Coleridge’s
Biographia Literaria
The Author & The Age
Coleridge is considered one of the most
significant poets and critics in the English language. He is best known for
three poems, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla Khan,” and “Christabel”
as well as one volume of criticism, Biographia Literaria; or, Biographical
Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions. While “The Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla
Khan,” and “Christabel” were poorly received during Coleridge’s lifetime, they
are now praised as classic examples of imaginative poetry, illuminated by
Coleridge’s poetic theories, of which he said in the Biographia Literaria, “My
endeavors should be directed to persons and characters spiritual and supernatural,
or at least romantic.”
Coleridge
was born in Devon in 1772. At the age of ten he was sent to Christ’s Hospital,
a boarding school in London where he was befriended by fellow student Charles Lamb.
Later, he was awarded a scholarship to Jesus College, Cambridge University,
showing promise as a gifted writer and brilliant conversationalist. In 1794,
before completing his degree, Coleridge went on a walking tour to Oxford where
he met poet Robert Southey and was inspired by the initial events of the French
Revolution. In 1796 he met the poet William Wordsworth, with whom he had
corresponded casually for several years. Their rapport was instantaneous, and the
next year Coleridge moved to Nether Stowey in the Lake District, the site of
their literary collaboration. Following the publication of Lyrical Ballads,
with a few Other Poems, completed with Wordsworth, Coleridge traveled to
Germany where he developed an interest in the German philosophers Immanuel
Kant, Friedrich von Schelling, and brothers Friedrich and August Wilhelm von
Schlegel; he later introduced German aesthetic theories in England through his
critical writing. He was addicted to opium and alcohol. Coleridge also gave a series
of lectures on poetry and Shakespeare, which are now considered the basis of
his reputation as a critic. In the last years of his life Coleridge wrote the
Biographia Literaria, his greatest critical writing. Coleridge died in 1834 of
complications stemming from his dependence on opium.
About
the Age
Many
scholars say that the Romantic period began with the publication of “Lyrical Ballads”
by William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge in 1798. The volume contained some of
the best-known works from these two poets including Coleridge’s “The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner” and Wordsworth’s “Lines Written a Few Miles from Tintern
Abbey.” Other Literary scholars place the start for the Romantic period much
earlier (around 1785), since Robert Burns’ Poems (1786), William Blake’s “Songs
of Innocence” (1789), Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of
Women,” and other works which already demonstrate that a change has taken place
— in political thought and literary expression.
Other
“first generation” Romantic writers include: Charles Lamb, Jane Austen, and Sir
Walter Scott. There was a “second generation” of Romantics (made up of poets
Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and John Keats) who died young and were outlived by
the first generation of Romantics. Mary Shelley, famous for “Frankenstein”
(1818) — was also a member of this “second generation” of Romantics. The
Romantic period ended with the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1837, as it was
the beginning of the Victorian Period. The Romantic writers, were influenced by
the Industrial Revolution and the French Revolution. William Hazlitt, who
published a book called “The Spirit of the Age,” says that the Wordsworth
school of poetry “had its origin in the French Revolution... It was a time of
promise, a renewal of the world — and of letters.” Instead of embracing
politics as writers of some other eras might have, the Romantics turned to
Nature for self-fulfillment. They were turning away from the values and ideas
of the previous era, embracing new ways of expressing their imagination and
feelings. Instead of a concentration on “head,” the intellectual focus of
reason, they preferred to rely on the individual freedom. Instead of striving
for perfection, the Romantics preferred “the glory of the imperfect.”
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