ABSTRACT
This chapter pushes deeper into the nineteenth century and focuses on the life and work of Sara Coleridge, S. T. Coleridge's daughter. Coleridge's depictions of infancy show us that to the degree that the symbol founders, it does so precisely because it tends to reproduce the ideology that produces it. The chapter covers several factors, including nervousness, breastfeeding, and opium use, conspire to cause Coleridge to feel that she is subjected to her children's needs at the same time as she is subjugated by her own body, and therefore forced to come to grips with her own part-animality and inescapable embodiment. Against exclusive maternal body, "understanding"-what Kant calls sensuous cognition-takes on added significance. It designates the ability to choose. The chapter introduces and examines Coleridge's concept of extended asceticism. Nineteenth-century lyric poetry anticipates psychoanalytic theory, showing us that address can often be a form of redress or re-encounter.
