Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834

1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834

2. Biography • Born in Ottery St. Mary in rural Devonshire • 1781 – sent to Christ Hospital (school for boys) in London when his father dies; early illnesses • 1791 – Cambridge U; does not take a degree b/c runs off to join the cavalry • 1794 – decides to create a utopian community in Pennsylvania on Susquehanna River in northeast PA called “Pantisocracy” (rule by all) and marries Sara Fricker b/c all the “Pants” were to be married. The plan fails

3. Biography, 2 • 1795 – meets Wordsworth and begins collaborating with him • 1797 – Wedgeworth (the pottery guy) gives Coleridge ￡150 annually to write poetry so that he need not become a preacher • 1798 – publication of Lyrical Ballads • 1798-9 – to Germany to study German philosophy • 1800 – follows Wordsworths to the Lake district; marriage falls apart; falls for Sara Hutchinson (her sister Mary is Mrs. Wordsworth)

5. Biography, 3 • 1801 – begins to suffer drug effects form his illnesses; takes laudanum (opium dissolved in alcohol as a pain suppressant / sleep aid) and other opiates for pain • 1802-6 – travels to warmer climate for rheumatism; no benefits; becomes estranged from wife; addicted to opium • 1808 – begins career as lecturer • 1810 – quarrels with Wordsworth; his politics begin to veer right

6. Biography, 4 • 1816 – friendship with doctor, James Gillman, who controls his opium, helps him go back to writing, and helps him eventually to reconcile with both his wife and with Wordsworth • After early promise of Lyrical Ballads, Coleridge’s later POETIC work often uneven(periods of brilliant lyrics interspersed with borrowings and second rate “filler”) • Coleridge as an essayist and literary critic, however, captures modern industrial England and suggests that literary culture can take the place of earlier rural institutions to give a nation a national identity.