ENGL 3653: English Literature II

John M. Mercer, Professor of English

Northeastern State University, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

Study Guide 3: Coleridge, Scott, Lamb, Hazlitt

Revised 1-25-12

Coleridge

“The Eolian Harp,” 426

1. A footnote in your textbook describes this poem as a “blank verse lyric of description and meditation, in the mode of conversation addressed to a silent auditor.” What important poem by Wordsworth also fits this description?
2. Why are these two poems classified as “lyric” poems as opposed to narrative, epic, or dramatic?
3. Who is the “silent auditor” in this poem? In which lines is this listener directly addressed?
4. This poem is set at (and was written at) Coleridge’s home in Somerset. Find the county or shire of Somerset on the map of England in the front or back endpapers of the textbook. What scene does the speaker describe in the first verse paragraph?
5. The second verse paragraph describes the eolian harp. What is an eolian (also spelled “Aeolian”) harp? What figurative comparisons does the speaker use for the eolian harp?
6. In the third verse paragraph, how does the speaker compare himself to an eolian harp?
7. In the fourth verse paragraph, the speaker speculates that the entire universe may be like an eolian harp. In what way may the universe be like an eolian harp? What is the name of the philosophy that this idea reflects?
8. According to the beginning of the last verse paragraph, how has the listener responded to the speaker’s philosophical speculation? Why?
9. In what way does the speaker back down from what he said in the previous verse paragraph?

Coleridge’s “Supernatural” Poems

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” “Kubla Khan,” “Christabel”

Wordsworth and Coleridge collaborated in writing poems for Lyrical Ballads. The publication of this small volume in 1798 is sometimes considered the beginning of the Romantic Period in English literature. According to Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Coleridge=s assignment in this volume was to write about “persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic” in such a way as to give these “a human interest and a semblance of truth.” The only assigned poem by Coleridge that appeared in Lyrical Ballads is “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” “Kubla Khan” and “Christabel,” however, are also among Coleridge’s supernatural poems.

Coleridge’s excellent understanding of human nature is demonstrated in his literary criticism of the characters in Shakespeare’s plays. Scholars have also noted that in Coleridge’s supernatural poems the behavior of human beings is true to human nature.

1. How are the sailors’ responses to the Ancient Mariner true to human nature?
2. How is Christabel’s response to Geraldine true to human nature?

Coleridge’s presentation of evil in these “supernatural” poems is also said to be in keeping with universal human experience.

3. In addition to the examples integrated below, what instances in Coleridge’s poems can you find to support each of the following assertions?

a. Evil is both fascinating (evoking mystery, wonder, and pathos) and, at the same time, repellant (evoking horror, disgust, and revulsion).

b. As in life, evil is mixed with and/or mistaken for good. (For example, note the spirits in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Geraldine in “Christabel.”)

c. Evil is in constant conflict with good. Coleridge, however, removes this conflict from everyday life to a realm where good and evil have supernatural powers.

d. Coleridge doesn’t make up his own supernatural phenomena. He includes only those that are already established in folklore (for example, the phantom ship [like the Flying Dutchman] and evil eye in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and the inability of evil to enter a blessed house on its own strength in “Christabel”). This practice makes the supernatural phenomena in the poems more believable.

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” 430

1. In this poem, to what extent does Coleridge fulfill the assignment he was given for his collaboration on Lyrical Ballads (see above)?
2. Why does the Wedding-Guest listen to the Mariner’s long story?
3. The poem is divided into numbered “Parts.” Summarize what happens in the plot of each part, and where the Mariner’s ship goes. Better yet, plot the journey on a map of the world. (Good extra-credit opportunity here.)
4. Look up “albatross” in your college dictionary. (If you prefer to use an online dictionary, a good choice is Merriam-Webster Online at www.m-w.com.) What kind of bird is it? What is the other definition of the same word? What is the origin of this other definition?
5. WHY does the Mariner shoot the albatross at the end of Part 1?
6. This poem contains many famous lines and stanzas. Among these are lines 119-22: “Water, water, everywhere . . . .” What does this stanza mean? For extra credit, memorize lines or stanzas of your choice from this poem (or any other assigned poem), and recite them to me.
7. At the end of Part 2, WHY is the albatross hung around the Mariner’s neck?
8. What happens to the ship’s crew in Part 3?
9. In Part 4, why can’t the Mariner pray? What has to happen before the Mariner can pray and be freed of the albatross at the end of Part 4?
10. What are the main events of the plot in Parts 5 and 6? Which events require supernatural explanations?

At the end of Part 7, in a well-known stanza, the Mariner states a moral to his story:

He PRAYeth BEST, who LOVeth BEST

ALL THINGS both GREAT and SMALL;

For the DEAR GOD who LOVeth US

He MADE and LOVeth ALL.

11. In what way is this moral appropriate to the Mariner’s experience?
12. How many accented syllables are in each line of this stanza (which is typical of the verse form of the poem as a whole)? What is the rhyme scheme? What is the name of this poetic form? (See Study Guide 2.)

Coleridge’s headnote on the composition of “Kubla Khan,” 446

1. According to Coleridge’s explanation, why is this poem unfinished?
2. What aspects of Coleridge’s personal life (see also the introduction to the life of Coleridge, pages 424-26) does this explanation reveal?
3. What attitude does Stevie Smith take toward Coleridge’s explanation in her twentieth-century poem “Thoughts about the Person from Porlock,” volume F, pages 2375(m)-77(t) (also part of your assigned reading)?

“Kubla Khan,” 446

1. Who was the real person Kubla Khan? In what time period did he live? Why would this time be of interest to Coleridge?
2. This celebrated lyric fragment is known primarily for its exotic, sensuous use of imagery (appeals to the senses) and sound devices. It is not a narrative poem and therefore has no plot.
1. What specific features of Kubla Khan’s palatial estate does the poem describe?
2. What appeals to each of the five senses can you find?
3. What specific examples can you find of each of the following sound devices (see definitions in “Literary Terminology,” A37-A58, in the back of your textbook):

i. alliteration

ii. assonance

iii. consonance

iv. end rhyme

3. An abrupt shift in content occurs between the second and third verse paragraphs (after line 36). What is the connection between the third verse paragraph and the rest of the poem?

“Christabel, Part 1,” 449

Like “Kubla Khan,” “Christabel” is unfinished. “Christabel” is a narrative poem with a sensational plot but no conclusion.

1. What are the setting and situation at the beginning of the poem? Why is Christabel outside at midnight?
2. What story does Geraldine, the damsel in distress, tell Christabel?
3. Beginning with line 123, identify six (6) specific omens indicating that Geraldine is evil.
4. Why does the narrator deliberately refrain from telling us specifically what is to be seen when Geraldine takes off her clothes to go to bed?
5. What do you gather are Geraldine’s intentions toward Christabel?
6. In your college dictionary, look up the word “succubus.” Does what we know of Geraldine fit the definition of a succubus? Why and/or why not?
7. In what specific ways is this a typically Romantic poem?

Coleridge’s Prose

Biographia Literaria (see the introduction to this work in your textbook) is considered to be the greatest nonfiction prose work of the Romantic Period in England. Published in 1817, it combines autobiography, philosophy, and literary criticism, including criticism concerning the positive and negative qualities of Wordsworth’s poetry. An important theme of this work—and typical of the Romantic Period—is the superiority of the imagination to logic.

Coleridge also published his Essays and Lectures, which established him as an important Shakespearean critic.

Sir Walter Scott

1. In what genres did Scott excel as a writer?
2. On the map in the front or back endpapers of your textbook, where is the Scottish Border Country? Where is Scott’s home, Abbotsford? What is the connection between this area and Scott’s writings?
3. What characteristics of the Romantic Period are reflected in the two assigned poems by Scott?

Novelists of the Romantic Period

1. At the beginning of the Romantic Period, why was the novel thought to be an inferior genre?
2. What helped to change the reputation of the novel?
3. What genre is a forerunner of the modern novel?

May require extra-credit research:

4. What is the difference between a modern novel and a romance?
5. What are the characteristics of a Gothic romance?
6. What is a novel of manners? Who is the greatest writer in this genre during the Romantic Period?
7. What is a historical novel or historical romance? Who is the greatest writer in this genre during the Romantic Period?
8. What places do Jane Austen and Sir Walter Scott hold in the history of the novel? What are the titles of some of their best novels?

Essayists of the Romantic Period

Charles Lamb andWilliam Hazlitt

A familiar essay (also known as informal essay or personal essay) is “a commentary on a non-technical subject written in a relaxed and intimate manner” (NAEL, 7^th ed.). The characteristics of this genre include the following:

• Prose, not poetry
• Brief
• Non-technical, often creative subject (or, for Lamb and Hazlitt, autobiographical subject)
• Only a subjective “attempt” (which is the meaning of the word “essay”), not a definitive treatment of the subject
• Relaxed, informal style
• Rambling, informal structure

Specifically Romantic aspects of Lamb’s and Hazlitt’s essays include the following:

• The essayists were friends of the Romantic poets.
• The essayists (especially Hazlitt) were literary critics who supported many aspects of Romantic poetry.
• Their essays were “personal, subjective, autobiographical, reminiscent” or gave an idiosyncratic view of their subjects.
• When their essays were not about themselves, their subject matter was broad-based, not merely about the concerns of the upper class (unlike the periodical essays of Addison and Steele in the early 18^th century).
• Like the Romantic poets, they rejected the 18th-century literary forms, reviving older (17th-cen.) forms or evolving new forms.

Lamb’s essays, however, do NOT reveal the characteristic Romantic love of nature.

Charles Lamb

Lamb, author of Essays of Elia, has been called the best-loved English essayist of any period. With his sister Mary, he also wrote Tales from Shakespeare, a retelling for children of the plots of Shakespeare’s plays.

1. For extra credit, see what you can learn about Mad Mary Lamb, the new biography of Lamb’s sister, who suffered from insanity.

Lamb’s “Christ’s Hospital Five-and-Thirty Years Ago,” from Essays of Elia, 496

Christ’s Hospital was not a hospital (by our definition) but a boarding school for boys. Lamb and Coleridge were schoolmates here. Writing this essay in 1820, Lamb reminisces about attending this school 35 years earlier, in the late 18^th century. Lamb does not write the essay in his own voice but creates a fictional first-person narrator called Elia, who relates the experiences of both Lamb and Coleridge. In the essay, Elia refers to Lamb as “L.”

1. What advantages did Lamb (“L.”) have over the other boys at the school?
2. In paragraphs 3-5, Elia describes Coleridge’s experiences in the first person (“I”) as if they were his own. What kinds of experiences did Coleridge have?
3. What story does Elia tell about a donkey’s being kept at the school?
4. What is a “gag,” as defined in the essay? What story does Elia tell about the boy who saved the gags after meals? What did the boy do with the gags?
5. Beginning with the first new paragraph on page 500 (“I was a hypochondriac lad . . .”), Elia uses the first person to relate the experiences of Lamb rather than of Coleridge. What does Lamb reveal about himself here?
6. At Christ’s Hospital, two teachers shared one (presumably large) classroom. The Rev. Matthew Field taught the boys in the lower grades, and the Rev. James Boyer taught the upper grades. What were the stark differences between these two teachers? What were the advantages and disadvantages of being in the class of each?
7. What kinds of feelings does Elia (Lamb) express for his former schoolmates? What does he say in particular about Coleridge in the first new paragraph on page 504 (“Come back into memory . . .”)?
8. Overall, what negative and positive feelings does Lamb reveal about his memories of being at Christ’s Hospital? Which are more prominent—the negative or the positive feelings?

Hazlitt’s “My First Acquaintance with Poets,” 541

Hazlitt wrote this essay in 1823 about his first meeting Coleridge and Wordsworth in 1798, when Hazlitt was 20 and Coleridge was 26. Hazlitt’s father was a Unitarian minister, and Coleridge was about to become a Unitarian minister.

1. How and where does Hazlitt SEE Coleridge for the first time? How does Hazlitt respond this to experience?
2. How and where does Hazlitt MEET and talk with Coleridge for the first time?
3. What physical description does Hazlitt give of Coleridge?
4. What great contrasts does Hazlitt see between his father and Coleridge? When Hazlitt says “Truth had found a new ally in Fancy!” what does he mean? Which man represents “Truth” to the young Hazlitt? Why? Which man represents “Fancy”? Why?
5. What opinions does Coleridge express to Hazlitt about contemporary writers and thinkers?
6. Why does Coleridge not become the minister of a Unitarian congregation as planned? What are the financial reasons? What are the theological reasons?
7. What significance does Hazlitt now attach to Coleridge’s inability to walk in a straight line?
8. How does Hazlitt feel after parting with Coleridge after their first meeting?
9. In the paragraph beginning “In the outset of life” (549b), what (in your own words) is Hazlitt’s main idea? What poem by Wordsworth contains similar ideas?
10. How and where does Hazlitt meet Wordsworth for the first time? What are his impressions of Wordsworth? What contrasts does Hazlitt see between Wordsworth and Coleridge?
11. The events described in this essay occurred in 1798, just before the publication of Lyrical Ballads. What references does Hazlitt make to Lyrical Ballads?
12. Who is John Chester? What is John Chester’s attitude toward Coleridge? What is Hazlitt’s reaction to this attitude?