II.

Coleridge’s Life

Coleridge is often regarded as a tragic genius who fulfilled only a fraction of his enormous potential. He was handicapped by his impulsive and impractical nature, which caused him to leave many projects uncompleted. Nevertheless, he created poetry of unique beauty and power.

A.

Early Years

Coleridge was born in Ottery Saint Mary in the English county of Devonshire on October 21, 1772. His father was a clergyman and a scholar. From 1791 until 1794 Coleridge studied classics at Jesus College at the University of Cambridge and became interested in the politics of the French Revolution (1789-1799), which was then underway. Through heavy drinking and other self-indulgent behavior he incurred large debts, which he attempted to clear by entering the army for a brief period. His brother paid for his release from the army. At the university Coleridge absorbed political and theological ideas then considered radical, especially those of Unitarianism.

Coleridge left Cambridge without a degree and worked with his university friend the poet Robert Southey on a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian society in Pennsylvania. This ideal society, which Coleridge dubbed “Pantisocracy,” was based on the ideas of English political philosopher William Godwin. But the plan evaporated soon after the two friends married sisters, Sara and Edith Fricker, in 1795. Coleridge’s marriage to Sara proved extremely unhappy, and his friendship with Southey cooled as well. Southey departed for Portugal in 1795, but Coleridge remained in England to write and lecture. From his new home in Clevedon, he edited a radical Christian journal, The Watchman. In 1796 he published Poems on Various Subjects, which included “The Eolian Harp” and “Monody on the Death of Chatterton.”

B.

Friendship with Wordsworth

By 1797 Coleridge had met the poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, and had begun what was to be a lifelong friendship with them. The years 1797 and 1798, during which the friends lived near each other in the county of Somerset, were among the most productive of Coleridge’s life. The two men anonymously published a joint volume of poetry, Lyrical Ballads (1798), which became a landmark in English poetry (see English Literature). It contained the first great works of the romantic school, including the famous “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

In the fall of 1798 Coleridge and Wordsworth left for a trip on the European continent. Coleridge soon went his own way, spending much of his time in Germany. During this period he lost his early sympathy with political radicalism and became interested in German philosophy, especially the 18th-century idealism of Immanuel Kant and the 17th-century mystical writings of Jakob Boehme, and in the literary criticism of the 18th-century dramatist G. E. Lessing. Coleridge studied German and translated into English the dramatic trilogy Wallenstein by the romantic poet Friedrich von Schiller. These studies made Coleridge the most influential English interpreter of German romanticism. By this time Coleridge had become addicted to opium, a drug he used to ease the pain of rheumatism.

In 1800 Coleridge returned to England, and shortly thereafter settled with his family and friends at Keswick in the Lake District of Cumberland. In 1804 he went to the island of Malta as secretary to the governor. Coleridge returned to England in 1806. Between 1808 and 1819 he gave his famous series of lectures on literature and philosophy; the lectures on Shakespeare were partly responsible for a renewed interest in the playwright. In this period Coleridge also wrote about religion and political theory. Financial donations and grants supplemented his literary income.

C.

Seclusion in London

In 1816 Coleridge, still addicted to opium and now estranged from his family, took residence in the London home of an admirer, the physician James Gillman. There he wrote his major prose work, Biographia Literaria (1817), a series of autobiographical notes and dissertations on many subjects, including some brilliantly perceptive literary criticism. The sections in which Coleridge defines his views on the nature of poetry and the imagination and discusses the works of Wordsworth are especially notable. Other writings were published while he was in seclusion at the Gillman home, notably Sibylline Leaves (1817), Aids to Reflection (1825), and Church and State (1830). He died in London on July 25, 1834. Coleridge’s oldest son, Hartley Coleridge, was an accomplished scholar, best known for his poetry.