Samuel Taylor Coleridge Biography
English Poet and Critic, Famous for Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Oct 21, 2008
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet and critic, is best remembered for his poems "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel." He was a pioneer of the Romantic movement in English poetry.
Early Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A son of a clergyman, Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Devonshire on October 21, 1772, in the rural southwest of England. At school in London he made friends with Charles Lamb. His early years were not happy. At Cambridge University he met the poet Robert Southey, with whom he planned to establish an ideal community in Pennsylvania. Disillusioned in Cambridge, he joined the army, although later, was inspired by the French Revolution. This led him to join an aborted plan to set up an egalitarian society in the US, further leading him to an unhappy marriage in 1795, to the sister of Southey's fiancée.
Coleridge and Wordsworth
In 1797 Coleridge became a close friend of William Wordsworth. The next year, at age 25, Coleridge with Wordsworth wrote the poetry collection Lyrical Ballads. These poems established an exciting new style by using everyday language and fresh ways of nature capturing. His idea of beautiful and endearing poems was to feel and shape them within the soul. To him this was art.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Coleridge's main contribution was his most famous poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." It tells of a sailor who kills an albatross, an enchanted bird, and for this crime against nature, a terrible punishment has to be endured. The feeling is one of obsessive guilt, and this poem has since been an archetype of remorse. This and other famous poems by Coleridge, like "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel," have a strange sense of something mysterious and wonderful. Coleridge claimed he heard the words to "Kubla Khan" in a dream.
Later Years of Difficulty
In 1810, his friendship with Wordsworth fell out. It was also during this time that Coleridge began suffering personal problems. He left his family and became addicted to opium which he was taking medicinally. Despite these difficulties he continued to write and lecture. In Biographia Literaria he argued that it was the job of the poet to create something new, exciting and beautiful out of existing ideas. He died at the age of 61, on July 25, 1834.
A quote from Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode"
"O pure of heart! Thou need'st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power."
Works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Poems on Various Subjects, 1796
- Lyrical Ballads (with William Wordworth), 1798
- Dejection: An Ode, 1802
- Remorse, 1813 (a play)
- Christabel and Other Poems, 1816
- Kubla Khan, 1816
- Zapolya, 1817
- Biographical Literaria, 1817
- Aids to Reflection, 1825
- Church and State, 1830
- Anima Poetae, 1895 (published after his death)
Sources:
Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, by Ian Ousby. CUP, Cambridge, 1993
Chambers Biographical Dictionary, edited by Una Mcgovern, Chambers Harrap, Edinburgh, 2002
Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994
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