The Friendship

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"The friendship between William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge produced dazzling results; from it came Lyrical Ballads, the volume that kick-started the Romantic movement in England. Though much has been written about both these two, this is the first modern biography to consider them together. The result restores balance to a story distorted by bitterness and recrimination." "Rarely if ever have two such gifted writers cooperated so closely Coleridge, who acknowledged Wordsworth as the greatest poet since Milton, was himself a poet of unique talents, and moreover was widely recognized to be the outstanding genius of his time. In the summer of 1797, they began to meet almost daily, usually in the company of Wordsworth's sister Dorothy, whose ardent manner delighted Coleridge and whose sensitivity to the natural world fed much of the poets' work. These three spent a lot of their time outside, glorying in the beauty of their surroundings and recognizing in nature a haven from the dehumanizing forces of the age. In the euphoria of mutual discovery, these two brilliant and idealistic young men planned a poem that would succeed where the French Revolution had failed; a poem that would, quite literally, change the world." "Perhaps such a perfect friendship could not last. As Sisman reveals, rivalry bred tension between them, erupting into a painful quarrel and leading to a complete break, with only a partial reconciliation afterward. The great poem they had dreamed of was never written."--BOOK JACKET.