Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"His great and dear spirit haunts me . . . Never saw I
his likeness,
nor probably the world can see again."-- Charles Lamb
Expanded Timeline:
1772 Born in England
1775 Educated at Dame Key’s Reading School
1782 Attended Christ’s Hospital School and became friends with Charles Lamb
1791 Entered Jesus College in Cambridge
1795 Moved to Bristol. Married Sarah Fricker. Lectured on politics and history.
1796 Composed "Ancient Mariner." Began formulating both "Christabel" and "Kubla Kahn," which were never finished
1797 Lyrical Ballads published anonymously
1799 Entered University of Gottingen
1800 Published another edition of Lyrical Ballads
1804 Suffered from poor health, including rheumatism and opium adiction
1805 Separated from his wife
1808 Lectured on "Principles of Poetry" at London Royal Institute
1809 Coleridge and Wordsworth experience a break in their friendship
1810 Lecture series on Shakespeare and Milton
1816 Takes up residence with Dr. Gilman and family at Highgate due to a decline in health
1817 Published Biographia Literaria
1834 Dies at Gilman residence in Highgate
Prose Overview:
Coleridge wrote several liberal Christian theological works as well as a great deal of literary criticism. Here is a famous quote from his Biogrpahia Literaria:
"The IMAGINATION, then I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary I consider as an echo of the former, coexisting with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where the process is rendered impossible, yet still, at all events, it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead."
Coleridge defined the "reconciliation of opposites," a copncept in which two opposite but equal forces will react to and interact upon one another so that a third force will result, which is different than the sum of both or either one taken singly. (For instance, the contrast between Life-In-Death’s red lips and her white, leprous skin in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.")
Poetry Overview:
(1) Supernatural — weird otherworldly poems
"Ancient Mariner" - We know the Ancient Mariner is a medieval Roman Catholic because of the references to the Virgin Mary, being shrived by the hermit, and the cross bow (a medieval weapon). He is Scottish or English because he uses "kirk" for the church. In The Road to Xanadu, John Livingston Lowes examined everything Coleridge checked out and read to determine where he got his images. Coleridge got the phosphorescent water snakes from travel books. He got the horned moon form Cotton Mather, who had reported to the Royal Society that he had observed a light on the dark side of the moon.
"Kubla Khan" is an allegory of the poet’s imagination — his creative unconscious
"Christabel"
(2) Conversation Poems--matter of fact, calm tone, poem in which the speaker is talking to the reader or someone else — the speaker is not at that moment pursuing an action, but sitting and talking.
"This Lime Tree Bower My Prison" — in blank verse. Background: Charles Lamb came to visit Coleridge and Wordsworth, and Coleridge had been looking forward to showing Lamb around the countryside, but had injured his foot and had to stay behind. The poem starts out melancholy in tone, but Coleridge ends by being glad for the joy his friend can experience in seeing the sites, and by contemplating on a common spiritual bond that might arise from all seeing the same blackbird, even though they are not together physically. In reality, Lamb liked living in the city and considered the country to be "dead."
"The Frost"
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