Christabel is a lengthy narrative ballad by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, composed in two parts. Although Coleridge intended to write three additional parts, they were never completed. He initially prepared the first two parts for inclusion in the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads, his collaborative collection with William Wordsworth, but omitted them following Wordsworth's advice. The decision to exclude the poem, along with his struggle to finish it, caused Coleridge to question his poetic abilities.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet and a key figure in the founding of the Romantic Movement in England, as well as a member of the Lake Poets. The Lake Poets were a group of English poets who resided in the Lake District during the first half of the nineteenth century, and they did not adhere to a single "school" of thought or literary practice. Coleridge’s critical works had a significant impact, particularly regarding William Shakespeare, and he played a crucial role in introducing German idealist philosophy to English-speaking audiences. He is credited with coining many familiar terms and phrases, including "suspension of disbelief." Throughout his adult life, Coleridge struggled with severe anxiety and depression, and it has been speculated that he may have had bipolar disorder, a condition that had not been identified during his lifetime.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge by Peter Vandyke, 1795
The transgressive plot of Christabel centres on the relationship between Geraldine and Christabel, which carries implicit sexual undertones. Geraldine embodies a proto-vampiric figure, exhibiting all the characteristic traits associated with this role: striking beauty, a revealing bodily mark, and a physical interaction with her victims that renders them incapacitated.
1. Coleridge appeals to the Middle-Ages Aesthetics.
The ballad uses features that draw us back directly to the atmosphere of chivalric romances. The story of Christabel focuses on the titular female character and her encounter with a stranger named Geraldine, who asserts that she has been kidnapped from her home by a group of violent men.
My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine:
Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn:
They choked my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.Part I
The story is also full of eerie and mysterious occurances:
Outside her kennel, the mastiff old
Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold.
The mastiff old did not awake,
Yet she an angry moan did make!
And what can ail the mastiff bitch?
Never till now she uttered yell
Beneath the eye of Christabel.
Perhaps it is the owlet's scritch:
For what can ail the mastiff bitch?Part I
2. The poem is highly emotional.
Christabel's father, Sir Leoline, becomes captivated by Geraldine and commands a grand procession to celebrate her rescue. He dismisses his daughter's feeble protests, as she begins to grasp the true extent of Geraldine's malevolent nature, even while still under enchantment.
Sir Leoline, a moment's space,
Stood gazing on the damsel's face:
And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine
Came back upon his heart again.
O then the Baron forgot his age,
His noble heart swelled high with rage;
He swore by the wounds in Jesu's side
He would proclaim it far and wide,
With trump and solemn heraldry,
That they, who thus had wronged the dame,
Were base as spotted infamy!
'And if they dare deny the same,
My herald shall appoint a week,
And let the recreant traitors seek
My tourney court—that there and then
I may dislodge their reptile souls
From the bodies and forms of men!'
He spake: his eye in lightning rolls!
For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned
In the beautiful lady the child of his friend!Part II
3. Coleridge appeals to death.
Romantic poets, Coleridge among them, often explored themes of death as a means of contemplating the sublime and the transient nature of life. In generalm, they viewed death as both a source of inspiration and a catalyst for emotional depth, reflecting on mortality to evoke feelings of beauty, loss, and the ineffable. Poets like John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Lord Byron used death to express profound emotions, challenge societal norms, and delve into the mysteries of existence. For them, death was not merely an end, but a transformative experience that could lead to deeper understanding and connection with nature and the human condition.
Each matin bell, the Baron saith,
Knells us back to a world of death.
These words Sir Leoline first said,
When he rose and found his lady dead:
These words Sir Leoline will say
Many a morn to his dying day!Part II
Conclusion
Coleridge's Christabel stands as a seminal work in the Romantic tradition, weaving together themes of enchantment, desire, and the interplay between light and darkness. Coleridge's masterful use of language and imagery creates an atmosphere of suspense and intrigue, highlighting the fragility of perception and the hidden dangers that lurk beneath surface beauty. Christabel remains a profound exploration of the mysteries of the human psyche, the power of attraction, and the haunting presence of the unknown.