Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge(1772—1834) • English lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher, whose Lyrical Ballads, written with Wordsworth, started the English Romantic movement. • Although Coleridge's poetic achievement was small in quantity, his metaphysical anxiety, anticipating modern existentialism, has gained him reputation as an authentic visionary. • In Cambridge Coleridge met the radical, future poet laureate Robert Southey (1774-1843) in 1794. Coleridge moved with him to Bristol to establish a community, but the plan failed. • In 1795 he married the sister of Southey's fiancée Sara Fricker, whom he did not really love.

Coleridge and Wordsworth • Coleridge's collection Poems On Various Subjects was published in 1796, and in 1797 appeared Poems. In the same year he began the publication of a short-lived liberal political periodical The Watchman. • He started a close friendship with Dorothy and William Wordsworth, one of the most fruitful creative relationships in English literature. • From it resulted Lyrical Ballads, which opened with Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and ended with Wordsworth's 'Tintern Abbey.' • These poems set a new style by using everyday language and fresh ways of looking at nature.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner • This 625-line ballad is among his essential works. It tells of a sailor who kills an albatross and for that crime against nature endures terrible punishments. • The ship upon which the Mariner serves is trapped in a frozen sea. An albatross comes to the aid of the ship, it saves everyone, and stays with the ship until the Mariner shoots it with his crossbow.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner • The motiveless malignity leads to punishment: • And now there came both mist and show, • And it grew wondrous cold; • And ice, mast high, came floating by, • As green as emerald. • After a ghost ship passes the crew begin to die but the mariner is eventually rescued. He knows his penance will continue and he is only a machine for dictating always the one story.

Coleridge and Kant • Disenchanted with the political developments in France, he visited Germany in 1798-99 with the Wordsworths, and became interested in the works of Immanuel Kant. He studied philosophy at Göttingen University and mastered German. • In 1799 Coleridge fell in love with Sara Hutchinson, the sister of Wordsworth's future wife, to whom he devoted his work Dejection: An Ode (1802). During these years Coleridge also began to compile his Notebooks, daily meditations of his life. • Suffering from neuralgic and rheumatic pains, Coleridge had became addicted to opium, freely prescribed by physicians. In 1804 he sailed to Malta in search of better health. He worked two years as secretary to the governor of Malta, and later traveled through Sicily and Italy, returning then to England.

Kubla Khan Or, a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment. • From 1808 to 1818 he he gave several lectures, chiefly in London, and was considered the greatest of Shakespearean critics. • “Kubla Khan” was inspired by a dream. In the summer of 1797 the author had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton. • He had taken anodyne and after three hours sleep he woke up with a clear image of the poem. Disturbed by a visitor, he lost the vision, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images. • Modern scholarship is skeptical of this story, but it reflects Coleridge's problems to manage practical life and finish his ideas.

Coleridge's note Coleridge’s farm-house • The following fragment is here published at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity [Lord Byron], and, as far as the Author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed poetic merits. • In the summer of the year 1797, the Author, then in ill health, had retired to a lonely farm-house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire. • In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's Pilgrimage: ``Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.'' Porlock Bay Coleridge’s farm-house

Coleridge's note • The Author continued for about three hours in a profound sleep, at least of the external senses, during which time he has the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines; • if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. • On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved.

At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast, but, alas! without the after restoration of the latter!

Kubla Khan • Kublai Khan (1215-1294) was the fifth of the Mongol great khans and the founder of the Yüan Dynasty in China (1279-1368). • He is best known in the West as the Cublai Kaan of Marco Polo. • Kublai founded what was intended to be his brother's new capital but became in effect his own summer residence, the town of Kaiping. It later was named Shang-tu or 'Upper Capital' and was immortalised as the Xanadu of Coleridge's poem.

The Form of “Kubla Khan” • The chant-like, musical incantations of "Kubla Khan" result from Coleridge's masterful use of iambic tetrameter and alternating rhyme schemes. • The first stanza is written in tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAABCCDEDE, alternating between staggered rhymes and couplets. • The second stanza expands into tetrameter and follows roughly the same rhyming pattern, also expanded-- ABAABCCDDFFGGHIIHJJ. • The third stanza tightens into tetrameter and rhymes ABABCC. • The fourth stanza continues the tetrameter of the third and rhymes ABCCBDEDEFGFFFGHHG.

Stanza 1 an introduction - the ruler, the place, the decree • In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree :Where Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to manDown to a sunless sea. Alpheus = the classical underground river The Latin origin of the word sacred has 2 meanings: sacer = 'holy' or 'connected with a god of the underworld'; the surroundings of the river perhaps suit the second meaning best: at least a considerable stretch of the river runs underground. caverns (caves etc.) of measureless, "superhuman" dimensions, i.e. of expanses which man (human skill or the powers of the human mind) is not able to "fathom" both in a literal and figurative sense. The river‘s final destination is a place of extreme darkness and indefinite depth (down to a sunless sea). http://englishromantics.com/kublakhan/index.htm

Stanza 1 (conti.) fulfilment of the decree • So twice five miles of fertile groundWith walls and towers were girdled round :And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;And here were forests ancient as the hills,Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. Amidst [ancient] hills, shelter is offered by ancient forests which encompass sunny spots, i.e. clearings lighted and warmed by the sun (appeal to visual and tactile perception) which can serve as spaces for sport, play etc. A spectrum of colours can be associated with the words bright, blossomed (various colours; eternal spring?), sunny and greenery (implicitly in contrast to the darker green of the surrounding trees). A vivid picture of the landscape is given here: twice five miles of ground are reserved for the "project". The area is girdled (surrounded, confined) by walls and towers. Natural conditions and the results of artificial shaping seem to connect to an ideal kind of environment: fertile ground provides an ideal basis for cultivation of various kinds, e.g. of a park-like area: here were gardens bright with sinuous rills; the appeal to the eye is matched by fragrancy dispersed by many an incense-bearing tree.

In "Kubla Khan," Samuel Taylor Coleridge employs a superficially loose and disjointed construction which is actually carefully designed to trigger associations of imagery that produce mental echoes of juxtaposed impressions. • The lack of a consistent rhyme scheme, the uneven division of stanzas, and the use of iambic meter with a varying number of feet all contribute to a sense of disorientation, which in turn facilitates the process of mental echoing. The most important element of this effect, however, are the images themselves:

Stanza 2 • But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slantedDown the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !A savage place ! as holy and enchantedAs e'er beneath a waning moon was hauntedBy woman wailing for her demon-lover ! Comparison (as ... as) of the place with a haunted place, here with a place visited frequently by a woman, or a woman's spirit, "qualifies" it as a cursed place and makes it an ideal setting for a scene of "forbidden longing or mourning" (wailing), and forbidden love between humans and demonic powers (the woman + demon-lover). Classically, such a scene is set beneath a waning moon (atmosphere!). In a mere five lines, Coleridge evokes a rush of impressions encompassing such disparate subjects as sex, nature, and religion. Unable to integrate this apposition of imagery rationally, the conscious mind gives way to the subconscious process of association, thus leaving the reader with a series of fantastic and mysterious impressions that are felt rather than understood. First, a climactically arranged sequence of adjectives casts a mysterious or sinister light on the place: the chasm is deep (enhancing the meaning of the word chasm proper; s.a.) , romantic (associations: connected with beautiful, and wild, landscape, adventure, danger, mystery, love etc.; cf. following words) and savage (naturally wild, untamed, i.e. hard to keep in check etc.). On one peculiar green hill a chasm , i.e., a deep crack, crevice etc., runs downward through, or across, a thicket of cedar trees (slanted [/] down ...; athwart ... " = across, especially in a sloping direction" ;note multiple meaning and connotations of cover = thicket: roof, shelter etc., hiding place concealing something from sight).

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,A mighty fountain momently was forced:Amid whose swift half-intermitted burstHuge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and everIt flung up momently the sacred river. With the help of illustrative comparisons, a graphic description of an eruption is given: From this chasm ... A mighty fountain [is] forced, i.e. driven out of the ground by geological or supernatural forces, momently, i.e. at that moment, or at intervals. The gigantic and powerful ejection of water is seething with endless turmoil, displaying the visual and auditory properties of a liquid reaching its boiling point. Perhaps, Alph is the source of this eruption. A complex simile illustrates the phenomenon: this earth shows traits of a suffering human or god(dess), breathing ... in fast thick pants, i.e. fighting for breath etc., and, finally, bringing up the cause of the trouble (cf. phlegm; in supernatural terms: the evil). The sacred river throws itself up violently (flung up) amidst these dancing rocks. Its eruption takes place at once, i.e. either simultaneously, or suddenly; the 1st meaning would rather suggest that Alph is identical with the fountain, assuming a new form and quality, and is continuing to erupt; the 2nd meaning would imply that this eruption is additional to that of the fountain, and that Alph does not begin to mingle with it until this point (cf. back- ground). Comparisons with familiar phenomena serve to create a graphic picture: The rocks are likened to rebounding hail, the grains of which hit the ground, bounce off, and fall again; Chaffy grain behaves in a similar way when, in order to separate the chaff from the usable grain, wheat etc. is beaten beneath the thresher's flail, a stick with a club attached to it formerly used for this purpose. The magma etc. breaks forth with very great speed, at short intervals, or continuously, with increasing and decreasing intensity (swift half-intermitted burst); among this matter huge fragments, i.e. enormous boulders of rock, or lumps of magma, are hurled into the air (vault = "jump"; connotation: the trajectories of the falling fragments arch like a vault).

Stanza 2(conti.) Running in bends, changing its direction as if moving through a labyrinth. • Five miles meandering with a mazy motionThrough wood and dale the sacred river ran,Then reached the caverns measureless to man,And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from farAncestral voices prophesying war ! Amid this tumult, Kubla perceives Ancestral voices, i.e. the voices of (wise) forefathers, or those of religious prophets etc. They come from far (figurative meaning: from heaven etc.), announcing the event of war, which implies the destruction of the pleasure-dome etc. and loss of human life.

Repeating the contrasting images of the sunny pleasure-dome (connotations: warmth, brightness etc.) and the caves of ice (= caverns, s.a.; connotations: cold, darkness etc.) the speaker gives his evaluation of the phenomenon depicted in the preceding lines; he terms it as a miracle, i.e. an unexpected event of a supernatural kind, and, at the same time, as based upon a very peculiar kind of design or plan (of rare device). Stanza 3 • The shadow of the dome of pleasureFloated midway on the waves ;Where was heard the mingled measureFrom the fountain and the caves.It was a miracle of rare device,A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! Here one finds oneself on the "dark" side of the pleasure-dome which casts its shadow on the surface of the flowing lava and/or water where it is reflected and appears to be moving on the flow. In this way the material manifestation of too great human ambition or aspiration as the potential source of catastrophe, is associated with the disaster. Auditory impressions blend with the visual ones: at the same location, the mingled measure (mixed acoustic quality) of the noises originating from the fountain and the caves is audible.

Stanza 4 • It is thought that the final stanza of the poem, thematizing the idea of the lost vision through the figure of the "damsel with a dulcimer" and the milk of Paradise, was written post-interruption. • The mysterious person from Porlock is one of the most notorious and enigmatic figures in Coleridge's biography; no one knows who he was or why he disturbed the poet or what he wanted or, indeed, whether any of Coleridge's story is actually true. • But the person from Porlock has become a metaphor for the malicious interruptions the world throws in the way of inspiration and genius, and "Kubla Khan," strange and ambiguous as it is, has become what is perhaps the definitive statement on the obstruction and thwarting of the visionary genius.

Deeply impressed, the speaker voices a complex wish, the first part of which explicitly refers to the vision itself which he would like to reproduce and re-experience in his mind. Stanza 4 The imagination of this scene would give him, or gain him, very intensive, profound pleasure. The speaker is not only conscious of the emotional impact of the vision (the delight) but also of the potential inspirational powers connected with this delight: as an "imaginative potential" it is the essential prerequisite to the fulfilment of another part of his wish - his own building or designing of a paradise-like place. • A damsel with a dulcimerIn a vision once I saw :It was an Abyssinian maid,And on her dulcimer she played,Singing of Mount Abora.Could I revive within meHer symphony and song,To such a deep delight 'twould win me,That with music loud and long,I would build that dome in air,That sunny dome ! those caves of ice ! In contrast to Kubla's palace etc. and particular features of the landscape of Xanadu, that (sunny) dome and those caves of ice would be built in air, i.e. be founded on an immaterial basis (associations: "lofty" sky or heaven as opposed to "low" earth, the light versus the heavy element, over-all brightness versus (partial) darkness; the poetic genius' immaterial, indestructible paradise versus the commanding genius' doomed paradise of material gigantomania, etc.). The process of "building" this paradise-like place would, according to the speaker's imagination, be accompanied by music (cf. the nature and quality of the damsel's music; s.a.; celestial music, harmony of the spheres) loud and long, i.e. of a great intensity and extensive (eternal?) duration. The speaker recalls a vision, i.e. a beautiful sight and/or a dreamlike experience, which, however, is not restricted to visual impressions: a damsel, or maid, from Abyssinia (location of "Eden"), sings of Mount Abora (high place, mountain of the Gods etc.; "Mount Amara", the place where "Abassin", i.e. Abyssinian princes were reared). She accompanies herself on a dulcimer.

The speaker's imagination leaves this place open to all who heard, i.e. everybody who has been able or willing to perceive the music or the poem; he wishes (should...) or invites them to use their own imagination and see them[selves] there. The reaction he expects of them (... all should cry, Beware! ...), cries of warning, fear, awe etc., is directed towards the dominating figure of the last part of the poem. The second act is to close your eyes with holy dread, i.e. with awe towards a superhuman being. The figure represented by the words his and he is characterised by flashing eyes which might have a blinding effect on humans, floating hair, i.e. hair moving in the wind or storm (cf. pictorial representations of ancient gods), and finally, by the assumption that He on honey-dew [has] fed [/] And drunk the milk of Paradise, i.e. has been entitled to share the privileges of gods (cf. the ancient gods' consuming ambrosia and nectar). In contrast to Kubla, the "commanding genius", he appears to be the legitimate, "absolute genius" in command of "Paradise regained", i.e. a god or a figure entitled to the rights of a god, God the Almighty, etc. The figure could theoretically be identical with the speaker of the poem, who, inspired by the muses (the damsel), would have attained the status of a "poetic genius" in command of a paradise of imagination, i.e. the realm of the poet's inspiration; in this case, the last four lines would rather be uttered by all than by the speaker himself. The speaker demands of the reader or listener to perform acts of great reverence or awe etc. towards this figure: the first act, which reminds of symbolic gestures performed during a religious or magic conjuration or incantation, is to Weave a circle round him thrice (Weave a circle; here: to describe a circle by symbolic gestures). Stanza 4 • And all who heard should see them there,And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !His flashing eyes, his floating hair !Weave a circle round him thrice,And close your eyes with holy dread,For he on honey-dew hath fed,And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Bitter Life • In 1810 Coleridge's friendship with Wordsworth came to crisis, and the two poets never fully returned to the relationship they had earlier. • During the following years Coleridge lived in London, on the verge of suicide. After a physical and spiritual crisis at Greyhound Inn, Bath, he submitted himself to a series of medical régimes to free himself from opium. • He found a permanent harbor in Highgate in the household of Dr. James Gillman, and enjoyed almost legendary reputation among the younger Romantics. During this time he rarely left the house.

The End of his Life • In 1816 the unfinished poems “Christabel” and “Kubla Khan” were published, and next year appeared Sibylline Leaves. • After 1817 Coleridge devoted himself to theological and politico-sociological works - his final position was that of a Romantic conservative and Christian radical. • He also contributed to several magazines, among them Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. • Coleridge was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1824. • He died in Highgate, near Londonon July 25, 1834.

Wordsworth & Coleridge • Wordsworth is clearly more entitled than Coleridge to be considered the leader in creating and also in expounding a new kind of poetry. • Until Coleridge met Wordsworth, which was probably in 1795, he wrote in the manner which had been fashionable since the death of Milton, employing without hesitation all those poetic licenses which constituted what he later termed `Gaudyverse,' in contempt. • If one reads Coleridge's early poems in chronological order, one will perceive that Gaudyverse persists till about the middle of 1795, and then quickly yields to the natural style which Wordsworth was practicing.

Coleridge’s Conversation Poems • Coleridge's shorter, meditative "conversation poems," proved to be the most influential of his work. • Conversation poems are poems in which the speaker addresses his lines to a listener within the poem, generally a listener who has little voice of his own. • These include both quiet poems like This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison and Frost at Midnight and also strongly emotional poems like Dejection and The Pains of Sleep. • Wordsworth immediately adopted the model of these poems, and used it to compose several of his major poems. Via Wordsworth, the conversation poem became a standard vehicle for English poetic expression, and perhaps the most common approach among modern poets.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834)