Wandering in Romantic Literature and Painting

As I was looking at Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog in one of the earlier posts on this blog, the sort of romantic wandering depicted in the painting really reminded me of some of the poetry we had read by Wordsworth. To me, the vastness of the landscape that Friedrich depicts, very mysterious and unknown, and the wanderer's relationship to this nature is reminiscent of the kind of nurturing, almost religious relationship that Wordsworth talks about in his Prelude. Friedrich himself was a deeply religious man as well as a Romantic, and so in his paintings he often references the glory of God through his depiction of landscapes—which I think is definitely apparent in the mystery and vastness of the world that he presents in this painting. The idea of the wanderer is also something that Wordsworth touches on in “Tintern Abbey”, which has that sort of “in between” and wandering feel in both the speaker’s state of mind as well as in the language. And yet, this wandering leads the speaker to important insights about nature, life and memory, which could be reflected in the Friedrich painting: while we cannot see the wanderer’s face, his head appears to be downturned as he surveys the landscape, standing on the precipice of the cliff, most likely contemplating the beauty and magnificence the scene before him and noting his own smallness in the face of it all. This idea of the wanderer, as displayed by Friedrich and Wordsworth, is something that would be carried throughout Victorian art and culture for the next century, with works such as William Morris’s Earthly Paradise, in which a group of wanderers who have been expelled from their war-torn city act as the main speakers, touching on this feeling of “in between” that permeated British society at this time.

The origins of "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison"

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" is a poem written in a very personal manner, where Coleridge describes a time he went walking through the countryside with his friends, but could only walk so far because of a minor foot injury he had at the time. I was interested in looking into the background of this poem after professor Jones told us the cause of Coleridge's injured foot (apparently, his wife had accidentally spilled boiling milk onto it) because of its very personal nature to see if I could find out a little bit more about the context in which it was written. Apparently, Coleridge and his wife, Sara Fricker, had been spending a lot of time with some of Coleridge's friends (including the Wordsworths) during the summer of 1797. At the time this particular poem was written, they were at Thomas Poole's home at Nether Stowey, in the beautiful countryside, where Coleridge spent much time in nature and in a little cottage writing poetry. He and his wife had been going through a troubling time in their relationship- Sara had had a miscarriage during this summer. This poem was written under a particular lime tree that Coleridge had particularly favored in a note to Poole.

It seems then, in this light, like Coleridge was feeling similarly loving and (perhaps this is a bit too strong of a word, but) resentful towards both his wife and the lime-tree. Regardless of whether or not he actually felt resentment towards his wife regarding the miscarriage, both the lime-tree and his wife were living things he loved and found beautiful- but also imprisoned him. Interestingly enough, while this poem was meant to be dedicated to the general group of friends with whom he had been spending time that summer, including his wife, her name was left out of the dedication upon publication. It is certainly a stretch to say that the poem represents disdain or resentment that Coleridge might have felt towards his wife. However, I think its fascinating to do a little detective work and figure out the state of mind that an artist is in when he creates his art; to broaden perspective while reading poetry.

To Autumn, a painting

I do not understand quite how the poem "To Autumn" and this painting based off of the poem are related. I see no images from the poem, which I understand may be too literal of an interpretation for the artist. However, I also do not see any of the sentiments in the poem. I see only a nice painting of some trees by a lake with a pretty background. I don't see the growth or the sweetness from the first stanza. I suppose I can see a little bit of the calmness and waiting patiently of the second stanza, but that is not what the poem's focus is. I don't see the maturity in the last stanza. And, furthermore, I don't see the cyclical nature of the poem, which I suppose may be hard to paint. Nonetheless, this painting is not what I expected when searching for a painting based on this poem. I feel like it doesn't encapsulate anything the poem is trying to convey, nor does it propose similar sentiments.

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog - Friedrich

I think this painting is one of the best embodiments of the Romantic period there is. It is "Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" by Friedrich. It's depiction of a man standing awestruck and pensive, staring at the natural scene in front of him is symbolic of the whole movement. During this time period nature was deemed a type of omnipotent, uncontrollable might to whose might we must acquiesce. He seems to be in love with the beauty of the scene as he stands high atop a peak and look out and down at the world. However, there is still a sense of power and majesty that the world has that he both revere and fear.

I think his lack of movement in contrast with the constant movement of the clouds and fog plays a role in his feeling diminished by everything he is seeing. To contrast the movement as well, there are massive mountains on the horizon that even from this perspective seem enormous. The ruggedness of the terrain also makes the scene even more foreboding. However, one still gets a sense of conquering nature; he made it to the top of this mountain. But, I think that while he "conquered" this mountain he has a view of just how impressive the rest of the world is.

Kubla Khan

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Kubla Khan is the product of a an opium-fueled dream, in which Coleridge imagines what life would be like if nature were our only ruler. Coleridge uses "Kubla Khan" to refer to a "stately pleasure-dome" which exists in Xanadu, China. Kubla Khan is a play on "Kublai Khan," who was an emperor of the Mongolian Empire and founder of the Yuan Dynasty. By comparing this pleasure-dome to an almighty emperor of the past, Coleridge immediately establishes its legitimacy. Much like an emperor issuing edicts, the pleasure-dome "decree(ed)/ Where ALPH, the sacred river, ran." The sacred river which runs into the sea can be viewed as the blood from which the landscape derives its life source, allowing it to produce forests, hills, and miles of fertile ground. Coleridge does more than just view nature in a positive light though, and acknowledges that there is a dark side. This dark side can be found in the deep caverns and "caves of ice." The mention of caverns and icy caves brings to mind Dante's Inferno. As Dante and Virgil travel deeper and deeper into the rings of Hell, they eventually reach the center, where Satan resides frozen in ice. Satan has three faces, one of which is described as "like those who come from where the Nile, descending, flows." It seems as though Coleridge was interested in showing contrasts in nature - the beautiful, sublime side, in which a lovely river flows through, and the cold, morally corrupt side that the river of life can lead you to. In Kubla Khan, Coleridge demonstrates that even nature in all of its glory has a much darker side, and can be just as unforgiving as a vicious ruler.

The Prelude and Nature as Continuity

It seems quite fitting that we conclude this semester with Wordsworth’s The Prelude, a piece that Wordsworth worked and reworked for the last forty-five years of his life and yet never completed (although of course it is by no means fragmented in its posthumous publication). Written in response from the urge of Coleridge, the poem explores so much of what this course has grappled with: what does it mean to be a poet? How do poet’s see and interact with the world in different ways than us? And what is the role of nature to the poet?

In engaging these broader questions I was struck most significantly by the eleventh book of The Prelude, in which the subject of nature and childhood are explored as the way in which we connect to our pasts. For Wordsworth, there exist certain “spots of time” in a poet’s life that stand out as “renovating Virtue”. It is in these moments, the moments that are often inextricably tied to nature that the poet is born. It is these memories that the poet’s personality and perspective is formed. So it is nature itself that constructs who we are. Nature is the continuity between what we are now, and what we once were as a “thoughtless youth”. This notion of nature as the continuity of our lives seems central to romanticism at large, and it makes sense that we would end on such a powerful and consolidating note. At the same time, I wonder what it would’ve been like to start with Wordsworth, and to have framed the entire course through the continuity of nature; I actually don’t know how different it would be, since we see nature as a means of communication with the past and present in so many of the romantic writers we encountered.

We are seven

The poem "We are seven" by Wordsworth seems to contradict Blake's idea of innocence and experience. The little girl demonstrates signs of innocence when she portrays her idea of death at the beginning. The narrator symbolizes experience when he questions the little girl's childish thoughts. However, she, seemingly stubbornly, refuses to accept his perspective, even after his doubts persist. She claims the children are still connected even though they are dead. What is truly interesting is that she still holds generally innocent views even after she has gained experience--she still believes they are together as seven even though she knows and understands that they are dead or gone. I suppose an argument could be made against her truly understanding that they are dead or gone, but I like to think that she does because she listens to what the man has to say and still believes they are seven.

One thing that I don't quite understand is why there is that little intro (the first stanza on page 377), or what it means. It seems to me like the poem doesn't need this verse.

Ode to a Nightingale

I'm interested in the phrase: "Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird!" I don't really know what to make of it. I can't decide if he is saying that animals are immortal because they lack consciences and thus have despairs because "where but to think is to be full of sorrow." I would think that because he aspires to be like the nightingale, he would simply want to tap into his more spiritual and natural side through poetry, rather than lose his conscience--so to speak.

Nature plays a strange role in this poem. As I already said, he both aspires toward nature as well as derogates its to an extent. Also, at the beginning he metaphorically speaks of plants like hemlock and opiate that have caused him to have a "drowsy numbness" that pains his sense. He then goes on to talk about plants that have "soft incense" and sweetness. I really can't understand what he thinks of nature in this poem, but nature seems to be the crux of this poem. I think it is almost supposed to be both something beautiful and something deleterious, but it is very confusing to me. If anyone has any opinions on nature in this poem, I would really like to hear them.

Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey and "Spots of Time" from The Prelude

Wordsworth's musings in Tintern Abbey's which establish his notion of nature as a healing force arise once more in direct connection with the section "Spots of Time" in his Prelude. He writes of memories of nature and how they can be restorative both in the moment and later in times of despair. As he ventures about the "steep and lofty cliffs" in Tintern, he connects this imagery with the cliffs he sat upon as he waited for the carriage to take him home in Prelude. Though both poems reflect back on his childhood, attempting to immerse the reader and poet within that time, they cannot abstain from harboring a tone of condescension as Wordsworth speaks of his younger self. His "hour of thoughtless youth," (Tintern Abbey: 90-91) and "trite reflections of morality," (The Prelude: 373) while amidst his awe-inspiring and formative moments nature seem to him as a man both naive but also gravely important to him. They remind him of a perspective of life that an adult can often lose sight of in the face of maturity and all its troubles. By this we see an inner struggle with Wordsworth in which he attempts to reconcile the anxieties of his adult self with the earnest and naive--though powerful--meditations as a youth.

Soot to soot

Coleridge's Frost at Midnight is a cyclical poem. It begins with the "secret ministry" of the winter frost--a curious phrase--and ends with it, as well. No doubt this is an allusion to the cyclical patterns of nature, such as seasons, measurements of time, the biblical-inspired notion of ashes to ashes (in which the body returns to the earth from which it came and becomes one with God's other creations) or soot to soot in his case, and by that reference the juxtaposition between death or decay and life or rebirth, which is enforced in this poem by the presence of his son. Though, this poem has much more complex properties than just that of a circle. It weaves through the stream of consciousness-like atmosphere of Coleridge's late-night "Abstruser musings," into the ashes of his dying fire, only then to move into the faint memories of his childhood, and finally scale back rapidly to the future of his son's life and God's will upon the universe.
The strangeness of the first setting calls to question the "inaudible" quality of dreams that he speaks of: are dreams inaudible because they remain out touch and we are often unable to grasp them when we wake? The structure of the motif of dreams in the poem is surely consistent with the weaving of its overall structure in that its scale and characteristics morph throughout its verses. His dreams are at once both sleeping and waking with "unclosed eyes," and it is often unclear when he is supposed to be dreaming or whether its a dream within a day-dream. Coleridge seeks to ground us back in his cottage at midnight with the cyclical mention of frost.

Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: a Moral Tale with Supernatural Elements

English Blog entry 6
Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: a Moral
Tale with Supernatural Elements
Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner” is interesting in that it combines a message of morality, similar to
the hubris and folly that afflicted heroes of the classical Greek plays and Homeric-era
epics, while also carrying elements of the sublime and spirituality within
nature that are typical of the romantic era in which it was written. The Mariner
foolishly kills an Albatross early on in the poem. His penance is extensive and
grim; including the death of his crew, and the destruction of his ship. He is
left with a future in which he must travel the vast lands of the earth,
spreading a message of “love and reverence” to all things “God made and loveth.”
Amidst
this story of the Mariner’s poor decision and subsequent curse, is a variety of
spiritual elements that exist in the seemingly magical world of the ocean. In
the fifth stanza on page 574, the Mariner describes the beauty of water-snakes swimming
under the moonlight. The snake is often a symbol of Lucifer, yet in this
context it is enchanting to the eyes of the Mariner. This spiritual beauty transcends
to the level of the sublime when the corpses of the Mariner rise up from the
dead, guided by angelic spirits to sail the ship. While this scene is
beautiful, the notion of a corpse rising from the dead has an element of impossibility
that evokes the horror of the sublime. The atmosphere in which the corpses rise
up is one in which the natural is emphasized; “Beneath the lightning and the
Moon/ The dead men gave a groan (329-330)”. The supernatural of this scene
draws power from the natural world of the ocean, a place in which the
impossible can be possible.
Ultimately Coleridge fuses a narrative
of moral folly with elements of the sublime and supernatural, creating a work
wholly unique in its fusion of traditional and contemporary (romantic) methods
of writing.

Why a Wedding?

Upon reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in high school, Coleridge's mystical yet fran language suprised me, and though I presently don't have a complete understanding of the epic, I understand it to be one of a young man's journey in isolation, after witnessing death, struggling with his identity and with God's. After the journey, he has significantly aged. The line "I shot the ALBATROSS" (82), dripping in fate, seems to launch the young mariner into a journey to adulthood, then grief, dehydration and supposed divine encounters age him.

I've still found myself wondering why Coleridge set the narration at a wedding, and why the mariner engaged a wedding guest, for whom the wedding may not be a significant moment. Perhaps Coleridge did this for the sake of humor, as the mariner's being out of place does create and odd and somewhat comical situation. However, the maturity change that the wedding guest seems to have undergone is significant enough for there to be a deeper motive. I have always seem the wedding guest as a third party outsider, as the wedding seems to move seamlessly without his being there. Perhaps, the mariner speaks to him to caution him and educate him on the effects of loneliness.

The mariner could also be speaking to him because he is too burdened by this memory not to.

The Romantic Artists' Depiction of Manfred

For my third paper, I decided to draw connections between Byron's poem Manfred and art depicting the poem. It was common for romantic artists to draw on poetry and literature for their subjects; Manfred was a popular subject for painters. I will limit my paper's scope to include only one of these paintings, but I thought I might use this blog post to draw some similarities between the artistic representations of Manfred. Interestingly, the artists of these paintings romanticized Byron's poem by heightening the sublime beauty of nature.

Manfred and the Witch of the Alps, John Martin

Manfred, Thomas Cole

Manfred on the Jungfrau, John Martin

These depictions of the poem bring together the literary and visual representations of romanticism. The landscapes that Byron describes in his poem are larger than life in many ways. One line that stands out to me from Act 3 Scene 4 is when Manfred describes the effect of the moon on his surroundings, "leaving that beautiful which still was so,/ And making that which was not, till the place/ Became religion" (line 38). Even as he contemplates suicide in Act 1, Scene 2, Manfred remarks on the beauty of his surroundings and how humans will never live up to the greatness of nature (lines 37 - 45).

The romantic poets Thomas Cole and John Martin took the romantic descriptions Byron made and translated them into another of the period's popular media: painting. Like in Manfred, nature in these paintings is on an epic scale-- the characters of the poem are only a small portion of the painting, which makes the audience focus on nature the way Manfred did.

I do think the paintings failed to capture the spirit of the poem in at least one way: in Martin's paintings especially, we see a sublime depiction of nature that was not present in the poem. The perfectly blue skies and the rainbow surrounding the witch give the impression that nature is perfect. Cole even included a water sprite on the right of his painting. But, although he praises their beauty, Manfred also recognizes that not everything about nature is picturesque. In Act 1, Scene 2, he writes about the destruction that mountains cause when they fall, "filling up/ The ripe green valleys with destruction's splinters;/ Damming the rivers with a sudden dash," (lines 93-96). In the final scene, as he stands in the tower, Manfred describes his surroundings as "a noble wreck in ruinous perfection," (line 28). For Manfred, much of nature's beauty comes out of destruction. By choosing to portray pristine and sublime representations of nature in their paintings of Manfred, these painters have romanticized Byron's romantic poem.

Kubla Khan, or is it?

When I googled images of Kubla Kahn, this is what happened to pop up. It comes from a blog post that deals with meter in Kubla Kahn and is very interesting: http://blog.inkyfool.com/2011/06/kubla-khan-crescendo.html.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this is supposed to represent Kubla Khan or not, but even if it doesn't, I'm finding a lot of parallels.

Firstly, this painting obviously deals with the rich landscape created around the sacred river, though there is seemingly little land involved. The focal point of the painting seems to be an arch in the background which is paralleled a little to the right by the deep cave that I assume to be the cave of the poem.

The foreground and left side of the piece is riddled with signs of merchant life and prosperity, but the opposing cliff face in the right foreground seems to be directly threatening the human scene. The abstract shapes and splashes of color in the rock could represent war machines, advancing troops, or the inevitable demise of the rock as the shapes are carved out of it by the sea. This is strengthened by the palimpsest-y feel of the human side of this painting, which is caused by swirls of white bleaching in places where it doesn't fit in, making it look as if the artist was trying to portray the look of the place before or after civilization.

This scene of impending natural or human doom is reflected in Khan's foretaste of his own destruction in the poem and highlights the difference between the impermanent world Khan has created and the more lasting world that the narrator is attempting to create himself in the latter part of the poem.

The Riches of the Forgotten

Upon reading Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, I was immediately struck by Coleridge’s expansive imagination and the poem’s peculiar context and framing. The preface was extremely confusing to me at first since I was not sure who was actually speaking, but after it became clear that Coleridge was reflecting on his own experience, I was still a bit confused as to why he framed the poem as an exploration of “psychological curiosity” rather than on the “grounds of any supposed poetic merit”. I suppose this was somewhat resolved when I understood that Coleridge felt that this was only a “fragment” of the whole piece that he wanted to write, but prefacing it that way still seemed oddly defensive. Then again, it seems many of the romantics were facing extremely harsh criticism, so it seems natural to assume that stance.

After making it into the beginning of the poem, the divide in Coleridge’s language in the eight to ten scattered lines “of exception” and the rest of his attempt to recollect his transporting dream was stark. Most obvious at first was the difference in rhyme scheme, but perhaps even more pronounced than the shift in rhyme was the shift in tone; the first stanza seems to flow quite naturally, and while the second is in no way bulky or unwieldy, it felt a bit more calculated. As Coleridge contrasts the confining walls of the pleasure-dome with the measureless caverns through which the river flows it immediately feels as if the poem is trying to work on me. This impressing tone continues throughout the rest of the poem, by no fault, though noticeably different from the loose, flowing, dream-like, language of the first stanza. This not-so-subtle shift made me think about the conception of this poem and if the story really is true, what this poem would have been if Coleridge was not interrupted by the man form Porlock – honestly I’m not sure if it would have been nearly as engaging. To me the most interesting parts of this poem seem to stem from what Coleridge cannot remember, and the way that he fabricates his dream as a medium for poetic expression.

The Romantic imagination in Tintern Abbey

Over the past couple weeks, looking at a variety of poetry and painting that deals with this idea of the Romantic dream and imagination, it struck me very varied the conception of this idea really was. For someone like Henry Fuseli, it was this extremely macabre, haunting pictorial realm. For Coleridge in "Kubla Khan," it was a visionary, fantastical landscape. However, for Wordsworth, in Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey, I felt that it was something much quieter and more internal, exemplified by the lines:

"...Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lighten'd:--that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended , we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things." (lines 36-5o, "Tintern Abbey")

For me, this was the section of Tintern Abbey that best exemplified the Romantic imagination. It is the moment in which Wordsworth turns from what he can see to what he can see within--to his thoughts and ideas. This passage begins with heavy language, as he speaks of the "burthen of mystery" and "the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world", but it makes a dramatic shift as the burden "is lighten'd", and he transitions into his description of what he considers to be the Romantic imagination. He creates Romantic imagination as an inward reflection, completely serene and lacking the sublime elements we see in something like Fuseli's The Nightmare. It is a state of being that is removed from the body, as one becomes "a living soul" as "Even the motion of... human blood [is] suspended." He posits it as almost indescribable, using smooth and serene language without visual imagery as Coleridge does in Kubla Khan--instead the Romantic imagination is characterised by pure feeling and understanding, or more specifically, feeling and understanding the most essential and simple elements of life, as "the power of harmony... and joy" allow us in this state to "see into the life of things." Overall, Wordsworth's version of the Romantic imagination presents a sharp contrast to other versions of the idea that we have looked at in class, as well as paves the way for the authors' further reflections in the poem.

Layers of Fiction in Kubla Khan

After reading this poem, I was dying to know more about its strange preface. Is it a preface? I don't even know what one would call the entirely bizarre beginning part of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan". The fact that it is in the third person is already very different from the other works we've read by him in class. So far as I know of him, he feels very comfortable talking in the first person and describing luscious accounts of nature, but I suppose he also is comfortable breaking the rules a bit. For example, his and Wordsworth's Lyrical Ballads was groundbreaking in its simplicity in comparison with all the sublime language being used in poetry at the time. The fact that Coleridge addresses himself as a celebrity, though, is very shocking and unlike anything I would expect a poet to say from this time period (or any time period, really). Perhaps it is also necessary to remember that he is about to take a opium-induced nap, but anyways...I guess the analysis I read of the preface that I found the most believable to me was that this poem is narrated by a fictional person, and I think it was inspired by a dream he had (maybe he dreamed all of this entire preface and poem up! but maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself).

I tend to think this because after reading about "Purchas's Pilgrimage" and its absolutely immense volume, I doubt that it would be a book that Coleridge would happen to be carrying around with him. Like I stated previously, I also find it strange that he would be writing in the third person, and perhaps switching to that register is a way of letting us know that he is not the narrator of the poem. I also read an interesting interpretation of this poem that claims that the interruption of the person from Portslock could have been written as a means of shortening it and therefore being able to properly call it a "fragment". There is often (if not always) more than meets the eye or ear as far as Romantic poets are concerned, which makes it the most fun to pick apart and put back together like a gorgeous puzzle. Even if I'm adding my own layer of fiction here, and if our own analyses don't reflect the author's intentions, isn't the actual leaving of the art to the people of the earth the real intention of the artist anyways? Maybe not the case for all artists, but definitely for those of the Romantic Age.

I would also like to point everyone in the direction of this wonderful article concerning Coleridge and science by Radiolab's Jonah Lehrer: http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/07/coleridge_and_science.php Go read it! It rocks

Coleridge in Darkness and Silence.

Coleridge uses the contrasting images of light and dark in "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" and noise and silence in "Frost at Midnight" to create a motif that highlights his physical nearness, yet separation from, those around him. In "Lime-Tree Bower", Coleridge describes how his mobile friends pass from the light of day into the shaded umbrage of the dell, then emerge again into the bright sun. He, however, rests in the shadows of his prison. Later, though, he notices that he too is residing in a place of both light and shadow. "Pale beneath the blaze/Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd/Some broad and sunny leaf..."

In "Frost at Midnight" Coleridge contrasts the loud world outside his cottage with the peace and silence that he finds within. He at first believes this to be a separation of himself and his child from the world, but as he pays closer attention, there is sound even within this cottage. The soot in the hearth grate, though a small sound, "By its own moods interprets, everywhere/echo or mirror seeking of itself,/and makes a toy of Thoughts"
In remembering his school days, he reflects on how, although he was isolated, his child will be free to roam and experience the world without restriction. This child will prosper under the noise of the summer birds or the silence of the winter frost.

These familiar contrasts allow the reader to involve multiple senses when reading these poems. The imagined visuals of sunlight streaming through a canopy of leaves, or the well-known feeling of an uncomfortably quiet room, suggest realistic settings. This is unlike some poems like "Ode to the West Wind" or "O Solitude" that give only a little thought to the setting in which the poem takes place. For Coleridge, the setting is very important, both to ground the reader, and to serve as a character of sorts - one whose emotion interacts with the narrator in a meaningful way.

Kubla Khan, Modern Version

When I was younger my father dragged me to a concert at some small honky-tonk bar in Nashville to see some local music, being of Middle School age and into "cool" music I was not particularly enthused. However, there was one aspect of the performance that piqued my interest and made the whole night's boredom worth it. One of the artists spoke a personal rendition of Kubla Khan by Coleridge as an introduction to a song of his, and I found myself (without knowing anything about STC) enthralled by the words. His version has since been the one that runs through my mind whenever I read Coleridge's poem, and though it may be crude by some standards it sticks with me nonetheless.

The version I post here (as with all things) cannot match the memory-magnified purity of that first moment, but I'd like to share it anyways. Also, if anyone is interested in folk music I wholeheartedly recommend David Olney, he is a fantastic musician and songwriter (he also has renditions of other classic poems on his Youtube account, though I can't vouch for their quality). Also, I don't seem to be able to create a hyper link using this blogs tools for some reason, and it won't show up, I will instead just post the address where the video can be found.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK5EcMxuQzk

Nature and Youth in Coleridge

“Frost at Midnight” is, in many ways, a personal interpretation of the guiding principles of early Romanticism. Nature is idealized, given power and agency while being directly linked to personal imagination. Yet the alienation of Coleridge’s childhood distances the poem from the unbridled joy of, say, Wordsworth.

Wordsworth was born and raised in the countryside, a background that permeates all of his work. He depicts childhood as a time when connection to the world around him was at its most intimate. In “Tintern Abbey,” he mourns the loss of the “appetite: a feeling and a love” with nature as he grows older. The natural world granted him serenity and stimulated his imagination, an organic and pure happiness that is seldom seen in Coleridge’s works.

The speaker in “Frost at Midnight,” in contrast to Wordsworth’s rural upbringing, grew up “pent in cloisters dim,” able to seek refuge only in the “sky and stars.” There is no refuge in the memories of his past, no profound emotional imprints for him to call upon. The deep isolation of his early years is reflected as he addresses his child. He promises that his son will “wander like a breeze,” guaranteeing a freedom both spiritual and physical that he himself never experienced. He leaves the night he is currently surrounded by for the “leaf and stem…dappling its sunshine” and a tree with a “deep radiance,” underscoring the illumination achieved through contact with nature.

Where as Wordsworth’s youth was a sanctuary for his “fretful” adult life, Coleridge speaks of this emotional connection with wonder. He treats it as a fragile and unstable connection, one that Wordsworth speaks of as inevitable. “Nature ne’er deserts the wise and pure,” he says towards the end, an almost mournful recognition of a bond he was deprived of.

Mankind's Saving Grace or Family Romance

In Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth's faith in nature is mirrored by his faith in--and hope for--future generations, emblematized by his younger sister Dorothy. Though he may speak of his own youth with a tone of slight condescension, he revels in his revisitation of it and its passions and fires as he walks through Wye with her. Furthermore, he knows that he must die and lives vicariously through his sister and the possibilities of her young life and budding love of nature and he makes a "prayer" on her behalf. This prayer--one in which he relays his hope that she will one day come to worship and understand nature with the fervor he has--is wrapped up in his own desire to inspire her and influence her. Not only does he wish that her relationship to nature imitate his own, but he wishes that her experiences with HIM will most decisively define her love of nature and serve as "healing" memories. He romanticizes his position as her older brother and idealizes its significance in her life.
Wordsworth associates a youthful perspective on nature with anguish in desire, anxiety, and unconsummated love, whereas his view of a matured and more resolved bond with nature is one of peace; a quiet and enlightened recognition. It means an appreciation for the small moments in life and simple pleasures of living, such as "life and food" and at that "for future years" to come. He claims that there is comfort in the continuum of life--in the fact that even after we "are laid to sleep," another generation will sprout up and continue to feel and enjoy the impression of nature upon them.

Form & Content in "We Are Seven"

Wordsworth‘s poem “We Are Seven” evokes a number of different feelings- we feel sad that the little maid of eight years has lost her siblings, we might also feel sad at the fact that she cannot comprehend how tragic that fact is, and from that we feel surprised at how much ease she has when she speaks of them. By the end of the poem, though, I think a large part of us is left feeling very happy for this girl, and we are ultimately left admiring her ability to treat death not as something that tears her apart from her siblings but something that merely stops her from physically being able to see them. One might ask, is it simply her very immature state as an eight year old girl that is stopping her from seeing the sadness in the situation? At that age, we are very accepting of things we are told- of “the way the world works“, so to speak. For example, when I first asked my mother if we all die and she said yes, I apparently responded by nodding my head up and down. I was not troubled, I just merely made note of it. I think that the young maiden in the poem does responds to the narrator the way she does for this very reason- and I think by looking at the form of the poem, we can see that Wordsworth’s intention was to show that circling back to what might seem like an immature or undeveloped form of looking at things is perhaps the best way to cope with tragic occurrences. Perhaps just accepting the world and all that we are offered is the only way to be sane. “We Are Seven” is written in ballad form, and has a simple abab rhyming pattern. Each of its sixteen stanzas contains four lines except for the last stanza- which contains a (literally) defiant fifth line:

"But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!"
'Twas throwing words away; for still
The little maid would have her will,
And said, "Nay, we are seven!"

The fairly simple language and rhyme scheme are so musical and easy to read in order to show that, much like the little maiden shows the pompous-seeming narrator (who remains unmoved by her wonderful way of treating death and insists that his trying to talk sense into her is wasted), the most fruitful, beautiful and deeply meaningful messages don’t always come in beautiful epic stanzas with gorgeous metaphors, etc. We can find so much beauty and truth in simplicity as opposed to many people’s incessant need to forever make things more complicated to find beauty in them, as well as the beauty and truth in just accepting the way the world functions instead of incessantly questioning its ways.

"Of eye, and ear,-both what they half create, And what perceive;”

The fact that Tintern Abbey provides a backdrop for Wordsworth’s poem is relevant in ways both literal and symbolic. Composing this work after a visit to the Gothic abbey afforded Wordsworth the ideal setting for a rumination on nature, the passage of time and the gains and losses of memory. The fact that the Abbey does not appear in the poem renders it more of a symbolic destination for Wordsworth, eschewing the splendor of the actual ruins for a sublime psycho-visual creation of mind and memory, as

“a lover of the meadows and the woods,

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,

And what perceive;” (103-107)

An abbey is traditionally a place of contemplation, spirituality, and transcendence. Wordsworth moves away from Tintern Abbey towards unbounded nature, perhaps as a metaphor for moving away from religion as the means to attain transcendence and finding spirituality in nature. The absence of the actual Abbey in the poem and its emphasis on nature also points to this move towards nature as the conduit to transcendence. If nature and sensory perception are such conduits, the space of contemplation would then become the mind as opposed to an external site. As Wordsworth stated in the quote Professor Jones provided from the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, poetry stems from an emotion evoked through tranquility (nature) which is then contemplated until “the tranquillity [the extrinsic/sensual experience] gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist in the mind.”

Thus, the mind becomes a space for both contemplation and creation, and the senses serve as both perceptive and creative forces in that they take in “all that we behold” and interpret such impressions that become catalysts for reflection and artistic creation. This idea of sensory/physiological perception as opposed to cognitive/conceptual perception to me relates to the notion of the picturesque landscape. The artist sees an actual landscape, reflects on it, and then interprets it in a way that transcends reality. Thus what is presented as a landscape is a fusion of both what the “eye and ear…half create, and what [we] perceive”.