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Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] ENG
Ranked #22 in the top 380 poets
Votes 75%: 855 up, 279 down

Founder of the Romantic Movement in England. Helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. Meticulous craftsman who was more rigorous in his careful reworking of his poems than any other poet.

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.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Ottery St. Mary on 21 October 1772, youngest of the ten children of John Coleridge, a minister, and Ann Bowden Coleridge. He was often bullied as a child by Frank, the next youngest, and his mother was apparently a bit distant, so it was no surprise when Col ran away at age seven. He was found early the next morning by a neighbor, but the events of his night outdoors frequently showed up in imagery in his poems (and his nightmares) as well as the notebooks he kept for most of his adult life. John Coleridge died in 1781, and Col was sent away to a London charity school for children of the clergy. He stayed with his maternal uncle. Col waHis brother Luke died in 1790 and his only sister Ann in 1791, inspiring Colleridge to write "Monody," one of his first poems, in which he likens himself to Thomas Chatterton. Samuel was very ill around this time and probably took laudanum for the illness, thus beginning his lifelong opium addiction. He went to Cambridge in 1791, poor in spite of some scholarships, and rapidly worked himself into debt with opium, alcohol, and women. He had started to hope for poetic fame, but by 1793, he owed about £150 and was desparate. So he joined the army. 

His family was irate when they finally found out. When he enlisted he was asked his name. He hesitated, but saw the name Comberback over a shop door near Westminster-bridge, and instantly said his name was Silas Tomkyn Comberback. From the Rev. Mr. Bowles, "The regiment was the 15th, Elliot`s light dragoons; the officer was Nathaniel Ogle, eldest son of Dr. Newton Ogle, dean of Winchester, and brother of the late Mrs. Sheridan; he was a scholar, and leaving Merton College, he entered this regiment a cornet. Some years afterwards, I believe he was then captain of Coleridge`s troop, going into the stables, at Reading, he remarked, written on the white wall, under one of the saddles, in large pencil characters, the following sentence in Latin:

`Eheu! quam infortunii miserrimum est fuisse felicem!`

Being struck with the circumstance, and himself a scholar, Captain Ogle inquired of a soldier whether he knew to whom the saddle belonged. `Please your honor, to Comberback,` answered the dragoon. `Comberback!` said the captain,`send him to me.` Comberback presented himself, with the inside of his hand in front of his cap. His officer mildly said, `Comberback, did you write the Latin sentence which I have just read under your saddle?` `Please your honor,` answered the soldier, `I wrote it.` `Then my lad, you are not what you appear to be. I shall speak to the commanding officer, and you may depend upon my speaking as a friend.`  The commanding officer, I think, was General Churchill.  Comberback was examined, and it was found out, that having left Jesus College, Cambridge, and being in London without resources, he had enlisted in this regiment.  He was soon discharged,-- not from his democratical feelings, for whatever those feelings might be, as a soldier he was remarkably orderly and obedient, though he could not rub down his own horse.  He was discharged from respect to his friends and station." - Or as another source has it, discharged on supposed insanity.

Soon after this he was introduced to Southey and Lovell, when the three, with an enthusiastic notion of reforming the political world, proceeded to put their intentions into effect. They began planning Pantisocracy, their own socio-political movement. They commenced at Bristol, where Coleridge delivered lectures on the approaching happiness of the human race, by means of republicanism.  These created great a sensation, and were received with great applause; but on his leaving Bristol for other places, the number of his auditors diminished, nor did his writings in his journal, called The Watchman, attract much notice. 

Southey was already engaged to a woman named Edith Fricker, and introduced Col to her sister Sara. Within a few weeks, Col was willing to marry Sara, which he did in October of 1795. Robert and Col had started arguing over Pantisocracy, and finally Robert agreed to his family`s wish that he become a lawyer instead of emigrating. Robert`s best gift to posterity was the fact that he introduced Col to William Wordsworth. It was Col`s misfortune that he met Sara Hutchinson through William, who would eventually marry Sara H.`s sister. Col fell in love with this Sara almost immediately, putting an extra strain on an already iffy marriage. 

With his marriage, Col tried very hard to become responsible. He scraped together a fairly respectable income of £120 per year, through tutoring and gifts from his admirers. His Poems, published in 1797, was well-received and it looked like he was on the fast track to fame. He already had one son, David Hartley Coleridge, born September 1796, followed by Berkeley Coleridge in May 1798. In 1798, the famous Lyrical Ballads was published, the collaboration between Col and William which pretty much created the Romantic movement. The authors didn`t realize this at the time, of course; they went to Germany with William`s sister Dorothy. Col`s son Berkeley died while he was away; the baby had been given the brand-new smallpox vaccination and died of a reaction to it. Col, as was typical of him, returned home slowly so as not to have to deal openly with Berkeley`s death, and got little work done. 

After a string of illnesses brought on by the damp climate of the Lake Country, Col turned to newspaper work in 1801 to try and recover financially. He was convinced he would die soon, and insured his life shortly after the birth of his daughter Sara in 1802. In 1804, he left for Malta in hopes of a cure from the warm climate. Here, he spied a bit for his majesty, who wanted Malta as a British port, though officially Col was the temporary Public Secretary. Col had also hoped for a release from his addiction, but this was not to be. He returned to England in 1806, and, plucking up his courage, asked for a legal separation from his wife. Though Sara was furious, the separation happened. Col`s paranoia and mood swings, brought on by the continual opium use, were getting worse, and he was hardly capable of sustained work. His freindship with William was all but nonexistent, and Col was again writing newspaper articles to earn a living, further suppplemented by various lecture courses. Most of his remaining work was non-fiction, except for a play or two, and included such works as Biographia Literaria(1817), a work on nearly everything. 

He was still haunted by his failure to break free from opium, however, and to this end he moved into the house of an apothecary named James Gillman, asking Gillman to help cut back his opium dose. Like all addicts, though, Col quickly had an alternate supply arranged. Col had apparently separated from his children as well; his friends and relatives had to take up a collection to send Hartley to school, and at one point, he went 8 years without seeing his children. His London friends, though, loved his conversational skills and continually sought him out. His nephew, Henry Nelson Coleridge, published a collection of Col`s conversation called Table Talk, and Col himself was not only publishing new works, like Aids to Reflection(1825), but was reprinting the old in hopes of finally making a real financial contribution to his family. By 1830, the reviews of his work were becoming more and more positive, and he was generally hailed as the finest critic of his day. He still couldn`t reach financial security, however; a government reorganization lost him his pension from the Royal Society of Literature, his one remaining reliable source of income. He died, surprisingly peacefully, on 25 July 1834, leaving only books and manuscripts behind. 

Though he`s really only known today for his poetry, though Col`s contributions to the field of criticism and our language were many. For instance, he not only coined the word `selfless,` he introduced the word `aesthetic` to the English language. Charles Lamb wrote in description of Col in 1817: "his face when he repeats his verses hath its ancient glory, an Arch angel a little damaged." Col summed himself up this way, in the epitaph he wrote for himself: 

Beneath this sod

A Poet lies; or that which once was he.

O lift one thought in prayer for S.T.C.

That he, who many a year with toil of breath,

Found Death in Life, may here find Life in Death.

This following was produced by his friends, at Highgate New Church, (Col was reinterred in St. Michael`s Church in 1961, with another inscription, `Stop, Christian passer-by,` etc.) 

Sacred to the Memory of 

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE,

`Poet, Philosopher, Theologian.

This truly great and good man resided for 

The last nineteen years of his life,

In this Hamlet.

He quitted `the body of his death,`

July 25th, 1834,

In the sixty-second year of his age.

Of his profound learning and discursive genius,

His literary works are an imperishable record.

To his private worth,

His social and Christian virtues,

JAMES AND ANN GILLMAN,

The friends with whom he resided,

During the above period, dedicate this tablet

Under the pressure of a long

And most painful disease,

His disposition was unalterably sweet and angelic.

He was an ever-enduring, ever-loving friend,

The gentlest and kindest teacher,

The most engaging home companion.

`O framed for calmer times and nobler hearts, 

O studious poet, eloquent for truth!

Philosopher contemning wealth and death,

Yet docile, child-like, full of life and love.`

HERE,

On this monumental stone, thy friends inscribe thy worth.

Reader! for the world mourn.

A Light has passed away from the earth!

But for this pious and exalted Christian,

`Rejoice, and again I say unto you, rejoice!`

Ubi

Thesaurus

ibi

Cor.

S. T. C.

Bipolar disorder, Blank verse, Dark romanticism, Gothic, Lake Poets, Philosophy, Romanticism, Slavery, Transcendentalism

YearsCountryPoetInteraction
1564-1616
ENG
William Shakespeare
→ influenced Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1572-1631
ENG
John Donne
→ influenced Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1759-1796
SCO
Robert Burns
→ influenced Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1759-1805
DEU
Friedrich Schiller
→ translated Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1788-1824
ENG
George Gordon Byron
→ disliked Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1861-1907
ENG
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
→ great-grandniece Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1562-1620
ENG
Samuel Daniel
← praised by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1731-1800
ENG
William Cowper
← praised by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1749-1806
ENG
Charlotte Smith
← praised by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1770-1850
ENG
William Wordsworth
← influenced by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1774-1843
ENG
Robert Southey
← influenced by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1795-1821
ENG
John Keats
← influenced by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1803-1882
USA
Ralph Waldo Emerson
← influenced by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1888-1935
POR
Fernando Pessoa
← influenced by Samuel Taylor Coleridge


WorkLangRating
The Suicide`s Argument
eng
55
Kubla Khan: Or, A Vision In A Dream. A Fragment
eng
30
The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
eng
13
The Presence Of Love
eng
8
What if you slept ...
eng
8
Water Ballad
eng
6
To An Infant
eng
5
Work Without Hope
eng
5
Youth And Age
eng
5
About The Nightingale
eng
4
Duty Surviving Self-Love, The Only Sure Friend Of Declining Life. A Soliloquy
eng
4
Christabel
eng
3
Frost At Midnight
eng
3
Reason
eng
3
A Mathematical Problem
eng
2
Song
eng
2
(Fragment 8)Thicker than rain-drops on November thorn
eng
1
A Couplet, Written In A Volume Of Poems Presented By Mr. Coleridge To Dr. A.
eng
1
Come, come thou bleak December wind (fragment)
eng
1
Dejection: An Ode
eng
1
Desire
eng
1
Forbearance
eng
1
Love
eng
1
Sonnet XIV. Composed While Climbing The Left Ascent Of Brockley Coomb, In The County Of Somerset
eng
1
The Good, Great Man
eng
1
The Nightingale : A Conversation Poem
eng
1
The Pains Of Sleep
eng
1
The Three Sorts of Friends (fragment)
eng
1
To A Primrose
eng
1
(Fragment 2) I know `tis but a Dream, yet feel more anguish
eng
0
A Child`s Evening Prayer
eng
0
A Christmas Carol
eng
0
A Day Dream
eng
0
A Soliloquy Of The Full Moon, She Being In A Mad Passion
eng
0
A Tombless Epitaph
eng
0
Absence: A Farewell Ode On Quitting School For Jesus College
eng
0
Addressed To A Young Man Of Fortune Who Abandoned Himself To An Indolent And Causeless Melancholy
eng
0
Answer To A Child`s Question
eng
0
Aplolgia Pro Vita Sua
eng
0
As some vast Tropic tree, itself a wood (fragment)
eng
0
Cologne
eng
0
Composed At Clevedon, Somersetshire
eng
0
Constancy To An Ideal Object
eng
0
Despair
eng
0
Domestic Peace
eng
0
Elegy, Imitated From One Of Akenside`s Blank-Verse Inscriptions
eng
0
Epitaph
eng
0
Epitaph On An Infant
eng
0
Epitaph On An Infant.
eng
0
Fancy In Nubibus, Or The Poet In The Clouds
eng
0
Fears In Solitude. Written In April, 1798, During The Alarm Of An Invasion
eng
0
Fire, Famine, And Slaughter : A War Eclogue
eng
0
Fragment
eng
0
France. An Ode
eng
0
Genevieve
eng
0
Glycine`s Song
eng
0
Hexameters
eng
0
Home-Sick. Written In Germany
eng
0
Human Life, On The Denial Of Immortality
eng
0
Hymn Before Sun-rise, In The Vale Of Chamouni
eng
0
Imitated From Ossian
eng
0
Imitated From The Welsh
eng
0
In The Manner Of Spenser
eng
0
Inscription For A Fountain On A Heath
eng
0
Kisses
eng
0
Lewti, Or The Circassian Love-Chaunt
eng
0
Life
eng
0
Limbo
eng
0
Lines Composed In A Concert-Room
eng
0
Lines On A Friend, Who Died Of A Frenzy Fever, Induced By Calumnious Reports
eng
0
Lines On Observing A Blossom On The First Of February, 1796
eng
0
Lines Suggested By The Last Words Of Berengarius. Ob. Anno Dom. 1088
eng
0
Lines To A Beautiful Spring In A Village
eng
0
Lines To W. L. While He Sang A Song To Purcell`s Music
eng
0
Lines Written After A Walk Before Supper
eng
0
Lines Written At The King`s-Arms, Ross, Formerly The House Of The `Man Of Ross`
eng
0
Lines Written In The Album At Elbingerode, In The Hartz Forest
eng
0
Love`s Apparition and Evanishment: An Allegoric Romance
eng
0
Melancholy. A Fragment.
eng
0
Metrical Feet
eng
0
Monody On The Death Of Chatterton
eng
0
Ode To Georgiana, Duchess Of Devonshire, On The Twenty-Fourth Stanza In Her `Passage Over Mount Goth
eng
0
Ode To Sara, In Answer To A Letter From Bristol
eng
0
Ode To The Departing Year
eng
0
Ode To Tranquillity
eng
0
On A Connubial Rupture In High Life
eng
0
On A Ruined House In A Romantic Country
eng
0
On An Infant Which Died Before Baptism
eng
0
On Donne`s Poetry
eng
0
On Revisiting The Sea-Shore, After Long Absence, Under Strong Medical Recommendation Not To Bathe
eng
0
On The Christening Of A Friend`s Child
eng
0
Phantom
eng
0
Phantom Or Fact? A Dialogue In Verse
eng
0
Psyche
eng
0
Recollections Of Love
eng
0
Reflections On Having Left A Place Of Retirement
eng
0
Religious Musings : A Desultory Poem Written On The Christmas Eve Of 1794
eng
0
Sea-ward, white gleaming thro` the busy scud (fragment)
eng
0
Something Childish, But Very Natural. Written In Germany
eng
0
Songs of the Pixies
eng
0
Sonnet I.
eng
0
Sonnet II. On A Discovery Made Too Late
eng
0
Sonnet III.
eng
0
Sonnet IV. To The River Otter
eng
0
Sonnet IX. To Priestley
eng
0
Sonnet V.
eng
0
Sonnet VI.
eng
0
Sonnet VII. To Burke
eng
0
Sonnet VIII. To Mercy
eng
0
Sonnet X. To Erskine
eng
0
Sonnet XI. To Sheridan
eng
0
Sonnet XII. To Mrs. Siddons
eng
0
Sonnet XIII. To La Fayette
eng
0
Sonnet XIX. To A Friend, Who Asked How I Felt When The Nurse First Presented My Infant To Me
eng
0
Sonnet XV. To Schiller
eng
0
Sonnet XVI. To Earl Stanhope
eng
0
Sonnet XVII. Composed On A Journey Homeward; The Author Having Received Intelligence Of The Birth O
eng
0
Sonnet XVIII. To The Autumnal Moon
eng
0
Sonnet XX.
eng
0
Sonnet XXI.
eng
0
Sonnet XXII. To Simplicity
eng
0
Tell`s Birth-Place. Imitated From Stolberg
eng
0
The Aeolian Harp
eng
0
The Alienated Mistress; A Madrigal. (From An Unfinished Melodrama)
eng
0
The Ballad Of The Dark Ladie. A Fragment.
eng
0
The Blossoming Of The Solitary Date-Tree. A Lament
eng
0
The Complaint Of Ninathoma
eng
0
The Destiny Of Nations. A Vision.
eng
0
The Devil`s Thoughts
eng
0
The Dungeon
eng
0
The Exchange
eng
0
The Faded Flower
eng
0
The Foster Mother`s Tale. A Dramatic Fragment
eng
0
The Garden Of Boccaccio
eng
0
The Happy Husband
eng
0
The Hour When We Shall Meet Again
eng
0
The Improvisatore, Or, `John Anderson, My Jo, John`
eng
0
The Keepsake
eng
0
The Knight`s Tomb
eng
0
The Moon, how definite its orb! (fragment)
eng
0
The Netherlands (fragment)
eng
0
The Night-Scene : A Dramatic Fragment.
eng
0
The Pang More Sharp Than All. An Allegory
eng
0
The Picture, Or The Lover`s Resolution
eng
0
The Raven. Christmas Tale, Told By A School-Boy To His Little Brothers And Sisters
eng
0
The Rose
eng
0
The Sigh
eng
0
The Three Graves. A Fragment Of A Sexton`s Tale
eng
0
The Two Founts. Stanzas Addressed To A Lady On Her Recovery, With Unblemished Looks, From A Severe A
eng
0
The Virgin`s Cradle-Hymn. Copied From A Print Of The Virgin, In A Roman Catholic Village In Germany
eng
0
The Visionary Hope
eng
0
The Visit Of The Gods. Imitated From Schiller
eng
0
This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison
eng
0
Time, Real And Imaginary. An Allegory
eng
0
To A Friend Who Had Declared His Intention Of Writing No More Poetry
eng
0
To A Friend, In Answer To A Melancholy Letter
eng
0
To A Friend, With An Unfinished Poem
eng
0
To A Lady, Offended By A Sportive Observation That Women Have No Souls
eng
0
To A Lady, With Falconer`s `Shipwreck`
eng
0
To A Young Ass, Its Mother Being Tethered Near It
eng
0
To A Young Lady, With A Poem On The French Revolution
eng
0
To A Young Lady. On Her Recovery From A Fever
eng
0
To An Unfortunate Woman At The Theatre
eng
0
To An Unfortunate Woman, Whom The Author Had Known In The Days Of Her Innocence
eng
0
To Asra
eng
0
To C. Lloyd, On His Proposing To Domesticate With The Author
eng
0
To Nature
eng
0
To Sara
eng
0
To the Nightingale
eng
0
To the Reverend George Coleridge, of Ottery St. Mary, Devon
eng
0
To William Wordsworth. Composed On The Night After His Recitation Of A Poem On The Growth Of An Indi
eng
0
What Is Life?
eng
0
When Hope but made Tranquillity be felt (fragment)
eng
0
Whom should I choose for my Judge? (fragment)
eng
0
Written In Early Youth. The Time,--An Autumnal Evening
eng
0
Zapolya (excerpts)
eng
0

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