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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Hammond, Elsa A Title: Vital Breathings Breath, Voice, and the Culture of Air in Coleridge and Tennyson General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. Vital Breathings: Breath, Voice, and the Culture of Air in Coleridge and Tennyson Elsa Hammond A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts, School of Humanities, Department of English, October 2018. Word count: 78,631 Abstract The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the notion of breath and breathing in the literary work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and some of their contemporaries, is more complex than previously recognised, and is grounded in the scientific and cultural developments of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Chapter 1 establishes a scientific and cultural context for the chapters that follow, whilst also determining the prevalent themes of this study, including the relationship between breath and thought, the symbiotic respiratory relationship of the natural world, technological and medical advances, giving or taking voice, and the contrasting qualities of substantiality and insubstantiality of breath. Chapter 2 is concerned with cycles, meeting points and exchanges of breath in Coleridge’s writing, and focuses primarily on his conversation poems, ‘To William Wordsworth’, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Chapter 3 is an examination of Coleridge the talker, and presents a physiological and psychological explanation for why Coleridge talked so continuously. Chapter 4 offers a detailed reading of the reciprocal breathing relationship in In Memoriam, arguing that Tennyson’s particular engagement with forms of resuscitation and ventriloquism reflects and emphasises the paradox of circular and forward movement inherent in mourning and elegy. Chapter 5 argues that breath, ubiquitous in Idylls of the King in various forms of speech, is paradoxically insubstantial yet powerful; the atmosphere of rumour becomes increasingly substantial to the point that breathing becomes difficult, and the purpose of verbal commemoration is questioned in a world where words can no longer be trusted. Ultimately, this thesis argues that literary attentions to breath, in this period, are engaged with, and influenced by, the wealth of scientific development and concomitant cultural awareness, meaning that breathing is, in the work of Coleridge and Tennyson, compound, substantiated, and symbiotic. Acknowledgements Writing this thesis has been a bumpy ride, but I am more grateful than I can say to everyone who has offered generous support and thoughtful advice along the way – there are far more names on this list than I have space to write here. My greatest thanks are to my supervisors, Ralph Pite and Jane Wright, for their invaluable support during the course of this thesis – I have enjoyed every meeting with them immensely, and their attention to detail and thoughtful feedback have helped to shape this thesis in every way. I would also like to thank Samantha Matthews and Jessica Fay, who both offered constructive suggestions during the upgrade process. I am grateful to everyone in the English Department at Bristol; and, in particular, Ad Putter for his help and advice over the years. I also owe a huge amount to Francesco Manzini for his generous enthusiasm and support on the road to completion. I greatly appreciate the funding that I have received, which has made it possible for me to complete this thesis: a University of Bristol Humanities Academic Assistant Award, a Read-Tuckwell Postgraduate Scholarship (awarded on more than one occasion), and a Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust Grant. The following generous awards (some of which I have received more than once) have enabled me to present my work at conferences: a Keats-Shelley Society Sheila Birkenhead Bursary; a University of Bristol Graduate Conference Fund Award; a University of Bristol Head of English Bursary; a British Association of Romantic Studies Bursary, funded by the York Georgian Society and the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies; a Postgraduate Conference Bursary to attend ‘Robert Southey and Romantic-era literature, culture and science: 1797, 1817, a Bicentennial Conference’; an Ena Wordsworth Bursary from the Wordsworth Conference Foundation; and a University of Bristol Alumni Fund Award. Conferences attended over the course of my research have been vital opportunities to receive feedback on my developing work, and I am grateful to everyone who has offered suggestions – a comment from Alan Bewell in 2016 was especially formative. The Wordsworth Summer Conference in particular has been a great source of support and friendship during the writing of this thesis. I am deeply grateful to Alex, my Dad, Fraser, Helen, Oliver, Steve, and Tamsin, who all kindly read and commented on drafts of the developing thesis. Thanks are also due to my friends who have been patient, supportive, and understanding during this process – I look forward to being less absent from now on. Particular thanks to Catherine, who has been generous with advice and cake at every turn, and to Ben, for sharing the path with me this past year. To my family, who have so nearly learned not to ask how much I still have left to write – thank you for everything (and especially to my Mum for providing a welcome refuge, and nourishing food, at various points over these years). Finally, I would like to thank the University of Bristol for not only allowing me to go, but supporting me in heading out into the ocean part-way through my studies – the experience of being ‘alone on a wide, wide sea’ has undoubtedly provided me with fresh perspectives on everything, and I returned to this research with renewed vigour. To everyone who supported and encouraged me in that venture: thank you – there will be more to follow. Author’s declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the University’s Regulations and Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and that it has not been submitted for any other academic award. Except where indicated by specific reference in the text, the work is the candidate’s own work. Work done in collaboration with, or with the assistance of, others, is indicated as such. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author. SIGNED: DATE: Contents List of Illustrations i Abbreviations ii Note on Style and Texts iii Introduction 1 Chapter 1. ‘Different kinds of air’: a scientific, literary, and cultural 23 history of breath I. Before Priestley 23 II. Oxygen 26 III. Fresh air and health 34 IV. The Pneumatic Institution 42 V. The asylum 49 VI. Anaesthetics: between life and death 56 VII. Resuscitation 61 VIII. Ventriloquism 66 IX. Dust: breathing in the body 68 X. Cremation 73 XI. Technological advances 76 Chapter 2. ‘Vital Breathings’: Coleridge, airs, and cycles of inspiration 83 I. Breath, thought, and feeling 84 II. Green plants and common air 89 III. Vicarious, cyclical inspiration in ‘To William Wordsworth’ 98 IV. Breaths and breeZes in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 111 Chapter 3. ‘With toil of Breath’: why did Coleridge talk so much? 132 I. Coleridge’s lungs 139 II. Death of Berkeley 143 III. After Berkeley 154 IV. Afterlife of Coleridge’s talk 157 Chapter 4. ‘Breathing thro’ his lips’: reciprocal revivification in 169 In Memoriam I. Resuscitation 171 II. Breathing Hallam on 181 III. ‘The words that are not heard again’ 185 IV. Failure of the breath 191 V. Reciprocal breeZe 196 Chapter 5. ‘Empty breath | And rumours of a doubt’: the substance 204 of speech in Idylls of the King I. Arthur and Camelot 207 II. An atmosphere of rumour 213 III. Disintegration of Camelot 220 IV. Arthur’s breath and the atmosphere of Camelot 228 V. Last breaths 236 VI. Commemoration 242 Conclusion 252 Bibliography 258 List of Illustrations Figure 1: James Gillray, Scientific Researches! – New Discoveries in 47 Pneumaticks! – or – an Experimental Lecture on the Powers of Air (1802) Wikimedia Commons <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Royal_I nstitution_-_Humphry_Davy.jpg> [accessed 20 June 2018] Figure 2: James Tilly Matthews, Air Loom (1810) 52 Wikimedia Commons <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Airloom .gif> [accessed 30 September 2018] Figure 3: William Heath, The March of Intellect: Lord how this world 76 improves as we grow older (1828) Science Museum Group Collection Online <https://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects/co67546> [accessed 30 September 2018] Figure 4: Max Beerbohm, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Table Talking (1904) 135 Wikimedia Commons <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Max-coleridge.jpg> [accessed 10 September 2015] i Abbreviations CL Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed.