Coleridge: The Glory in the Everyday

Coleridge: a lord of the 19th century spending a fair amount of his time writing poetic masterpieces like Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Much enjoyment can be found in his stories like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Cristabel but I was enamored by his various descriptions and observations of the world around him.

He describes the comfortable place of his convalescence as a hindering force in This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison. He waxes eloquent to the steeper of tea after its failing in Monody on a Tea Kettle. The beauty of rest and sleep under the trees is described in a enveloping way in Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement.

Often times, or the presupposition was held, that poets push their words toward the transcendent and the surreal or the reach for the greater things in our existence: love and beauty. But often Coleridge seemed to find something wonderful and glorious while walking along the road or enduring a typical day. It was as though he found the colors more fitting colors to paint the scene. Where one would typically expect to see greys he glossed with vibrant arrays.

Poetry is not a genre I am well versed in, unless one were to count the lyrics of music, but I willingly gave Coleridge a book's worth of reading and engagement. I was at first uncertain and not a little lost but I finished thrilled at his use of words and descriptions of the everyday, but nonetheless, beautiful scenes.