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Chapter 6: S. T. Coleridge Romanticism Chapter 6: S. T. Coleridge “The Eolian Harp” “Frost at Midnight” “To a Young Ass” 2011 Fall Sehjae Chun Life of S. T. Coleridge 1772 born in the country town of Ottery St Mary, Devon 1791-1794 attended Jesus College, Cambridge. a plan to found a utopian commune-like society, called Pantisocracy 1798 published Lyrical Ballads with Wordsworth 1800 returned to England and shortly thereafter settled with his family and friends at Keswick in the Lake District of Cumberland to be near Grasmere 1808 separated from his wife Sarah 1810 quarrelled with Wordsworth 1817 finished his major prose work, Biographia Literaria 1834 died in Highgate, London 2 S. T. Coleridge Major Works of Poetry Biographia Literaria The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Christabel, Kubla Khan, a Vision, The Pains of Sleep Fears in Solitude Lyrical Ballads, with a few Other Poems Poems on Various Subjects Sibylline Leaves: A Collection of Poems Sonnets from various authors The Poetical Works of S. T. Coleridge 3 S. T. Coleridge • A Poet of Supernatural Nature • A Poet of Conversation Poems • A Poet of Radicalism • A Poet of Imagination 4 A Poet of Supernatural Nature • willing suspension of disbelief • experiencing nature as an integral part of the development of a complete soul and sense of personhood • nature's capacity to teach joy, love, freedom, and piety, crucial characteristics for a worthy, developed individual. • a respect for and delight in natural beauty • guarded against the pathetic fallacy, or the attribution of human feeling to the natural world • an innate, constant joyousness wholly separate from the ups and downs of human experience in nature A Poet of Conversation Poems • a single figure • the descriptive, long, digressive poems • colloquial, spontaneous, and friendly 5 A Poet of Radicalism • eager to practice the faith's socio-political message of perfectibility and brotherhood • Influenced by the ideas of Rousseau, Godwin and Priestley, they planned to start 'Pantisocracy', an egalitarian community in Pennsylvania A Poet of Imagination • the 'primary' and 'secondary' imagination • The IMAGINATION then, I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree, and in the mode of operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where this process is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealise and unify. It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dead. 6 “The Eolian Harp” (Composed at Clevedon, Somersetshire) My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o'ergrown With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leav'd Myrtle, (Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!) And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light, Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be) Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents Snatch'd from yon bean-field! and the world is hushed! The stilly murmur of the distant Sea Tells us of silence. And that simplest Lute, Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark! How by the desultory breeze caress'd, Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover, It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes Over delicious surges sink and rise, 7 Such a soft floating witchery of sound As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land, Where Melodies round honey-dripping flowers, Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untam'd wing! O! the one Life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Rhythm in all thought, and joyance every where— Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so fill'd; Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air Is Music slumbering on her instrument. And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon, Whilst through my half-clos'd eye-lids I behold The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main. And tranquil muse upon tranquillity; Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd, And many idle flitting phantasies, Traverse my indolent and passive brain, As wild and various as the random gales That swell and flutter on this subject Lute! 8 And what if all of animated nature Be but organic Harps diversely fram'd, That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, At once the Soul of each, and God of all? But thy more serious eye a mild reproof Darts, O belovéd Woman! nor such thoughts Dim and unhallow'd dost thou not reject, And biddest me walk humbly with my God. Meek Daughter in the family of Christ! Well hast thou said and holily disprais'd These shapings of the unregenerate mind; Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break On vain Philosophy's aye-babbling spring. For never guiltless may I speak of him, The Incomprehensible! save when with awe I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels; Who with his saving mercies healéd me, A sinful and most miserable man, Wilder'd and dark, and gave me to possess Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honour'd Maid! 9 “The Eolian Harp” • a conversation poem • anticipation of a marriage with Sara Fricker along with the pleasure of conjugal love • man's relationship with nature • One life philosophy • an Aeolian harp - both order and wildness in nature • his desire to try and find the divine within nature • the impact of the countryside upon the viewer • his pantheistic feelings about nature --> returns to a more traditional view of God that deals more with faith than finding the divine within nature 10 “Frost at Midnight” The Frost performs its secret ministry, Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry Came loud, -and hark, again! loud as before. The inmates of my cottage, all at rest, Have left me to that solitude, which suits Abstruser musings: save that at my side My cradled infant slumbers peacefully. 'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs And vexes meditation with its strange And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood, With all the numberless goings-on of life, Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not; Only that film, which fluttered on the grate, Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing. Methinks its motion in this hush of nature Gives it dim sympathies with me who live, Making it a companionable form, Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit By its own moods interprets, every where Echo or mirror seeking of itself, And makes a toy of Thought. 11 But O! how oft, How oft, at school, with most believing mind, Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars, To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt Of my sweet birthplace, and the old church-tower, Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day, So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come! So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams! And so I brooded all the following morn, Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye Fixed with mock study on my swimming book: Save if the door half opened, and I snatched A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up, For still I hoped to see the stranger's face, Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved, My playmate when we both were clothed alike! Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the interspersed vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought! My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, 12 And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, And in far other scenes! For I was reared In the great city, pent mid cloisters dim, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible Of that eternal language, which thy God Utters, who from eternity doth teach Himself in all, and all things in himself. Great universal Teacher! he shall mould Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask. Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee, Whether the summer clothe the general earth With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall Heard only in the trances of the blast, Or if the secret ministry of frost Shall hang them up in silent icicles, Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
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