Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Life :
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the youngest of thirteen children. He was an extra precocious child, who could read at the age of threes, and before he was five, he had read the Bible and the Arabian Nights. From three to six he has attended “dame” school and from six to nine he was attending his father’s school and in that period his father died. At ten he sent to London for school education. At nineteen Coleridge, who had read more books than old professor he entered Cambridge as a charity student. He left the university without taking the degree. After that he has joined Southey and they were working together for the regeneration of the human society. Then he studied in Germany; worked as a private secretary later he went to Rome for study and then he started The Friend a paper devoted to truth and liberty.
In early life he suffered from neuralgia, and to ease the pain began to use opiates, the result was very bad he became a slave to the drug habit; after fifteen years of pain and struggle and despair, he gave up and put himself in the charge of physician and Carlyle who visited him at this time called him “a king of men” he later gave his contribution in Lyrical Ballads in 1798. He died in 1834, and was buried in Highgate Church.
Works of Coleridge :
In the poetry of Coleridge we find note of sympathy, and humanity. He has three divisions of his works, the poetic, the critical and the philosophical. He had a strong influence of Blake’s poetry. Coleridge was very much attracted with the concept of supernatural, he was able to make familiar world unfamiliar, as he himself noted in his “Day Dreams” that,
“My eyes make pictures when they are shut”
It seems very similar to Blake’s songs of innocence, but the difference between both is very important that Blake is only a dreamer while Coleridge is dreamer as well as a profound scholar. Strong suggestions of Blake can be seen such poetries like “A Day Dreamer,” “The Devil’s Thoughts,” “The Suicide’s Argument,” and “The Wanderings of Cain.”
His later poems there is his imagination with thought and study, as it could be noticed in “Kubla Khan,” “Christabel,” and “The Rime of The Ancient Mariner.” Coleridge’s more controversial and unfinished poem id Kubla Khan, the poem has a verbal dream pictures,
The sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea
He was interrupted after fifty-four lines were written, and he never finished the poem. Christabel is also planned as the story of a pure young girl and till the poem ends it has so many elements which convert it from a simple story to a very mysterious and horror supernatural reading. The masterpiece of Coleridge is “The Rime of The Ancient Mariner” he has presented this poem in Lyrical Ballads, he has made the reader aware with the supernatural imagination he has presented totally an imaginative journey which cannot be true and reader also know that but though it seems real, it gives us a sense of reality if we connect the incidence with each other, the poem has a very good meter, rime and melody. Coleridge has a very clear pattern of poetry that he never describes things but makes suggestions, brief suggestions and always right, it supports with the imagination of the reader.
Coleridge has written also a short poems, and there is a wide variety, that are, “Ode to France,” “Youth and Age,” “Dejection,” “Love Poems,” “ fears in Solitude,” “Religious Musings,” “Work Without Hope,” and “Hymn Before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni.” Coleridge also translated a poem from Latin, “The Virgin’s Cradle Hymn” and “Wallenstein” is its best example.
Coleridge’s prose works are also important; the first and remarkable one is BiographiaLiteraria, or Sketches of My Literary Life and Options, his collected Lectures on Shakespeare (1849), and Aids to Reflection (1825) both are very important on the literary point of view. His lectures has been stood for two centuries as the rules of literary criticism of Shakespeare, it could be applied to all the literary works. Coleridge had a belief that only a profound philosopher could be a perfect poet, as he has the philosophic perspective in his poetries. He has introduced the idealistic philosophy of Germany to England. In his works he has presented the view of Religion and aspect of Philosopher. The life of Coleridge was full of struggle though he has lived with his imagination and supernatural realms.
Wordsworth and Coleridge both have given a very important contribution to the literary world. Contemporary literature has also an influence of both. The introduction of nature by Wordsworth and supernatural world by Coleridge is still fresh as blossomed flower.
Presentation on Romantic poets - Click here
Romantic Age: Click here
No comments:
Post a Comment