ABSTRACT
The existence of evangelicals within the Church of England, as well as Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s personal relationships with them, likely played some role in convincing Coleridge that the Church of England was his best (or least worst) ecclesial home. Unlike William Wordsworth, he was raised in what has generally been considered a party-line, non-Evangelical Church of England home. It is safe to say that in May of 1815 Coleridge understood himself not quite as an evangelical (the evangelical members of the Church of England), but as more closely aligned with them than any others in the Church of England. But unlike Wordsworth and William Blake, no single monograph dedicated to the relationship between Methodism/Evangelicalism and the development of Coleridge’s thought has yet been published. There have been several volumes expounding or collating Coleridge’s religious views, particularly his later, more orthodox positions. The chapter also provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
