A History of English LiteratureFletcher, Robert Huntington
History
A History of English Literature
Fletcher, Robert Huntington
English literature -- History and criticism
The remaining thirty-five years of his life are a record of ambitious
projects and fitful efforts, for the most part turned by ill-health and
lack of steady purpose into melancholy failure, but with a few fragmentary
results standing out brilliantly. At times Coleridge did newspaper work, at
which he might have succeeded; in 1800, in a burst of energy, he translated
Schiller's tragedy 'Wallenstein' into English blank verse, a translation
which in the opinion of most critics surpasses the original; and down to
1802, and occasionally later, he wrote a few more poems of a high order.
For a few years from 1800 on he lived at Greta Hall in the village of
Keswick (pronounced Kesick), in the northern end of the Lake Region
(Westmoreland), fifteen miles from Wordsworth; but his marriage was
incompatible (with the fault on his side), and he finally left his wife and
children, who were thenceforward supported largely by Southey, his
successor at Greta Hall. Coleridge himself was maintained chiefly by the
generosity of friends; later, in part, by public pensions. It was
apparently about 1800, to alleviate mental distress and great physical
suffering from neuralgia, that he began the excessive use of opium
(laudanum) which for many years had a large share in paralyzing his will.
For a year, in 1804-5, he displayed decided diplomatic talent as secretary
to the Governor of Malta. At several different times, also, he gave
courses, of lectures on Shakspere and Milton; as a speaker he was always
eloquent; and the fragmentary notes of the lectures which have been
preserved rank very high in Shaksperean criticism. His main interest,
however, was now in philosophy; perhaps no Englishman has ever had a more
profoundly philosophical mind; and through scattered writings and through
his stimulating though prolix talks to friends and disciples he performed a
very great service to English thought by introducing the viewpoint and
ideas of the German transcendentalists, such as Kant, Schelling, and
Fichte. During his last eighteen years he lived mostly in sad acceptance of
defeat, though still much honored, in the house of a London physician. He
died in 1834.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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