Coleridge Rediscovered New Biography Offers Balanced Rendering of an English Romantic

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THE poet who gave us the beautiful conversation poems: "Frost at Midnight," "The Eolian Harp," "Dejection: An Ode," and the mesmerizing fantasies of "Kubla Khan," "Christabel," and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is still in many ways the most immediately appealing of the six great English Romantics.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) lives on in literary history as the devoted friend of the poet Wordsworth, allowing the latter's genius pride of place before his own. We also remember Coleridge as he appears in his own poems: the generous friend wishing joy for those he loves even as his own heart sinks in dejection. More colorful and emotionally expressive than …