Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834)

• English lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher, whose Lyrical

Ballads, written with Wordsworth, started the English
Romantic movement.
• Although Coleridge's poetic achievement was small in
quantity, his metaphysical anxiety, anticipating modern
existentialism, has gained him reputation as an authentic
visionary.
• In Cambridge Coleridge met the radical, future poet laureate
Robert Southey (1774-1843) in 1794. Coleridge moved with
him to Bristol to establish a community, but the plan failed.
• In 1795 he married the sister of Southey's fiancée Sara
Fricker, whom he did not really love.
 Coleridge and Wordsworth
• Coleridge's collection Poems On Various Subjects was
published in 1796, and in 1797 appeared Poems. In the
same year he began the publication of a short-lived liberal
political periodical The Watchman.
• He started a close friendship with Dorothy and William
Wordsworth, one of the most fruitful creative relationships in
English literature.
• From it resulted Lyrical Ballads, which opened with
Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and ended with
Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey.'
• These poems set a new style by using everyday language
and fresh ways of looking at nature.
 Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• This 625-line ballad is among his essential works. It tells of
a sailor who kills an albatross and for that crime against
nature endures terrible punishments.

• The ship upon which the Mariner serves is trapped in a

frozen sea. An albatross comes to the aid of the ship, it
saves everyone, and stays with the ship until the Mariner
shoots it with his crossbow.
 Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• The motiveless malignity leads to punishment:
• And now there came both mist and show,
• And it grew wondrous cold;
• And ice, mast high, came floating by,
• As green as emerald.
• After a ghost ship passes the crew begin to die but the
mariner is eventually rescued. He knows his penance
will continue and he is only a machine for dictating
always the one story.
 Coleridge and Kant
• Disenchanted with the political developments in France, he
visited Germany in 1798-99 with the Wordsworths, and
became interested in the works of Immanuel Kant. He studied
philosophy at Göttingen University and mastered German.
• In 1799 Coleridge fell in love with Sara Hutchinson, the sister
of Wordsworth's future wife, to whom he devoted his work
Dejection: An Ode (1802). During these years Coleridge also
began to compile his Notebooks, daily meditations of his life.
• Suffering from neuralgic and rheumatic pains, Coleridge had
became addicted to opium, freely prescribed by physicians. In
1804 he sailed to Malta in search of better health. He worked
two years as secretary to the governor of Malta, and later
traveled through Sicily and Italy, returning then to England.
 Kubla Khan
Or, a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment.
• From 1808 to 1818 he he gave several lectures, chiefly in
London, and was considered the greatest of Shakespearean
critics.
• “Kubla Khan” was inspired by a dream. In the summer of
1797 the author had retired to a lonely farm-house between
Porlock and Linton.
• He had taken anodyne and after three hours sleep he woke
up with a clear image of the poem. Disturbed by a visitor, he
lost the vision, with the exception of some eight or ten
scattered lines and images.
• Modern scholarship is skeptical of this story, but it reflects
Coleridge's problems to manage practical life and finish his
ideas.
 Coleridge's note
• The Author continued for about three hours in a
profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during
which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he
could not have composed less than from two to three
hundred lines;
• if that indeed can be called composition in which all the
images rose up before him as things, with a parallel
production of the correspondent expressions, without
any sensation or consciousness of effort.
• On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct
recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and
paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that
are here preserved.
• At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a
person on business from Porlock, and detained by him
above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to
his no small surprise and mortification, that though he
still retained some vague and dim recollection of the
general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of
some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the
rest had passed away like the images on the surface of
a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas!
without the after restoration of the latter!
 Kubla Khan
• Kublai Khan (1215-1294) was the fifth of the Mongol
great khans and the founder of the Yüan Dynasty in
China (1279-1368).
• He is best known in the West as the Cublai Kaan of
Marco Polo.
• Kublai founded what was intended to be his
brother's new capital but became in effect his own
summer residence, the town of Kaiping. It later was
named Shang-tu or 'Upper Capital' and was
immortalised as the Xanadu of Coleridge's poem.
 The Form of “Kubla Khan”
• The chant-like, musical incantations of "Kubla Khan" result
from Coleridge's masterful use of iambic tetrameter and
alternating rhyme schemes.
• The first stanza is written in tetrameter with a rhyme
scheme of ABAABCCDEDE, alternating between staggered
rhymes and couplets.
• The second stanza expands into tetrameter and follows
roughly the same rhyming pattern, also expanded--
ABAABCCDDFFGGHIIHJJ.
• The third stanza tightens into tetrameter and rhymes
ABABCC.
• The fourth stanza continues the tetrameter of the third and
rhymes ABCCBDEDEFGFFFGHHG.
 an introduction - the ruler,
Stanza 1 the place, the decree

• In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree : Alpheus = the classical
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran underground river
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
The Latin origin of the word sacred
has 2 meanings: sacer = 'holy' or
caverns (caves etc.) of measureless,
'connected with a god of the
"superhuman" dimensions, i.e. of
underworld';
The river„s final destination the surroundings of the
is a place
expanses which man (human skill or
of extreme darknessriver
and perhaps
indefinitesuit the second
the powers of the human mind) is not
meaning
depth (down to a sunless sea).best: at least a considerable
able to "fathom" both in a literal and
stretch of the river runs underground.
figurative sense. [Link]
 fulfilment of the decree
Stanza 1 (conti.)
• So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
Amidst [ancient] hills, shelter A is offered
vivid picture by
of ancient
the forests is
landscape
Natural
which conditions
encompass sunny andspots,
the results
i.e. of artificial
clearings shaping
lighted and seem
to connect given here: twice five miles of ground
warmed by the to
sunan(appeal
ideal kindto of environment:
visual
areforreserved and tactile
for of
fertile ground
perception)
thevarious
"project". Thee.g.
provides an ideal
which can serve as spaces basis cultivation
for issport, play(surrounded,
etc. A spectrumkinds, of
of a can
park-like area
area: herewithwere girdled
gardens confined)
bright blossomed
with sinuous
colours be associated by wallsthe words
and [Link],
rills; the appeal to the eye is matched
(various colours; eternal spring?), sunny and by fragrancy
greenery
dispersed
(implicitly by many
in contrast an incense-bearing
to the darker green of the [Link]
• In "Kubla Khan," Samuel Taylor Coleridge employs a
superficially loose and disjointed construction which is
actually carefully designed to trigger associations of
imagery that produce mental echoes of juxtaposed
impressions.

• The lack of a consistent rhyme scheme, the uneven division

of stanzas, and the use of iambic meter with a varying
number of feet all contribute to a sense of disorientation,
which in turn facilitates the process of mental echoing. The
most important element of this effect, however, are the
images themselves:
 Stanza 2
The sacred river throws itself up violently (flung
up) amidst these dancing rocks. Its eruption
takes place at once, i.e. either simultaneously,
or suddenly; the 1st meaning would rather
suggest that Alph is identical with the fountain,
assuming a new form and quality, and is
continuing to erupt; the 2nd meaning would
imply that this eruption is additional to that of
the fountain, and that Alph does not begin to
mingle with it until this point (cf. back- ground).
• And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
 Running in bends, changing its direction
as if moving through a labyrinth.
• Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !
Amid this tumult, Kubla perceives Ancestral voices, i.e.
the voices of (wise) forefathers, or those of religious
prophets etc. They come from far (figurative meaning:
Stanza
from heaven2etc.), announcing the event of war, which
implies the destruction of the pleasure-dome etc. and loss
(conti.)
of human life.
Repeating the contrasting images of the sunny pleasure-dome
Stanza 3
(connotations: warmth, brightness etc.) and the caves of ice (=
caverns, s.a.; connotations: cold, darkness etc.) the speaker
• The
gives shadow ofofthe
his evaluation the dome of pleasure
phenomenon depicted in the
preceding lines;
Floated he terms
midway onitthe
as awaves
miracle,
; i.e. an unexpected
eventWhere
of a super-
wasnatural
heard kind, and, at the
the mingled same time, as based
measure
uponFrom
a verythe
peculiar kind and
fountain of design or plan (of rare device).
the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
 Stanza 4
• It is thought that the final stanza of the poem, thematizing the
idea of the lost vision through the figure of the "damsel with a
dulcimer" and the milk of Paradise, was written post-
interruption.
• The mysterious person from Porlock is one of the most
notorious and enigmatic figures in Coleridge's biography; no
one knows who he was or why he disturbed the poet or what
he wanted or, indeed, whether any of Coleridge's story is
actually true.
• But the person from Porlock has become a metaphor for the
malicious interruptions the world throws in the way of
inspiration and genius, and "Kubla Khan," strange and
ambiguous as it is, has become what is perhaps the definitive
statement on the obstruction and thwarting of the visionary
genius.
 Deeply impressed, the
Stanza 4 speaker voices a complex
wish, the first part of which
explicitly refers to the vision
• A damsel with a dulcimer
itself which he would like to
In a vision once I saw :
reproduce and re-experience
It was an Abyssinian maid,
in his mind.
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could
The I revive
speaker withina me
recalls vision, i.e. a beautiful sight and/or a
Her symphony
dreamlike and song,
experience, which, however, is not restricted to
To such
visual a deep delight
impressions: 'twouldorwin
a damsel, me,from Abyssinia (location
maid,
ofThat with music
"Eden"), loud
sings of and Abora
Mount long, (high place, mountain of the
I would
Gods build
etc.; that Amara",
"Mount dome in the
air, place where "Abassin", i.e.
That sunnyprinces
Abyssinian dome !werethosereared).
caves ofSheiceaccompanies
! herself on
a dulcimer.
 Stanza 4

• And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
 Bitter Life
• In 1810 Coleridge's friendship with Wordsworth came to
crisis, and the two poets never fully returned to the
relationship they had earlier.
• During the following years Coleridge lived in London, on the
verge of suicide. After a physical and spiritual crisis at
Greyhound Inn, Bath, he submitted himself to a series of
medical régimes to free himself from opium.
• He found a permanent harbor in Highgate in the household
of Dr. James Gillman, and enjoyed almost legendary
reputation among the younger Romantics. During this time
he rarely left the house.
 The End of his Life

• In 1816 the unfinished poems “Christabel” and “Kubla Khan”

were published, and next year appeared Sibylline Leaves.
• After 1817 Coleridge devoted himself to theological and
politico-sociological works - his final position was that of a
Romantic conservative and Christian radical.
• He also contributed to several magazines, among them
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
• Coleridge was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature in 1824.
• He died in Highgate, near Londonon July 25, 1834.
 Wordsworth & Coleridge
• Wordsworth is clearly more entitled than Coleridge to be
considered the leader in creating and also in expounding a
new kind of poetry.
• Until Coleridge met Wordsworth, which was probably in
1795, he wrote in the manner which had been fashionable
since the death of Milton, employing without hesitation all
those poetic licenses which constituted what he later
termed `Gaudyverse,' in contempt.
• If one reads Coleridge's early poems in chronological order,
one will perceive that Gaudyverse persists till about the
middle of 1795, and then quickly yields to the natural style
which Wordsworth was practicing.
 Coleridge‟s Conversation Poems
• Coleridge's shorter, meditative "conversation poems," proved
to be the most influential of his work.
• Conversation poems are poems in which the speaker
addresses his lines to a listener within the poem, generally a
listener who has little voice of his own.
• These include both quiet poems like This Lime-Tree Bower
My Prison and Frost at Midnight and also strongly emotional
poems like Dejection and The Pains of Sleep.
• Wordsworth immediately adopted the model of these poems,
and used it to compose several of his major poems. Via
Wordsworth, the conversation poem became a standard
vehicle for English poetic expression, and perhaps the most
common approach among modern poets.