Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a man. He made mistakes and poor choices just like the rest of us. We tend to hold famous people to some higher regard than we do ourselves, or each other. He was no better than anyone else was. In his poem “Epitaph”, he expresses his feelings about death and the afterlife.
Coleridge explores Christians to stop and read his headstone “Stop, Christian Passer-by – Stop child of God, and read with gentle breast, (line 1 & 2). This makes me think he is buried in a church cemetery. This statement seems to take for granted that Christians will be walking amongst the headstones. In the next set of lines he dismisses his high acclaim as just a guy who wrote some poetry. “A poet lies, or that which once seem’d he – O lift one thought in prayer for S.T.C.” (Line 4 & 5) Coleridge thought that his initials were better known than his name. Is he poking fun or humbling himself? I believe he is humbly himself because he says later that he needs mercy and forgiveness. “Mercy for praise – to be forgiven for fame” (Line 7). Our book tell us “for” means instead of. He asks for mercy instead of praise and to be forgiven instead of fame. He wants this for himself as well as those praying. “he ask’d, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the same!” (line 8) I have not researched Coleridge other than reading the short biography in our book. I wonder if he was deeply religious throughout his life, or became concerned for his soul towards the end? He was a damaged man. He fought feelings of inadequacy and addiction.
I think we all wonder if we will be remembered long after our death. Some of us are unsure about where we go after death. Most of us fade over time. Even truly famous or infamous people fade away from history with the exception of a few dead presidents and a civil rights leader we remember once a year. The world keeps turning. When my family faced tragedy, it was surreal to me that time didn’t stop. While gathered in the waiting room outside the CICU crying over the loss of our loved one, another family was rejoicing and crying over the happy news of a birth. The world keeps turning. It stops for no one. In the end Coleridge knew he was just a man whose occupation was a poet. All he was concerned with was heaven and passersby interceding on his behalf to make it there.
Joan,
ReplyDeleteYou provide some insightful observations in your reading of Coleridge's epitaph, and I like the way you refer to biographical information provided in our anthology. Those notes would have indicated that Coleridge trained to become a unitarian clergyman but veered away from the church to devote himself to poetry, and that he suffered from a bad marriage, unrequited love, and opium addiction (among other problems). I would have liked to see you incorporate more specific facts into your discussion of his life, since you do mention the text notes. Also, be sure to proofread more carefully for wording and syntax issues, and to indicate line breaks with slashes. Finally, I think your opening sentence is pretty weak—I know you can convey your thoughts better than that!