Critical commentary can be approached in two ways. You can read through the poem and click on one of the superscripted letters to see a relevant comment by a critic: these are indicated by the initial letter of the critic's last name. Alternatively, you can read through the summary of a critic's argument that is available from the links above; each reference to the poem is linked to the text of the poem on the left.

When studying critics' discussions of "Frost at Midnight" you are likely to find references to other Coleridge poems and to the genres in which Coleridge wrote. The links below provide an opportunity to read other poems on the web (at the Coleridge Archive created by Marj Tiefert, University of Virginia). Dates in brackets are those of composition.

"Frost at Midnight" (1798) is one of Coleridge's "Conversation Poems." His other important poems in this genre include (remote links) "The Eolian Harp" (1795), "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" (1797), and "Fears in Solitude" (1798).

Coleridge also wrote what have been called "supernatural" poems: these are "Kubla Khan" (1797), "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1797-98), and "Christabel" (1797-1800).

While most of his important poems were written during the period at Nether Stowey during which he wrote "Frost at Midnight" (1797-98), other later poems include "Dejection: An Ode" (1802), "Pains of Sleep" (1803), "To William Wordsworth" (1807), and "Constancy to an Ideal Object" (1826?).

For general information about Coleridge see the Coleridge Home Page at the University of Virginia.