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 English
lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher, whose LYRICAL BALLADS, written
with William Wordsworth, started the English Romantic movement.
Although Coleridge's poetic achievement was small in quantity, his
metaphysical anxiety, anticipating modern existentialism, has gained
him reputation as an authentic visionary.
"The influence of Coleridge, like that of Bentham, extends
far beyond those who share in the peculiarities of his religious
or philosophical creed. He has been the great awakener in this
country of the spirit of philosophy, within the bounds of traditional
opinions. He has been, almost as truly as Bentham, 'the great
questioner of things established'; for a questioner needs nor
necessarily be an enemy."
(John Stuart Mill, from Coleridge, 1840)
Samuel T. Coleridge was born in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, as
the youngest son of the vicar of Ottery St Mary. "At six years
old I remember to have read Belisarius, Robinson Crusoe, 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) 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."
After his father's death Coleridge was sent away to Christ's Hospital
School in London. Coleridge studied at Jesus College. He joined
in the reformist movement stimulated by the French Revolution, and
abandoned his studies in 1793. After an unhappy love affair and
pressed by debt he in desperation enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons
under the name of Silas Tomkin Comberbache. Soon he realized that
he was unfit for an army career and he was brought out under 'insanity'
clause by his brother, Captain James Coleridge. In Cambridge Coleridge
met the radical, future poet laureate Robert Southey (1774-1843)
in 1794. Coleridge moved with him to Bristol to establish a community,
but the plan failed. In 1795 he married the sister of Southey's
fiancée Sara Fricker, whom he did not really love.
"Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried
to an excess, that itself will need reforming"
(from Biographia Literaria, 1817)
 Coleridge's
collection POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS was published in 1796, and
in 1797 appeared POEMS. In the same year he began the publication
of a short-lived liberal political periodical The Watchman.
He started a close friendship with Dorothy and William Wordsworth,
one of the most fruitful creative relationships in English literature.
From it resulted Lyrical Ballads, which opened with Coleridge's
'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and ended with Wordsworth's Tintern
Abbey. These poems set a new style by using everyday language
and fresh ways of looking at nature. 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'
told of a sailor who kills an albatross and for that crime against
nature endures terrible punishments.
The brothers Josiah and Thomas Wedgewood granted Coleridge an annuity
of 150 pounds, thus enabling him to pursue his literary career.
Disenchanted with political developments in France, Coleridge visited
Germany in 1798-99 with Dorothy and William Wordsworth, and became
interested in the works of Immanuel Kant. He studied philosophy
at Göttingen University and mastered the German language. However,
he considered his translations of Friedrich von Schiller's plays
from the trilogy Wallenstein distasteful.
At the end of 1799 Coleridge fell in love with Sara Hutchinson,
the sister of Wordsworth's future wife, to whom he devoted his work
DEJECTION: AN ODE (1802). During these years Coleridge also began
to compile his NOTEBOOKS, daily meditations of his life.
Suffering from neuralgic and rheumatic pains, Coleridge had become
addicted to opium, freely prescribed by physicians. In 1804 he sailed
to Malta in search of better health. Supplied with an ounce of opium
and nine ounces of laudanum, he wrote in his journal: "O dear
God! Give me strength of soul to make one thorough Trial - If I
land at Malta / spite of all horrors to go through one month of
unstimulated nature..." He worked two years as secretary to
the governor of Malta, and later travelled through Sicily and Italy,
returning then to England. In 1809-10 he wrote and edited with Sara
Hutchinson the literary and political magazine The Friend.
From 1808 to 1818 he gave several lectures, chiefly in London,
and was considered the greatest of Shakespearean critics. Kubla
Khan was inspired by a dream in the summer of 1797, when the
author had retired to a lonely farmhouse between Porlock and Linton.
He had taken anodyne and after three hours sleep he woke up with
a clear image of the poem. However, he was disturbed by a visitor
and lost the vision, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered
lines and images.
 In
1810 Coleridge's friendship with Wordsworth came to crisis, and
the two poets never fully returned to the relationship they had
earlier. During the following years Coleridge lived in London, on
the verge of suicide. After a physical and spiritual crisis at Greyhound
Inn, Bath, he underwent a series of medical régimes to free himself
from opium. He found a permanent harbour in Highgate in the household
of Dr. James Gillman, and enjoyed almost legendary reputation among
the younger Romantics. During this time he rarely left the house.
In 1816 the unfinished poems CHRISTABEL and KUBLA KHAN were published,
and next year appeared SIBYLLINE LEAVES. According to the poet,
he heard the words to 'Kubla Khan' in a dream. After 1817 Coleridge
devoted himself to theological and politico-sociological works -
his final position was that of a Romantic conservative and Christian
radical. He also contributed to several magazines, among them Blackwood's
Edinburgh Magazine. Coleridge was elected a fellow of the Royal
Society of Literature in 1824. He died in Highgate, near London,
July 25, 1834.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
(from Kubla Khan, 1798)
For further reading: biographies by E.K. Chambers (1938),
Walter Jackson Bate (1968), and Molly Lefebure (1974). - Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, ed. by Samuel Bloom (1986); Coleridge: Early
Visions, 1772-1804 by Richard Holmes (1989 ); Coleridge's Figurative
Language by Tim Fulford (1991); Coleridge's Later Poetry by Morton
D. Paley (1996); Coleridge in Italy by Edoardo Zuccato (1996);
The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Rosemary Ashton (1996);
Coleridge: Volume II, Darker Reflections by Richard Holems (1999)
- Museum: Coleridge Cottage, 35 Lime Street, Nether Stowey, Brigwater,
former home of Coleridge. - Note: Coleridge's daughter Sara (1802-1852)
was also a writer and translator. She published children's verse,
PRETTY LESSONS IN VERSE FOR GOOD CHILDREN (1834) and PHANTASMION
(1837). When her husband died she took up the task of editing
her fathers works. Biography by Bradford Keyes Mudge (1989) -
Coleridge's poems 'Christabel' and 'Kubla Khan' circulated many
years in oral form before publication, and especially 'Christabel'
influenced the works of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron. - See
also: WALTER DE LA MARE.
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