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What was Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey’s plan for pantisocracy?

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Portrait of poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge, detail of an oil painting by Washington Allston, 1814; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey conceived the plan for a "pantisocracy"—a term derived from the Greek words for "all" and "equal rule"—as a response to the political turmoil and violence of the French Revolution.1

Their goal was to establish a small, utopian agricultural community that would organize itself and educate its children according to principles superior to those found in existing society. By creating this intentional community, they hoped to circumvent the destructive violence that had marred the idealism of the French Revolution.12

The two poets planned to settle this community on the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. To promote and fund the project, Coleridge and Southey worked together as public lecturers in Bristol. However, the plan was never realized, as Southey’s interest in the project eventually faded, leading to a temporary rift between the two men.12