This thesis aims to establish Sara Coleridge’s place in literary history. Her authorial
achievements have been obscured by two factors. First, she has been the subject of
predominantly biographical, rather than literary attention. While this thesis does draw on
specific biographical contexts, its approach is literary and critical throughout. Second,
Coleridge’s mature writings are theological, and consist of polemical contributions to
religious debate in the two decades following the Reform Act of 1832. In order to
analyse the qualities of Coleridge’s mature authorship, this study undertakes the
necessary historical and theological contextualization.
Coleridge’s politico-religious setting requires innovatory authorial methods: she
is, above all, a dialogic writer. The thesis examines her evolving dialogue with her
‘literary fathers’, and addresses the relationship between her editing of STC and her
original writing. Bakhtinian theory informs the approach of this thesis to Coleridge’s
textual analysis of STC and his sources. Gadamer’s hermeneutic concept of the ‘fusion’
of historical ‘horizons’ informs the study’s analysis of her appropriation of STC’s
thought, which she reworks in addressing post-Reform fractures. Prevailing polemical
styles exacerbate such fractures, Coleridge maintains. This study finds that Coleridge is
committed to individual religious liberty, and an inclusive theology underpinned by
Kantian epistemology. This is the basis for her sustained critique of the Oxford
Movement’s authoritarian tendencies. In her theological writings, therefore, she
develops dialogic styles and forms by which to convey her liberal religious philosophy.
Along with published sources, this thesis refers to the unpublished writings of 1850 and
1851 that reveal the full extent of Coleridge’s literary innovation.
This study is constructed chronologically; it aims to elucidate Coleridge’s
development through the stages of her writing life, and to uncover the connections
between the various strands of her work. It shows that dialogic elements are present from
an early stage of Coleridge’s literary career, and that her writings in different genres all
contribute to her ultimate vocation of dialogic religious authorship
