A very straightforward account of the complicated relationship between the two giants of the first generation of English Romantic poets. Sisman for the most part steers clear of speculation and theorising and gives us a critical summary what we know from first-hand accounts, taking us through their (surprisingly similar) backgrounds and the radical politics of the 1790s to their first meetings and the year they spent in Somerset together, then the German interlude and the Wordsworths' move back to the Lake District.

Although Sisman is reluctant to draw any explicit conclusions, he seems to confirm the picture we have of William Wordsworth as an efficient, ambitious poetry-making machine, remorselessly processing the input from Dorothy's sharp eyes and Coleridge's lively intellect and turning it into marketable verse, whilst Coleridge flutters from one grand plan to another, talking non-stop but never finishing anything, and destroying his physical and mental health with drugs, alcohol, and the pursuit of the Other Sara. The young Coleridge, in particular, must have been a fascinating, magnetic personality, and we have to wonder how he had the insight to take up with someone as superficially dull as Wordsworth and stick to him. I suppose, with a lot of hindsight, it's only thanks to his association with Wordsworth that we remember him as anything more than the author of a couple of brilliant, but isolated and random, poems, but no-one would have predicted that in the 1790s.

As with most biographies, it's a shame this one had to follow the two poets into the later stages of their lives, so that we have to close the book on them as ageing, pompous and reactionary bores, rather than the reckless firebrands they (almost) were in their twenties... ( )

Sisman writes a balanced and fascinating biography of a poetic collaboration and deep friendship.

The intense friendship these two poets had brought the best out in both of them. When their fiendship collapsed, they both would never again produce the superb poetry that their collaboration engendered. ( )

During the early, idyllic stage of their friendship Wordsworth and Coleridge spent long days wandering around in the natural beauty of the English countryside deep in discussion. Talking for miles and miles they covered philosophy and the nature and purpose of poetry, then interrupted those thoughts to make note of some particular aspect of their surroundings—images of flowers, leaves, light or clouds that they used to turn their philosophical insights into poetry. Accompanying them was Dorothy, Wordsworth’s lively, devoted sister who was something of a writer herself. The three of them spent days and weeks almost continually in each other’s company. Wordsworth and his sister moved across the country just so they could live within walking distance of Coleridge, and even then they often slept over in each other’s homes talking deep into the night. There was no rivalry or reserve. As Coleridge explained it they were “three people but one soul.”

Later things went out of balance. Coleridge’s abundant praise of Wordsworth’s brilliance seemed to sap his own ability to write. Compounding this was his growing addiction to opium, which was considered a medicinal not a dangerous drug. The dazzling energy, intelligence and perception of Coleridge’s conversation amazed people, but he went years without composing much of anything. Wordsworth continued to write, but his life became weighted down with family responsibilities. Coleridge, who had a spectacularly unhappy marriage, felt that the adoration of Wordsworth’s wife, his wife’s sister and Dorothy put blinders on Wordsworth’s eyes and kept him from achieving his full measure of greatness. The Recluse, the lengthy philosophical poem Coleridge imagined for Wordsworth, was never finished. Wordsworth attempted parts of it and sought Coleridge’s guidance for the rest, but a falling out kept them apart and by the time Coleridge did write down his thoughts for Wordsworth it was long past the time when Wordsworth could take up such an all-consuming project. Neither man completed the poems they felt were their life works and they never were as close again.

The sadness of this was mitigated for me by the fact that late in their lives they took one more long ramble together. They toured Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands with Wordsworth’s daughter Dorothy, who was named after her aunt but called Dora to avoid confusion. They no longer were “one soul” and they irritated each other sometimes, but still Dora was able to report that the three of them got along “delightfully.”
This book begins with the early lives of Coleridge and Wordsworth, before they meet, including the time of the French Revolution whose ideals influenced both men, and it continues until Coleridge’s death in 1834 at the age of sixty one. The portraits of the poets seem balanced, each is presented as both talented and flawed, and I found the book fascinating and moving. ( )