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English author and mystic
(1772-1834). Samuel Tayior Coleridge, one of the greatest
of English poets and critics, was born in the year 1772 at
Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, his father being John
Coleridge, a clergyman and schoolmaster, who enjoyed
considerable reputation as a theological scholar, and was
author of a Latin grammar. Samuel's childhood was mostly
spent at the native village, and from the first his
parents observed that his was no ordinary temperament, for
he showed a marked aversion to games, he even eschewed the
company of other children, and instead gave his time
chiefly to promiscuous reading. "'At six years of age," he
writes in one of his letters to his friend, Thomas Poole,
" I remember to have read Belisariits, Robinson Crusoe,
and Philip Quarll, and then I found the Arabian Nights
Entertainments," while in this same letter he tells how
the boys around him despised him for his eccentricity, the
result being that he soon became a confirmed dreamer,
finding in the kingdom of his mind a welcome haven of
refuge from the scorn thus levelled at him.
By the time he was nine years old, Coleridge had shown a
marked predilection for mysticism, in consequence whereof
his father decided to make him a clergyman; and in 1782
the boy left home to go to Christ's Hospital, London. Here
he found among his fellow pupils at least one who shared
his literary tastes, Charles Lamb, and a warm friendship
quickly sprang up between the two; while a little later
Coleridge conceived an affection for a young girl called
Mary Evans, but the progress of the love affair was soon
arrested, the poet leaving London in 1790 to go to
Cambridge. Beginning his university career as a sizar at
Jesus College, he soon became known as a brilliant
conversationalist, yet he made enemies by his extreme
views on politics and religion, and in 1793, finding
himself in various difficulties, he went back to London
where he enlisted in the I5th Dragoons. Bought out soon
afterwards by his relations, he returned to Cambridge, and
in 1794, he published his drama, The Fall of Robespierre,
while in the following year he was married to Sarah
Fricker, and in 1796 he issued a volume of Poems, He now
began to preach occasionally in Unitarian chapels, while
in 1797 he met Wordsworth, with whom he speedily became
intimate, and whom he joined in publishing Lyrical
Ballads, this containing some of Coleridge's finest
things, notably The Ancient Mariner. Nor was this the only
masterpiece he wrote at this time, for scarcely was it
finished, ere he composed two other poems of like worth,
Christabel and Kubla Khan; while in 1798 he was appointed
Unitarian minister at Shrewsbury, and after holding this
post for a little while, he went to travel in Germany, the
requisite funds having been given him by Josiah and Thomas
Wedgwood, both of whom were keen admirers of Coleridge's
philosophical powers, and were of opinion that study on
the continent would be of material service to him. Among
Coleridge's first acts on returning from Germany was to
publish his translation of Schiller's Wallenstein, while
simultaneously he took a cottage at Keswick, intending to
live there quietly for many years. But peace and quiet are
benefits usually sought in vain by poets, and Coleridge
was no exception herein, for early in life he had begun to
take occasional doses of laudanum, and, now this practice
developed into a habit which ruled his whole life. In 1804
he sought relief by going to Malta, while afterwards he
visited Rome, and though, on returning to England, he was
cheered by finding that a small annuity had been left him
by the Wedgwoods, he was quite incapable of shaking off
this deadly drug habit. As yet, however, it had not begun
to vitiate his gifts altogether; and, after staying for
awhile with Wordsworth at Grasmere, he delivered a series
of lectures on poetry at Bristol and subsequently in
London. Especially in the Metropolis his genius was
quickly recognised, and he was made a pensioner of the
Society of Literature, this enabling him to take a small
house at Highgate, and there he mainly spent his declining
years, while it was in Highgate Cemetery that his remains
were interred after his death in 1834.
Everything from Coleridge's hand is penetrated by a wealth
of thought. Apart from his purely metaphysical works, of
which the most notable are Aids to Reflection and
Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit, his Biographia
Literaria and other fine contributions to critical
literature are all of a mystical temper; for
Coleridge—more, perhaps, than any other critics, not even
excepting Goethe and Walter Pater—is never content with
handling the surface of things, but always reflects a
striving to understand and lay bare the mysterious point
where artistic creation begins. For him, literature is a
form of life, one of the most mysterious forms of life,
and while he is supremely quick at noticing purely
aesthetic merit, and equally quick at marking defect, it
is really the philosophical element in his criticism which
gives it its transcendant value and interest.
Coleridge's metaphysical predilections are not more
salient in his prose than in his verse. In a singularly
beautiful poem, To the Evening Star, he tells that he
gazes thereon,
'Till I, myself, all spirit seem to grow." And in most of
his poems, indeed, he is " all spirit," while often he
hypnotises the reader into feeling something of the
author's spirituality. Here and there, no doubt, he
attempts to express in words things too deep and
mysterious to be resolved into that sadly limited mode of
utterance, the result being a baffling and even
exasperating obscurity ; but waiving altogether
Coleridge's metaphysical poems, may it not be said justly
that he introduced the occult into verse with a mastery
wholly unsurpassed in English literature ? May it not be
said that The Ancient Mariner, and more especially
Christabel, are the most beautiful of all poems in which
the supernatural plays an important part?
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