Point out the most important events in Coleridge's life
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Devonshire and educated at Christ's Hospital, London, and then at Jesus College, Cambridge, which he left without obtaining his degree. In 1794 he met Southey and they thought of establishing an idela, comunist society on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, but this idea was soon given up. In 1795 Coleridge married Sarah Fricker, whose sister Edith shortly afterwards married Southey. In 1798 Coleridge and Wordsworth, who had met three years before, published together the Lirycal Ballads and then the two poets, together with Wordsworth's sister Dorothy, went on a trip to Germany. On their return home, Coleridge suffered from ill-health and depression and, in order to escape preoccupations, he started takeng opium. This was to become a fatal habit which affected hes whole life, bringing about domestic discord, ruining his health and, to some extent, his literary career.
In 1804 he wnt to Malta as secretary to the Governor and then visisted Sicily, Naples and Rome. When he returned to England in 1806, he lived for a time with the Wordsworth at Grasmere and in the house of other friends. In 1816 he took up residence with Dr Gillan at Highgate, London, and there he remained umtil his death.
Coleridge wrote borh poetry and prose. Say what are his most important poem and give a concise comment of them.
Unlike Wordsworth, whose best-known poems dealt with simple life, Nature and the feelings that Nature can arouse in man, Coleridge turned to the past and choose mistery and the supernatural themes of hes best poetical compositions.
Coleridge's greatest romantic poems are three, a trilogy rich in magical force : the Rime of the ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan and Christabel.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a long poem in seven parts, which appeared in the Lyrical Ballads in 1798. It is written in the form and style of the old ballads and tells the story of an ancient Mariner, the narrator himsel, who during a voyage, kills an albatross( a bird of good omen ) and as result, brings down a curse on himself and his companions.
The ship is becalmed and all the sailors die, one by one, of thirst under the balzing sun. only the old sailor survives, but he recondemned to wander from place to place and tell his frightening story in explanation of his sin. The poem is super in its desciptions of the adventurous voyage and in its realistic detail which, combined with its supernatural and fantastic elements, make the story fascinating. The poem's main themes are those of solitude and love in its widest sense.
Kubla Kan is an unfinished poem that the poet composed after a dream which he had had while under the influence of opium. The poem is full of verbal magic and lovely descriptions coming out from the unconscious mind of the poet who, while totally involved in writing it, was interrupted by a caller, after which he was unable to recapture the wonderful pictorial qualities of the opening lines which are unique in their mystical, dreamy and supernatural beauty.
Christabel completes the trilogy. It is another fragmentary poem of rare and delicate beauty, pervaded with mystery. It tell a madiaeval story of witchcraft in which the struggle between good and evil is personified in an innocent girl, Christabel, and in a malignant, supernatural creature who works evil under the aspect of the fair Geraldine.
Apart from the three great romantic poems, Coleridge produced other poetical works. Can you name the most interesting and illustrate them briefly ?
Beside the three romantic poems, The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Kan and Christobel Coleridge also wrote several other poems.
Dejectio, Youth and Age, and Work Without Hope reflecti his sens of failure and ineffectiveness, while others, such as The Nightingale and the This Lime tree Bower, my prison are memoriales of friendship written at a time when the poet had a more optimistic attitude towards life.
On of the best Frost at Midnight is about a father's love for his infant child.
The poet's supprot for the Frenc Revolution is shown in the poem The destruction of the Bastille which was written before he left Christ's Hospital. In the Ode on the Departing Year (1796) a poem adressed to Liberty and Revolution, Coleridge closes by prophesying the approaching downfall of England on account of its political sins.
In France : an Ode (1798) and in Fears in Solitude (1798), Coleridge proclaimed an ideal of individual liberty that could only come about if one were obedient to moral law.
Give a general comment on Colkeridge's literary production and point out its importance in English literature
As a poet Coleridge was a master in depicting scenes and imparting musical qualities to his verse. He differes from Wordsworth in this treatment of unusual Romantic themes, in his creation of fantastic, supernatural atmosphere and powerfull, hallucinating reality, On the whole his interest and his feelings. His imaginative power was intense and his sense of the supernatural unrivalled.
His prose works are probably the best example of criticism of the time
