Selected Poetry

Poems organised according to genre, to demonstrate the progress and variety Coleridge achieved Living in a revolutionary age, Coleridge's poetry was written in a spirit of moral and emotional inquiry into the absolutes of the human condition. He is best known for his visionary poetry ('Kubla Khan') and his ballads ('The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'), but he used and transformed a variety of verse forms, from the sonnet to the conversation poem, on subjects as diverse as nature, love, and politics. This selection calls attention to the range of Coleridge's work, its strong autobiographical content,and its artistic development throughout his career. The old chronological form has been abandoned and the poems are organised according to genre, with each section displaying its own individual development in craft and theme.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of the most imaginative poets of the English Romantic Movement, was also its most influential thinker and philosopher. ' The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' was written early in his life, during a period of intense and impassioned creativity, and, like all his best work, has a visionary quality with strong religious and metaphysical overtones.