Editing Samuel Taylor Coleridge (section)

==Later life and increasing drug use==
[[File:Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Washington Allston retouched.jpg|thumb|right|Coleridge at age 42, portrait by [[Washington Allston]] ]]
{{Main|Coleridge and opium}}

===Travel and ''The Friend''===
In 1804, he travelled to [[Sicily]] and [[Malta]], working for a time as Acting Public Secretary of Malta under the Civil Commissioner, [[Alexander Ball]], a task he performed successfully. He lived in [[San Anton Palace]] in the village of [[Attard]]. He gave this up and returned to England in 1806. Dorothy Wordsworth was shocked at his condition upon his return. 

From 1807 to 1808, Coleridge returned to Malta and then travelled in Sicily and mainland Italy, in the hope that leaving Britain's damp climate would improve his health and thus enable him to reduce his consumption of opium. [[Thomas De Quincey]] alleges in his ''Recollections of the Lakes and the Lake Poets'' that it was during this period that Coleridge became a full-blown opium addict, using the drug as a substitute for the lost vigour and creativity of his youth. It has been suggested that this reflects De Quincey's own experiences more than Coleridge's.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Barry|last1=Hough|first2=Howard|last2=Davis|date=2010|title=Coleridge's Laws: A Study of Coleridge in Malta|url=https://www.openbookpublishers.com//download/book_content/59|publisher=Open Books Publishers|isbn=9781906924133}}</ref>

His opium addiction (he was using as much as two quarts of [[laudanum]] a week) now began to take over his life: he separated from his wife Sara in 1808, quarrelled with Wordsworth in 1810, lost part of his annuity in 1811, and put himself under the care of Dr. Daniel in 1814. His addiction caused severe constipation, which required regular and humiliating enemas.<ref>Holmes, Richard. ''Coleridge: Darker Reflections'', London: HarperCollins, 1998, pp. 12–14 (quoting [[Coleridge's notebooks]] 2805). {{ISBN|9780007378821}}</ref>

In 1809, Coleridge made his second attempt to become a newspaper publisher with the publication of the journal entitled ''[[The Friend (Coleridge)|The Friend]]''. It was a weekly publication that, in Coleridge's typically ambitious style, was written, edited, and published almost entirely single-handedly. Given that Coleridge tended to be highly disorganised and had no head for business, the publication was probably doomed from the start. Coleridge financed the journal by selling over five hundred subscriptions, over two dozen of which were sold to members of Parliament, but in late 1809, publication was crippled by a financial crisis and Coleridge was obliged to approach [[Richard Sharp (politician)|"Conversation Sharp"]],<ref>For an appraisal of Sharp's role in Coleridge's career, see Knapman, D. (2004) ''Conversation Sharp: the Biography of a London Gentleman, Richard Sharp (1759–1835), in Letters, Prose and Verse''. [Private Publication]. (Held by British Library)</ref> Tom Poole and one or two other wealthy friends for an emergency loan to continue. ''The Friend'' was an eclectic publication that drew upon every corner of Coleridge's remarkably diverse knowledge of law, philosophy, morals, politics, history, and literary criticism. 

Although it was often turgid, rambling, and inaccessible to most readers, it ran for 25 issues and was republished in book form a number of times. Years after its initial publication, a revised and expanded edition of ''The Friend'', with added philosophical content including his 'Essays on the Principles of Method', became a highly influential work and its effect was felt on writers and philosophers from [[John Stuart Mill]] to [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]].

===London: final years and death===
[[File:SamuelTaylorColeridgeBluePlaque.jpg|thumb|Blue plaque, 7 Addison Bridge Place, [[West Kensington]], London]]
From 1810 to 1820, Coleridge gave a series of lectures in London and [[Bristol]] – those on [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]] renewed interest in the playwright as a model for contemporary writers. Much of Coleridge's reputation as a literary critic is founded on the lectures that he undertook in the winter of 1810–11, which were sponsored by the Philosophical Institution and given at Scot's Corporation Hall off Fetter Lane, Fleet Street. These lectures were heralded in the prospectus as "A Course of Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, in Illustration of the Principles of Poetry." Coleridge's ill-health, opium-addiction problems, and somewhat unstable personality meant that all his lectures were plagued with problems of delays and a general irregularity of quality from one lecture to the next. 

As a result of these factors, Coleridge often failed to prepare anything but the loosest set of notes for his lectures and regularly entered into extremely long digressions which his audiences found difficult to follow. However, it was the lecture on ''[[Hamlet]]'' given on 2 January 1812 that was considered the best and has influenced ''Hamlet'' studies ever since. Before Coleridge, ''Hamlet'' was often denigrated and belittled by critics from [[Voltaire]] to [[Samuel Johnson|Dr. Johnson]]. Coleridge rescued the play's reputation, and his thoughts on it are often still published as supplements to the text.

In 1812, he allowed Robert Southey to make use of extracts from his vast number of private notebooks in their collaboration ''Omniana; Or, Horae Otiosiores''.

In August 1814, Coleridge was approached by [[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]], [[Lord Byron]]'s publisher, about the possibility of translating [[Goethe]]'s classic ''[[Goethe's Faust|Faust]]'' (1808). Coleridge was regarded by many as the greatest living writer on the [[Demonology|demonic]] and he accepted the commission, only to abandon work on it after six weeks. Until recently, scholars were in agreement that Coleridge never returned to the project, despite Goethe's own belief in the 1820s that he had in fact completed a long translation of the work. In September 2007, [[Oxford University Press]] sparked a heated scholarly controversy by publishing an English translation of Goethe's work that purported to be Coleridge's long-lost masterpiece (the text in question first appeared anonymously in 1821).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.friendsofcoleridge.com/Faustus.htm |title=Faustus (1821) controversy |access-date=13 March 2009 |archive-date=15 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121115032148/http://www.friendsofcoleridge.com/Faustus.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

From 1814 to 1816, Coleridge rented from a local surgeon, Mr Page, in [[Calne]], Wiltshire. He seemed able to focus on his work and manage his addiction, drafting ''[[Biographia Literaria]]''. A [[blue plaque]] marks the property today.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.blueplaqueplaces.co.uk/samuel-taylor-coleridge-blue-plaque-in-calne-3772|title=Samuel Taylor Coleridge blue plaque in Calne|first=Good|last=Stuff|website=blueplaqueplaces.co.uk|access-date=4 November 2017|archive-date=1 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170901202853/http://www.blueplaqueplaces.co.uk/samuel-taylor-coleridge-blue-plaque-in-calne-3772|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=27 July 2004 |title=Question: Coleridge and Calne |website=[[Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre]] |url=https://apps.wiltshire.gov.uk/communityhistory/Question/Details/250 |publisher=Wiltshire Council |access-date=14 May 2023}}</ref>

In April 1816, Coleridge, with his addiction worsening, his spirits depressed, and his family alienated, took residence in the [[Highgate]] homes, then just north of London, of the physician [[James Gillman]], first at South Grove and later at the nearby [[3, The Grove, Highgate|3, The Grove]].<ref>Holmes (1998), p.429.</ref> It is unclear whether his growing use of opium (and the brandy in which it was dissolved) was a symptom or a cause of his growing depression. Gillman was partially successful in controlling the poet's addiction. Coleridge remained in Highgate for the rest of his life, and the house became a place of literary pilgrimage for writers including [[Thomas Carlyle| Carlyle]] and [[Ralph Waldo Emerson| Emerson]].

In Gillman's home, Coleridge finished his major prose work, the ''Biographia Literaria'' (mostly drafted in 1815, and finished in 1817), a volume composed of 23 chapters of autobiographical notes and dissertations on various subjects, including some incisive literary theory and criticism. He composed a considerable amount of poetry, of variable quality. He published other writings while he was living at the Gillman homes, notably the ''Lay Sermons'' of 1816 and 1817, ''Sibylline Leaves'' (1817), ''Hush'' (1820), ''Aids to Reflection'' (1825), and ''On the Constitution of the Church and State'' (1830).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coleridge |first=Samuel Taylor |year=1830 |title= On the Constitution of the Church and State according to the Idea of Each with Aids toward a Right Judgment on the Late Catholic Bill |publisher=Hurst, Chance & Co |place=London |edition= 1 |url= https://archive.org/details/onconstitutionc00barrgoog |access-date=12 September 2014}}</ref> He also produced essays published shortly after his death, such as ''Essay on Faith'' (1838)<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.readbookonline.org/readOnLine/38117/|title=Readbookonline.org|website=readbookonline.org|access-date=4 November 2017}}</ref> and ''Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit'' (1840).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.readbookonline.org/readOnLine/38114/|title=Readbookonline.org|website=readbookonline.org|access-date=4 November 2017}}</ref> A number of his followers were central to the [[Oxford Movement]], and his religious writings profoundly shaped Anglicanism in the mid-nineteenth century.<ref>See Luke S. H. Wright, ''Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Anglican Church'' (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2010); and Stephen Prickett, ''Romanticism and Religion''(Cambridge: CUP, 1976)</ref>

Coleridge also worked extensively on the various manuscripts which form his ''[[Opus Maximum]]'', a work which was in part intended as a post-Kantian work of [[Dialectic|philosophical synthesis]].<ref>See Peter Cheyne, ''Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).</ref> The work was never published in his lifetime, and has frequently been seen as evidence for his tendency to conceive grand projects which he then had difficulty in carrying through to completion. But while he frequently berated himself for his "indolence", the long list of his published works calls this myth into question. Critics are divided on whether the ''Opus Maximum'', first published in 2002, successfully resolved the philosophical issues he had been exploring for most of his adult life.<ref>Mary Anne Perkins and Nicholas Reid both argue that in September 1818 Coleridge resolved the problems he had earlier faced in his discussion of Schelling in the ''Biographia'', and that the "Opus Maximum" accordingly sets out a relatively systematic post-Kantian position (Perkins, ''Coleridge's Philosophy'', p.10, and Reid, ''Coleridge, Form and Symbol'', pp.viii and 126).</ref>

Coleridge died in Highgate, London on 25 July 1834 as a result of heart failure compounded by an unknown lung disorder, possibly linked to his use of opium. Coleridge had spent 18 years under the roof of the Gillman family, who built an addition onto their home to accommodate the poet.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/searchesintohist02gill|quote=searches into history alexander gillman.|title=Searches into the History of the Gillman Or Gilman Family: Including the Various Branches in England, Ireland, America and Belgium|first=Alexander William|last=Gillman|date=23 July 1895|publisher=E. Stock|via=Internet Archive}}</ref><blockquote>Faith may be defined as fidelity to our own being, so far as such being is not and cannot become an object of the senses; and hence, by clear inference or implication to being generally, as far as the same is not the object of the senses; and again to whatever is affirmed or understood as the condition, or concomitant, or consequence of the same. This will be best explained by an instance or example. That I am conscious of something within me peremptorily commanding me to do unto others as I would they should do unto me; in other words a categorical (that is, primary and unconditional) imperative; that the maxim (''regula maxima'', or supreme rule) of my actions, both inward and outward, should be such as I could, without any contradiction arising therefrom, will to be the law of all moral and rational beings. ''Essay on Faith''</blockquote>

Carlyle described him at Highgate: "Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate Hill, in those years, looking down on London and its smoke-tumult, like a sage escaped from the inanity of life's battle...The practical intellects of the world did not much heed him, or carelessly reckoned him a metaphysical dreamer: but to the rising spirits of the young generation he had this dusky sublime character; and sat there as a kind of ''Magus'', girt in mystery and enigma; his Dodona oak-grove (Mr. Gilman's house at Highgate) whispering strange things, uncertain whether oracles or jargon."<ref>[[Thomas Carlye]], ''Life of John Sterling'', Book 1 Chapter 8</ref>