Kathleen Coburn
Encyclopedia
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
, FRSC
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...
(September 7, 1905 – September 23, 1991) was a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
academic and a leading authority on the poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
.
Born in Stayner, Ontario
Clearview, Ontario
Clearview is a township in central Ontario, Canada, west of Barrie and south of Collingwood and Wasaga Beach in Simcoe County.-History:Clearview Township was established on January 1, 1994 when the Town of Stayner, The Village of Creemore and the Townships of Nottawasaga and Sunnidale were...
, a fourth generation Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
of Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
–Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
descent, Coburn was one of six children born to John Coburn, a Methodist
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
minister, and Susannah Wesley Emerson, Coburn was educated at Harbord Collegiate Institute
Harbord Collegiate Institute
Harbord Collegiate Institute is a public secondary school located in downtown Toronto, Canada. Specifically, the school is located in the Palmerston-Little Italy/The Annex neighbourhood, situated on the north side of Harbord Street, between Euclid Ave. and Manning St...
in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and later studied at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
, taking a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in 1928 and an MA
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in 1930. Having been awarded an Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire War Memorial Scholarship (IODE) to Oxford in 1930, she obtained a B.Litt from St. Hugh's College, Oxford in 1932.
In 1930 the 25 year-old Coburn visited The Chanter's House at Ottery St Mary
Ottery St Mary
Ottery St Mary, known as "Ottery" , is a town in the East Devon district of Devon, England, on the River Otter, about ten miles east of Exeter on the B3174. It is part of a large civil parish of the same name, which also covers the villages of West Hill, Metcombe, Fairmile, Alfington, Tipton St...
in Devon, which had been the home of the Coleridge family
Baron Coleridge
Baron Coleridge, of Ottery St Mary in the County of Devon, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1874 for the prominent lawyer, judge and Liberal politician Sir John Coleridge. He served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 1880 to 1894...
for centuries. Here she discovered an extensive archive of documents written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
. Geoffrey Coleridge, 3rd Baron Coleridge
Geoffrey Duke Coleridge, 3rd Baron Coleridge
Geoffrey Duke Coleridge, 3rd Baron Coleridge of Ottery St Mary was responsible for making the archive of his ancestor the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge available to researchers for the first time....
gave her unlimited access to this archive, and allowed her to have it photographed and the copies placed in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
for the benefit of future scholars. He also granted her permission to edit and publish Coleridge's Notebooks, which she edited from 1957 to 1990.
In 1949 Coburn was instrumental in negotiating the sale of this Chanter's House archive to the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
for £10,200, with a donation from the Pilgrim Trust. The collection was eventually deposited with the British Museum in May 1951.
Coburn spent her entire academic career at Victoria College
Victoria College, British Columbia
Victoria College was a two-year college in Victoria, British Columbia founded in 1903 with sponsorship from McGill University. It was one of the first post-secondary institutions in British Columbia...
in the University of Toronto, firstly for four years as Assistant to the Dean of Women before joining the English Department in 1936, becoming Professor in 1953 until her retirement in 1971. She received a Leverhulme Award in 1948, a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
in 1953, was made a Fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of the Royal Society of Canada
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...
in 1957, an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh's College, Oxford
St Hugh's College, Oxford
St Hugh's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. It is located on a fourteen and a half acre site on St Margaret's Road, to the North of the city centre. It was founded in 1886 as a women's college, and accepted its first male students in its centenary year in 1986...
in 1970, an Officer of the Order of Canada
Order of Canada
The Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
in 1974, an Hon.D.Litt. of the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
in 1975, and an honorary Doctorate
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
from the University of Toronto in 1978 in recognition of her achievement in the field of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
research and study. In 1979 she was awarded the Pierre Chauveau Medal
Pierre Chauveau Medal
The Pierre Chauveau Medal is an award of the Royal Society of Canada "for a distinguished contribution to knowledge in the humanities other than Canadian literature and Canadian history". It is named in honour of Pierre-Joseph-Olivier Chauveau and is awarded bi-annually. The award consists of a...
by the Royal Society of Canada
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...
and the Rosemary Crawshay Prize in 1990.
Coburn made a bequest to Victoria College to set up 'Coburn Fellowships' where up to three Fellowships a year valued at $20,000 are awarded to Canadian and Israeli
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
students who are studying in the fields of Fine Art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
or Humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
. The E. J. Pratt Library in the Victoria University in the University of Toronto
Victoria University in the University of Toronto
Victoria University is a constituent college of the University of Toronto, founded in 1836 and named for Queen Victoria. It is commonly called Victoria College, informally Vic, after the original academic component that now forms its undergraduate division...
has the Kathleen Coburn Reading Room, which is dedicated to Coburn's memory.
Coburn published her autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, 'In Pursuit of Coleridge' , in 1977. She died in Toronto, Ontario in 1991.
Publications
- Coburn, Kathleen. 'Coleridge; A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967
- Experience into Thought: Perspectives in the Coleridge Notebooks. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979
- The Grandmothers. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1949
- In Pursuit of Coleridge. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1977
- The Self Conscious Imagination: A Study of the Coleridge Notebooks in Celebration of the Bi-centenary of his Birth 21 October 1772. London: Oxford University Press, 1974
- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. General ed., Kathleen Coburn. London: Routledge and K. Paul; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969
- Inquiring Spirit: A New Presentation of Coleridge from his Published and Unpublished Prose Writings. Ed. Kathleen Coburn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979
- Notebooks. Ed. Kathleen Coburn. New York: Pantheon Books, 1957-1990
- Hutchinson, Sara. Letters from 1800-1835. Ed. Kathleen Coburn. London: Routledge & Paul, 1954
External links
- http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/display_rpo/edition/coburn.htmlCoburn on the University of TorontoUniversity of TorontoThe University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
website] - The Canada Council for the Arts website
- 'In pursuit of Coleridge' by Kathleen Coburn. Review by Hazel K. Bell
- Coburn on the Victoria University Library Special Collections
- Coburn in the University of Toronto Magazine