Coleridge and Plagiarism

AbstractThis article examines the issues of plagiarism in the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It explains that the sources of Coleridge's writings have long fascinated critics. Coleridge's kindest critics have disentangled the components of his eclectically derivative corpus and compulsively devious practice, while his unkindest critic, Norman Fruman, has reacted against the canonical sentimentality that has transmogrified the real Coleridge into the ‘Da Vinci’ of literature. The article suggests that Coleridge crossed a qualitative line, that intangible border which separates plagiarists from the other writers who have their secrets, but who seem to lack the tendency towards dependency.