English Poets - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Coleridge:

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whom the writer Catherine Wallace calls the Poet Laureate of Failure, is someone that always makes me nervous. It's always rather disheartening to read about someone that was so brilliant, so full of promise – and who let it all slip so easily away.

O. Elton said of Coleridge, "This history of his life is largely one of the designs unfulfilled – mere broken arcs – and of surmises thrown out rather than worked out. His life is a record of dissipated energies, wasted manhood, unfulfilled promises and premature decay."

Early Life:

Born on 21 October 1772 in the Devonshire village of Ottery St. Mary, Samuel Coleridge was the youngest son of the village Vicar, John Coleridge and his wife Ann; there were nine other siblings, eight boys and one girl. Samuel was very close to his sister Ann and his father, but seems to have had a problem with his mother, who lacked the maternal qualities he sought, and his brothers, some of whom made up in the bullying qualities he hadn't sought. He was a lad with vivid imagination and a vast appetite for reading, and, inspired by the Arabian Nights around the age of seven, he decided to escape the evil atmosphere at home by running away to spend a cold, uncomfortable night by the river bank. Next morning all was forgiven and forgotten, but the experience led to rheumatism, the illness that was to bother him for the remainder of his life.

Education and Influences:

In 1781, when Coleridge was nine, his father died and the adverse financial circumstances in which the family now found themselves ended the idyllic village life. Coleridge was packed away to live with his maternal uncle in London and study at the charity school for clergymen's children, Christ Hospital. The school was then run by the enlightened Rev. Boyer to whom Coleridge took to at once and who encouraged and directed his reading in literature, poetry, and philosophy. The atmosphere at his uncle's was also very congenial, he often accompanied the older man to the local pub, where, while the regular patrons downed spirits, Coleridge raised them with a surprising talent for enthralling eloquence. The men, amused that such a young kid should join in with their discussions, encouraged him no end and declared him to be a prodigy. His fellow students at Christ Hospital, also exposed to Coleridge's bright talk, agreed wholeheartedly. He seems to have been very popular amongst them and many of them, like Charles Lamb, were to remain life-long friends.

It was also during his sojourn at Christ Hospital that the weaker traits of Coleridge's personality started becoming apparent. He showed himself to be capable of varied interests, but unable to sustain his enthusiasms for very long. At sixteen, he had a short-lived infatuation for a friend's sister, Mary Evans, was bowled over by the sonnets of Bowels, dreamed revolutionary dreams as news came in of the French Revolution, developed interests in shoe-making, atheism, medicine, and writing poetry. Only the last interest finally amounted to anything.

In 1791, just as he was about to go on to Cambridge, Coleridge's beloved sister Ann died – his brother Luke had passed away the previous year – and, crushed by these double tragedies, Coleridge fell ill again with rheumatism. It was this serious attack that led to the use of pain-killing opiates that were to soon become an addiction.

His Cambridge tenure was not a success. Aside from a growing dependence on drugs, he began experimenting with alcohol and women. He borrowed left and right, and finally dropped out of University to join the army. Only his inability to ride a horse and his family's timely interference saved him from dying a heroic death on a battlefield.

Married Life and Career:

At Cambridge, Coleridge had befriended Robert Southey and now together they cooked up the radical, half-baked political movement of Pantisocracy. In the course of this venture, Coleridge met Sara Fricker, the sister of Southey's fiancée. It is likely that he was more carried away by his romantic ideas than by any real love for her, but, after only a short acquaintance, he upped and got married.

Soon afterwards, Pantisocracy came to naught, Southey chose law over politics, Coleridge met William Wordsworth and his subsequent sister-in-law, another Sara – Sara Hutchinson, with whom he predictably fell in love – unfortunately, he was now already married to the first Sara.

After his marriage, Coleridge took on the well-paid job of a tutor, wrote the well-received 'Poems' and then, in association with Wordsworth, the even more lauded 'Lyrical Ballads', two sons were born, and, even with his extra-marital interests, things seemed on a neat track for once.

Drug Usage and Downhill Turn:

Then his rich pupil ditched him and a position as Preacher of Shrewsbury didn't last long; Coleridge, of course, was a captivating speaker, but he failed to find his congregation as captivating. He bowed out and, leaving wife and children behind, took off to Germany in the company of Wordsworth. Things took a further down-turn now. His younger son died while he was away and his tardiness in returning after this tragedy spoiled his relations with his wife. He lost the will to work for a while and fell ill and spent some time in the Lake Country with Wordsworth. After recovering, he became a political journalist in London and, for a time, was quite successful. Then he chucked it and went to Malta, where, when he wasn't soaking in the sun and trying to control his drug addiction, he did a dubious former-day representation of James Bond in His Majesty's Secret Service. After he tired of that, he came back and asked his exasperated wife for a divorce. Any other woman might have gifted it to him, but in those times it was a big deal and Coleridge wasn't completely charmless to his wife. Sara Fricker seems to have given him his freedom after much wrangling.

Also around this time, Coleridge completed one of his most acclaimed works, the Biographia Literaria, and gave a series of lectures on Shakespeare, his previously warm relationship with Wordsworth cooled, and his drug addiction got overwhelmingly out-of-control. In his effort to control this and recover a sense of control over his life, Coleridge sought refuge in the household of Dr. Gillman. He continued writing and publishing and started attracting more and more positive critical attention.

End:

In all this time, Coleridge seems to have shown very little concern for his children. He rarely saw them and let other people concern themselves about their financial needs. It's a very curious thing – he was callous towards his own children, but apparently so warm to his friends, that they took it upon themselves to shoulder his responsibilities. All his life, his friends came through for him, either by making him an annual annuity of 150 pounds, as the Wedgwood Brothers did in 1798, so he wouldn't have to trouble himself with earning a living, or by ending him money every time he needed it like did his friend Poole.

Coleridge lived with the Gillmans at Highgate until the end. Living with them had controlled if not cured his opium addiction, and enabled him to write. He died on 25 July 1834.