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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 one of the Lake Poets . He is probably best known for his poems '' The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner '' and '' Kubla Khan '', as well as his major prose work '' Biographia Literaria ''. EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21, 1772 in Ottery St Mary in Devonshire. His father, the Reverend John Coleridge, was a Vicar . After the death of his father in 1781, he was sent to Christ's Hospital , a boarding school in London . In later life, Coleridge idealised his father as a pious innocent, but his relationship with his mother was difficult. His childhood was characterised by attention-seeking, which has been linked with his dependent personality as an adult, and he was rarely allowed to return home during his schooldays. He later wrote of his loneliness at school in the poem "Frost at Midnight:" "With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt/Of my sweet birthplace" From 1791 until 1794 Coleridge attended Jesus College at the University Of Cambridge . In 1792 he won a the Browne Gold Medal for an Ode that he wrote on the slave trade. In November, 1793, he left the college and enlisted in the royal dragoons, perhaps because of debt or because the girl that he loved had rejected him. His brothers arranged for his discharge a few months later and he was readmitted to Jesus College, although he left Cambridge without a degree. PANTISOCRACY AND MARRIAGE At the university he was introduced to political and theological ideas then considered radical, including those of the poet Robert Southey . Coleridge joined Southey in a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian Communist -like society, called pantisocracy, in the wilderness of Pennsylvania . In 1795 the two friends married sisters Sarah and Edith Fricker, but Coleridge's marriage proved unhappy. Southey departed for Portugal , but Coleridge remained in England. In 1796 he published ''Poems on Various Subjects''. In 1795 Coleridge met poet William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy . They became immediate friends. Around 1796, Coleridge started using Opium as a pain reliever. His and Dorothy Wordsworth 's notebooks record that he suffered from a variety of medical complaints, including toothache and facial neuralgia. There appears to have been no stigma associated with taking opium then, but also little understanding of the physiological or psychological aspects of Addiction . The years 1797 and 1798 , during which the friends lived in Nether Stowey , Somerset , were among the most fruitful of Coleridge's life. Besides the ''Ancient Mariner'', he composed the symbolic poem ''Kubla Khan'', written—Coleridge himself claimed—as a result of an opium dream, in "a kind of a reverie"; and the first part of the narrative poem ''Christabel''. During this period he also produced his much-praised "conversation" poems ''This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison'', ''Frost at Midnight'', and ''The Nightingale''. In 1798 Coleridge and Wordsworth published a joint volume of poetry, '' Lyrical Ballads '', which proved to be the starting-point for the English romantic movement. Though the productive Wordsworth contributed more poems to the volume, Coleridge's first version of '' The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner '' was the longest poem and drew more immediate attention than anything else. In the autumn of 1798 Coleridge and Wordsworth left for a stay in Germany ; Coleridge soon went his own way and spent much of his time in university towns. During this period he became interested in German philosophy, especially the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant , and in the literary criticism of the 18th-century dramatist Gotthold Lessing . Coleridge studied German and, after his return to England, translated the dramatic trilogy ''Wallenstein'' by the German Classical poet Friedrich Schiller into English. Coleridge was critical of the literary taste of his contemporaries, and a literary conservative insofar as he was afraid that the lack of taste in the ever growing masses of literate people would mean a continued desecration of literature itself. In 1800 he returned to England and shortly thereafter settled with his family and friends at Keswick in the Lake District of Cumberland . Soon, however, he fell into a vicious circle of lack of confidence in his poetic powers, ill-health, and increased opium dependency. From 1804 to 1806 , Coleridge lived in Malta and travelled in Sicily and Italy , in the hope that leaving Britain's damp climate would improve his health and thus enable him to reduce his consumption of opium. For a while he had a civil-service job as the Public Secretary of the British administration of Malta, assisting governor Sir Alexander John Ball . Thomas De Quincey alleges in his ''Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets'' that it was during this period that Coleridge became a full-blown opium addict, using the drug as a substitute for the lost vigour and creativity of his youth. It has been suggested, however, that this reflects de Quincey's own experiences more than Coleridge's. Between 1808 and 1819 this "giant among dwarfs", as he was often considered by his contemporaries, gave a series of lectures in London and Bristol – those on Shakespeare renewed interest in the playwright as a model for contemporary writers. In ), and ''Church and State'' ( 1830 ). He died of heart failure in Highgate on July 25 , 1834 . POETRY Coleridge is probably best known for his long narrative poems, ''The the metaphor of an Albatross around one's neck, the (mis)quote of "water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink", and the phrase "a sadder but wiser man". ''Christabel'' is known for its musical rhythm and language and its Gothic tale. '' Kubla Khan , or, A Vision in a Dream, A Fragment'', although shorter, is also widely known and loved. It has strange, dreamy imagery and can be read on many levels. Both ''Kubla Khan'' and ''Christabel'' have additional "romantic" aura because they were never finished. Stopford Brooke characterised both poems as having no rival due to their "exquisite metrical movement" and "imaginative phrasing." Coleridge's shorter, meditative "conversation poems," however, proved to be the most influential of his work. These include both quiet poems like ''This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison'' and ''Frost at Midnight'' and also strongly emotional poems like ''Dejection'' and ''The Pains of Sleep''. Wordsworth immediately adopted the model of these poems, and used it to compose several of his major poems. Via Wordsworth, the conversation poem became a standard vehicle for English poetic expression, and perhaps the most common approach among modern poets. OTHER WORKS Although known today primarily for his poetry, Coleridge also published essays and books on Literary Theory , Criticism , Politics , Philosophy , and Theology . He introduced Immanuel Kant to the British public in his lectures and "Thursday-night seminars" at Highgate . Coleridge's treatment of the German idealist philosophers in the ''Biographia Literaria'' has been subject to the accusation of Plagiarism . It is known that he presents lengthy translations, particularly from Schelling , as his own work. De Quincey compares this to Kleptomania , although Coleridge's defenders attribute it to his poor organisation of notes rather than dishonesty. He wrote both political commentary and hack Journalism for several Newspaper s, especially during the Napoleon ic wars. He translated two of Schiller 's plays from the German and himself wrote several dramas (''Zapolya'' had successful runs in London and Bristol). He also worked as a teacher and tutor, gave public lectures and sermons, and almost single-handedly wrote and published two periodicals, the ''Watchman'' and the ''Friend''. During his life, he was famous as a conversationalist. His letters, ''Table Talk'', and range of friends reflect the breadth of his interests. In addition to literary people such as William Wordsworth and Charles Lamb , his friends included Humphry Davy the chemist, industrialists such as the tanner Thomas Poole and members of the Wedgwood family, Alexander Ball the military governor of Malta , the American painter Washington Allston , and the physician James Gillman. It was in all probability Charles Lamb who introduced Coleridge to the writings of Sir Thomas Browne . Browne's learning, literary style and personality impressed Coleridge and Thomas De Quincey and both were aware of Browne's drowsy opiate imagery. Coleridge not only annotated Browne's major literary works, but in his correspondence exclaimed, "O to write a character of this man!" SOURCES "The Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge" (Introduction) Oxford University Press 1912 FAMILY CONNECTIONS Coleridge was the father of Hartley Coleridge , Sara Coleridge , and Derwent Coleridge and grandfather of Herbert Coleridge , Ernest Hartley Coleridge and Christabel Coleridge. He was the uncle of The First Baron Coleridge . The poet Mary Coleridge was a relation but not a descendant. His nephew Henry Nelson Coleridge , who was an editor of his work, married Sara. MODERN REFERENCES
The name of Ted Nelson 's Project Xanadu comes from the first line of ''Kubla Khan''. FURTHER READING By Coleridge
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