Abstract

My dissertation questions the traditional critical opposition between Romanticism and politics by examining a body of frequently neglected texts, Coleridge's later prose writings. The Introduction gives an historical and theoretical overview of the relationships between Romanticism and Liberalism, and indicates how both aesthetic and political issues are expressed in accounts of the Romantic Symbol. Chapter One examines Coleridge's Idea of the Constitution in Church and State as an attempt to reformulate elements of the common law tradition of the 'ancient Constitution' of Blackstone and Burke. I go on to show the analogies between the symbolic model of Coleridge's inexhaustible Idea of the Constitution of the State and De Quincey's symbolic model of art in his discussion of the 'Literature of Power.' ;Chapter Two focuses on The Statesman's Manual and examines Coleridge's account of the Symbol within the context of German Higher Criticism attempts to devise a new defense of the spiritual significance of the Bible in reaction to Enlightenment attacks on its literal truth. Coleridge's theory of the Symbol is formulated as an alternative to what he sees as a mistaken Enlightenment/liberal dichotomy between 'literal' and 'metaphorical' language. I trace the influence of this tradition of the Symbol to modern literary theorists such as Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman, and Northrop Frye. ;Chapter Three examines Coleridge's account of the Clerisy and connects it to other reactions against liberal individualism and universal suffrage, such as Hegel's theory of the State. Coleridge argues for a cultural not a political institution to provide universal representation. I trace this theme to later British cultural theorists by examining Matthew Arnold on the classless 'best self,' Culture, and the State