Chapter I Summary and Analysis

Coleridge states that his name has often appeared in conversation and print in spite of the distance he keeps from the literary world. He feels it necessary to address controversy surrounding the true nature of poetry and the character of the poet. He published his first book of poems at the age of twenty-three. He admits that there were faults with them but he was not able to accept the criticism of others. Coleridge refers to this work, Poems of Various Subjects, as his juvenile poems.

Coleridge talks of his education and how he read the ancient Greeks and Romans as well as Milton and Shakespeare. He feels his master did a good job in giving him a classical education. He was exposed to the sonnets of William Bowles when he was seventeen and was very impressed by them...