Commanding Nature: Coleridge vs Wordsworth

One of the things that stood out most about reading Coleridge for the first day was how much I thought about him in comparison to Wordsworth, given the emphasis the textbook puts on their relationship. The place where this was most apparent was in the second stanza of "This Lime Tee Bower My Prison" when Coleridge expresses his imaginings of the natural landscape his friends are seeing in commands to nature. "Slowly sink Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun!...And kindle, thou blue ocean! (32-37)." He tells nature exactly what it should show to his friends, and even indicates he thinks it could do better with statements like "richlier burn.' This fits with the idea I raised in class that Coleridge feels a sense of competition with Wordsworth, wanting to show him that Coleridge too, has bonded with a splendid piece of nature all his own. In this sense he almost takes ownership of nature in a way Wordsworth does not; his bond with nature drives him to worry that his friends will not see the same splendor in it he does. I could not fathom Wordsworth issuing what amount to stage directions to nature, and I believe these lines offer a first glimpse of how Coleridge's appreciation of and relationship with nature are different than those of Wordsworth. I am not saying however, that Coleridge does not appreciate or feel superior to nature, but that he wants his friends to understand the beauty of the part of nature he has bonded with so badly he cannot help but worry over its presentation. Wordsworth, on the other hand, would likely take for granted that anyone visiting nature could not help but be struck by its beauty, especially if coming from the city like Charles.

Dejection: An Ode and This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison

After discussing "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" at length on Tuesday, I found "Dejection: An Ode" to be really interesting because it was Coleridge being able to find nothing beneficial in his misfortune. In the first poem, yes, Coleridge is definitely immature in his handling of the situation, but in the end, he feels better about himself. After having milk burn your foot, that's all you can really ask for. In "Dejection: An Ode" Coleridge just laments and complains and cannot find anything positive about his situation. He can't even try to imagination a way that it gets better other than being with someone else.
I wondered what the difference was between the two events that made it so impossible for him to find something positive out of his experience. In "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" Coleridge makes the garden around him into a completely new experience, realizing that he needed to discover that he could make his own nature walk in something so close to home. He used his imagination to make discoveries about the world that he wouldn't have found had he had the opportunity to be with his friends on their walk. In "Dejection: An Ode" he talks about how he is at Nature's mercy. In the first poem, he was able to work with it using his imagination, but in the second poem, he has no control over it at all. Nature appears to have taken away the power of his imagination. This struck me because it seemed to me that Coleridge saw nature and imagination as intertwined in a more positive light than the conclusion he comes to in "Dejection: An Ode". He really seems to be despondent and he seems like he's given up hope in nature. I kept looking for him to believe that nature, and the natural oder of the world, and that those things would allow something to work out in his favor, but instead, he seemed to end with less hope, wishing the woman the best, but knowing there was nothing positive coming his way.

Completeness in Coleridge's Kubla Khan

            Coleridge’s inspiration for Kubla Khan came from a dream he had while experiencing an opium trip. He was interrupted while writing down his dream and was unable to finish the poem. The fragmented and disconnected nature of the poem makes it obvious that Kubla Khan in unfinished. The first stanza introduces Kubla Khan’s “pleasure-dome” (2) in Xanadu. Then in the second stanza Coleridge presents the “deep romantic chasm which slanted/Down the green hill” (12-13). The second stanza is filled with highly sexual undertones. “Romantic” is a strange word to use to describe a gorge in the earth. Earth’s “fast thick pants” are also extremely suggestive. After this the third and fourth stanzas returns to the “dome of pleasure” (31), then abruptly introduces an exotic maid playing a dulcimer in the dome. The poem is all over the place, which makes it no surprise that Coleridge was on drugs when he wrote it.

            The fragmented and unfinished nature of the poem is in tension with the recurring circular imagery. Circles are traditionally considered symbols of completeness and wholeness, yet Coleridge’s poem is left incomplete. On several occasions different circle images are mentioned in the poem. In the second line of the poem the speaker introduces a “pleasure-dome,” the first circle image in the poem. The speaker then goes onto describe the landscape where the walls and towers were “girdled round” (7). Lastly in line 51 the speaker wants to “weave a circle round him thrice” to protect himself from intrusions. The recurring circles symbolism is at odds with the fact that the poem is so blatantly incomplete. The recurring circles suggest that Coleridge is aware of it’s incompleteness and subconsciously, or consciously, yearns to complete his poem of his vision of Kubla Khan’s pleasure-dome.

Part 1

It is very noticeable that the first part of Christabel lacks a distinct male presence. The poem introduces "the lovely lady, Christabel" (23), but when the second prominent character is introduced into the poem, the expectation that Christabel will encounter a male suitor is ruptured by the introduction of the "lovely damsel bright" (58). Both Geraldine and Christabel are introduced as "lovely," which is already a feminized description, but the feminine description is enhanced when Christabel is then referenced as a "lady" and Geraldine as a "damsel." In both cases the reader is told what these women look like and how they present themselves before either of their names is given.

As Geraldine is further described, the poem goes into great detail about Geraldine's "silken robe of white"(59) that in the "moonlight shone" (60). The narrator of the poem makes a "guess" (66) that "t'was frightful there to see / a lady so richly clad as she / beautiful exceedingly!" (66-68). While this description seems to come from the narrator, it can be read that the narrator is describing what Geraldine looks like through the eyes of the only person who is actually seeing Geraldine, and that person is Christabel. Though there is no explicit statement of attraction, there is certainly a tension between these two female characters, because in the absence of a male character, Christabel seems to assume the role of the more masculine figure in this newly formed relationship. It is typically within the male gaze that a woman is described, so Chirtabel's viewing of Geraldine as Geraldine is first presented, evokes a certain masculine undertone. Later when Geraldine needs help she calls on Christabel to "help a wretched maid to flee" (103). Though Christabel does make reference to Sir Leoline as being the person who will ultimately help Geraldine, Christabel "comforted fair Geraldine" (104), once again leaving the terms of this relationship somewhat open. Christabel then informs Geraldine (and therefore the reader) that Sir Leoline is "weak in health" (118), marking him as a passive agent in the poem. It is at this point that Christabel seems to be the most powerful force in the poem, and she becomes a pseudo guardian for Geraldine. This reaffirms the initial feeling that Christabel has assumed this more masculine role, but it also adds another vague dimension to this relationship that has not been clearly defined.

My question about this analysis is whether my observation of Christabel's evolving masculinity is actually occurring, or whether I have been conditioned to search for a masculine presence in when reading a story involving a "damsel." Is it wrong of me to assume masculinity merely because Christabel exhibits agency? Am I then limiting the potential of the female character by insinuating that a female character only remains feminine if she presents herself as passive and weak?

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart

I am most likely going to write my essay on “Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known” by Wordsworth. Although I am not entirely sure what my thesis will be yet I have been researching critical sources that focus on this poem.

 

 (Researching.)

 So far I have only used the MLA International Bib and Artemis Literary sources. MLA International bib had more sources than Artemis did. (MLA had 12 while Artemis had 4.) I found a lot of interesting articles that relate Wordsworth’s poetry to other fields of study that I would not have thought of. For example, I found an article that related Wordsworth’s poetry to Psychology. So, if any one wants to take their essay to a very interesting place, I would suggest trying to relate your poem to a subject of interest (i.e. your major, your dream major, anything) in your search. Who knows what you can find?

I also found resources on MLA Int. Bib that seemed great and very promising but they were also not available at Hamilton College or there were no online versions. At first I thought I would never be able to access these articles but I found them by searching each article individually or using a different database. I found that some articles that were listed but not available in MLA Int. Bib were actually available in Artemis.

This is my first time using the school’s databases for an essay, so I learned a lot about the resources at Hamilton and I am also sorry if this is redundant for some of you.


Good luck with your essays!

Imagination

On The Imagination, Or Esemplastic Power: I have now read this excerpt five times straight and am still struggling with a basic comprehension of what Coleridge is saying; however, that being said, I’m going to attempt to discuss some of its ideas in terms of “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison.” From what I understand (or think I understand) from Chapter 13, Coleridge views primary Imagination as the base of all human perception – secondary imagination then exists as an “echo” of this perception. There is some sense of recreation yet with lack of unification (I don’t know – feel free to help me out in the comments)

            We discussed “This Lime- Tree Bower My Prison” today in class in terms of a literal imagination; Coleridge is physically stuck in a Bower and therefore relies on his imagination to create a scene of his friend’s walk. I found footnote 4 particularly humorous: “Despite Coleridge’s claim, Charles Lamb eminently preferred London over what he called “dead Nature.”” The entirety of the poem consists of Coleridge’s image of Charles finding a peace and release of pain in nature. He pictures him sitting in the city “pining and hungering” for nature until he finally is able to experience the influx of sensory information that nature provides. Despite this image, the footnote tells us that that is most likely not the case. Coleridge has this sense of “human perception” or recreation of a scene that has become so vivid yet it lacks any grounding in reality. Coleridge seems to discuss the “fancy” with a somewhat negative connotation. It is the concrete and “definites,” perhaps the literal human perception. This then makes me think about what Zach said in class about this poem reminding him of Wordsworth in the Alps. Perhaps if Coleridge had gone on the walk and experienced these “fixities,” it would have been a disappointment and he would no longer be able to experience any type of “imagination;” It’s somewhat ironic that the human perception he seems to desire is not actually human perception at all but merely the human mind.   

Coleridge's Launching Point in "Dejection: An Ode"

In class today, we talked about the fact that Coleridge's poetry is very self-consciously focused on the use of language, even though his poems are perhaps meant to be about nature or philosophy of sorts. It seems as though Coleridge has this desire to get out of his own mind and really feel what nature is all about like Wordsworth does, but he is unable to. The Norton anthology editors note that Coleridge had somewhat infamous shortcomings in his headnote. "Coleridge's friends... abetted by his own merciless self-judgment, set current the opinion, still common, that he was great in promise but not in performance... while his mind was incessantly active and fertile, he lacked application and staying power" (439). So, while Coleridge seems to have been rather obsessed with words themselves, he didn't believe that he could manage to get them on paper in the same way that many of his contemporaries did. He would just kind of put it all down, whether the work was awful or amazing (as Professor Oerlemans noted in class). It makes sense, then, that Coleridge's poetry exhibits a preoccupation with words because he was not necessarily able to get past that first hurdle and to the guts of whatever meaning he was trying to convey. He can't help but keep going back to what is truly troubling him: language itself.

In his poem, "Dejection: An Ode," Coleridge uses an excerpt from an old Scottish ballad as a jumping off point. The critic R.A. Benthall discusses this in his essay, "New Moons, Old Ballads, and Prophetic Dialogues in Coleridge's 'Dejection: An Ode.'" He contrasts Wordsworth's launching point of the senses with Coleridge's launchpad, language.

The "Ballad of Sir Patrick Sense" perhaps gives Coleridge the sunlight and water that he needs to grow his own seeds of wisdom into a full-fledged work itself.

Here is a link to Benthall's article: New Moons, Old Ballads, and Prophetic Dialogues in Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode"

Here is a video reading of the "Ballad of Sir Patrick Spense": 

What Sound Can Do: Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight"

While “Frost at Midnight” finds Coleridge engaging in a remarkable degree of imagery, I found myself most drawn to its sound and meter that is both directly discussed by the speaker and bolstered by the play of lines.

After our introduction to the “secret ministry” of frost, we arrive at “the owlet’s cry” which “Came loud – and hark, again! loud as before” (2-3). Coleridge, in the first three lines of his poem, sets up a dichotomy that concerns his speaker throughout the poem: the absence of sound and sound itself. The two often become entangled throughout later lines – it is unclear when silence is “strange” or disturbing and when it is reassuring, an utterance of God. It seems as though the poem also scans the stressed syllables in spondees clustering around the “loud” sections – the owl’s hoot “came loud” and is followed by a “hark again,” versus a gentler iambic pentameter matching the quiet moments.

I am unsure when the speaker mentions a calmness that “disturbs / And vexes meditation with its strange / And extreme silentness” (8-10) if he means the peaceful slumbering of the infant. I’m tempted to say that this strange, extreme silentness is the general solitude of the speaker alone in the cottage where all else are at rest. Following on the lines of iambs vs. spondees, these lines seem to scan more along the lines of the “secret ministry” of frost. This leads into the “populous village,” where the “numberless goings on of life,” are as “Inaudible as dreams!” The speaker finds himself, in silent solitude before the frost’s performance, separated from the sea, hill, and wood – and yet, there’s an inaudibility, or absence of sound, there in the village too. Maybe this means that the speaker’s solitude prevents him from engaging in the village’s audibility – he is not part of the “goings on” there. Perhaps it means, instead, that his solitude is just as empty as those daily events, which are inaudible like dreams. However, considering the positive attributes given to dreams later in the poem, it seems like the silence in terms of the “sea, hill and wood,” is not disturbing and does not “vex meditation” (10-14).

The film among former flame, the “sole unquiet thing,” provides the speaker with “dim sympathies” (16 and 18). It provides a peak into the “hush of nature.” The “unquiet thing” reminds the speaker of “the poor man’s only music” – church bells from his childhood. Again, “old church-town” and “poor man’s only music” features a spondaic meter that contrasts with the “sole unquiet thing” of the film “which fluttered on the grate.” This metrical difference seems to contrast the two images that are, for the speaker, metonymically linked. The meter allows us to hold these two images separate from one another while they speak across the lines to each other.

Ultimately it is what is heard that the poem is concerned with, even if the thing that makes noise does so quietly. The “gentle breathings” of the child are “heard in this deep calm” (45). The child’s sleep becomes like the church bells with its “articulate sounds of things to come” (33). The speaker still emphasizes the visual – it is what the babe shall “see and hear / The lovely shapes and sound intelligible” that matter, but it is not seen in God, but is instead God who “utters” and thus “mould[s] / Thy spirit.”

The poem fades back into a silence by its end, looping around to the frost that quietly entered into the poem at the start. The middle of the stanza builds into spondees – the redbreast very audibly sings “while the nigh thatch / Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall” (67, 69-70). But then we settle into quiet, these things “Heard only in the trances of the blast” (71) or in frost, with its “silent icicles / Quietly shining to the quiet moon.” Perhaps this fade into quiet, indicated by unstressed syllables strung together, is indicative of the ultimate silence – death – also an untimely solitude. The speaker finds himself comforted by that which makes noise even in its quiet – the child – but, by the end, finds the moon and the icicles – both cold images – silently hanging over the world.