The Hard Life of Samuel Coleridge

858 Words2 Pages

The Hard Life of Samuel Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21, 1772 in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire. He was the youngest of ten children and was often teased and bullied by the others. When he was 7 years old, Coleridge ran away from home. He was found unharmed the next morning. This event has recurred, in a literary sense, in a large portion of his writings. Many of his poems, sketches, and notebooks contained pictures and descriptions of his night spent outdoors. Although it was evident that Coleridge was a prodigy, he did not do well at a young age because he lost himself in women, drugs, and alcohol. He turned to the army, but this too fell through for him because his family was furious and his brother had him released for reasons of insanity. He immediately brought him back to Cambridge. It was here that he met William Wordsworth (Ashton 29).

In 1797, Coleridge published "Poems" which was well liked. This excited him because he thought that this would begin his road to success. One year later, Wordsworth and Coleridge had their famous "Lyrical Ballads" published. Coleridge's "The Ancient Mariner," opens the book. Many people believe that the work the two men did together greatly contributed to the creation of the Romantic Period. It was chosen to open the book because of its powerful descriptions about remorse. This, combined with the element of psychological obsession, may have had a lot to do with his younger years. In several ways, Coleridge's life experiences seem to have a lot to do with his poem, "Frost at Midnight."

However brilliant, Coleridge was not necessarily a happy man. In 1802 he wrote to Southey: "All my poetic genius is gone, and I have been fool enough to suffer deeply in my my mind, regretting the loss, which I attribute to my long and exceedingly severe metaphysical investigations, and these partly to ill-health, and partly to private afflictions..." (Watson 3). He, like many, was going through a tough period in his life. His poem, "Frost at Midnight," is an excellent example of his attempts to find hope in his life. He wrote this poem for his son, Hartley.

Show More
Related

  • Are elite AFL player over-paid?

    1040 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...as if a newspaper employee of a Gardner had done those things he would be allowed straight back into his job, where Cousins was suspended for two years. Take Nathan Lovett-Murray for on the other hand, on August the third this year his house was raided and one single ecstasy tablet was found. He is a highly respected member of the club and the community, especially amongst the indigenous contingent, where he has held seminars for them and has also started and urban hip hop record label to help some indigenous kids record their music as some cannot afford a proper studio and producer. With this silly little act, even if they were not his, it still had an affect on his career.

    Read More

  • Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

    1144 Words  | 3 Pages

    Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), son of a physician to the Macedonian ruler, was a Greek philosopher who studied virtually everything from logic to the sciences to ethics. He spent two decades under Plato’s tutelage in the Academy in Athens, then tutored abroad for twelve years, during which he taught Alexander the Great. He settled down afterwards in Athens and established his own school, the Lyceum. He stayed there until the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. caused an increase of anti-Macedonian sentiment, at which point he left the city and died shortly afterwards due to natural causes. Considered one of the most significant and influential figures of Western philosophy, he produced many written pieces, though most have not survived to this day. Many of those that have, however, are still being studied worldwide.

    Read More

  • The No Child Left Behind Act: Impact on the Assessment of Special Education Students

    3347 Words  | 7 Pages

    While this report card focuses on how the NCLB act affects all subgroups in education, it is important to look at one group in particular; the special education students. President Bush?s NCLB act is forcing special education students to perform on statewide assessments that are above their intelligence level and are often requiring them to pass the assessments in order to receive a high school diploma. This often causes teachers, such as Lindley Corcoran, a special education teacher at Sheppard Pratt private school for students with severe disabilities, to teach to the test rather than teach practical functional skills which she believes will be ...

    Read More

  • Professional Athletes Get Overpaid

    526 Words  | 2 Pages

    Do athletes get overpaid? Is it fair that the average NFL player gets paid 1.9 million dollars a year while the average heart surgeon gets paid 533 thousand dollars annually? I think that professional athletes don’t get paid too much. There are multiple reasons that proves that their pay is not excessive. Their careers are short, they risk their body for our entertainment, and they motivate children.

    Read More

  • Wordsworth's Emotions In The Raven By Edgar Allan Poe

    497 Words  | 1 Pages

    Furthermore, Wordsworth’s assertion of feelings as the effects of an action or a situation, which means that actions should influence the emotions of the character and not the other way around, is dissimilar to The Raven’s character’s feeling of desperation in which he succumbed to his distress. However, the lesson derived from the bizarre workings of the human mind in preferring more devotion to the pain for the sake of “preserving the memory,” as “The Raven” illustrates, exposes to us how a particular person behaves towards grief. The statement thus proves in relation to Coleridge’s statement of the readers’ elicitation of the poem is more significant than the poem itself (in reference to his emphasis on the importance of the “Return”). Another variation between Wordsworth and Coleridge is that the former claims that the writer must bring the language near to the language of men, whilst the latter believes that the language of poetry should beautiful and elevated. “The Raven” in this case

    Read More

  • Athletes Overpaid Analysis

    157 Words  | 1 Pages

    Ms. Jennifer Fontaine does not support the idea that athletes are overpaid. Ms. Fontaine suggests that athletes who are superior in their skills and talents associated with their respective sport should be duly compensated. Ms. Fontaine also states that the money earned by these athletes is justified because professional athletes work harder than people in almost any other profession. Last, it is her premise that the money earned by these highly talented athletes help to cover the high costs of medical treatment for serious, if not life-long, injuries such as knee, back/spinal, and head injuries.

    Read More

  • Lyrical Ballads Captures The Hour of Feeling

    1197 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lyrical Ballads very much reflects Wordsworth and Coleridge?s feelings on society at the time and to me they seem to be of the same opinions as the general population during that period. The poetry and indeed the Romantic Movement also illustrated the ?hour of feeling? well and therefore I believe that Lyrical Ballads captures the ?hour of feeling? very successfully.

    Read More

  • Classical Philosophers

    1038 Words  | 3 Pages

    Plato was the next great philosopher, chronologically. It should be noted that Plato’s real name was Aristocles, and that Plato was a nickname, roughly translated to mean...

    Read More

  • Are Professional Athletes Overpaid?

    2054 Words  | 5 Pages

    Do you think professional athletes are overpaid? You might think they earn more than what they are worth for playing half a year, but athletes have many things which contribute to their salary. Some of these things include their earnings from endorsements, ticket sales, performance, merchandise, their social contributions, and TV ratings. Although there are many factors that contribute to their salary, professional athletes may be overpaid because as a society, we contribute to their success. So, in the end, part of the athlete’s salary comes from the people who support the sports in the first place. These are just some of the reasons why athletes are paid so much money.

    Read More

  • Elite Athletes are Being Paid too Much

    979 Words  | 2 Pages

    Are elite athletes/sports men or women being paid too much if not how are there high salaries justified, if so, why, and how could there money be put to better use?

    Read More

  • William Wordsworth and the Mortality of the Imagination

    895 Words  | 2 Pages

    Toynton, Evelyn. "A DELICIOUS TORMENT: The friendship of Wordsworth and Coleridge." Harper's. 01 Jun. 2007: 88. eLibrary. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Pains of Sleep

    935 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the beginning of the poem there are religious undertones Coleridge uses words like bended knee and reverential to highlight a religious belief and perhaps a plea to God to cure the “Pains of Sleep” this is interesting as he seems to feel “humbled” by the spirit presence. He mentions being weak but realises he is blest by this power. The religious undertone suggests to me a feeling of utter helplessness.

    Read More

  • The Dark Side of Robert Frost’s Nature

    2355 Words  | 5 Pages

    The vivid imagery, symbolism, metaphors make his poetry elusive, through these elements Frost is able to give nature its dark side. It is these elements that must be analyzed to discover the hidden dark meaning within Roberts Frost’s poems. Lines that seemed simple at first become more complex after the reader analyzes the poem using elements of poetry. For example, in the poem Mending Wall it appears that Robert frost is talking about two man arguing about a wall but at a closer look the reader realizes that the poem is about the things that separate man from man, which can be viewed as destructive. In After Apple Picking, the darkness of nature is present through the man wanting sleep, which is symbolic of death. It might seem that the poem is about apple picking and hard work but it is actually about the nature of death.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud By William Wordsworth

    889 Words  | 2 Pages

    William Wordsworth is a British poet who is associated with the Romantic movement of the early 19th century. Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770, in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England. Wordsworth’s mother died when he was seven years old, and he was an orphan at 13. This experience shapes much of his later work. Despite Wordsworth’s losses, he did well at Hawkshead Grammar School, where he firmly established his love of poetry. After Hawkshead, Wordsworth studied at St. John’s College in Cambridge and before his final semester, he set out on a walking tour of Europe, an experience that influenced both his poetry.

    Read More

  • The Salary of Professional Athletes

    646 Words  | 2 Pages

    For as long as I can remember, I have heard people complaining about how much money professional athletes make. They say that these athletes don't deserve to make that much money for simply playing a game. People even get angry when they hear how much professional athletes are making in new contracts.The athletes are not being paid public money. An athlete's entire career could end in a split second. Some people believe that athletes are overpaid because they are just playing a game, however the truth is professional athletes are not overpaid.

    Read More

More about The Hard Life of Samuel Coleridge

Open Document