ABSTRACT
Taken together, the two parts of Deacon’s ‘The Dream’ provide one of the finest Coleridgean parodies. The ‘Advertisement to the Reader’ is based upon Coleridge’s famous account of the composition of ‘Kubla Khan’ and ‘The Dream’ is a parody of ‘Christabel’. The ‘Advertisement’, in its mockery of the opacity of Coleridge’s philosophical prose manner, demonstrates a critical perspective which is very close to that of Byron’s ‘Dedication’ to Canto I of Don Juan: And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But, like a hawk encumber’d with his hood, Explaining metaphysics to the nation – I wish he would explain his Explanation. 1
