Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an
English poet
This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including Republican Ireland after December 1922.
The earliest ...
,
literary critic
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
,
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
, and
theologian
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
who, with his friend
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's ' ...
, was a founder of the
Romantic Movement
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
in England and a member of the
Lake Poets
The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known. They ...
. He also shared volumes and collaborated with
Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his ''Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book ''Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764–18 ...
,
Robert Southey
Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...
, and
Charles Lloyd. He wrote the poems ''
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (originally ''The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere'') is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–1798 and published in 1798 in the first edition of ''Lyrical Ballad ...
'' and ''
Kubla Khan
''Kubla Khan'' () is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in a Dream" and "A Fragment." According to Coleridge's preface to ''Kubla Khan'', the poem ...
'', as well as the major prose work ''
Biographia Literaria
The ''Biographia Literaria'' is a critical autobiography by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in 1817 in two volumes. Its working title was 'Autobiographia Literaria'. The formative influences on the work were Wordsworth's theory of poetry, th ...
''. His critical work, especially on
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
, was highly influential, and he helped introduce
German idealist
German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutionar ...
philosophy to
English-speaking cultures. Coleridge coined many familiar words and phrases, including "
suspension of disbelief
Suspension of disbelief, sometimes called willing suspension of disbelief, is the avoidance of critical thinking or logic in examining something unreal or impossible in reality, such as a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe it for ...
". He had a major influence on
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
and American
transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Wald ...
.
Throughout his adult life, Coleridge had crippling bouts of
anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
and
depression; it has been speculated that he had
bipolar disorder
Bipolar disorder, previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of depression and periods of abnormally elevated mood that last from days to weeks each. If the elevated mood is severe or associated with ...
, which had not been defined during his lifetime.
[Jamison, Kay Redfield. ''Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament''. Free Press (1994), 219–224.] He was physically unhealthy, which may have stemmed from a bout of
rheumatic fever
Rheumatic fever (RF) is an inflammatory disease that can involve the heart, joints, skin, and brain. The disease typically develops two to four weeks after a streptococcal throat infection. Signs and symptoms include fever, multiple painful jo ...
and other childhood illnesses. He was treated for these conditions with
laudanum
Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy (''Papaver somniferum Linnaeus'') in alcohol (ethanol).
Red ...
, which fostered a lifelong
opium
Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...
addiction.
Early life and education
Coleridge was born on 21 October 1772 in the town of
Ottery St Mary
Ottery St Mary, known as "Ottery", is a town and civil parish in the East Devon district of Devon, England, on the River Otter, about east of Exeter on the B3174. At the 2001 census, the parish, which includes the villages of Metcombe, Fair ...
in Devon, England. Samuel's father was the Reverend John Coleridge (1718–1781), the well-respected
vicar
A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pref ...
of
St Mary's Church, Ottery St Mary
St Mary's Church is a Grade I listed building, a parish church in the Church of England in Ottery St Mary, Devon.
The church is part of "Churches Together in Ottery St Mary" which includes the churches of four other denominations in the town.
Hi ...
and was headmaster of the
King's School, a free grammar school established by King
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
(1509–1547) in the town. He had previously been master of
Hugh Squier
Hugh Squier (1625-1710) of Petty France, Westminster, was a wealthy merchant best remembered as a generous benefactor to the town of South Molton in Devon, the place of his birth, where in 1684 he founded a "free school".
Origins
He was the ...
's School in
South Molton
South Molton is a town in Devon, England. It is part of the North Devon local government district. The town is on the River Mole. According to the 2001 census the civil parish of South Molton had a population of 4,093, increasing to 5,108 at the ...
, Devon, and lecturer of nearby
Molland
Molland is a small village, civil parish, dual ecclesiastical parish with Knowstone, located in the foothills of Exmoor in Devon, England. It lies within the North Devon local government district. At the time of the 2001 Census, the village ...
.
John Coleridge had three children by his first wife. Samuel was the youngest of ten by the Reverend Mr. Coleridge's second wife, Anne Bowden (1726–1809), probably the daughter of John Bowden,
Mayor of South Molton
The Mayor of South Molton in Devon is an ancient historical office which survives at the present time. In the Middle Ages the town of South Molton was Corporation, incorporated by royal charter into a borough governed by a Mayor and Corporation. ...
, Devon, in 1726. Coleridge suggests that he "took no pleasure in boyish sports" but instead read "incessantly" and played by himself.
[Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, Joseph Noel Paton, Katharine Lee Bates.''Coleridge's Ancient Mariner'' Ed Katharine Lee Bates. Shewell, & Sanborn (1889) p. 2]
After John Coleridge died in 1781, 8-year-old Samuel was sent to
Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553 ...
, a charity school which was founded in the 16th century in
Greyfriars, London, where he remained throughout his childhood, studying and writing poetry. At that school Coleridge became friends with
Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his ''Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book ''Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764–18 ...
, a schoolmate, and studied the works of
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
and
William Lisle Bowles
William Lisle Bowles (24 September 17627 April 1850) was an English priest, poet and critic.
Life and career
Bowles was born at King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, where his father was vicar. At the age of 14 he entered Winchester College, where ...
.
[Morley, Henry. ''Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Christabel, &c.'' New York: Routledge (1884) pp. i-iv]
In one of a series of autobiographical letters written to
Thomas Poole, Coleridge wrote: "At six years old I remember to have read ''Belisarius'', ''
Robinson Crusoe
''Robinson Crusoe'' () is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a tra ...
'', and ''Philip Quarll'' – and then I found the ''Arabian Nights' Entertainments'' – one tale of which (the tale of a man who was compelled to seek for a pure
virgin
Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. The term ''virgin'' originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern ...
) made so deep an impression on me (I had read it in the evening while my mother was mending stockings) that I was haunted by spectres whenever I was in the dark – and I distinctly remember the anxious and fearful eagerness with which I used to watch the window in which the books lay – and whenever the sun lay upon them, I would seize it, carry it by the wall, and bask, and read."
Coleridge seems to have appreciated his teacher, as he wrote in recollections of his school days in ''Biographia Literaria'':
I enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time, a very severe master ..At the same time that we were studying the Greek Tragic Poets, he made us read Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
and Milton
Milton may refer to:
Names
* Milton (surname), a surname (and list of people with that surname)
** John Milton (1608–1674), English poet
* Milton (given name)
** Milton Friedman (1912–2006), Nobel laureate in Economics, author of '' Free t ...
as lessons: and they were the lessons too, which required most time and trouble to bring up, so as to escape his censure. I learnt from him, that Poetry, even that of the loftiest, and, seemingly, that of the wildest odes, had a logic of its own, as severe as that of science; and more difficult, because more subtle, more complex, and dependent on more, and more fugitive causes. ..In our own English compositions (at least for the last three years of our school education) he showed no mercy to phrase, metaphor, or image, unsupported by a sound sense, or where the same sense might have been conveyed with equal force and dignity in plainer words... In fancy I can almost hear him now, exclaiming ''Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse, boy, Muse? your Nurse's daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh aye! the cloister-pump, I suppose!'' ..Be this as it may, there was one custom of our master's, which I cannot pass over in silence, because I think it ... worthy of imitation. He would often permit our theme exercises, ... to accumulate, till each lad had four or five to be looked over. Then placing the whole number abreast on his desk, he would ask the writer, why this or that sentence might not have found as appropriate a place under this or that other thesis: and if no satisfying answer could be returned, and two faults of the same kind were found in one exercise, the irrevocable verdict followed, the exercise was torn up, and another on the same subject to be produced, in addition to the tasks of the day.
He later wrote of his loneliness at school in the poem ''
Frost at Midnight
''Frost at Midnight'' is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in February 1798. Part of the conversation poems, the poem discusses Coleridge's childhood experience in a negative manner and emphasizes the need to be raised in the countryside ...
'':
"With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt/Of my sweet birthplace."
From 1791 until 1794, Coleridge attended
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...
. In 1792, he won the Browne Gold Medal for an ode that he wrote attacking the
slave trade
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
.
In December 1793, he left the college and enlisted in the 15th (The King's) Light Dragoons using the false name "Silas Tomkyn Comberbache", perhaps because of debt or because the girl that he loved,
Mary Evans, had rejected him. His brothers arranged for his discharge a few months later under the reason of "insanity" and he was readmitted to Jesus College, though he would never receive a degree from the university.
Pantisocracy and marriage
Cambridge and Somerset
At Jesus College, Coleridge was introduced to political and theological ideas then considered
radical
Radical may refer to:
Politics and ideology Politics
*Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change
*Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...
, including those of the poet
Robert Southey
Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...
with whom he collaborated on the play ''
The Fall of Robespierre
''The Fall of Robespierre'' is a three-act play written by Robert Southey and Samuel Coleridge in 1794. It follows the events in France after the downfall of Maximilien Robespierre. Robespierre is portrayed as a tyrant, but Southey's contribution ...
''. Coleridge joined Southey in a plan, later abandoned, to found a
utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', describing a fictional ...
n
commune
A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to:
Administrative-territorial entities
* Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township
** Communes of ...
-like society, called
Pantisocracy
Pantisocracy (from the Greek πᾶν and ἰσοκρατία meaning "equal or level government by/for all") was a utopian scheme devised in 1794 by, among others, the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey for an egalitarian community. ...
, in the wilderness of
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
. In 1795, the two friends married sisters Sara and Edith Fricker, in
St Mary Redcliffe
St Mary Redcliffe is an Anglican parish church located in the Redcliffe district of Bristol, England. The church is a short walk from Bristol Temple Meads station. The church building was constructed from the 12th to the 15th centuries, and it ...
, Bristol, but Coleridge's marriage with Sara proved unhappy. He grew to detest his wife, whom he married mainly because of social constraints. Following the birth of their fourth child, he eventually separated from her.
A third sister, Mary, had already married a third poet,
Robert Lovell
Robert Lovell (1771–1796) was an English poet who was known for his poem, ''Bristol: A Satire'', which criticised the many merchants of Bristol and their involvement in "mortal corruption" which involved the slave trade. Life
He was born in B ...
, and both became partners in Pantisocracy. Lovell also introduced Coleridge and Southey to their future patron
Joseph Cottle
Joseph Cottle (1770–1853) was an English publisher and author.
Cottle started business in Bristol. He published the works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey on generous terms. He then wrote in his ''Early Recollections'' an exposur ...
, but died of a fever in April 1796. Coleridge was with him at his death.
In 1796 he released his first volume of poems entitled ''
Poems on Various Subjects'', which also included four poems by Charles Lamb as well as a collaboration with Robert Southey and a work suggested by his and Lamb's schoolfriend Robert Favell. Among the poems were ''
Religious Musings'', ''
Monody on the Death of Chatterton'' and an early version of ''
The Eolian Harp'' entitled ''Effusion 35''. A second edition was printed in 1797, this time including an appendix of works by Lamb and
Charles Lloyd, a young poet to whom Coleridge had become a private tutor.
In 1796 he also privately printed ''Sonnets from Various Authors'', including sonnets by Lamb, Lloyd, Southey and himself as well as older poets such as
William Lisle Bowles
William Lisle Bowles (24 September 17627 April 1850) was an English priest, poet and critic.
Life and career
Bowles was born at King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, where his father was vicar. At the age of 14 he entered Winchester College, where ...
.
Coleridge made plans to establish a journal, ''
The Watchman'', to be printed every eight days to avoid a weekly newspaper tax. The first issue of the short-lived journal was published in March 1796. It had ceased publication by May of that year.
The years 1797 and 1798, during which he lived in what is now known as
Coleridge Cottage
Coleridge Cottage is a cottage situated in Nether Stowey, Bridgwater, Somerset, England. It is a grade II* listed building. The 17th century cottage was originally two buildings which were later combined and expanded.
In 1797 the poet Samuel ...
, in
Nether Stowey
Nether Stowey is a large village in the Sedgemoor district of Somerset, South West England. It sits in the foothills of the Quantock Hills (England's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), just below Over Stowey. The parish of Nether Stowey ...
, Somerset, were among the most fruitful of Coleridge's life. In 1795, Coleridge met poet
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's ' ...
and his sister
Dorothy
Dorothy may refer to:
*Dorothy (given name), a list of people with that name.
Arts and entertainment
Characters
*Dorothy Gale, protagonist of ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' by L. Frank Baum
* Ace (''Doctor Who'') or Dorothy, a character playe ...
. (Wordsworth, having visited him and being enchanted by the surroundings, rented
Alfoxton Park, a little over three miles
kmaway.) Besides ''
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (originally ''The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere'') is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–1798 and published in 1798 in the first edition of ''Lyrical Ballad ...
'', Coleridge composed the symbolic poem ''
Kubla Khan
''Kubla Khan'' () is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in a Dream" and "A Fragment." According to Coleridge's preface to ''Kubla Khan'', the poem ...
'', written—Coleridge himself claimed—as a result of an opium dream, in "a kind of a reverie"; and the first part of the narrative poem ''Christabel''. The writing of ''Kubla Khan'', written about the
Mongol
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...
emperor
Kublai Khan
Kublai ; Mongolian script: ; (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder of the Yuan dynasty of China and the fifth khagan-emperor of th ...
and his legendary palace at
Xanadu, was said to have been interrupted by the arrival of a "
Person from Porlock
The person from Porlock was an unwelcome visitor to Samuel Taylor Coleridge during his composition of the poem ''Kubla Khan'' in 1797. Coleridge claimed to have perceived the entire course of the poem in a dream (possibly an opium-induced haze), ...
" – an event that has been embellished upon in such varied contexts as science fiction and Nabokov's ''
Lolita
''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humber ...
''. During this period, he also produced his much-praised "
conversation poems
The conversation poems are a group of at least eight poems composed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) between 1795 and 1807. Each details a particular life experience which led to the poet's examination of nature and the role of poetry. Th ...
" ''
This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison'', ''
Frost at Midnight
''Frost at Midnight'' is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in February 1798. Part of the conversation poems, the poem discusses Coleridge's childhood experience in a negative manner and emphasizes the need to be raised in the countryside ...
'', and ''
The Nightingale''.
In 1798, Coleridge and Wordsworth published a joint volume of poetry, ''
Lyrical Ballads
''Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems'' is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literatur ...
'', which proved to be the starting point for the English
romantic age. Wordsworth may have contributed more poems, but the real star of the collection was Coleridge's first version of ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner''. It was the longest work and drew more praise and attention than anything else in the volume. In the spring Coleridge temporarily took over for Rev.
Joshua Toulmin
Joshua Toulmin ( – 23 July 1815) of Taunton, England was a noted theologian and a serial Dissenting minister of Presbyterian (1761–1764), Baptist (1765–1803), and then Unitarian (1804–1815) congregations. Toulmin's sympathy for b ...
at Taunton's
Mary Street Unitarian Chapel while Rev. Toulmin grieved over the drowning death of his daughter Jane. Poetically commenting on Toulmin's strength, Coleridge wrote in a 1798 letter to
John Prior Estlin
John Prior Estlin (1747–1817) was an English Unitarianism, Unitarian minister. He was noted as a teacher, and for his connections in literary circles.
Life
He was born at Hinckley, Leicestershire, 9 April (O.S.) 1747, and was the son of Thomas E ...
, "I walked into Taunton (eleven miles) and back again, and performed the divine services for Dr. Toulmin. I suppose you must have heard that his daughter, (Jane, on 15 April 1798) in a melancholy derangement, suffered herself to be swallowed up by the tide on the sea-coast between
Sidmouth
Sidmouth () is a town on the English Channel in Devon, South West England, southeast of Exeter. With a population of 12,569 in 2011, it is a tourist resort and a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. A large part of the town has ...
and Bere (
Beer
Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...
). These events cut cruelly into the hearts of old men: but the good Dr. Toulmin bears it like the true practical Christian, – there is indeed a tear in his eye, but that eye is lifted up to the
Heavenly Father."
The West Midlands and the North
Coleridge also worked briefly in
Shropshire
Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...
, where he came in December 1797 as locum to its local Unitarian minister, Dr Rowe, in their church in the High Street at
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...
. He is said to have read his ''Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' at a literary evening in Mardol. He was then contemplating a career in the ministry, and gave a probationary sermon in High Street church on Sunday, 14 January 1798.
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt (10 April 177818 September 1830) was an English essayist, drama and literary critic, painter, social commentator, and philosopher. He is now considered one of the greatest critics and essayists in the history of the English lan ...
, a Unitarian minister's son, was in the congregation, having walked from
Wem to hear him. Coleridge later visited Hazlitt and
his father at Wem but within a day or two of preaching he received a letter from
Josiah Wedgwood II
Josiah Wedgwood II (3 April 1769 – 12 July 1843), the son of the English potter Josiah Wedgwood, continued his father's firm and was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Stoke-upon-Trent from 1832 to 1835. He was an abolitionist, and detested slav ...
, who had offered to help him out of financial difficulties with an annuity of £150 (approximately £13,000 in today's money) per year on condition he give up his ministerial career. Coleridge accepted this, to the disappointment of Hazlitt who hoped to have him as a neighbour in Shropshire.
From 16 September 1798, Coleridge and the Wordsworths left for a stay in Germany; Coleridge soon went his own way and spent much of his time in university towns. In February 1799 he enrolled at the
University of Göttingen
The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...
, where he attended lectures by
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (11 May 1752 – 22 January 1840) was a German physician, naturalist, physiologist, and anthropologist. He is considered to be a main founder of zoology and anthropology as comparative, scientific disciplines. He wa ...
and
Johann Gottfried Eichhorn
Johann Gottfried Eichhorn (16 October 1752, in Dörrenzimmern – 27 June 1827, in Göttingen
Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Lei ...
. During this period, he became interested in German philosophy, especially the
transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's epistemological program is found throughout his '' Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781). By ''transcendental'' (a term that des ...
and
critical philosophy
The critical philosophy (german: kritische Philosophie) movement, attributed to Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), sees the primary task of philosophy as criticism rather than justification of knowledge. Criticism, for Kant, meant judging as to the ...
of
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
, and in the
literary criticism
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
of the 18th-century dramatist
Gotthold Lessing
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (, ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the developmen ...
. Coleridge studied German and, after his return to England, translated the dramatic trilogy ''Wallenstein'' by the German Classical poet
Friedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, and philosopher. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller developed a productive, if complicated, friends ...
into English. He continued to pioneer these ideas through his own critical writings for the rest of his life (sometimes without attribution), although they were unfamiliar and difficult for a culture dominated by
empiricism
In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological theory that holds that knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It is one of several views within epistemology, along with rationalism and skepticism. Empir ...
.
In 1799, Coleridge and the Wordsworths stayed at Thomas Hutchinson's farm on the
River Tees
The River Tees (), in Northern England, rises on the eastern slope of Cross Fell in the North Pennines and flows eastwards for to reach the North Sea between Hartlepool and Redcar near Middlesbrough. The modern day history of the river has be ...
at
Sockburn
Sockburn is a village and former civil parish to the south of Darlington in County Durham, England. It is situated at the apex of a meander of the River Tees, known locally as the Sockburn Peninsula.
Today, all that remains of the village is ...
, near
Darlington
Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town.
In the 19th century, Darlington underwen ...
.
![Sara Coleridge 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Sara_Coleridge_1.jpg)
It was at Sockburn that Coleridge wrote his ballad-poem ''Love'', addressed to Sara Hutchinson. The knight mentioned is the mailed figure on the Conyers tomb in ruined Sockburn church. The figure has a
wyvern
A wyvern ( , sometimes spelled wivern) is a legendary winged dragon that has two legs.
The wyvern in its various forms is important in heraldry, frequently appearing as a mascot of schools and athletic teams (chiefly in the United States, Unit ...
at his feet, a reference to the
Sockburn Worm
In the folklore of Northumbria, the Sockburn Worm was a ferocious wyvern that laid waste to the village of Sockburn in Durham, England, Durham. It was said that the beast was finally slain by John Conyers. The tale is said by many to be the inspir ...
slain by Sir John Conyers (and a possible source for
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...
's ''
Jabberwocky
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass'', the sequel to ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865). The bo ...
'').
The worm was supposedly buried under the rock in the nearby pasture; this was the 'greystone' of Coleridge's first draft, later transformed into a 'mount'. The poem was a direct inspiration for
John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...
' famous poem ''La Belle Dame Sans Merci''.
Coleridge's early intellectual debts, besides German idealists like Kant and critics like Lessing, were first to
William Godwin
William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism and the first modern proponent of anarchism. Godwin is most famous for ...
's ''Political Justice'', especially during his Pantisocratic period, and to
David Hartley's ''Observations on Man'', which is the source of the psychology which is found in ''Frost at Midnight''. Hartley argued that one becomes aware of sensory events as impressions, and that "ideas" are derived by noticing similarities and differences between impressions and then by naming them. Connections resulting from the coincidence of impressions create linkages, so that the occurrence of one impression triggers those links and calls up the memory of those ideas with which it is associated (See Dorothy Emmet, "Coleridge and Philosophy").
Coleridge was critical of the literary taste of his contemporaries, and a literary conservative insofar as he was afraid that the lack of taste in the ever growing masses of literate people would mean a continued desecration of literature itself.
In 1800, he returned to England and shortly thereafter settled with his family and friends in Greta Hall at
Keswick in the
Lake District
The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...
of
Cumberland
Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...
to be near
Grasmere, where Wordsworth had moved. He was a houseguest of the Wordsworths' for eighteen months, but was a difficult houseguest, as his dependency on
laudanum
Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy (''Papaver somniferum Linnaeus'') in alcohol (ethanol).
Red ...
grew and his frequent nightmares would wake the children. He was also a fussy eater, to
Dorothy Wordsworth
Dorothy Mae Ann Wordsworth (25 December 1771 – 25 January 1855) was an English author, poet, and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth, and the two were close all their adult lives. Dorothy Wordsworth had no a ...
's frustration, who had to cook. For example, not content with salt, Coleridge sprinkled
cayenne pepper
The cayenne pepper is a type of ''Capsicum annuum''. It is usually a moderately hot chili pepper used to flavor dishes. Cayenne peppers are a group of tapering, 10 to 25 cm long, generally skinny, mostly red-colored peppers, often with ...
on his eggs, which he ate from a teacup. His marital problems, nightmares, illnesses, increased opium dependency, tensions with Wordsworth, and a lack of confidence in his poetic powers fuelled the composition of ''Dejection: An Ode'' and an intensification of his philosophical studies.
In 1802, Coleridge took a nine-day walking holiday in the fells of the
Lake District
The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...
. Coleridge is credited with the first recorded descent of
Scafell
Scafell ( or ; also spelled Sca Fell, previously Scawfell) is a mountain in the English Lake District, part of the Southern Fells. Its height of makes it the second-highest mountain in England after its neighbour Scafell Pike, from which i ...
to
Mickledore
Mickledore (the name means ''great door'' or ''pass'') is a narrow ridge, 840 metres (2755 ft) high, connecting the mountains of Scafell and Scafell Pike in the English Lake District. It is also a pass between the valleys of Wasdale and ...
via Broad Stand, although this was more due to his getting lost than a keenness for mountaineering.
Later life and increasing drug use
Travel and ''The Friend''
In 1804, he travelled to
Sicily
(man) it, Siciliana (woman)
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 = Ethnicity
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographi ...
and
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...
, working for a time as Acting Public Secretary of Malta under the Civil Commissioner,
Alexander Ball
Sir Alexander John Ball, 1st Baronet ( it, Alessandro Giovanni Ball, 22 July 1757 – 25 October 1809) was a Rear-Admiral and Civil Commissioner of Malta. He was born in Ebworth Park, Sheepscombe, Gloucestershire. He was the fourth son of Rober ...
, a task he performed successfully. He lived in
San Anton Palace
San Anton Palace ( mt, Il-Palazz Sant'Anton) is a palace in Attard, Malta that currently serves as the official residence of the President of Malta. It was originally built in the early 17th century as a country villa for Antoine de Paule, a knig ...
in the village of
Attard
Attard ( mt, Ħ'Attard) is a town in the Central Region, Malta, Central Region of Malta. Together with Balzan and Lija it forms part of "Three villages of Malta, the Three Villages" and has been inhabited since the Classical antiquity, Classic ...
. He gave this up and returned to England in 1806. Dorothy Wordsworth was shocked at his condition upon his return. From 1807 to 1808, Coleridge returned to Malta and then travelled in Sicily and Italy, in the hope that leaving Britain's damp climate would improve his health and thus enable him to reduce his consumption of opium.
Thomas De Quincey
Thomas Penson De Quincey (; 15 August 17858 December 1859) was an English writer, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his ''Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'' (1821). Many scholars suggest that in publishing this work De Quince ...
alleges in his ''Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets'' that it was during this period that Coleridge became a full-blown opium addict, using the drug as a substitute for the lost vigour and creativity of his youth. It has been suggested that this reflects De Quincey's own experiences more than Coleridge's.
His opium addiction (he was using as much as two quarts of
laudanum
Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy (''Papaver somniferum Linnaeus'') in alcohol (ethanol).
Red ...
a week) now began to take over his life: he separated from his wife Sara in 1808, quarrelled with Wordsworth in 1810, lost part of his annuity in 1811, and put himself under the care of Dr. Daniel in 1814. His addiction caused severe constipation, which required regular and humiliating enemas.
In 1809, Coleridge made his second attempt to become a newspaper publisher with the publication of the journal entitled ''The Friend''. It was a weekly publication that, in Coleridge's typically ambitious style, was written, edited, and published almost entirely single-handedly. Given that Coleridge tended to be highly disorganised and had no head for business, the publication was probably doomed from the start. Coleridge financed the journal by selling over five hundred subscriptions, over two dozen of which were sold to members of Parliament, but in late 1809, publication was crippled by a financial crisis and Coleridge was obliged to approach
"Conversation Sharp", Tom Poole and one or two other wealthy friends for an emergency loan to continue. ''The Friend'' was an eclectic publication that drew upon every corner of Coleridge's remarkably diverse knowledge of law, philosophy, morals, politics, history, and literary criticism. Although it was often turgid, rambling, and inaccessible to most readers, it ran for 25 issues and was republished in book form a number of times. Years after its initial publication, a revised and expanded edition of ''The Friend'', with added philosophical content including his 'Essays on the Principles of Method', became a highly influential work and its effect was felt on writers and philosophers from
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...
to
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...
.
London: final years and death
![SamuelTaylorColeridgeBluePlaque](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/SamuelTaylorColeridgeBluePlaque.jpg)
Between 1810 and 1820, Coleridge gave a series of lectures in London and
Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...
– those on
Shakespeare
William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
renewed interest in the playwright as a model for contemporary writers. Much of Coleridge's reputation as a literary critic is founded on the lectures that he undertook in the winter of 1810–11, which were sponsored by the Philosophical Institution and given at Scot's Corporation Hall off Fetter Lane, Fleet Street. These lectures were heralded in the prospectus as "A Course of Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, in Illustration of the Principles of Poetry." Coleridge's ill-health, opium-addiction problems, and somewhat unstable personality meant that all his lectures were plagued with problems of delays and a general irregularity of quality from one lecture to the next. As a result of these factors, Coleridge often failed to prepare anything but the loosest set of notes for his lectures and regularly entered into extremely long digressions which his audiences found difficult to follow. However, it was the lecture on ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' given on 2 January 1812 that was considered the best and has influenced ''Hamlet'' studies ever since. Before Coleridge, ''Hamlet'' was often denigrated and belittled by critics from
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...
to
Dr. Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary criticism, critic, biographer, editor and lexicogra ...
. Coleridge rescued the play's reputation, and his thoughts on it are often still published as supplements to the text.
In 1812 he allowed Robert Southey to make use of extracts from his vast number of private notebooks in their collaboration ''Omniana; Or, Horae Otiosiores''.
In August 1814, Coleridge was approached by
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
's publisher,
John Murray, about the possibility of translating Goethe's classic ''
Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540).
The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads ...
'' (1808). Coleridge was regarded by many as the greatest living writer on the
demonic and he accepted the commission, only to abandon work on it after six weeks. Until recently, scholars were in agreement that Coleridge never returned to the project, despite Goethe's own belief in the 1820s that he had in fact completed a long translation of the work. In September 2007,
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
sparked a heated scholarly controversy by publishing an English translation of Goethe's work that purported to be Coleridge's long-lost masterpiece (the text in question first appeared anonymously in 1821).
Between 1814 and 1816, Coleridge rented from a local surgeon, Mr Page, in
Calne
Calne () is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, southwestern England,OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs h ...
, Wiltshire. He seemed able to focus on his work and manage his addiction, drafting ''
Biographia Literaria
The ''Biographia Literaria'' is a critical autobiography by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in 1817 in two volumes. Its working title was 'Autobiographia Literaria'. The formative influences on the work were Wordsworth's theory of poetry, th ...
''. A
blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...
marks the property today.
In April 1816, Coleridge, with his addiction worsening, his spirits depressed, and his family alienated, took residence in the
Highgate
Highgate ( ) is a suburban area of north London at the northeastern corner of Hampstead Heath, north-northwest of Charing Cross.
Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has two active conservation organisati ...
homes, then just north of London, of the physician James Gillman, first at South Grove and later at the nearby
3, The Grove. It is unclear whether his growing use of opium (and the brandy in which it was dissolved) was a symptom or a cause of his growing depression. Gillman was partially successful in controlling the poet's addiction. Coleridge remained in Highgate for the rest of his life, and the house became a place of literary pilgrimage for writers including
Carlyle and Emerson.
In Gillman's home, Coleridge finished his major prose work, the ''Biographia Literaria'' (mostly drafted in 1815, and finished in 1817), a volume composed of 23 chapters of autobiographical notes and dissertations on various subjects, including some incisive literary theory and criticism. He composed a considerable amount of poetry, of variable quality. He published other writings while he was living at the Gillman homes, notably the ''Lay Sermons'' of 1816 and 1817, ''Sibylline Leaves'' (1817), ''Hush'' (1820), ''Aids to Reflection'' (1825), and ''On the Constitution of the Church and State'' (1830). He also produced essays published shortly after his death, such as ''Essay on Faith'' (1838) and ''Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit'' (1840). A number of his followers were central to the Oxford Movement, and his religious writings profoundly shaped Anglicanism in the mid-nineteenth century.
Coleridge also worked extensively on the various manuscripts which form his "Opus Maximum", a work which was in part intended as a post-Kantian work of Dialectic, philosophical synthesis. The work was never published in his lifetime, and has frequently been seen as evidence for his tendency to conceive grand projects which he then had difficulty in carrying through to completion. But while he frequently berated himself for his "indolence", the long list of his published works calls this myth into question. Critics are divided on whether the "Opus Maximum", first published in 2002, successfully resolved the philosophical issues he had been exploring for most of his adult life.
Coleridge died in Highgate, London on 25 July 1834 as a result of heart failure compounded by an unknown Respiratory disease, lung disorder, possibly linked to his use of opium. Coleridge had spent 18 years under the roof of the Gillman family, who built an addition onto their home to accommodate the poet.
Faith may be defined as fidelity to our own being, so far as such being is not and cannot become an object of the senses; and hence, by clear inference or implication to being generally, as far as the same is not the object of the senses; and again to whatever is affirmed or understood as the condition, or concomitant, or consequence of the same. This will be best explained by an instance or example. That I am conscious of something within me peremptorily commanding me to do unto others as I would they should do unto me; in other words a categorical (that is, primary and unconditional) imperative; that the maxim (''regula maxima'', or supreme rule) of my actions, both inward and outward, should be such as I could, without any contradiction arising therefrom, will to be the law of all moral and rational beings. ''Essay on Faith''
Carlyle described him at Highgate: "Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill, in those years, looking down on London and its smoke-tumult, like a sage escaped from the inanity of life's battle ... The practical intellects of the world did not much heed him, or carelessly reckoned him a metaphysical dreamer: but to the rising spirits of the young generation he had this dusky sublime character; and sat there as a kind of ''Magus'', girt in mystery and enigma; his Dodona oak-grove (Mr. Gilman's house at Highgate) whispering strange things, uncertain whether oracles or jargon."
Remains
![St Michael, South Grove, Highgate - Ledger slab - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/St_Michael%2C_South_Grove%2C_Highgate_-_Ledger_slab_-_geograph.org.uk_-_2673524.jpg)
Coleridge is buried in the aisle of St. Michael's Parish Church in
Highgate
Highgate ( ) is a suburban area of north London at the northeastern corner of Hampstead Heath, north-northwest of Charing Cross.
Highgate is one of the most expensive London suburbs in which to live. It has two active conservation organisati ...
, London. He was originally buried at Old Highgate Chapel, next to the main entrance of Highgate School, but was re-interred in St. Michael's in 1961. Coleridge could see the red door of the then new church from his last residence across the green, where he lived with a doctor he had hoped might cure him (in a house owned until 2022 by Kate Moss). When it was discovered Coleridge's vault had become derelict, the coffins – Coleridge's and those of his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and grandson – were moved to St. Michael's after an international fundraising appeal.
Drew Clode, a member of St. Michael's stewardship committee states, "they put the coffins in a convenient space which was dry and secure, and quite suitable, bricked them up and forgot about them". A recent excavation revealed the coffins were not in the location most believed, the far corner of the crypt, but actually below a memorial slab in the nave inscribed with: "Beneath this stone lies the body of Samuel Taylor Coleridge".
St. Michael's plans to restore the crypt and allow public access. Says vicar Kunle Ayodeji of the plans: "...we hope that the whole crypt can be cleared as a space for meetings and other uses, which would also allow access to Coleridge’s cellar."
Poetry
Coleridge is one of the most important figures in English poetry. His poems directly and deeply influenced all the major poets of the age. He was known by his contemporaries as a meticulous craftsman who was more rigorous in his careful reworking of his poems than any other poet, and Southey and Wordsworth were dependent on his professional advice. His influence on Wordsworth is particularly important because many critics have credited Coleridge with the very idea of "Conversational Poetry". The idea of utilising common, everyday language to express profound poetic images and ideas for which Wordsworth became so famous may have originated almost entirely in Coleridge’s mind. It is difficult to imagine Wordsworth’s great poems, ''The Excursion'' or ''The Prelude'', ever having been written without the direct influence of Coleridge’s originality.
As important as Coleridge was to poetry as a poet, he was equally important to poetry as a critic. His philosophy of poetry, which he developed over many years, has been deeply influential in the field of
literary criticism
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
. This influence can be seen in such critics as A. O. Lovejoy and I. A. Richards.
''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'', ''Christabel'', and ''Kubla Khan''
![KublaKhan](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/KublaKhan.jpeg)
Coleridge is arguably best known for his longer poems, particularly ''
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (originally ''The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere'') is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797–1798 and published in 1798 in the first edition of ''Lyrical Ballad ...
'' and ''Christabel (poem), Christabel''. Even those who have never read the ''Rime'' have come under its influence: its words have given the English language the Albatross (metaphor), metaphor of an albatross around one's neck, the quotation of "water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink" (almost always rendered as "but not a drop to drink"), and the phrase "a sadder and a wiser man" (usually rendered as "a sadder but wiser man"). The phrase "All creatures great and small" may have been inspired by ''The Rime'': "He prayeth best, who loveth best;/ All things both great and small;/ For the dear God who loveth us;/ He made and loveth all." Millions more who have never read the poem nonetheless know its story thanks to the 1984 song "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by the English heavy metal band Iron Maiden. ''Christabel (poem), Christabel'' is known for its musical rhythm, language, and its Gothic fiction, Gothic tale.
''
Kubla Khan
''Kubla Khan'' () is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in a Dream" and "A Fragment." According to Coleridge's preface to ''Kubla Khan'', the poem ...
'', or, ''A Vision in a Dream, A Fragment'', although shorter, is also widely known. Both ''Kubla Khan'' and ''Christabel'' have an additional "Romanticism, Romantic" aura because they were never finished. Stopford Brooke (chaplain), Stopford Brooke characterised both poems as having no rival due to their "exquisite metrical movement" and "imaginative phrasing."
The Conversation poems
The eight of Coleridge's poems listed above are now often discussed as a group entitled "Conversation poems". The term itself was coined in 1928 by George McLean Harper, who borrowed the subtitle of ''The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem'' (1798) to describe the seven other poems as well.
[Magnuson (2002), p. 45.] The poems are considered by many critics to be among Coleridge's finest verses; thus Harold Bloom has written, "With ''Dejection'', ''The Ancient Mariner'', and ''Kubla Khan'', ''Frost at Midnight'' shows Coleridge at his most impressive." They are also among his most influential poems, as discussed further below.
Harper himself considered that the eight poems represented a form of blank verse that is "...more fluent and easy than Milton's, or any that had been written since Milton". In 2006 Robert Koelzer wrote about another aspect of this apparent "easiness", noting that Conversation poems such as "... Coleridge's ''The Eolian Harp'' and ''The Nightingale'' maintain a middle register of speech, employing an idiomatic language that is capable of being construed as un-symbolic and un-musical: language that lets itself be taken as 'merely talk' rather than rapturous 'song'."
![Ancient mariner statue](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Ancient_mariner_statue.jpg)
The last ten lines of ''Frost at Midnight'' were chosen by Harper as the "best example of the peculiar kind of blank verse Coleridge had evolved, as natural-seeming as prose, but as exquisitely artistic as the most complicated sonnet." The speaker of the poem is addressing his infant son, asleep by his side:
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
In 1965, M. H. Abrams wrote a broad description that applies to the Conversation poems: "The speaker begins with a description of the landscape; an aspect or change of aspect in the landscape evokes a varied by integral process of memory, thought, anticipation, and feeling which remains closely intervolved with the outer scene. In the course of this meditation the lyric speaker achieves an insight, faces up to a tragic loss, comes to a moral decision, or resolves an emotional problem. Often the poem rounds itself to end where it began, at the outer scene, but with an altered mood and deepened understanding which is the result of the intervening meditation." In fact, Abrams was describing both the Conversation poems and later poems influenced by them. Abrams' essay has been called a "touchstone of literary criticism". As Paul Magnuson described it in 2002, "Abrams credited Coleridge with originating what Abrams called the 'greater Romantic lyric', a genre that began with Coleridge's 'Conversation' poems, and included Wordsworth's ''Tintern Abbey'', Shelley's ''Stanzas Written in Dejection'' and Keats's ''Ode to a Nightingale'', and was a major influence on more modern lyrics by Matthew Arnold, Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, and W. H. Auden."
Literary criticism
''Biographia Literaria''
In addition to his poetry, Coleridge also wrote influential pieces of literary criticism including ''
Biographia Literaria
The ''Biographia Literaria'' is a critical autobiography by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, published in 1817 in two volumes. Its working title was 'Autobiographia Literaria'. The formative influences on the work were Wordsworth's theory of poetry, th ...
'', a collection of his thoughts and opinions on literature which he published in 1817. The work delivered both biographical explanations of the author's life as well as his impressions on literature. The collection also contained an analysis of a broad range of philosophical principles of literature ranging from Aristotle to
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Schelling and applied them to the poetry of peers such as
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's ' ...
.
[Beckson (1963), pp. 265–266.] Coleridge's explanation of metaphysics, metaphysical principles were popular topics of discourse in academic communities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and T.S. Eliot stated that he believed that Coleridge was "perhaps the greatest of English critics, and in a sense the last." Eliot suggests that Coleridge displayed "natural abilities" far greater than his contemporaries, dissecting literature and applying philosophical principles of metaphysics in a way that brought the subject of his criticisms away from the text and into a world of logical analysis that mixed logical analysis and emotion. However, Eliot also criticises Coleridge for allowing his emotion to play a role in the metaphysical process, believing that critics should not have emotions that are not provoked by the work being studied.
[Eliot (1956), pp. 50–56.] Hugh Kenner in ''Historical Fictions'', discusses Norman Fruman's ''Coleridge, the Damaged Archangel'' and suggests that the term "criticism" is too often applied to ''Biographia Literaria'', which both he and Fruman describe as having failed to explain or help the reader understand works of art. To Kenner, Coleridge's attempt to discuss complex philosophical concepts without describing the rational process behind them displays a lack of critical thinking that makes the volume more of a biography than a work of criticism.
[Kenner (1995), pp. 40–45.]
In ''Biographia Literaria'' and his poetry, symbols are not merely "objective correlatives" to Coleridge, but instruments for making the universe and personal experience intelligible and spiritually covalent. To Coleridge, the "cinque spotted spider," making its way upstream "by fits and starts," [Biographia Literaria] is not merely a comment on the intermittent nature of creativity, imagination, or spiritual progress, but the journey and destination of his life. The spider's five legs represent the central problem that Coleridge lived to resolve, the conflict between Aristotelian logic and Christian philosophy. Two legs of the spider represent the "me-not me" of thesis and antithesis, the idea that a thing cannot be itself and its opposite simultaneously, the basis of the clockwork Newtonian world view that Coleridge rejected. The remaining three legs—exothesis, mesothesis and synthesis or the Holy trinity—represent the idea that things can diverge without being contradictory. Taken together, the five legs—with synthesis in the center, form the Holy Cross of Ramist logic. The cinque-spotted spider is Coleridge's emblem of holism, the quest and substance of Coleridge's thought and spiritual life.
Coleridge and the influence of the Gothic
![Rime of the Ancient Mariner-Albatross-Dore](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner-Albatross-Dore.jpg)
Coleridge wrote reviews of Ann Radcliffe's books and ''The Mad Monk'', among others. He comments in his reviews: "Situations of torment, and images of naked horror, are easily conceived; and a writer in whose works they abound, deserves our gratitude almost equally with him who should drag us by way of sport through a military hospital, or force us to sit at the dissecting-table of a natural philosopher. To trace the nice boundaries, beyond which terror and sympathy are deserted by the pleasurable emotions, – to reach those limits, yet never to pass them, hic labor, hic opus est." and "The horrible and the preternatural have usually seized on the popular taste, at the rise and decline of literature. Most powerful stimulants, they can never be required except by the torpor of an unawakened, or the languor of an exhausted, appetite... We trust, however, that satiety will banish what good sense should have prevented; and that, wearied with fiends, incomprehensible characters, with shrieks, murders, and subterraneous dungeons, the public will learn, by the multitude of the manufacturers, with how little expense of thought or imagination this species of composition is manufactured."
However, Coleridge used these elements in poems such as ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (1798), ''Christabel'' and ''Kubla Khan'' (published in 1816, but known in manuscript form before then) and certainly influenced other poets and writers of the time. Poems like these both drew inspiration from and helped to inflame the craze for Gothic fiction, Gothic romance. Coleridge also made considerable use of Gothic elements in his commercially successful play Remorse (play), ''Remorse''.
Mary Shelley, who knew Coleridge well, mentions ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' twice directly in ''Frankenstein'', and some of the descriptions in the novel echo it indirectly. Although
William Godwin
William Godwin (3 March 1756 – 7 April 1836) was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism and the first modern proponent of anarchism. Godwin is most famous for ...
, her father, disagreed with Coleridge on some important issues, he respected his opinions and Coleridge often visited the Godwins. Mary Shelley later recalled hiding behind the sofa and hearing his voice chanting ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner''.
C. S. Lewis also makes mention of his name in ''The Screwtape Letters'' (as a poor example of prayer, in which the devils should encourage).
Religious beliefs
Although his father was an Anglicanism, Anglican vicar, Coleridge worked as a Unitarianism, Unitarian preacher between 1796 and 1797. He eventually returned to the Church of England in 1814. His most noteworthy writings on religion are ''Lay Sermons'' (1817), ''Aids to Reflection'' (1825) and ''The Constitution of Church and State'' (1830).
Theological legacy
Despite being mostly remembered today for his poetry and literary criticism, Coleridge was also (perhaps in his own eyes primarily) a theologian. His writings include discussions of the status of scripture, the doctrines of the Fall of man, Fall, justification and sanctification, and the personality and infinity of God. A major figure in the Anglican theology of his day, his writings are still regularly referred to by contemporary Anglican theologians. Frederick Denison Maurice, F. D. Maurice, Fenton Hort, F. J. A. Hort, Frederick William Robertson, F. W. Robertson, Brooke Foss Westcott, B. F. Westcott, John Oman and Thomas Erskine (theologian), Thomas Erskine (once called the "Scottish Coleridge") were all influenced by him.
Political thinking
Coleridge was also a political thinker. While he began his life as a political radical, and an enthusiast for the French Revolution, over the years Coleridge developed a more conservative view of society, somewhat in the manner of Edmund Burke. Although seen as cowardly treachery by the next generation of Romantic poets, Coleridge's later thought became a fruitful source for the evolving Philosophical Radical, radicalism of J. S. Mill. Mill found three aspects of Coleridge's thought especially illuminating:
# First, there was Coleridge's insistence on what he called "the Idea" behind an institution – its social function, in later terminology – as opposed to the possible flaws in its actual implementation. Coleridge sought to understand meaning from within a social matrix, not outside it, using an imaginative reconstruction of the past (''Verstehen'') or of unfamiliar systems.
# Secondly, Coleridge explored the necessary conditions for social stability – what he termed Permanence, in counterbalance to Progress, in a polity – stressing the importance of a shared public sense of community, and national education.
# Coleridge also usefully employed the organic metaphor of natural growth to shed light on the historical development of British history, as exemplified in the common law tradition – working his way thereby towards a sociology of jurisprudence.
Coleridge also despised Adam Smith.
References in popular culture
* In the 2003 mystery thriller ''In the Cut'' by Jane Campion, Meg Ryan portrays a New York City English teacher named Annie Avery who recites lines from Coleridge's poem "The Picture, or The Lover’s Resolution".
* In the book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, Coleridge and his poems "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" featured prominently in the plot.
* In the 1977 song Xanadu by Rush (band), Rush, the lyrics make reference to "Kubla Khan".
Collected works
The current standard edition is ''The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge,'' edited by Kathleen Coburn and many others from 1969 to 2002. This collection appeared across 16 volumes as Bollingen Series 75, published variously by Princeton University Press and Routledge & Kegan Paul.
The set is broken down as follows into further parts, resulting in a total of 34 separate printed volumes:
# ''Lectures 1795 on Politics and Religion'' (1971);
# ''The Watchman'' (1970);
# ''Essays on his Times in the Morning Post and the Courier'' (1978) in 3 vols;
# ''The Friend'' (1969) in 2 vols;
# ''Lectures, 1808–1819, on Literature'' (1987) in 2 vols;
# ''Lay Sermons'' (1972);
# ''Biographia Literaria'' (1983) in 2 vols;
# ''Lectures 1818–1819 on the History of Philosophy'' (2000) in 2 vols;
# ''Aids to Reflection'' (1993);
#
On the Constitution of the Church and State' (1976);
# ''Shorter Works and Fragments'' (1995) in 2 vols;
# ''Marginalia'' (1980 and following) in 6 vols;
# ''Logic'' (1981);
# ''Table Talk'' (1990) in 2 vols;
# ''Opus Maximum'' (2002);
# ''Poetical Works'' (2001) in 6 vols (part 1 – Reading Edition in 2 vols; part 2 – Variorum Text in 2 vols; part 3 – Plays in 2 vols).
In addition, Coleridge's letters are available in: ''The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge'' (1956–71), ed. Earl Leslie Griggs, 6 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press).
See also
* Organic form
* Romantic epistemology
*
Lake Poets
The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who all lived in the Lake District of England, United Kingdom, in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a group, they followed no single "school" of thought or literary practice then known. They ...
References
Notes
Citations
Further reading
*
*Barfield, Owen. ''What Coleridge Thought'' (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1971). (Extensive study of Coleridge as philosopher.)
*Barth, J. Robert. ''Coleridge and Christian Doctrine'' (Cambridge: Harvard, 1969). (Examines Coleridge's theology.)
*Barth, J. Robert. ''The Symbolic Imagination'' (New York: Fordham, 2001). (Examines Coleridge's concept of "symbol")
*
*
*John Beer, Beer, John B. ''Coleridge the Visionary'' (London: Chatto and Windus, 1970). (Places Coleridge's poems in the context of his thought.)
*Berkeley, Richard. ''Coleridge and the Crisis of Reason'' (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
* (Close readings of all of the Conversation Poems)
*Bloodm Harold (2010)
Samuel Taylor Coleridge ISBN 9781604138092.
*Boulger, J.D. ''Twentieth Century Interpretations of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall, 1969). (Contains twentieth century readings of the 'Rime', including Robert Penn Warren, Humphrey House.)
*Cheyne, Peter. ''Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
*Class, Monika. ''Coleridge and the Kantian Ideas in England, 1796–1817'' (London: Bloomsbury, 2012).
*James Cutsinger, Cutsinger, James S. ''The Form of Transformed Vision'' (Macon GA: Mercer, 1987). (Argues that Coleridge wants to transform his reader's consciousness, to see nature as a living presence.)
*
*Engell, James. ''The Creative Imagination'' (Cambridge: Harvard, 1981). (Surveys the various German theories of imagination in the eighteenth century)
*Fruman, Norman. ''Coleridge the Damaged Archangel'' (London: George Allen and Unwin). (Examines Coleridge's plagiarisms, taking a critical view)
*
*
*Hough, Barry, and Davis, Howard. ''Coleridge's Laws: A Study of Coleridge in Malta'' (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2010). .
*
* (Detailed, recent discussion of the Conversation Poems.)
*Leadbetter, Gregory. ''Coleridge and the Daemonic Imagination'' (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
*John Livingston Lowes, Lowes, John Livingston. ''The Road to Xanadu'' (London: Constable, 1930). (Examines sources for Coleridge's poetry).
*
*Magnuson, Paul. ''Coleridge and Wordsworth: A Lyrical Dialogue'' (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988). (A 'dialogical' reading of Coleridge and Wordsworth.)
*Thomas McFarland, McFarland, Thomas. ''Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition'' (Oxford: OUP, 1969). (Examines the influence of German philosophy on Coleridge, with particular reference to pantheism)
*Modiano, Raimonda. ''Coleridge and the Concept of Nature'' (London: Macmillan, 1985). (Examines the influence of German philosophy on Coleridge, with particular reference to nature)
*
*John Henry Muirhead, Muirhead, John H. ''Coleridge as Philosopher'' (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1930). (Examines Coleridge's philosophical texts)
*Murray, Chris. ''Tragic Coleridge'' (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013
link*Parker, Reeve, ''Romantic Tragedies'' (Cambridge: CUP, 2011).
*Perkins, Mary Anne. ''Coleridge's Philosophy: The Logos as Unifying Principle'' (Oxford: OUP, 1994). (Draws the various strands of Coleridge's theology and philosophy together under the concept of the 'Logos'.)
*Perry, Seamus. ''Coleridge and the Uses of Division'' (Oxford: OUP, 1999). (Brings out the play of language in Coleridge's Notebooks.)
*
*Riem, Natale Antonella. ''The One Life. Coleridge and Hinduism'' (Jaipur-New Delhi: Rawat, 2005).
*Reid, Nicholas. ''Coleridge, Form and Symbol: Or the Ascertaining Vision'' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006). (Argues for the importance of Schelling as a source for Coleridge's philosophical texts).
*I. A. Richards, Richards, I. A. ''Coleridge on Imagination'' (London: Kegan Paul, 1934). (Examines Coleridge's concept of the imagination)
*Richardson, Alan. ''British Romanticism and the Science of the Mind'' (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). (Examines the sources for Coleridge's interest in psychology.)
*Elinor Shaffer, Shaffer, Elinor S. ''Kubla Khan and the Fall of Jerusalem'' (Cambridge: CUP, 1975). (A broadly structuralist reading of Coleridge's poetical sources.)
*Stockitt, Robin. ''Imagination and the Playfulness of God: The Theological Implications of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Definition of the Human Imagination'' (Eugene, OR, 2011) (Distinguished Dissertations in Christian Theology).
*Toor, Kiran. ''Coleridge's Chrysopoetics: Alchemy, Authorship and Imagination'' (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2011).
*Vallins, David. ''Coleridge and the Psychology of Romanticism: Feeling and Thought'' (London: Macmillan, 2000). (Examines Coleridge's psychology.)
*Wheeler, K.M. ''Sources, Processes and Methods in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria'' (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1980). (Examines the idea of the active reader in Coleridge.)
*Woudenberg, Maximiliaan van. ''Coleridge and Cosmopolitan Intellectualism 1794–1804. The Legacy of Göttingen University'' (London: Routledge, 2018).
*Wright, Luke S. H., ''Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Anglican Church'' (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2010).
*
External links
*
*
*
Poems by Coleridgefrom the Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 19 October 2010
Works of Coleridgeat the University of Toronto. Retrieved 19 October 2010
Friends of Coleridge Society Retrieved 19 October 2010
The re-opening of Coleridge Cottage near Exmoorby Martin Hesp at Western Morning Press
*
Samuel Taylor Coleridgeat the British Library
Archival materials
*
Coleridge archive at the Victoria University Retrieved 19 October 2010
* iarchive:cu31924104096973, Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge from the Internet Archive. Retrieved 19 October 2010
* hdl:10079/fa/beinecke.coleridge, Samuel Taylor Coleridge Collection. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
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