Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Poetry: British Romanticism

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Nowadays, it became a common practice to discuss the literary movement of Romanticism, in terms of people’s subconscious longing towards irrationality, as opposed to rationality, associated with the era of Enlightenment. However, such a suggestion is only partially valid. There can be no doubt as to the fact that Romantic writers and poets strongly opposed the ideals of the French Revolution; however, this was not due to these ideals’ rational essence, but because, during the course of the French Revolution, the conceptual inadequacy of humanistic materialism, strongly associated with the idea of “liberty, equality, and brotherhood”, became apparent to just about anyone. Therefore, the Romantic Movement in European literature of the early 19^th century can be best defined as poets and writers’ strive towards fusing their emotionalism and their ability to operate with highly abstract categories (rationalism) together. European intellectuals of the era, associated with the Romantic Movement, believed that relying on materialistic rationale alone, within a context of individual pursuing its destiny, can hardly be beneficial for such individual, simply because people are not just physical but also spiritual beings. Romanticists refused to adopt a purely materialistic outlook on one’s individuality while implying that every person is something so much more than simply the bulk of organic matter, governed by the set of animalistic instincts. They were convinced that a certain harmony could be found in how an individual interacts with objective reality. Moreover, Romanticists used to suggest that it is named such harmony that represents the foremost aesthetic value. In its turn, this explains why Romanticists continuously sought artistic inspiration by observing nature. In our paper, we will analyze motifs contained in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poems “Frost at Midnight” and “The Nightingale” – in order to substantiate the validity of this thesis.

Even after having read a few initial lines of Coleridge’s poem, we are being left with no doubts in our mind that “Frost at Midnight” can be clearly defined as a Romantic poem, because in it, the author entitles the expressions of nature with creative individuality, which is one of most characteristic traits of European Romantic poetry:

“The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet’s cry
Came loud–and hark, again! loud as before”

Coleridge establishes a close and personal relationship with the surrounding reality, by meditating on the subject of darkness and silence. He does not simply perceive silence as the absence of sounds, but as a concept that actively opposes noise: “so calm, that it disturbs”. The same can be said about Coleridge’s perception of darkness – he thinks of it as not just an absence of light, but as something, that actually radiates blackness. As a true Romanticist, Coleridge strives to emotionally savor every moment of his existence:

“Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live”

After having instilled readers with a melancholic and somewhat meditative mood, the author moves on to expound on his childhood memories, in order to establish a connection between his past and his present as being essentially predetermined:

“Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man’s only music, rang”

This is another indication of “Frost at Midnight” close association with the Romantic literary movement – Romanticists believed that different aspects of their existence were innately related, which explains their tendency to idealize the past and to think of it as containing insights onto the future. In his poem, Coleridge describes his past memories as having a value in itself, even though he cannot define the objective subtleties of this value. As a true Romanticist, Coleridge simply believes it to be the case, because he experiences a high mental exaltation while analyzing his memories. However, the author seems to have no doubts that namely the rural motifs that provide his memories with conceptual soundness, even though he was brought up in a big city:

“For I was reared
In the great city, pent ’mid cloisters dim,
And saw naught lovely but the sky and stars”

Thus, Coleridge predisposes readers towards accepting the main idea of his poem: poet’s daughter will be able to lead a meaningful existence because Coleridge had deliberately decided to raise her in Britain’s countryside:

“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”

Just as other Romanticists of the era, Coleridge associated the urban mode of existence with spiritual corruption, because living in a big city, automatically indicates a person’s willingness to be cut off from its ancestral roots. Urban civilization dehumanizes people to such an extent that they eventually turn into mechanized beings, incapable of remaining in close touch with nature. It is only in rural areas, where people can take full advantage of their inherited sense of idealism; as such, that elevates them over their petty problems towards the stars. Thus, we can say that, despite being comparatively short in size, “Frost at Midnight” does contain the full spectrum of ideas, associated with the Romantic literary movement. In this poem, the author does not simply express his subconscious anxieties, deriving out of his attitude towards urban materialism, but he also provides readers with practical advice on how they can avoid spiritual degradation.

In his poem “The Nightingale”, Coleridge comes up with essentially the same ideas, contained in “Frost at Midnight”, even though both poems’ settings vary substantially. The author catches himself thinking that nightingale’s singing is not only highly aesthetic, but it actually allows an attentive listener to realize the ways of nature:

“A melancholy bird? Oh! idle thought!
In Nature, there is nothing melancholy…
A venerable thing! and so his song
Should make all Nature lovelier, and itself
Be loved like Nature!”

Again and again, throughout this poem, Coleridge praises nature as the reflection of the true essence of divinity. He rejects the idea that his melancholy was being caused by nightingale’s singing while referring to it as the mental by-product of his physical imperfection. According to the poet, no expression of nature can trigger one’s mental sadness, regardless of what it might be, because everything about nature is perfect. In its turn, such perfection relates to nature’s inner harmony. Although we are quite incapable of perceiving the full scale of such perfection’s grandeur, we nevertheless can still enjoy its various emanations, such as the singing of nightingales:

“They answer and provoke each other’s song…
Stirring the air with such harmony,
That should you close your eyes, you might almost
Forget it was not day!”

Such an idealist attitude towards surrounding reality causes the poet to experience true happiness, in the full sense of this word. He does not seem to wish anything else from life, but to allow him to remain in close touch with nature for as long as possible. However, Coleridge would not be a supreme Romanticist, if it was not up to his ability to prompt readers to feel a similar kind of emotional exaltation, by simply reading the lines of his poem. Despite the poem’s high stylistic refinement and its whimsical sounding, the semantic message of “The Nightingale” is quite apparent – just as “Frost at Night”, this particular Coleridge’s poem promotes the idea of “existential totality”, which is another distinctive feature of Romantic Movement in 19^th-century European literature.

From all we know about poet’s biography – throughout his life, Coleridge strived to acquire new emotional experiences, because as Romanticist, he considered them as pathway to wiseness. This is the reason why his poems are marked with hypertrophied expressiveness. However, just as there can never be too much chili in hot sauce, there can never be too much emotionalism in Romantic poetry. Coleridge understood this fact very well, which allowed him to leave an inerasable mark in the history of British poetry.

Bibliography

Bray, Elisa “Sex and Drugs and English Literature: Coleridge and a Faustian Pact”. 2007. The Independent.

Coleridge, Samuel “The Nightingale”. 1798. The Literature Network.

Coleridge, Samuel “Frost at Midnight”. 1798. About.Com: Poetry. Web.

Johns, Lloyd “The Literary Works of Romanticism in English Literature”. 2006. Article Alley. Web.

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Poetry: British Romanticism

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