The first documented case of drug addiction in Malta : Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Abstract

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) is one of the arresting figures in the English literary field of the first quarter of the 19th century. Today !he is remembered mainly for his critical writings on William Shakespeare and for his evocative 'Poem The Ancient Mariner though he also made a name, in his time, as a journalist and as a philosopher. As a human being he was weak-willed, over-sensitive to physical discomfort and to the psychological stresses of life, incapable of taking decisions and of sustained mental activity and unable to adjust to an unhappy domestic situation stemming from a frustrating marriage. He was particularly prone to recurrent phases of despondency and depression and dependent upon his friends, among whom were William and Dorothy Wordsworth and Charles and Mary Lamb, for his material and psychological support. At one period of his life he tried to escape from his chronic physical ailments and material circumstances by coming to Malta; in fact when he arrived in our island at the dawn of the 19th century, he was distressed by his tempestuous married life, harassed by debts and in the grip of opium addiction. It is from this aspect of addiction - and more particularly for the fact that he provides us with the first documented case of drug dependency in Malta - that I propose to deal with Samuel Taylor Coleridge.