Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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

Biography, – 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 – 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)

Biography, – 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 – 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

Biography, – 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.