David Vallins, Coleridge and the Psychology of Romanticism. Feeling and Thought. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000. ISBN: 0-333-73745-8. Price: £45.00 (US$65).

This is a book which aspires to transcend, or at any rate to transgress, the usual boundaries within which studies of S. T. Coleridge's thought tend, in contravention of the latter's own principles, to confine their object. It looks beyond the limits of literary criticism, of studies in English Romanticism, of nineteenth-century religious or political history. The author explores his central theme—the relationship of feeling and thought—in relation to various aspects of Coleridge's thought and compares it, in this connection, to theories propounded by others with whose ideas Coleridge engaged: for example, to those of Kant and Schelling, of David Hartley and Joseph Priestley. Through exploration of his prose and poetry, and by means of the well-established blend of psychology and literary criticism, David Vallins grapples with Coleridge's claims to have discovered the principles of an intellectual system which affirmed the unity of thought and feeling. A sizable proportion of the book covers material and arguments which are well-mapped elsewhere as its author attempts to shed new light on areas which have been the subject of repeated analysis. One of the most interesting discussions, in this respect, is that on Coleridge's usage of 'certainty' and 'positiveness' in relation to epistemic judgements and affective responses. Occasionally Vallins appears to succumb to the influence of Coleridge's prose style—for example, the number of conjunctions in the extremely long last sentence of page 10 seems to create unnecessary obstacles for the reader—but on the whole his style is clear and fluent and the book is enjoyable to read. The author generally seems to be on surer ground in analysis and discussion of the psychological than of the philosophical elements in Coleridoe's thinking. For example, there is an over-emphasis here on Plotinus, whose influence, though undoubtedly an important element in Coleridge's thought, was not uncritically assimilated by him and was counterbalanced by the primacy which he gave to the will (see below). In fact, Coleridge appeared to have a greater empathy with the work of Proclus in whose writings he found support for his belief in a primary Principle which transcends the predicates of Unity, Cause and God, just as it transcends Being.. There are some startling pronouncements, such as that '[b]oth modern language and modern thought are Coleridge's enemies' (Vallins, p. 156). Perhaps this is a reference to his rejection of certain trends common in the use of language in his own time which reflected an underlying materialist or mechanistic ethos and to the laziness which blurred the accuracy of thought through syllogism. In any case, given his propensity for coining new words, his delight in word-play and puns, and his constant emphasis on 'living words', the judgement that 'modern' language and thought were his enemies seems implausible. Indeed, Vallins himself suggests this in his reference to the intellect's 'continual reshaping of language to fit its communicative intention' (p. 156). Coleridge is not concerned merely to emphasize 'formal correctness' or 'verbal precision' (p. 158); it is the living relationship of words to each other as parts of a whole which is central to his thought (See AR, p.10). What is particularly disconcerting in this study, however, especially given the choice of theme, is the absence of any detailed discussion of the will, in spite of the fact that Coleridge repeatedly presents this as the dynamic of connection between thought and feeling. For example, he often represents the Trinity by the terms Will, Reason and Love, as a relational reality in which primacy is given to the Will. In making the will both the nucleus and power of his philosophical system, he is …