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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“How inimitably graceful children are in general before they learn to dance!”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Exclusively of the abstract sciences, the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms: and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20 players, and Tennessee Williams has about 5, and Samuel Beckett one—and maybe a clone of that one. I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“The Knight’s bones are dust,
And his good sword rust:—
His soul is with the saints, I trust.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)