Coleridge on Dreaming: Romanticism, Dreams and the Medical Imagination (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism, Series Number 26)

This book is the first in-depth investigation of Coleridge's responses to his dreams and to contemporary debates on the nature of dreaming, a subject of perennial interest to poets, philosophers and scientists throughout the Romantic period. Coleridge wrote and read extensively on the subject, but his richly diverse and original ideas have hitherto received little attention, scattered as they are throughout his notebooks, letters and marginalia. Jennifer Ford's emphasis is on analysing the ways in which dreaming processes were construed, by Coleridge in his dream readings, and by his contemporaries in a range of poetic and medical works. This historical exploration of dreams and dreaming allows Ford to explore previously neglected contemporary debates on 'the medical imagination'. By avoiding purely biographical or psychoanalytic approaches, she reveals instead a rich historical context for the ways in which the most mysterious workings of the Romantic imagination were explored and understood. This book is the first investigation of Coleridge's responses to his dreams and to debates on the nature of dreaming, amongst poets, philosophers and scientists in the Romantic period. Coleridge wrote and read extensively on the subject, but his diverse and original ideas have hitherto received little attention. Avoiding purely biographical or psychoanalytic approaches, Jennifer Ford reveals instead a rich historical context for the ways in which the most mysterious workings of the Romantic imagination were explored and understood. The first investigation of Coleridge's responses to his dreams and to contemporary poetic, philosophical and scientific debates on the nature of dreaming. It offers a rich historical context for the ways in which the most mysterious workings of the Romantic imagination were explored and understood. Jennifer Ford presents an in-depth investigation of Coleridge's responses to his dreams and to contemporary debates on the nature of dreaming. It includes an exploration of previously neglected contemporary debates on 'the medical imagination' This questioning opening to Byron's 'The Dream', written in 1816, succinctly touches upon many of the fundamental and often contradictory opinions on the nature of dreams and dreaming during the Romantic period.

Explores Coleridge's writings on dreams and contemporary poetic, philosophical and scientific debates on the subject.