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Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 – July 25, 1834) was an English poet, critic, and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and as one of the Lake Poets. He is probably better known for his verse form The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, when well as his major prose operate Biographia Literaria.

Life

Coleridge was natural inside Ottery St Mary, the boy of the vicar. When a demise of his father, he was sent to Christ's Hospital, a boarding school in London. Around late life, Coleridge idealised his father as a god-fearing inexperienced person, however his relationship by having his mother was hard. His childhood was characterized by attention-shopping for, which has been linked by owning his dependant personality as an adult, & he was seldom allowed to link to at home when you took his schooltime. From either 1791 until 1794 he attended Jesus College at the University of Cambridge, except for a short cycle once he enlisted in the royal dragoons. At a university he met political & theological ideas so considered radical. He left Cambridge forgoing a degree & joined the poet Robert Southey in the project, presently abandoned, to observed a utopian communist-like society, known as pantisocracy, in the woods of Pennsylvania. Within 1795 the two friends married Sarah & Elizabeth Fricker (world health organization were sisters), however Coleridge's marriage proved unhappy. Southey departed for Portugal, but Coleridge remained inside England. Within 1796 he published Poems in Various Cases.

Within 1795 Coleridge met poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy. It became quick friends. In the area of 1796, Coleridge began applying opium as a pain reliever. His & Dorothy Wordsworth's notebooks record that he suffered from the kind of medical complaints, including odontalgia & facial neuralgy. There appears to keep around been there are no stigma associated sustaining ingesting opium so, however likewise little understanding of the physiologic or even psychological aspects of addiction. He as well was reported to develop been, based on datthe from Dorothy Wordsworth, a "terrible lover" & "one whose realm is not that of the land twixt the sheets," alluding to the fact that opium driven him to use terrible gynecomastia and erectile dysfunction.

A years 1797 and 1798, during which a friends sleep in Nether Stowey, Somerset, were among the virtually all profitable of Coleridge's life. Besides a Ancient Mariner, he composed a emblematic verse form Kubla Khan, written—Coleridge himself claimed—following of an opium dream, inside "a kind of a reverie"; & a number 1 a share of the narrative verse form Christabel. In the period of time of this period he too produced his lot-praised "conversation" verse form This Lime-Tree Bower Our Prison, Frost at Midnight, & A Nightingale.

Around 1798 Coleridge and Wordsworth published the joint volume of poetry, Lyrical Ballads, which proved to be a starting-point for the English romanticism. Though a productive Wordsworth contributed other verse form to the volume, Coleridge's 1st version of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was the hanker verse form & drew other quick attention than anything else.

In the fall of 1798 Coleridge and Wordsworth left for the stay around Germany; Coleridge soon went his have way & spent great deal of his period within university towns. When you took this time he became concerned within German philosophy, especially a otherworldly idealism of Immanuel Kant, and in the literary criticism of the 18th-century playwright Gotthold Lessing. Coleridge exposed German &, when his go to to England, translated a striking trilogy Wallenstein per German Classical poet Friedrich Schiller into English.

Within 1800 he returned to Engl& and shortly thenceforth settled sustaining his personal and friends at Keswick in the Lake District of Cumberland. Presently, nonetheless, he fell into the vicious circle of deficiency of confidence inside his poetic powers, ill-health, & increased opium dependency.

From either 1804 to 1806, Coleridge lived in Malta and travelled in Sicily and Italy, in the hope that leaving Britain's dampish climate would improve his health & so enable him to reduce his consumption of opium. Awhile he experienced a civil-service job when the Public Secretary of the British administration of Malta, assisting governor Sir Alexander John Ball. Thomas de Quincey alleges in his Recollections of a Streams, lakes, & wells throughout and the Flow of any stream Poets that it was when you took this cycle that Coleridge became the good-blown opium addict, using the drug as a substitute for the wasted vigour & creative thinking of his youth. It has been suggested, but, that this reflects diamond state Quincey's possess lives to a higher degree Coleridge's.

Between 1808 and 1819 this "giant among dwarfs", as he was typically considered by his coeval, gave the series of lectures around London & Bristol – those on Shakespeare renewed interest in the playwright as a model for contemporary writers.

Around 1816 Coleridge, his addiction worsening, his spirits depressed, and his personal alienated, took front yard inside the home of the dr. James Gillman, in Highgate. ln Gillman's house he finished his major prose function, a Biographia Literaria (1817), a volume composed of Twenty-five chapters of autobiographical notes & thesis in various cases, including a few incisive literary theory & criticism. the sections where Coleridge expounded his definitions of a nature & severity of poetry & the imagination come particularly significant: he mass produced a famed distinction between primary & secondary imagination on one hand and fancy on the other. He published more writings when he was residing at a Gillman personal, notably Sibylline Leaves (1817), Helps to Reflection (1825), and Church & State (1830). He died inside Highgate in July 25, 1834.

Poetry

Coleridge is probably better known for his hanker narrative verse form, A Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. Potentially people world health organization use never see a Rime keep around are under its influence: its words keep around given a English language the metaphor of an albatross around one's neck, a (mis)quote of "water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink", & the sentence "a sadder but wiser man". Christabel is known for its musical rhythm & language & its Gothic tale.

Kubla Khan, or, The Vision around the Dream, The Fragment, although shorter, is besides widely known & loved. It has unknown, dreamy imaginatiin & may be scroll through on several levels. A title of Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu comes from a number 1 line of Kubla Khan. Two Kubla Khan & Christabel use at times extra "romantic" aura because it were never finished. Stopford Brooke characterised both verse form when getting there is no contender due to their "exquisite metrical movement" & "imaginative phrasing."

Coleridge's shorter, pondering "conversation poems," nevertheless, proved to become a virtually all influential of his function. These include each quietly verse form rather This Lime-Tree Bower The Prison & Frost at Midnight & besides strongly emotional verse form such as Dejection & A Pains of Sleep. Wordsworth immediately adopted a model one verse form, & utilized it to compose many of his major verse form. Via Wordsworth, a conversation verse form became a standard vehicle for English poetic expression, & maybe the usual approach among modern poets.

Other works

Although known in todays world primarily for his poetry, Coleridge besides published essays & books in literary theory, criticism, politics, philosophy, and theology. He introduced Immanuel Kant to the British public in his lectures & "Thursday-night seminars" at Highgate. Coleridge's coarse of action of the German dreamer philosophers in the Biographia Literaria has been subject to the accusation of plagiarism. These are known that he presents extended translations, particularly from either Schelling, as his have operate. de Quincey compares this to kleptomania, although Coleridge's defenders attribute it to his poor organisation of notes like than dishonesty.

He wrote each political comment & hack journalism for several newspapers, especially during a Napoleonic wars. He translated ii of Schiller's plays from a German & himself wrote many dramas (Zapolya experienced successful diarrhea inside London & Bristol). He likewise worked as a teacher & tutor, gave public lectures & sermons, & well-nigh lone-single-handed wrote & published ii periodicals, a Security guard & a Friend. When you took his life, he was famed as a schmoozer.

His letters, Table Talk, & range of friends reflect a breadth of his interests. Additionally to literary population like William Wordsworth and Charles Lamb, his friends included Humphry Davy a chemist, industrialists such as the tanner Thomas Poole & members of the Wedgwood family, Alexander Ball the war machine governor of Malta, the Western painter Washington Allston, and a medico James Gillman.

It was belike Charles Lamb who introduced Coleridge to the writings of Sir Thomas Browne. Browne's learning, literary style & personality impressed Coleridge & Thomas De Quincey and both were caring of Browne's drowsy opiate imaging. Coleridge non merely annotated Browne's major literary works, however within his correspondence exclaimed, "O to write a character of this man!"

Family connections
Coleridge was a father of Hartley Coleridge and Sara Coleridge, and granddad of Herbert Coleridge and Ernest Hartley Coleridge. He was a uncle of the first Baron Coleridge. A poet Mary Coleridge was the relation but not a descendent. His nephew Henry Nelson Coleridge, who was an editor of his operate, married Sara.

Samuel Taylor "Estese" Coleridge
A somewhat tongue-in-cheek biography.

Passions in Poetry - Classical Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Biography and poetry with links to other poetry sites.

Kubla Khan
A mildly humorous analysis of the Coleridge poem.

Tabula Rasa: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Article on the life and works of Coleridge.

Supplement to the S. T. Coleridge Archive
Includes information on individual poems, a FAQ, and links to Coleridge websites, organizations, and discussion forums.

The Samuel Taylor Coleridge Archive
Includes texts of the author's poetry and prose works, plus background and criticism.

Wikipedia: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Biography and discussion of the author's works, with links and suggestions for further reading.

The Friends of Coleridge
Includes events, articles from the Coleridge Bulletin, and a virtual tour of Coleridge Cottage.

The Academy of American Poets: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Short biography and selected poems with a bibliography.

Columbia Encyclopedia: Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Biographical article on the English Romantic poet.


Arts: Literature: Poetry






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