The Besetting Sins of Coleridge’s Prose

From the book Coleridge’s ‘Biographia Literaria,’ Text and Meaning, ed. Frederick Burwick (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989), pp. 47-61.
Coleridge’s prose is notoriously hard going. Yet we accommodate to it; we develop some of the conscious and unconscious skills Coleridge demands of his readers. In The Design of ‘Biographia Literaria,’ I argued that it [...]

Sartre was an optimist, not a nihilist

David Bryant argues for an optimistic view of life (Face to faith, July 14). He takes as his target the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, whom he accuses of having “demolished just about every ethical and moral philosophy on the agenda … One by one they fall, like coconuts at a funfair.” This is a complete misrepresentation [...]