In case you wondered …

… How Wordsworth and Coleridge Forged Romantic Movement. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

They were different in so many ways, each embodying distinct strains of Romanticism. Coleridge, a bit slovenly, was generous, expressive, and easily moved by the iridescent beauty that he sensed around him. He had a strong religious, even mystical, sensibility. Wordsworth, brooding and distant, had a keen sense of his own greatness and was once seen walking in the moonlight in a black fur cap and green gown looking like a “grand Signior,” as Dorothy recalled. The tension in their ways of being ultimately undid their friendship, but not before it spurred their poetry. Their opposing spirits pushed and pulled against each other that year, unleashing some of the most celebrated poems in the English language, from Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” and “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” to Wordsworth’s “We Are Seven” and “Tintern Abbey.” Their time together culminated in the publication of Lyrical Ballads, which ushered in the Romantic movement, forever changing the course of English literature.