Although the historical county of Somerset is associated in most people's minds with just two dominant figures in English literature, namely Jane Austen and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, there are several other notable writers for whom the county had particular significance. That said, Austen and Coleridge should be the starting point for any discussion of Somerset writers.
Jane Austen (1775-1817)
Jane Austen was born in Hampshire (at Steventon) and spent
most of her life in that county, but the years she spent in Bath (1801-6) were
highly significant to her career as a writer. She had not been greatly
impressed with the city on her first visit in 1797, although a later short stay
was generally more agreeable to her. When her father (who had been the rector
of Steventon) retired, he decided to move to Bath with his family, hence Jane's
residence there. She never really fell in love with the place, and was relieved
to be able to move away (to Southampton) in the year following her father's
death.
All Jane Austen's major works were written either before or
after her Bath years, with the only work known to have been composed during
that time being her unfinished novel "The Watsons". However, Bath
features in both her early "Northanger Abbey" (probably completed in
1799) and her final novel "Persuasion" (1816). In both novels Bath is
portrayed as a place to which rich and fashionable people came, ostensibly to
"take the waters" at this famous 18th century health spa
but primarily to participate in a series of balls, parties and receptions during
the "season". Jane Austen was not temperamentally suited to this
lifestyle but was able to observe it with the amused detachment that typified
the novels for which she is justly renowned.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
Born in Devon, the son of a clergyman, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge (1772-1834) first lived in Somerset in 1795 when, with fellow poet
Robert Southey, he gave a series of political lectures in Bristol. The two
friends married sisters (Sara and Edith Fricker) but quarrelled soon
afterwards, and the Coleridges briefly set up home at Clevedon on the Somerset
coast near Bristol. From 1796 to 1798 they were living in Nether Stowey, on the
edge of the Quantock Hills in the far west of the county (see photo). When the Coleridges
left for Germany, and later settled in the Lake District, they left Somerset
never to return.
Coleridge's time at Nether Stowey was one of the most
productive periods of his life as a poet. He worked with Wordsworth on their
cooperative project "Lyrical Ballads", with his main contribution
being his best-known poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". He also
composed "Frost at Midnight", "This Lime-Tree Bower My
Prison" and "Christabel" in his cottage at Nether Stowey.
Rivalling "The Ancient Mariner" for the top spot
among his poems is "Kubla Khan", which Coleridge says he wrote while
staying overnight at a farmhouse near Culbone, on the Somerset side of the
Devon border, on his way back home from Lynton. He was unwell and took a dose
of medicine, which may or may not have contained opium, and so fell asleep
while reading a book about the fabled Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. He therefore
had an intensely vivid dream and, on waking, he found that he had a whole poem
of several hundred lines in his head. He feverishly wrote as fast as he could
but was then interrupted by "a person on business from Porlock" and
could not thereafter recollect the vision or the rest of the text, which is why
the poem only has 54 lines. At least, that was Coleridge's story and he stuck
to it.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Wordsworth is always thought of as the archtypical
"Lake Poet", but he spent much of his earlier life in southern
England. He first met Coleridge at Bristol and later, in 1797, moved with his
sister Dorothy to Alfoxton Park, near Nether Stowey, with the express purpose
of being close to Coleridge. This led to
their collaboration on "Lyrical Ballads", mentioned above, to which
Wordsworth contributed most of the poems, including "Tintern Abbey",
""Simon Lee" and "The Thorn".
The Wordsworths and Coleridge spent many hours wandering
through the countryside of the Quantock Hills, equipped with telescopes and
notebooks, and sometimes camped overnight. William's northern accent and
Dorothy's dark complexion led some of the local people to suspect them of being
spies for Revolutionary France, and a government inspector was sent to
investigate them. However, he soon left again, convinced that the trio were
just a bunch of harmless cranks.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Robert Southey was another "Lake Poet" who, like
Wordsworth and Coleridge, had links with Somerset. Indeed, Southey was born in
Bristol, spent his vacations from Oxford University in Bath, and lodged with
Coleridge in Bristol (1794-5) before his marriage to Edith Fricker. After quarrelling
with Coleridge he moved away, but returned to the county in 1798 to live at
Westbury on Trym, which is now a northern suburb of Bristol. The year he spent
there was one of his happiest, and he wrote poetry at a rate that he never
achieved at any other time in his life. Poems from this time include "The
Holly Tree" and "Ebb Tide". He later became Poet Laureate and
was succeeded on his death by William Wordsworth.
Thomas Chatterton (1752-70)
Thomas Chatterton is probably best known for being the
subject of the painting "The Death of Chatterton" by the pre-Raphaelite
artist Henry Wallis. He was a talented writer and poet who preferred to write
poetry in a 15th century style, passing off his poems as
discoveries, made by him, of the works of a monk named Thomas Rowley. His
interest had been sparked by the medieval manuscripts that he studied for many
hours in the muniment room of Bristol's St Mary Redcliffe Church, where his
uncle was the sexton. More attention was paid to the authenticity of the poems
than their literary merit, which was considerable. His efforts to earn a living
from the Rowley poems were largely fruitless and in April 1770 he left Bristol
for London where he fared little better, eventually committing suicide (although this is disputed) when not
yet 18 years of age.
Hannah More (1745-1833)
Hannah More is better known as an educational and social
reformer than as a writer, but it was the profits from her popular poems, plays
and other writings that gave her the finance for her other activities. She was
born in the Fishponds area of Bristol and later opened a school in the city centre.
From 1785 to 1802 she lived at Cowslip Green, near Wrington, where she wrote a
large number of books and tracts designed to improve general morality, as well
as being a campaigner for female education and against slavery. She later
opened schools in Cheddar and Blagdon, despite opposition from farmers who
believed that educating the workforce would lead to them making unreasonable
demands. She lived at Barley Wood, also near Wrington, from 1802 until her
death in 1833.
Other writers with Somerset connections
Many other writers have been associated with Somerset to a
greater or lesser extent, apart from those who visited Bath to socialise or for
the good of their health, as mentioned above. Mention should be made of the war
poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967), who lived his final years at Heytesbury
(Wiltshire) but is buried at Mells just over the border in Somerset, and T. S.
Eliot (1888-1965), whose ancestors came from
East Coker near Yeovil, the village being immortalised in the second of
his "Four Quartets". At Eliot's request, his ashes were buried in the
church.
The wildness of Exmoor, which straddles Somerset and Devon,
is known to many readers through the historical novel "Lorna Doone"
by R. D. Blackmore (1825-1900). Although he lived for most of his life at
Culmstock (Devon) and Teddington near London, Blackmore knew the village of
Oare, in the Somerset part of Exmoor, very well (his grandfather had been the
rector there) and set much of the action of "Lorna Doone" in this
area. His fictional "Doone Valley" is that of Badgworthy Water, which
marks the border between Somerset and Devon at this juncture, and Oare Church
is the setting of the climactic scene of the novel in which Lorna is shot on
her wedding day (but survives). "Doone Country" is still a very
popular tourist destination.
The very varied county of Somerset has a great deal to offer
the visitor, both in urban and rural locations. The "literary
tourist" has a number of reasons to make it a favoured destination.
© John Welford
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