Tag / Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A Radical Life: Interview by Profile Critics
One surprising aspect of Coleridge’s life – for me, at least – was discovering just how radical his outlook was. Here we are in the late 18th century and he could almost be thought of as a hippy - trying to construct an alternative society on egalitarian principles, dreaming of emigrating to America to live off the land. The opium addiction just adds to the Woodstock vibe! How would you characterise the younger Coleridge – was he a genuine free-thinker? How far adrift from the norms of his age was he?
Another Year Over…
Another Year Over...
This is the time of year when I write a review of everything I have achieved in the last twelve months.
I’m not going to concentrate on the difficulties we have all had and the challenges we have faced with the pandemic because these have all been well documented.
Instead I shall deal with my own personal positives, starting with the publishing of my two historical novels...
Read More
Coleridge The Opium Eater
Coleridge: The Opium Eater
“I am fully convinced,” Coleridge wrote, “That to a person with such a stomach and bowels as mine, if any stimulus is needful, opium is incomparably better in every respect than any fermented liquor, nay, far less pernicious even than tea.”
In Coleridge’s time opium was the only painkiller available and there is no doubting Coleridge’s need for it: his illness was genuine. The swollen...
Read More
Coleridge in Love: The Two Saras
Coleridge in Love: The Two Saras
Samuel Taylor Coleridge had a theory on love
“Sympathy constitutes friendship; but in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing passion. Each strives to be the other, and both together make up one whole.”
Love, he felt, was generous. “I can neither retain my happiness nor my faculties unless I move, live and love in perfect freedom.”...
Read More
Bringing Coleridge to Life: Three Extraordinary Years in Nether Stowey
Bringing Coleridge to Life: Three Extraordinary Years in Nether Stowey
It’s an idea that’s been simmering in my mind for some years now: to write the story of the three years that Samuel Taylor Coleridge spent in Somerset. I have always been interested in Coleridge and Wordsworth, an interest increased by reading “A Passionate Sisterhood” by Kathleen Jones, followed by any and every biography on Coleridge, Wordsworth and their circle of friends and relatives. When I retired...Read More
Coleridge in Love
Coleridge in Love
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, literary critic and philosopher was born in Ottery St Mary in Devon in 1772. He was a man of huge intellect and many talents. With his energetic enthusiasm, magnetic personality and copious charm, he was attractive to men and women alike. His was a complex character, given to marvellous sweeping ideas, flights of fancy and projects he started and often failed to finish. Nowadays we might consider him to be bi-polar. He was unreliable, unable to keep to deadlines and always ready with an excuse. It is well-known he was also an addictive...Read More
Rainy Days in The Lakes
Rainy Days in The Lakes
My husband has a very convenient memory. He only remembers good times and good weather. Every year when he suggests a week in the lake District in June I remind him it always rains and every year he says “We had lovely weather last year, Look at the photographs if you don’t believe me!” The photographs that were taken, of course, on the only two fine days of the entire week. In out twelve years of coming up to Cumbria we have stayed in various hotels and guest houses, the problem being that on wet days we confined either to our hotel...Read More
The Quantock Connection
The Quantock Connection
Last week we did our first stint as National Trust Volunteer Room Guides in Coleridge Cottage in Nether Stowey. The idea of being Room Guides evolved gradually. We visited Chartwell House, Churchill’s home, when we were staying with my brother in Sussex and the Room Guides were so helpful and knowledgeable...Read More
Wild West Wordsworth
Wild West Wordsworth
Most people associate the Lake Poets with, well, the Lakes, of course. The English Lake District, that is. Ask them where Wordsworth lived and they’ll tell you: in Grasmere. Dove Cottage, Rydal Mount. If they’re officionadoes they’ll even mention Allen Bank, only recently restored to the National Trust and once again open to visitors. The Somerset connection is often forgotten. The odd few will know of Coleridge Cottage in Nether Stowey, but people rarely talk of nearby Alfoxden Park (variously spelled Alfoxdon and Alfoxton). Yet this was the home...Read More
Recent Comments
- Bethany Askew on About the Author
- Louise Tyrrell on About the Author
- Bethany Askew on About the Author
- Yola Munro on About the Author
- Andrea crosland on About the Author
-
Latest Posts
Meta
Bethany Askew
Bethany Askew is the author of eight novels:
The Time Before, The World Within, Out of Step, Counting the Days, Poppy’s Seed, Three Extraordinary Years,The Two Saras and I know you, Don’t I?
She has also written a short story, The Night of the Storm, and she writes poetry.
Two more women’s fiction books have been accepted for publication in 2020 and 2021 respectively and she is currently working on a new novel.
In her spare time she enjoys reading, music, theatre, walking, Pilates, dancing and voluntary work.
Bethany is married and lives in Somerset.
-
My Twitter Feed
-
Today from Bethany Askew Novelist : Book Review: The Woman in the White Kimono by Ana Johns https://t.co/2J6L2spX7t... 4 years ago
-
Copyright - Bethany Askew 2009 - 2016 Follow @AskewBethany