Samuel Taylor Coleridge Background

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1772-1834

Background

Samuel Coleridge was born in 1772 in a small town located in southwest England. He was sent to London at the age of nine when his father passed away. He attended Christ's Hospital school as a charity student. He enrolled in Jesus College, Cambridge University in 1791. He enlisted in the Fifteenth Light Dragoons two years later. He was drove to do this because he was in so much debt. He enlisted under an alias, calling himself Silas Tomkyn Comberbache. Luckily, his family rescued him from this. They returned him to the university. However, in 1794 he left the university without completing his degree.

Coleridge went on a walking tour in June 1794. While on this tour he met the poet Robert Southey. The two decided to come up with a plan to have a society ruled by equals. They called this pantisocracy. Part of their plan included Coleridge marrying Southey's fiance's sister, Sarah Fricker. The plan they came up with never worked, but Coleridge still married Sarah in 1795.

Coleridge's first poetry appeared in late 1794. His first poetry was sonnets addressed to men like William Godwin and Joseph Priestley who were contemporary political radicals. In 1795, while working as a journalist and lecturing on politics, history, and religion, Coleridge met William Wordsworth. They were considered to be good friends. Coleridge left his wife and two kids in 1798 when he left with Wordsworth to go to Germany. Coleridge's life began to take a turn. He was not in love with his wife. He fell in love with Mary Wordsworth sister, Sarah Hutchinson. He became addicted to laudanum (opium dissolved in alcohol). He left his family behind again for two years when he travelled to the Mediterranean. He came back and lived with Wordsworth for a couple of months still an addict and the relationship suffered. The two went their separate ways and were no longer friends. Surprisingly, Coleridge was still productive after this. He wrote and published The Friend in 1809 and 1810. It was a twenty-eight issue periodical. In 1816 to his death, he lived with a doctor, Dr. James Gillman, who helped keep his drug problem under control. He died in 1834