Chapter 1 - Coleridge Walks

Summary

The first chapter describes the rough and tumble of Coleridge’s rambles between 1794 and 1804. The chapter opens by placing these excursions within a culture of walking. It depicts his propensity to be his own path-maker rather than follow either the directives of the picturesque guides or the assigned routes of maps. Entries in his pocket notebooks reveal Coleridge’s understanding of a landscape based both upon what his eyes could see and what his feet could register. In many respects, he becomes a surveyor who measures the terrain with his boots. Often modeling his understanding of a landscape on the spirit of geometric exercises, Coleridge measured and counted his paces over a portion of ground in order to observe its lines and angles.