My interest in Samuel Taylor Coleridge was first
sparked when I glanced at the first couple lines of his biography that preludes
several pieces of his writing. The biography of Coleridge begins by talking
about the relationship of Coleridge and William Wordsworth. In 1795, the two
men met and immediately saw the talent in the other man’s writing. Coleridge
refers to Wordsworth as “the best poet of the age.” As one can see, Coleridge
had a great amount of respect for Wordsworth and this makes me wonder if the
writers were able to build off of each other’s ideas to form an elite style of
romantic writing in the early 1800’s. I also find it very interesting that some
of Coleridge’s most famous works come after his relationship with Wordsworth
began. In my opinion, Coleridge took a bit of Wordsworth’s genius writing and transformed
it into genius writing of his own. Another intriguing aspect of Coleridge is
that he was educated at Cambridge and was a very accomplished scholar. However,
he did not find the intellectual stimulation that he had hoped for at the
University. With this, he fell into depression and isolation, but this lack of
passion for education at his University may be a key to his romantic expertise.
In his poetry and writing, Coleridge focuses a lot on the beauty of nature and
the joy that comes from nature and isolation. He is able to focus on creation
in his poetry and I will research further into the details of his creative,
romantic writing in the near future.
The Norton Anthology of English
Literature. 8th ed. Eds. Stephen Greenblatt et al. Vol A. New
York , NY
