Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) is probably the major figure of British Romanticism, as a poet and a thinker. His thirst for knowledge could not be quenched, his “desultoriness” became legendary and his poetic gifts were impressive. The contributions to this collection of essays, most of them by French scholars specialized in Romantic studies, provide fresh views on a number of essential texts and key issues to which his name is attached: poetic creation, translation, politics, religion, culture, the exploration of the self, to list but a few. Coleridge deeply influenced his contemporaries, perhaps even more the following generations down to the present day.

Denis Bonnecase is professor of British literature at the University of Grenoble-Alpes. He is also a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France.