Birth Place of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ottery St Mary, South Devon. XPL 4323-407
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born on October 21, 1772 in the rural town of Ottery St Mary, Devonshire. He was the youngest of sixteen children, and his father, the Reverend John Coleridge, was a well respected vicar. Coleridge suffered from constant ridicule by his older brother Frank, partially due to jealousy, as Samuel was often praised and favoured by his parents. To escape this abuse, he frequently sought refuge at a local library, which led him to discover his passion for the written word. After the death of his father in 1781, contrary to his desires, he was sent to Christ's Hospital, a boarding school in London. The school was notorious for its unwelcoming atmosphere and strict regimen, which fostered thoughts of guilt and depression in young Samuel's maturing mind. Throughout life, Coleridge idealized his father as pious and innocent, but his relationship with his mother was more problematic. His childhood was characterized by attention-seeking, which has been linked to his dependent personality as an adult. He was rarely allowed to return home during the school term, and this distance from his family at such a turbulent time proved emotionally damaging. He later wrote of his loneliness at school in the poem "Frost at Midnight:" "With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt/Of my sweet birthplace" From 1791 until 1794 Coleridge attended Jesus College at the University of Cambridge. In 1792 he won the Browne Gold Medal for an Ode that he wrote on the slave trade. In November, 1793, he left the college and enlisted in the Royal Dragoons, perhaps because of debt or because the girl that he loved had rejected him. His brothers arranged for his discharge a few months later (ironically because of supposed insanity) and he was readmitted to Jesus College, though he would never receive a degree from Cambridge. Coleridge is probably best known for his long narrative poems, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel. Even those who have never read the Rime have come
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Location: Ottery St Mary, South Devon, England. United Kingdom
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