Platonic Coleridge

Book excerpt: "The ambivalent curiosity of the young poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) towards Plato - 'but I love Plato - his dear gorgeous nonsense!' - soon developed into a philosophical project, and the mature Coleridge proclaimed himself a reviver of Plato's unwritten or esoteric 'systems'. James Vigus's study traces Coleridge's discovery of a Plato marginalised in the universities, and examines his use of German sources on the 'divine philosopher', and his Platonic interpretation of Kant's epistemology. It compares Coleridge's figurations of poetic inspiration with models in the Platonic dialogues, and investigates whether Coleridge's esoteric 'system' of philosophy ultimately fulfilled the Republic's notorious banishment of poetry."