Coleridge the Lecturer, A Disappearing Act

Abstract

Coleridge set some of the key terms of Romantic-era literary lecturing in his responses to two historical pressures. He attempted to define himself as a literary lecturer against his former roles as a political speaker and Dissenting preacher. He also tried to distance himself from the pressures of the literary marketplace. He developed his key concept of the “willing suspension of disbelief” partly from a desire to persuade auditors to see him not as a paid performer, but rather as a “Poet-philosopher.” Some of his best-known critical arguments gain new meaning once they are understood as in part responses to the culture for which they were pitched. These include his readings of the character of Hamlet and the relationship of Romeo and Juliet.