Samuel Taylor Coleridge

~ Bio ~

samuel taylor coleridge

Historic Context

Vídeos

Biography

Kubla Khan

Images

Taylor was born in Britain in 1722 and died in London in 1834, was a critical British philosopher and poet. He was the son of a pastor and orphan since childhood. He studied at Jesus College in Cambridge, where he became friends with the poet Robert Southey. Both followed the events of the French revolution. At this time Taylor married Sarah Fricker. In 1975 he met William Wordsworth and in 1978 they introduced romanticism into English literature through the Lyric Ballads painting. They were years of creative fulfillment, embodied in poems with Kubla Khan. The last years of his life were overshadowed by serious nervous imbalances, which took him away from his family

The characteristics of romanticism are:

• Inclination by sentimentality to the detriment of rationality.
• Rebellion before tradition and norms.
• Cult of the self, of individualism and subjectivism.
• Defense of creative freedom and originality.
• Taste for the exotic.
• Strong idealism.
• Nationalism.
• Valuation of vernacular languages.

Kubla Khan is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge that talks about a governor who wants to build a great, great mansion; but in the landscape, at the river’s end, there is a beautiful ice palace, so the principal theme is the antithesis between the man’s creation and the “lucky” creation of the nature. This poem is divided into two separate parts, being the one a description of the landscape (lines 1-36), and the second one, another description, but this time of the palace, and the lady that lives there. It relates with the romantic poetry because the principal theme (aside of the antithesis) is the nature. Furthermore, it’s a relatively long poem, expressive, and with a messy sintax. The vocabulary is “ancient”(archaic), related to the spectral visions (derived from the sad theme that is characteristic from this kind of poetry). It has plenty of adjectives, metaphors and even antithesis. And last but not least, the text form is a poem, but mixed with a narrative and a description.