Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Early Life

Works

Although Coleridge had been busy and productive, publishing both poetry and much topical prose, it was not until his friendship with Wordsworth that he wrote his best poems. In 1798 Coleridge and Wordsworth jointly published the volume Lyrical Ballads, whose poems and preface made it a seminal work and manifesto of the romantic movement in English literature.

Coleridge's main contribution to the volume was the haunting, dreamlike ballad “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” This long poem, as well as “Kubla Khan” and “Christabel,” written during the same period, are Coleridge's best-known works. All three make use of exotic images and supernatural themes. “Dejection: An Ode,” published in 1802, was the last of Coleridge's great poems. It shows the influence of (or affinity to) some poetic ideas of Wordsworth, notably the meditation upon self, nature, and the relationships among emotion, sense experience, and understanding. His Confessions of an Enquiring Spirit (ed. by his nephew H. N. Coleridge) was published posthumously in 1840.

Later Life

Assessment

Coleridge worked for many years on his Biographia Literaria (1817), containing accounts of his literary life and critical essays on philosophical and literary subjects. It presents Coleridge's theories of the creative imagination, but its debt to other writers, notably the German idealist philosophers, is often so heavy that the line between legitimate borrowing and plagiarism becomes blurred. This borrowing tendency, evident also in some of his poetry, together with Coleridge's notorious inability to finish projects—and his proposal of impractical ones—made him a problematic figure.

Coleridge's lifelong friend Charles Lamb called him a “damaged archangel.” Indeed, 20th-century editorial scholarship has unearthed additional evidence of plagiarism; thus, Coleridge is still a controversial figure. However, the originality and beauty of his best poetry and his enormous influence on the intellectual and aesthetic life of his time is unquestioned. He was reputedly a brilliant conversationalist, and his lectures on Shakespeare remain among the most important statements in literary criticism.

Bibliography

See his collected letters, ed. by E. L. Griggs (6 vol., 1956–71); Notebooks: 1794–1808, ed. by K. Coburn (4 vol., 1957–61); collected works, ed. by K. Coburn (5 vol., 1969–72); biographies by E. K. Chambers (1938), L. Hanson (1938, repr. 1962), W. J. Bate (1968), and R. Holmes (2 vol., 1989, 1999); studies by J. D. Campbell (1894), C. Woodring (1961), M. Suther (1965), and N. Fruman (1972); J. L. Lowes, The Road to Xanadu (rev. ed. 1964); R. L. Brett, ed., Coleridge (1973); A. Sisman, The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge (2007).

Sara Coleridge

Bibliography

See her Memoir and Letters (1873, repr. 1974); biography by E. L. Griggs (1941, repr. 1973).

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772–1834)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, a romantic poet and the first to introduce the vampire theme to British poetry, was born in Ottery St. Mary, the son of a minister in the Church of England. His father died when Coleridge was nine, and he was sent to Christ’s Hospital, London, as a charity pupil. In 1790 he entered Jesus College, Cambridge. He left college briefly in 1793, but returned the following year. There he met fellow poet Robert Southey, who would become his lifelong friend. Through Southey he met Sara Fricker, his future wife, and got his first contract to prepare a book of poetry.

In 1797 Coleridge met William Wordsworth, who was credited with bringing Coleridge’s poetic genius to the public’s attention. The initial result of this friendship was “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” published in the celebrated Lyrical Ballads, which Wordsworth put together. Coleridge wrote almost all of his famous poems during the next five years of his close association with Wordsworth.

Among the poems Coleridge worked on during this creative period was “Christabel.” Though never mentioning vampires directly, it is now generally conceded that vampirism was the intended theme of “Christabel,” the substantive case having been made by Arthur H. Nethercot in the 1930s. Nethercot argued that the essential vampiric nature of the Lady Geraldine, who was “rescued” after being left in the woods by her kidnappers, was demonstrated by examining her characteristics. First, throughout the poem, Christabel was portrayed as a potential victim who needed to be shielded from the forces of evil. Geraldine, however, was pictured as a richly clad woman first seen bathing in the moonlight (the element that revived vampires in nineteenth-century vampire tales). Second, as Geraldine approached the door of the castle of Christabel’s father, she fainted. After Christabel assisted her across the threshold, she quickly revived. Vampires had to be formally invited into a home the first time they entered. Third, Geraldine then walked by the dog, who let out an uncharacteristically angry moan. It was commonly believed that vampires had negative effects upon animals. Coleridge dwelt upon the evening encounter of the two women. Christabel showed Geraldine to a place of rest. She opened a bottle of wine, which they shared. At Geraldine’s suggestion, Christabel undressed, after which Geraldine partially disrobed, revealing her breast and half her side. What did Christabel see? In lines later deleted from the published version, Coleridge noted that Geraldine’s appearance was “lean and old and foul of hue.” Christabel entered a trance-like state:

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs; Ah! what a stricken look was hers! Deep from within she seems half-way To lift some weight with sick assay, And eyes the maid and seeks delay; Then suddenly, as one defied, Collects herself in scorn and pride, And lay down at the Maiden’s side!

In a scene with obvious lesbian overtones, the two women lay together for an hour and again the animals were affected:

O Geraldine! one hour was thine Thou’st had thy will! By tairn and rill,

The night-birds all that hour were still. But now they are jubilant anew,

From cliff and tower, tu-whoo! tu-whoo!

The next morning, Geraldine awoke refreshed and her lean, old, and foul body was rejuvenated, “That (so it seemed) her girded vests/Grew tight beneath her heaving breasts.” Christabel, on the other hand, awoke with a sense of guilt and immediately went to prayer. She then led Geraldine to the audience with her father, the lord of the castle. Geraldine immediately attached herself to Lord Leoline while Christabel had a momentary flashback of Geraldine’s body when she first disrobed. She attempted to have her father send Geraldine away, but he was already enraptured, and in the end turned from his daughter and departed with Geraldine at his side.

“Christabel” was composed in two parts, the first being written and published in 1798. A second part was finished around 1800. “Christabel” thus preceded Southey’s “Thalaba,” the first English-language poem to actually mention the vampire in its text. Also, the imagery of “Christabel” is an obvious and important source of Sheridan Le Fanu‘s story “Carmilla.” After 1802, Coleridge wrote little and drew his income primarily from lecturing and writing critical articles. Most of his life he was addicted to drugs, having been hooked on opium in an attempt to deal with chronic pain and later consuming vast quantities of laudanum. He received some recognition of his literary work in 1824 when he was named a “Royal Associate” of the Royal Society of Literature. He died on July 25, 1834, at the age of 61.

Sources:

Collectibles, Paraphernalia, and Souvenirs see: Paraphernalia, Vampire

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor