Coleridge And Opium
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772–25 July 1834) was an English poet, critic, and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. He wrote the poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as the prose Biographia Literaria.
Coleridge was widely known to have been a regular user of opium as a relaxant, analgesic, antidepressant, and treatment for numerous health concerns. Kubla Khan was apparently written under the drug's influence, but the degree to which he experimented with the drug as a creative enhancement is not clear. Although Coleridge largely kept his addiction as hidden as possible from those close to him, it became public knowledge with the 1822 publication of Confessions of an English Opium Eater by his close friend Thomas de Quincey. The Confessions painted a rather negative picture of Coleridge and his reputation suffered accordingly.
Read more about Coleridge And Opium: Coleridge and Opium, Coleridge in Highgate, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the words coleridge and/or opium:
“My case is a species of madness, only that it is a derangement of the Volition, & not of the intellectual faculties.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“And I said,
“This holy concern for the truth—
no one worries about it except liars.”
And God was bored.
He turned on his side
like an opium eater
and slept.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)