Coleridge Study Questions p. 250

1.Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s great friends and collaborators were W. Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy; they settled in the Lake District and the two poets worked together on the composition of the “Lyrical Ballads”, which can be considered the most important work of English poetry. 2.What was Coleridge addicted to and why?  He was addicted to opium as a consequence of his worries and frustration. He became addicted probably because he had been prescribed opium to cure his chronic rheumatism. 3.Explain why Coleridge’s poems are defined ‘demonic poems’.  They are defined ‘demonic poems’ because they share the presence of the supernatural in the forms of haunted souls.

4.Why can the ‘The Rime’ be seen as a “nightmare of passivity”?  The ‘Rime’, ‘Christabel’’ and ‘Kubla Khan’ are seen as “nightmares of passivity” because behind their exotic richness there are mysterious forces at play that prevent the main character from acting. See, for example, the “ancient Mariner”. He is spell-bound by the fixed stare of his dead companions aboard the ship and cannot pray at first. As Wordsworth said, he ‘does not act but is acted upon’. 5.Besides being a poet, Coleridge is also one of the greatest critics of all time. What is his critical work and what are the basic aspects of his thought?.  His major critical work is ‘Biographia Literaria’. Opposing the British tradition of empiricism (= the belief in basing your ideas on observation and practical experience), he believed in the creative mind as capable of recreating the world of sense. Coleridge was also an important religious and political theorist. His idealism powerfully influenced later political and philosophical thinking. His criticism of Shakespeare is still valid and important.