Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as for his major prose work Biographia Literaria. His critical work, especially on Shakespeare, was highly influential, and he helped introduce German idealist philosophy to English-speaking culture. He coined many familiar words and phrases, including the celebrated suspension of disbelief. He was a major influence, via Emerson, on American transcendentalism.
Throughout his adult life, Coleridge suffered from crippling bouts of anxiety and depression; it has been speculated by some that he suffered from bipolar disorder, a condition as yet unidentified during his lifetime. Coleridge suffered from poor health that may have stemmed from a bout of rheumatic fever and other childhood illnesses. He was treated for these concerns with laudanum, which fostered a lifelong opium addiction.
Read more about Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Early Life, Poetry
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“O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“The definition of good prose is proper words in their proper places; of good verse, the most proper words in their proper places. The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Life went a-maying
With Nature, Hope, and Poesy,
When I was young!”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“He had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he; he stood head and shoulders above everyone else.”
—Bible: Hebrew, 1 Samuel 9:2.
“Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem’d he.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)