A Critical Analysis Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Genius That Failed?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge has been referred to as “The Genius that Failed” (Poetry Foundation 1). Coleridge was raised in a post revolutionary time period in England, after the American and French Revolutions, known as the Romantic Age of Poetry. He is one of six commonly known poets largely responsible for the Romantic Movement that focused on choosing the rural life over living in the city and used nature as a bridge between man and God. Coleridge also played an instrumental part in the conversational poetry of his friend William Wordsworth and was known as a great philosopher and literary critic. The genius of Samuel Coleridge was plagued by severe depression, opium dependency, and the abandonment of poetry at the

Coleridge attended Jesus College in Cambridge where he excelled in literature and foreign language. He later dropped out, possibly due to financial problems, and joined the Royal Dragoons, a British Army regiment, where he was shortly released after his brothers pleaded with the military to discharge him due to “Insanity” (Poetry Foundation 1). His enlisting with the post-American Revolution Army was seen as an uncharacteristic choice due to Coleridge’s liberal views towards freedom and anti-establishmentarianism. These same views were held by college friend, Robert Southey, who schemed with Coleridge to create a utopian communal society in Pennsylvania. This idea was shortly abandoned, but not before Coleridge and Southey followed one of the first rules of their utopia and found wives. Coleridge married Sarah Fricker in 1794 and led an unhappy marriage that would later play onto his depression, opium abuse, and poor relationships with his

The Norton Anthology of Poetry. Shorter 5th Edition ed. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005. 1307. Print.

"Samuel Taylor Coleridge." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2014.