SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Why Coleridge? 


Yes, my friends.


People often ask me why I am called COLERIDGE...  Well... Why are YOU called Jordi or Scarlet?  Is it because of your grandfather or your grandmother?


Because your mum liked this name?


Because of the Saint who killed the Dragon or a famous actress?   WHO KNOWS?


I know why I am called Coleridge...  My mum, my dear dear mum LOVED Samuel Taylor Coleridge!


Uuups! I beg your pardon? You do not know him? SHAME ON YOU!!!! This is Samuel Taylor Coleridge!

Coleridge, the famous POET!

A handsome man, wasn't he? 

Coleridge was born in Ottery St Mary, in England, on 21 October 1772. He was the youngest son of a vicar. After his father's death, he went to Christ's Hospital School in London, where he already wrote poetry.

Later, he studied at Jesus College, Cambridge.

Coleridge was a strange man :

1-He never received a degree from Cambridge. In December 1793, he left the College and enlisted in the Royal Dragoons using the false name "Silas Tomkyn Comberbache". 

We do not know why. Either he was in debt or the girl he loved, Mary Evans, had rejected him.

His brothers arranged for him to be discharged from the Dragoons (for insanity!) and he was readmitted to Jesus College but he never got his degree...

2-At the University, he was interested in some philosophical ideas and met a friend, Robert Southey. Together, they wanted to create a utopian commune-like Society, but it did not work.

3-The two friends married two sisters, but Coleridge did not really love his wife and finally separated . Much later, he married again, but separated again!

4-Coleridge tried to publish a literary paper twice : in 1796 and in 1809, but both papers failed...

5-Coleridge was also a drug-addict! He took a medicine called laudanum which actually contains opium! He wrote many of his poems completely "high"... His addiction gave him many problems : he lost his wife, his friends and finally, his health...

Where Coleridge was really GREAT was writing poetry : he wrote some of the best English work of poetry that we have today :

The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

Christabel

Kubla Khan

The Conversation Poems

Hey! I have got here some pictures from my personal library. Could you tell me what they are?

Well? Do you have any idea? What about this one?

I really think THIS one is easy.... By the way, do you know WHO KUBLA KHAN was? Mmmm....I do NOT want to hear your answer...

Let us say good bye to our dear Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his bad habits with a last picture... I personally think I am much more handsome than he was but, of course, we are rather... different, incomparable... aren't we?

Mmmm, my dear mum...