Websites
Coleridge endured a poignant struggle of a life, and it's worth checking out his biography to get the full details. It has everything: opium addiction, a failed attempt to join the military, chronic laziness, a bad marriage…
If you want to check out more of Coleridge's work, the Poetry Foundation also has a fine database.
This is a great website with lots of information about Coleridge, related to his legacy as an artist in Victorian England.
Video
Peter Ackroyd is a famous British writer in his own right. Here, he takes us on a tour of the great Romantic poets for the BBC—Coleridge very much included.
This amateur documentary delves into Coleridge's childhood.
Dig this excerpt from a Coleridge bio-pic, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Audio
The great Welsh actor, Richard Burton, recites Coleridge's poem.
And here's another reading.
Technically, this is a different (although probably more famous) Coleridge poem. But Cumberbatch, of Sherlock fame, is all the rage right now, so whatever. Here he is, reading "Kubla Khan."
Images
This is it: the place where Coleridge went to school and daydreamed all the time—while trying to avoid the headmaster's wrath.
This is the place where Coleridge lived while writing, "Frost at Midnight." It's now a popular tourist attraction.
And this is Coleridge's son, Hartley, as a young man. Unfortunately, he didn't actually live the ideal natural existence that Coleridge had planned.
Here's the man himself—fairly young, and in black and white.
Here's another picture of Coleridge—but in color this time. He also has longer hair, rocking the Romantic hippie look.
Articles and Interviews
Why Coleridge? Critic Kenneth Burke has a few ideas.
Coleridge's opium addiction is so famous and important that we at Shmoop have devoted a full page to it. Check it out.
Books
This is the first part of an epic, two-part biography of Coleridge—featuring his young, peppy and idealistic years.
The second part of Coleridge's biography focuses on the years when his opium addiction deepened, and when he turned towards theology and literary criticism.
This is the original (and shorter) version of Coleridge and Wordsworth's classic book. Highlights include Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey."
Literary super-critic Harold Bloom provides an extended tour of the Romantic poets (including Coleridge, along with an in-depth reading of "Frost at Midnight" and the other major poems) in this early work.
Movies & TV
This British indie film, directed by punk-rock fan Julien Temple, examines Coleridge's friendship with Wordsworth.