Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1. 1772-1834

   • Excellent Classical education
     • Christ's Hospital, CoL
       • Jesus College, Cambridge
         • Became interested in republicanism & Unitarianism
           • Reverend Joseph Priestley
         • Robert Southey
           • Radical political scheme devised: 'pantisocracy'
             • An egalitarian society
   • Mid-1790s
     • Delivered lectures
       • Philosophy/religion
       • Believed the imminent millennium's harbinger was the French Rev.
         • Equality, liberty, fraterninty
       • Accused the king of war-mongering
     • Set up own periodical
       • The Watchman
       • 1796
   • Dissenting Christian
   • Opium addict in later years

2. Relationships

   • Intense association with the Wordsworths began July 1797
     • Brought them to Dorset
   • Influence of Wordsworth
     • Immediately sensed in 'This Lime-Tree Bower'
       • New love of Nature
     • Coleridge influenced by poems
       • The Prelude
       • 'Tintern Abbey'
     • They wrote LYRICAL BALLADS together

3. Poetic features

   • Natural voice
     • Blank verse
     • Enjambment
     • Irregular iambic metre
     • Fluid, organic structure
   • Themes
     • Personal relationships
     • Nature & God's kingdom
     • Human & divine love
       • 'One life' concept
         • Love of God in Nature & man, uniting all
         • 'Aeolian Harp'
           • Idealism in relationships
     • Creative imagination
     • Politics
       • A society united by love
     • Ambitious epics
       • Rhetorical tradition
         • e.g. 'The Ancient Mariner'
         • Innocence vs. 'the fall'
   • Conversation poems
     • Each details a life experience
       • Role of poetry
     • Meditations on Nature
     • 8 poems
       • Written 1795-1807