Editing Samuel Taylor Coleridge (section)

===Coleridge and the influence of the Gothic===
[[File:Rime of the Ancient Mariner-Albatross-Dore.jpg|right|thumb|Engraving of a scene from ''[[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]]''. The frozen crew and the albatross by [[Gustave Doré]] (1876)]]
Coleridge wrote reviews of [[Ann Radcliffe]]'s books and ''The Mad Monk'', among others. He comments in his reviews: "Situations of torment, and images of naked horror, are easily conceived; and a writer in whose works they abound, deserves our gratitude almost equally with him who should drag us by way of sport through a military hospital, or force us to sit at the dissecting-table of a natural philosopher. To trace the nice boundaries, beyond which terror and sympathy are deserted by the pleasurable emotions, – to reach those limits, yet never to pass them, hic labor, hic opus est." and "The horrible and the preternatural have usually seized on the popular taste, at the rise and decline of literature. Most powerful stimulants, they can never be required except by the torpor of an unawakened, or the languor of an exhausted, appetite...We trust, however, that satiety will banish what good sense should have prevented; and that, wearied with fiends, incomprehensible characters, with shrieks, murders, and subterraneous dungeons, the public will learn, by the multitude of the manufacturers, with how little expense of thought or imagination this species of composition is manufactured."

However, Coleridge used these elements in poems such as ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' (1798), ''Christabel'' and ''Kubla Khan'' (published in 1816, but known in manuscript form before then) and certainly influenced other poets and writers of the time. Poems like these both drew inspiration from and helped to inflame the craze for [[Gothic fiction|Gothic]] romance. Coleridge also made considerable use of Gothic elements in his commercially successful play [[Remorse (play)|''Remorse'']].<ref>Parker, p. 111</ref>

[[Mary Shelley]], who knew Coleridge well, mentions ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' twice directly in ''[[Frankenstein]]'', and some of the descriptions in the novel echo it indirectly. Although [[William Godwin]], her father, disagreed with Coleridge on some important issues, he respected his opinions and Coleridge often visited the Godwins.{{citation needed|date=January 2025}} Mary Shelley later recalled hiding behind the sofa and hearing his voice chanting ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner''.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Hoare |first1=Philip |title=Why Willem Dafoe, Iggy Pop and more are reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to us |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/24/why-willem-dafoe-iggy-pop-and-more-are-reading-the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-to-us |access-date=28 January 2025 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=24 April 2020}}</ref>

[[C. S. Lewis]] also makes mention of his name in ''[[The Screwtape Letters]]'' (as a poor example of prayer, in which the devils should encourage).