Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, literary critic, and philosopher and one of the central figures of English Romanticism. After early association with Wordsworth in the project of the Lyrical Ballads, he spent time in Germany absorbing the philosophy of Kant, Schelling, and the early Romantics, returning to introduce their ideas into English thought. Biographia Literaria combined philosophical autobiography with criticism, while Aids to Reflection and the late Constitution of the Church and State developed his religious and political philosophy. His distinction between fancy and imagination shaped Anglophone aesthetics.
Key facts
- Nationality
- English
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Continental
Selected quotes
-
Attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
“Imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception.”
-
Attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
“He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth will end by loving himself better than all.”
-
Attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
“Reason is the power of universal and necessary convictions.”
-
Attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
“What I most love in another is what I do not understand.”
-
Attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
“The dwarf sees farther than the giant when he has the giant's shoulder to mount on.”