Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Influence, Friendship, and Creativity

Introduction: Coleridge and the Myth of Solitary Genius

The clichéd image of the Romantic poet is of a solitary tortured genius; it is ironic that the work of the poets collectively regarded as the "Romantic School" is marked by collective and co-operative effort as much as by individual creativity. For none of the great figures of Romantic poetry is this so true as it is for Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The first-rate poetic output of this extraordinary, multi-faceted man lasted only a few years, from approximately 1797 to 1802, and he has even been regarded by some historians and critics as "merely a channel for the work and ideas of others" (Jasper, 8) rather than as a creative figure in his own right. It is as if his own creative character has become lost in the extraordinary wide-ranging and complex interplay of relationships between poets, thinkers, writers, and critics which swirled around him. It is also the case that Coleridge's own self-image was a vulnerable one, and that he depended upon the encouragement of others and was accordingly undermined when criticism or indifference, rather than encouragement, was forthcoming. As one modern critic has commented, "Coleridge's opinion of himself depended excessively on how others viewed him" (Modiano, 33).

In this essay, we will seek to establish a balanced view of Coleridge as a highly creative individual in his own right, and examine the role which others — notably William and Dorothy Wordsworth and Charles Lamb — played in influencing him as poet, thinker, and critic.

The Wordsworth Friendship and Its Creative Impact

In 1791 William Wordsworth published two volumes of verse, Descriptive Sketches and An Evening Walk. These two works acquired a number of admirers for the young poet, among them Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge had been a student at Cambridge from 1791 to 1793, and upon reading Descriptive Sketches had declared that "seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an original poetic genius above the literary horizon more evidently announced" (Coleridge, 1954, I, 56). The two already shared some acquaintances — one of Coleridge's contemporaries at Cambridge was William Wordsworth's brother, Christopher — and they eventually met in the autumn of 1795. Either on this occasion or shortly afterwards, Wordsworth shared his poem "Guilt and Sorrow" with Coleridge, and the latter recorded the effect it had upon him:

the union of deep feeling with profound thought; the fine balance of truth in observing, with the imaginative faculty in modifying the objects observed; and above all the original gift of spreading the tone, the atmosphere, and with it the depth and height of the ideal world around forms, incidents, and situations, of which, for the common view, custom had bedimmed all the lustre, had dried up the sparkle and the dew drops. (Coleridge, 1954, I, 59)

Thus from the beginning Coleridge had been struck by Wordsworth's ability to unify thought and feeling in his poetry and to open the eyes of his readers and listeners to humanity and nature in their commonplace guises, as if seeing them for the first time. At the time of his exposure to Wordsworth's revelation of the nature of the poetic imagination, Coleridge was highly susceptible to such insights. His time at Cambridge had been fraught with the difficulties associated with mounting debts, academic disappointments, and an intoxication with radical politics; he had briefly enlisted in the Dragoons, returned to Cambridge only to leave without taking his degree, become enamoured of the idea of establishing an ideal "pantisocratic" community in America — only to see that idea founder on the rocks of practicality — and become engaged to be married. He had initially been very much under the sway of the poet Robert Southey, but the collapse of the pantisocratic dream and tensions over his marriage had opened a breach between the two. It was at this point that William Wordsworth entered Coleridge's life, filling the gap which Southey had left (Holmes, 1989, 102). It has been said of Wordsworth's role in Coleridge's life that no other figure "engaged his admiration more and none caused him as much anguish and perilous self-doubt" (Modiano, 33).

It was in March 1797 that Wordsworth visited Coleridge at Nether Stowey in Somerset and inaugurated a period of close and productive friendship. During 1797–8 Coleridge, benefiting from his close association with the Wordsworths, experienced a sustained and successful burst of creative energy such as he never knew again. Coleridge was unstable, inventive, and restless; Wordsworth seems to have provided the solidity and stability that Coleridge needed if his insecure muse was to flourish. It was in July 1797 that he wrote "This Lime-Tree Bower," beginning a period of fluent and inventive composition that was to culminate in the planning and composition of the Lyrical Ballads in the summer and early autumn of 1798. It has been argued that Wordsworth was largely responsible for the evolution of Coleridge's verse towards a "plain style," and while other influences — notably those of the poet William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850) and of his friend Charles Lamb — played a role in Coleridge's adoption of a clear, vernacular style in the poetry of this period (Holmes, 1989, 36), it is evident that Wordsworth's influence was paramount in clarifying his ideas and bringing them to the point of actual creation. It was during this period that Coleridge wrote of Wordsworth as "The Giant Wordsworth" and asserted that "my awe of his intellectual powers has increased even to this hour" (Holmes, 1989, 191). There were differences between the two on religious matters and on the role of the supernatural in poetry — a distinction between their approaches that is evident in the final form of the Lyrical Ballads — but, as Holmes writes, "these differences, like their temperamental ones, were wonderfully fruitful at this stage" (Holmes, 1989, 191).

Works Cited

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Biographia Literaria. Ed. J. Shawcross. London: Oxford University Press, 2 vols., 1954.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Complete Poetical Works. London: Oxford University Press, 1912.

Hill, John Spencer. A Coleridge Companion. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1983.

Holmes, Richard. Coleridge: Early Visions. London: Penguin, 1989.

Holmes, Richard. Coleridge: Darker Reflections. London: Harper Collins, 1998.

Jasper, David. Coleridge as Poet and Religious Thinker. Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1985.

Modiano, Raimonda. Coleridge and the Concept of Nature. Tallahassee, FL: Florida State University Press, 1985.

Wordsworth, Dorothy. Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth. Volume I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941.

Wordsworth, Dorothy. Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth. Volume II. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956.

Wordsworth, William. Poetical Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.