William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge are often considered driving forces behind the English Romantic movement. While the works of both poets have stood the test of time, their enduring friendship during a time of artistic revolution, social change, and personal conflict is just as fascinating as any poem either man ever wrote.
Wordsworth and Coleridge met by chance in Somerset, England, in 1795. Their connection was so strong from the start that Coleridge decided to move to Grasmere to live closer to his new poet friend. The period that ensued was a tremendously fruitful one for both men. Through their frequent discussions, the poets influenced, inspired, and even criticized each other’s work. Eventually, their exchanges resulted in both the first and second editions of Lyrical Ballads. Their mutual friend, Robert Southey, also worked with them at times. These “Lake Poets,” as they would be called, went on to change the course of English literature with their poetic experimentation. Looking to their natural environment for inspiration, their emotionally charged poems focused on the purity, innocence, and beauty found in nature—ideals that were jeopardized more and more by society. During their youth, both men shared a passion for the democratic ideals of the French Revolution. However, by the time they began their poetic collaboration, they had each developed their own political ideas and definition of human nature—a fact that would cause many artistic differences. They frequently disagreed on both style and subject matter, ultimately abandoning certain poems when they could not find a consensus as to how best to express certain concepts. Nonetheless, two great poetic masterpieces emerged from this volume: Wordsworth’s “The Thorn” and Coleridge’s famed “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
Ultimately, differing personalities and personal circumstances would keep the poets from working together again—although they remained in contact all their lives. Both men experienced troubled family lives stemming from extramarital love, and Coleridge would develop an opium addiction causing increasing instability. When Coleridge died in 1834, the old friends had been distant for some time. Nonetheless, Wordsworth made sure to look after Coleridge’s eldest son, Hartley—a poet himself with an erratic personality—and buried him in the Wordsworth family plot when Hartley died in 1849. In the words of Wordsworth himself, Coleridge “would have wished it.”
