16. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 1772-1834. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, a poet of rich imagination and a prose-writer noted for his profound thought, was born in Devonshire on the 20th of October, 1772. His father was vicar of the parish of Ottery St. Mary. Coleridge was left an orphan at an early age, and his education was conducted at the orphan school of Christ's Hospital, often known as the "Blue-Coat School." Here he met the genial and gentle Charles Lamb, also a Blue-Coat boy, and the foundation of a lifelong friendship between the two was established. From the Blue-Coat School, Coleridge went in 1791 to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he remained two years. By this time he had incurred some debts, amounting to nearly one hundred pounds. This so weighed on his mind that he left college and went to London. Almost starving in London, he enlisted as a soldier in the Fif teenth Light Dragoons under the assumed name of Comberbach, but he never rose above the position of private soldier. His captain, noticing some Latin written by Coleridge near his saddle hanging on the stable-wall, hunted up the soldier's history and inquired into his circumstances. As a result, Coleridge was released early in April, 1794. Soon after this he met Southey in Bris tel, and these two, with four other equally inexperienced enthusiasts, planned a scheme of emigration to some point on the Susquehanna in America, where they designed to found a "Pantisocracy," a state of society in which each was to have his portion of work assigned, the wives to perform the household duties, and all goods and property to be held in common. The leisure-time of the poets was to be devoted to literature, with no one to interfere with their happiness. But, failing to secure the necessary money to carry their plans into execution, the scheme was abandoned. Driven again almost to starvation, Coleridge was compelled to seek employment with a Bristol bookseller, and soon thereafter he married a young lady whose sister became the wife of the poet Southey. After his marriage he went to reside in a cottage at Nether Stowey, near Quantock Hills, and here, during the next three years, he wrote his best poems. Here were produced the Ode to the Departing Year, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the first part of Christabel, which it is said he was induced to publish through the influence of Lord Byron. In 1798, through the kindness of the Wedgewoods of Staffordshire, Coleridge was enabled to take a fourteen. months' trip to Germany to complete his education. On his return, in 1800, he went to Keswick to live with Southey. Here his opinions underwent a change, and from a Unitarian he became a Trinitarian, and from being a republican he became a devoted royalist. It was here also, as the associate of Southey and Wordsworth, that he became known as one of the Lake poets. He, however, left the Lakes and went to live in London, leaving his family to be cared for by Southey. His habits, always more or less desultory and irreg ular, became more so now through the constant use of opium. He was a dreamer, and had been slothful from childhood. He often made efforts at hard literary work, but as often his laziness overcame him and his plans failed. For the last nineteen years of his life he was sheltered by a friendly surgeon, Gilman of Highgate. Coleridge died in July, 1834. In addition to the poems already mentioned, his Genevieve and Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni are the best. Among his prose works the most important are Aids to Reflection, Lectures on Shakespeare, Lay Sermons Table Talk, and Biographia Literaria. CRITICISM. COLERIDGE Was a writer who manifested his literary power in various ways. He was not only a poet, but also a great philosopher and critic. Some of his poetry, it is true, is more or less artificial, but much of it possesses considerable merit. Previous to the time of Carlyle he was the chief English exponent of German thought and philosophy. All his metaphysical writings are colored with the speculative philosophy of Kant and Schelling. Indeed, Professor Ferrier charges him directly with plagiarism from Schelling and others. As has been said, he was a dreamer, and rarely carried his schemes into execution. For years he had planned a series of magnificent essays and grand epics, but he never wrote a line of either. As a conversationalist he had few equals, and near the close of his life he wrote little and talked more, thus exerting an immense influ ence through his wonderful powers of conversation. HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star In his steep course? So long he seems to pause ANALYSIS.-1, 2. morning-star, etc. What figure? On thy bald, awful head, O sovereign Blanc! Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form, II. 5 10 O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer 15 Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,— So sweet we know not we are listening to it,— Thou, the mean while wast blending with my thought, ANALYSIS. 3. O sovereign Blanc! What figure? Grammatical construction of Blanc? 4. Arve and Arveiron. These are two rivers rising at the foot of Mont Blanc. 5. Rave ceaselessly. What figure? Select another figure in the line. 6. Give grammatical construction of from forth. Point out a figure in the line. 7-10. Analyze the sentence. 10. Give the syntax of as. 11, 12. Name the nouns in these lines, and give syntax. 13. Point out the figures. 11 present. Give the grammatical construction. bodily sense. Explain. 15. entranced. Give the grammatical construction. 17. Grammatical construction of sweet and melody? 18. we know not, etc. What kind of element, and what does it modify? What are the modifiers of know? 19. Give the syntax of mean while; also, the modifiers of wast blending. Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy; As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven. III. Awake, my soul! Not only passive praise IV. Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the vale! Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink,- ANALYSIS.-21. Parse enrapt and transfused. 2J. Give the syntax of as and vast. 24. What figure in the line? Dispose of not only. 25, 26. What are the objects of owest? 28. Parse all. 29. sovereign of the vale. What figure? 30 Point out the figure in the line. Dispose of night. 31. Dispose of visited. 32. Explain the figure in this line. 34. Grammatical construction of star? 35. Give the meaning of Co-herald. 36. sank. Should this be "sank" or "sunk"? Name and ex plain the figure in the line. 37. Point out the figure, and name it. 38. Explain the figure. Parse parent. |