Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Poetic Obituaries: The dissertation was to have focused on

[Samuel Taylor] Coleridge's extraordinary burst of literary production in a 14-month span across 1797--98 that produced such masterpieces as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, "Kubla Khan," the first part of Christabel, and "Frost at Midnight." But in examining Coleridge's letters and notebooks in relation to his poems, Fruman found a disturbing pattern of misdated poems, misrepresented facts, ideas Coleridge claimed as his own that were clearly the work of others, and frequent, indignant protestations that credit for the ideas and works of others properly belonged to him. As shocked by his findings as would be his eventual readers, Fruman came to the disturbing but inescapable conclusion that Coleridge was throughout his life and career a serial plagiarist and habitual liar.

from LagunaBeachPatch: Passings: Norman Fruman, 88, Coleridge Biographer and Educator

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