"Say quick,"quoth he, "I bid thee say – What manner of man art thou?"
If confronted by his own question, Coleridge, who was almost as haunting and enigmatic as his Ancient Mariner, would be forced, after some metaphysical speculation and psychological analysis, to defend his failure with Descartes' dictum, “il est bon de comprendre qu'il y a des choses qui sont absolutement incomprehensibles." For, in spite of his efforts to define it, Coleridge's genius as utterly inscrutible to him as it is to the world; he did not possess it, but was possessed by it, baffled by it, and thwarted by the very traits from which his greatest talents sprung. Being the apotheosis of that type of genius known as the "literary mind", Coleridge personified both its virtues and weaknesses to such an extent that his life was more shattered by his passion for putting his thoughts into words than by his inability to put his words into actions; his heart, more torn by the idea than by the physical reality; his poetic ability, as effectively paralyzed by an excess of thought
as by an over-indulgence in opiates.
Any attempt to analyze his genius further would be as futile as Coleridge's own endeavors to snare his daemon in words. However, I hope to bring to light certain
of its characteristics by showing how Coleridge reacted to his environment, how he was influenced by his human relationships, particularly by those with women - an
influence to which he seems to have been extraordinarily susceptible.
