Poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

When I was in Year 9 my favourite band were a “progressive metal” band from Canada called Rush. My favourite song was called Xanadu. I found out that it was a reworking of a poem by an English poet called Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Even better, he was mates with William Wordsworth, lived in the Lake District and lived like a rock star. The poem on which the song Xanadu is based is called Kubla Khan. It’s my favourite of his poems, obviously. It was written in, shall we say, circumstances that might not be unknown to some modern rock stars. Words from the poem Frost at Midnight are carved into the steps where you hire rowing boats at Keswick. Read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner if you’ve got lots of time. (Iron Maiden did a song based on that!) Coleridge turned me into a Romantic (as opposed to romantic – there is a difference). And he’s my hero because he’s the first person recorded as descending Broad Stand on Scafell. He fell down it and lived to tell the tale.

INTRODUCING PHILOSOPHY: A Graphic Guide

I love this series of books. They use graphic art (a sort of comic book look) to break up the text. I can assure you that the ideas have not been dumbed down but they are easier to digest, especially if visual layout helps you to think more clearly.

Philosophy is important. It asks questions like “how can we know anything?” Like “what does it mean to exist?” Like “what does it mean to be good?”

These questions and more are covered along with the important thinkers who attempted to answer the questions.