Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Short Biography

Birth

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Ottery St Mary, Devon, the youngest son of some thirteen children of John Coleridge, a minister.

Education

He attended Dame Key’s Reading School from 1775 (3), and the Henry VIII Free Grammar School, Ottery from 1778 (6). His father, who was headmaster of the school, died in 1781 (9), and Coleridge was then enrolled at Christ’s Hospital, London, where he studied the classic authors and also Milton and Shakespeare under the able guidance of The Rev. James Bowyer. It was towards the end of his schooling here that he was first prescribed laudanum (opium dissolved in alcohol) for his fevers while in the school sanitorium.

College and the army

In 1791 (19) he entered Jesus College, Cambridge on a scholarship, but nevertheless ran up large debts, and in 1793 (21), in financial difficulties, he enlisted in the 15th Light Dragoons as Silus Tomkyn Comberbache, but he proved an incompetent soldier, and his brother quickly got him discharged by reason of insanity. He returned to Cambridge, only to leave again in 1794 (22) without a degree to tour Wales.

Pantisocracy

He had begun planning the establishment of a ‘pantisocracy’, a type of communist Utopia on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennysylvania, with his friend Robert Southey and others, but the project came to nothing.

Marriage

Through Southey, however, he had been introduced to the Fricker family, and he married Sarah Fricker in October 1795 (23). They moved to Cleveden near Bristol, where he produced The Watchman, a political periodical. It ran for ten numbers, appearing every eight days (to avoid tax) between March and May 1796.

First published poetry

He then devoted himself to poetry and the study of ethics, becoming so impressed with Hartley’s Observations on Man that he named his first child after him. In 1796 (24) he published his first volume of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects.

Nether Stowey and William Wordsworth

In December 1796 (24) he moved to Nether Stowey at the suggestion of Tom Poole, a successful businessman and literary enthusiast, and it was from here that he visited the poet William Wordsworth and his sister, Dorothy, at Racedown Lodge. The Wordsworths shortly after moved to Alfoxden House three miles west of Nether Stowey. In November of that year he was engaged by the Morning Post, but later regretted his involvement with journalism as being a waste of his ‘prime and manhood’.

Unitarian sermons and the Wedgewoods

In 1798 (26) he was busy giving Unitarian sermons in Shrewsbury. The receipt of a life annuity of £150 from Tom and Josiah Wedgewood, who had met him whilst visiting Wordsworth at Alfoxden house, gave him a certain amount of financial security for the first time, and he began planning a visit to Germany.

Lyrical Ballads, with a few other Poems

It was during this period that he wrote some of what were to become his most popular works, including the Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan and Frost at Midnight. In September 1798 (26) he published Lyrical Ballads, with a few other Poems anonymously with William Wordsworth, which volume included the first version of the Rime of the Ancyent Marinere and Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey.

Tour of Germany and first involvement with Sara Hutchinson

He toured Germany between October 1798 and July 1799 to study the language and philosophy, staying in Ratzeburg for five months and then in Göttingen. On his return to England, he visited the Wordsworths, who were at the time staying at a farm in Sockburn, Yorkshire, with the Hutchinson family. It was here that he first became involved with Sara Hutchinson, the sister of Wordsworth’s future wife.

He moves to the Lake District, and tours Wales and Scotland

The Wordsworths moved to Dove Cottage, Grasmere, and were followed to the Lake District by Coleridge and his family in July 1800 (28). In 1802 (30) he toured Wales with Tom and Sally Wedgewood, and in 1803 (31) Scotland with the Wordsworths.

Addiction, Malta and Italy

By this time he was ill, and addicted to laudanum, and, in an attempt to regain his health, he sailed for the Mediterranean, becoming undersecretary to the British High Commissioner in Malta. In 1807 (35) he left Malta to tour Italy.

Separation

He was back in Keswick in December 1807 (35), and shortly after arranged a separation from his wife, though he continued to maintain her.

The Friend and problems with Wordsworth

Between 1808 (36) and 1809 (37) he wrote and edited The Friend, a literary, moral and political weekly, with the help of Sara Hutchinson. But his addiction continued, and he was finally rejected by both Sara and the Wordsworths in 1810 (38).

London

The Montagu family helped him to move to London, and he accepted accommodation first with them, and then with the Morgans in Hammersmith. In 1812 (40) his Wedgewood annuity was reduced to £75. He worked as a journalist for The Courier, and gave a series of notable lectures on literary subjects, which were well received. In 1816 (44) he moved in for a month with Dr James Gillman, an apothecary, and stayed for the next eighteen years. He continued to write and lecture on a variety of literary and political subjects, and published the Sibylline Leaves in 1817 (45), which contained some new work. He also had a successful play, Remorse (formerly Osario), staged at Drury Lane, and his table talk was much in demand.

Death

He died in Highgate, London on July 25, 1834 (62), providing his own epitaph:

Beneath this sod

A Poet lies; or that which once was he.

O lift one thought in prayer for S.T.C.

That he, who many a year with toil of breath,

Found Death in Life, may here find Life in Death.