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Sonnets on Eminent Characters or Sonnets on Eminent Contemporaries is an 11 part sonnet series created by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and printed in the ''Morning Chronicle'' between 1 December 1794 and 31 January 1795. Although Coleridge promised to have at least 16 poems within the series, only one addition poem, "To Lord Stanhope" was published. The poems have been moderately received and emphasized for what they reveal about Coleridge's political and philosophical feelings during his early years. Within the poems, he praises 10 individuals that he treats as his heroes along and denounces two people that he feels have turned against their country and liberty. The sonnet series has been compared to John Milton's addressing of sonnets to his own contemporaries in both the types of individuals chosen and the style of composition. ==Background== When "To Erskine" was published in the 1 December 1794 ''Morning Chronicle'', a note addressed to the editor was printed before it and read: "If, Sir, the following Poems will not disgrace your poetical department, I will transmit you a series of ''Sonnets'' (as it is the fashion to call them), addressed, like these, to eminent Contemporaries."〔Mays 2001 qtd p. 155〕 Following the poem was a note by the editor that read, "Our elegant Correspondent will highly gratify every reader of taste by the continuance of his exquisitely beautiful productions. No. II. shall appear on an early day."〔 Many sonnets were to follow after with each addressed to different people: Edmund Burke (9 December 1794), Joseph Priestley (11 December), Fayette (15 December), Kosciusko (16 December), Pitt (23 December), Bowles (26 December), Mrs Siddons (29 December), William Godwin (10 January 1795), Robert Southey (14 January), and Sheridan (29 January). Each sonnet was numbered with a total of 11 sonnets published as ''Sonnets to Eminent Characters''. In a letter dated 11 December 1794, Coleridge told Southey that there were 10 sonnets composed and a plan for 6 more. However, he stopped at 11 by 29 January. In a letter dated 10 March 1795, Coleridge wrote to George Dyer explaining that he would write five additional sonnets for the series. Of these, only one is documented to have existed; Coleridge wrote one to Lord Stanhope, but the sonnet was never published in the ''Morning Chronicle''.〔Mays 2001 p. 155〕 The poems in the series, except for "To Godwin" and "To Southey", were printed in Coleridge's 1796 collection of poems. However, Coleridge began to doubt himself and he considered the poems more the property of Joseph Cottle, the publisher, than his own. He also felt that the poems were a failed attempt at following the style of John Milton. In what possibly refers specifically to the ''Sonnets on Eminent Characters'',〔Joseph and Francis 2004 p. 268〕 Coleridge wrote to Thomas Poole and said "My poetic Vanity & my political Furore have been exhaled; and I would rather be an expert, self-maintaining Gardener than a Milton, if I could not unite both."〔Joseph and Francis 2004 qtd. p. 268〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sonnets on Eminent Characters」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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