisman does offer some new perspectives, but
mostly this is a summary-a brisk, informed and generally
disinterested one (he avoids partisanship)-of the relationship
between two extraordinary men. Early in their friendship, Coleridge
began to recognize his friend's superior abilities as a poet, and
for years he urged Wordsworth to devote himself to a lengthy
masterwork, The Recluse, which Wordsworth could never complete.
Sisman does a fine job of rehearsing the stories of the birth of
Lyrical Ballads (and the complications of its revisions and
subsequent editions), of the closeness between Wordsworth and his
devoted sister, Dorothy, of Coleridge's miserable marriage to Sara,
of his passion for another Sara (Hutchinson), of his decline into
self-doubt and drugs and ill health. Sisman also shows plainly the
growing professional frustrations of Wordsworth, whose early
volumes were savaged by critics and who responded with what even
his friends characterized as arrogance. Great literary names walk
these pages: Godwin, Lamb, Hazlitt, Southey, De Quincey. The final
chapters-chronicling the misunderstandings, jealousies,
resentments, silences-make for emotional reading. The maps and
illustrations (unseen) should be helpful; one wishes, as well, for
a chronology.Though the menu is familiar, lovers of the early
Romantics will enjoy the meal. (Kirkus Reviews)
The first book to explore the extraordinary story of the legendary
friendship - and quarrel - between Wordsworth and Coleridge, two
giants of English Romanticism. Wordsworth and Coleridge's
passionate intimacy, shared ambition and subsequent estrangement
contribute to a tragic tale. But Sisman's biography of this most
remarkable friendship - the first to devote itself wholly to
exploring the impact of their relationship on each other - seeks to
re-examine the orthodox assumption that these two poets flourished
as a result of it. Instead, Sisman argues that it was a meeting
that may well have been disastrous for both: for it was
Wordsworth's rejection of Coleridge, and not primarily his opium
addiction, that destroyed the latter as a poet, and that
Coleridge's impossible ambitions for Wordsworth pushed the latter
towards failure and disappointment. Underlying the poignancy of the
tale is the intriguing subject of the influence one writer can have
on another. Sisman seeks to answer fundamental questions about this
relationship: why was Wordsworth so reliant on Coleridge, and why
was he so easily swayed in the most critical decision of his
career? Was it in Coleridge's nature to play second fiddle? Would
it, in fact, have been better for both men if they had never met?
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