Coleridge and the Fear of Utopia

Abstract

Abstract:This essay reads Samuel Taylor Coleridge's responses to the French Revolution using Fredric Jameson's concept of the "fear of Utopia," a fear of radical social change that Jameson traces to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Focusing on the poems in Fears in Solitude (1798) but ranging over Coleridge's whole career, the essay argues that Coleridge's writings remain animated by utopian political impulses even as they advocate anti-utopian ideas. Exploring this persistent tension opens new perspectives on Coleridge's writings in their historical context, and highlights the relevance of his thought for contemporary politics and its theorization.