George Whalley, Coleridge and Sara Hutchinson and the Asra Poems

Michael DiSanto (Algoma University College)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1955

Places

Canada (Publication/ performance)
United Kingdom (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Commentary / Criticism (literary)

Resources

Coleridge and Sara Hutchinson and the Asra Poems is a critical and biographical study centred on the poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge written for and inspired by Asra, the anagram he used for the woman he loved, Sara Hutchinson. In his late twenties and unhappily married, Coleridge met Sara Hutchinson – the younger sister of Mary Hutchinson, who later married William Wordsworth – in October 1799. It was, true to the cliché, love at first sight, though Coleridge’s love for Sara may have outweighed her love for him, or at least he was more willing to show it. In exploring the love between Coleridge and Sara Hutchinson, George Whalley reveals something of the complexity of the relationships among the men and women in the …

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571 words

Citation: DiSanto, Michael. "Coleridge and Sara Hutchinson and the Asra Poems". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 December 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=33208, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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