Remembering the Man, not the Poet: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote his own epitaph, a literary task daunting for many reasons. He begins his epitaph with a command: “Stop, Christian Passer-by—Stop, child of God,” he instructs (line 1). He uses “Christian Passer-by” to refer to anyone who might pass his gravestone; therefore, he commands all who come near him to look upon his gravestone. From the first words, it would seem that Coleridge has some important message to impart to all God-fearing souls. He continues the demands, later instructing the reader to “lift one thought in prayer” for his soul (line 4); at the epitaph’s end, he recalls having asked Christ for “Mercy for praise—to be forgiven for fame” (line 7) and charges to his reader: “Do thou the same!” (line 8). I am not sure whether he wants the reader of his epitaph to pray for mercy and forgiveness for Coleridge, or for themselves: the wording is too vague to know conclusively. Perhaps this command is, as Dr. Glance mentions in the accompanying podcast, Coleridge’s attempt to talk about anything and eventually talk about everything. Perhaps he is using himself as an example and effectively saying to all people, ‘do not care about praise and fame! Be only concerned with the fate of your own souls, for Christ can give you more than fickle humanity ever can!’ If his final command does refer to all people in this way, this order would be precisely the reason why Coleridge began his poem with such urgency that all people would pause to read his short poem: their fulfillment of life may depend upon it.

Coleridge’s only description of himself as a poet—which is how anyone today would remember him—is decidedly unsure. He does say that “Beneath this sod / A poet lies” (lines 2-3), but then he tentatively qualifies this statement: “or that which once seem’d he” (line 3), rendering the description of himself as a poet uncertain. The use of the word “seem” in particular, reminiscent of many English poets—among them Shakespeare, in famous lines from Hamlet (“Seems? Nay, madam, I know not ‘seems’”)—who used the word to refer to pretense, makes Coleridge’s status as a true poet dubious. Soon, Coleridge arrives upon a description of himself that he is more able to support: “That he who many a year with toil of breath / Found death in life, may here find life in death!” (lines 5-6), he pleads. This statement is a much more bold one than the earlier description of himself, and a more purposefully well-crafted statement: it is more poetic, with the second half of line six being a reverse of the first half (a technique that I believe is called chiasmus), and it’s even got an exclamation point at the end. Coleridge clearly intends this statement of his being to be more powerful and convincing than the previous.

Coleridge’s work does not seem like that of a man who “[f]ound death in life,” whatever description he may use of himself. His poetry often concerns itself with the supernatural, the beautiful, that which is full of life. Yet as a dying wish, he would prefer to be known as the man who found death in life than a poet. As a poet, he had achieved significant success prior to his death in 1834, but apparently it was not the kind of success that meant much to him. Regardless, he asks at last what all men should ask: “Mercy for praise—to be forgiven for fame” (line 7). These words, penned by a man already glorified with praise and fame (though not as much as literary scholars give to him now), can be interpreted in many ways. On one hand, perhaps it’s easy for him to say that he doesn’t care for laudation now that he has already achieved those ends. However—a theory I believe to be more in tune with the rest of his work, as well as the rest of his poem and the details of his life—perhaps Coleridge, looking back on his own sins and failures (most notably his drug addiction), wishes that he could trade his praise for mercy, and his fame for forgiveness. Apparently tortured throughout his life by his inability to break his addiction to opium (324), Coleridge would no doubt, on his deathbed, regret some of his life’s decisions. In the end, he has no captivating ancient mariner and no stately pleasure-dome: Coleridge has only his own demons to face, with no hope of fighting them.