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Christabel Sources in Percy's Reliques and the Gothic Romance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Donald Reuel Tuttle
Donald Reuel Tuttle*
Affiliation:
Fenn College
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Extract

Students of poetry have long regretted that John Livingston Lowes did not include in his remarkable The Road to Xanadu a study of Christabel. It would have been only fitting for the story of the origin of this poem to have appeared side by side with those of Kubla Khan and The Ancient Mariner. Professor Lowes thus explained the omission:

I have not included “Christabel,” for the reason that “Christabel” has failed completely to include itself. Wherever the mysterious tracts from which it rose may lie, they are off the road which leads to “The Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan.” And we are following only where known facts lead. I wish I did know in what distant deeps or skies the secret lurks; but the elusive clue is yet to capture.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , June 1938 , pp. 445 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1938

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References

1 John Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu, rev. ed. (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1930), p. 4n.

2 Ibid., p. 254. Lowes was influenced in this suggestion by E. H. Coleridge, Christabel, p. 6.

3 The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, ed. E. V. Lucas (London: Methuen, 1903), vi, 171–172. Cited Lowes, p. 244.

4 The Ancient Mariner contains 625 lines as it appears in The Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. E. H. Coleridge (Oxford University Press, 1924), p. 186 ff.; The Three Graves, 537 11., ibid., p. 267 ff.; and The Ballad of the Dark Ladie, 60 11., ibid., p. 293 ff. E. H. Coleridge discusses the dates of these poems in his notes.

5 E. H. Coleridge, Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1895), i, 237.

6 Lowes, pp. 330–333. Thomas Hutchinson ed., Lyrical Ballads (London: Duckworth and Company, 1910), p. 211. Charles Wharton Stark, “The Influence of the Popular Ballad on Wordsworth and Coleridge,” PMLA, xxix, N.S. xxii, 299–326.

7 E. H. Coleridge, ed., Christabel (London: Oxford—published under the directions of the Royal Society of Literature—, 1907), p. 12.

8 Alois Brandl, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School, English ed. translated with the assistance of the author by Lady Eastlake (London: John Murray, 1887), p. 208. E. H. Coleridge, Christabel, p. 13, concedes this ballad might, as Brandl suggests, be a seed of Christabel.

9 James Gillman, The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (London: Pickering, 1838), i, 301–302, quoted by E. H. Coleridge, Christabel, pp. 32–33. That the Gillman ending or one similar to it was planned by Coleridge seems highly probable. The arguments for this point of view are presented by B. R. McElderry, Jr., “Coleridge's Plan For Completing Christabel,” Studies in Philology, xxxiii (1936), 437–455.

10 Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, ed. Henry B. Wheatley (London: Bickers and Son, 1876), 3 vol. Sir Cauline appears I, 61 ff. All references to Percy's Reliques will be made to this edition.

11 E. H. Coleridge, ed., The Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Christabel appears p. 213 ff. All references to the text of this poem will be made to this edition.

12 Percy, i, 379–380.

13 Percy, i, 131 ff.

14 Percy, i, 338 ff.

15 E. H. Coleridge, Christabel, p. 28. He points out that Coleridge considered naming his third son Bracy.

16 P. 345 ff.

17 Ibid., pp. 364–365.—The story is told at some length.

18 P. 50 ff.

19 Christabel, pp. 23–25.

20 See note 8 above. Where Brandl finds the name Guinevere for the bewitched young lady is not apparent. The ballad appears p. 13 ff. in Vol. iii.

21 P. 6ff.

22 P.114ff.

23 P.196ff.

24 P.255ff.

25 Pp. 346–347.

26 This is possible to compute because Wheatley has enclosed in brackets the lines of the ballads supplied by Percy—his facts determined by a comparison of the fourth edition, 1794 (of which his edition is a reprint) with the edition of the folio MS. by Fumivall and Hales.

27 Alois Brandl, op. cit., pp. 211–213.

28 Eino Railo, The Haunted Castle, A Study of the Elements of English Romanticism (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1927), p. 147 notes the general resemblance of Christabel to the Gothic romances.

29 Christabel, p. 13. His statement may have prevented further investigation in this field.

30 Garland Greever, A Wiltshire Parson and his Friends (London: Constable and Company, 1926). That Coleridge had read and imitated Mrs. Radcliffe by Oct. 13, 1800 is evident from The Mad Monk, printed in the Morning Post and signed Cassiani junior, the title reading: “The Voice from the Side Etna; or the Mad Monk: an Ode in Mrs. Ratcliffe's Manner.” (E. H. Coleridge, The Poems, pp. 347 ff. and note.)

31 Ibid., p. 30. Coleridge states this in a letter to Bowles, March (?), 1797.

32 Ibid., pp. 185–186. The reviews are reprinted by Greever, who is convinced they strengthen the probability of literary relationships between Christabel and the Gothic romances, and recalls Brandl's and E. H. Coleridge's earlier discussions.

33 Ibid., p. 171.

34 Curiously, Barnardine rhymes with Geraldine.

35 Greever, p. 173.

36 An armed band did march out of the gates of Udolpho. Ann Radcliffe, “The Mysteries of Udolpho” in The Novels of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (Ballantyne's “Novelists' Library,” x; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Company, 1824), pp. 359–360.

37 Greever, pp. 174–175.

38 Ibid., p. 175.

39 Ibid., p. 178. The pain she felt is suggestive of 1. 139 in Christabel, “The lady sank, belike through pain.”

40 Ibid., p. 178.

41 Ibid., pp. 178–180.

42 E. H. Coleridge, The Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, p. 218 note.

43 Ibid. Tom B. Haber, “The Chapter-Tags in the Waverly Novels,” PMLA, xlv (1930), 1140–49, discusses the discrepancy between Scott's three ruffians at the beginning of Chapter xi of The Black Dwarf and the five in Christabel. He does not mention the four ruffians heading Chapter xxiv of The Betrothed for which there might have been some reason. See p. 471 below.

44 Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, “The Romance of the Forest,” in The Novels of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (Ballantyne's “Novelists' Library,” x, London: Hurst, Robinson, and Company, 1824), p. 141. All further references to Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, unless otherwise specified will be to this volume of the “Novelists' Library.”

45 Ibid., p. 179.

46 The Mysteries of Udolpho, p. 244.

47 Ibid., p. 503.

48 The Italian, pp. 567–568.

49 P. 339.

50 Ibid., p. 292.

51 Ibid., p. 467.

52 Ibid., p. 497.

53 An oak in company with a holly between which a lady was found may have suggested the mistletoe. See p. 451 above.

54 In his reviews, Coleridge noticed Mrs. Radcliffe's tendency to repeat scenes and incidents. Greever, pp. 169, 186.

55 Pp. 127–128.

56 Pp. 137–138.

57 Mysteries, p. 463.

58 P. 368.

59 Mysteries, p. 303, “silver tripods, depending from chains of the same metal, illumined the apartment. …” Hanging lamps appear pp. 326 and 417; in The Italian, pp. 619 and 670. In The Mysteries, p. 318, and The Romance of the Forest, p. 138, appear Etruscan lamps.

60 Mysteries, pp. 253, 254.

61 The Romance of the Forest, p. 93.

62 P. 120.

63 Mysteries, p. 341.

64 P. 382.

65 P. 382. The words “it is all over now” resemble line 219 of Christabel “‘tis over now!”

66 P. 381.

67 P. 636.

68 Greever, pp. 186–189.

69 Compare The Italian, pp. 554–555 with Christabel, 11. 475–483.

70 Italian, pp. 554, 711. Christabel, 11. 449–153, 574–608.

71 Greever, p. 191 ff., reprints the review.

72 Matthew Gregory Lewis, Ambrosio or The Monk, a Romance (London: J. Bell, 1300) i, 5–6. All references to The Monk will be made to this edition. (3 vol.)

73 i, 11.

74 i, 40.

75 iii, 135.

76 iii, 133.

77 E. H. Coleridge, Christabel, p. 70, in connection with 1. 65. Her character Coleridge calls Lewis' masterpiece. Greever, p. 192.

78 The Monk, ii, 271–272.

79 ii, 276.

80 i, 5.

81 i, 8.

82 i, 28.

83 i, 10, 18.

84 In view of the fact that Christabel is a versified Gothic romance, it seems unnecessary to develop an elaborate theory about the intended moral significance of Christabel's sufferings. (See McElderry, op. cit., p. 452.) The heroine's duty was to suffer, faint, and at last to be rescued. Her wanderings in the forest, seizures by ruffians, and eventual happiness were essentials of the plot taken for granted by both authors and readers.

85 The passage in brackets has previously been suggested as a source of Geraldine's actions, 1. 583 ff., by E. H. Coleridge, Christabel, p. 92.

86 ii, 60–64. In his review, Coleridge states, “The tale of the bleeding nun is truly terrific.” Greever, p. 192.

87 Coleridge's restraint is well explained by his comments in his review of The Monk. “Situations of torment, and images of naked horror, are easily conceived; and a writer in whose works they abound, deserves our gratitude almost equally with him who should drag us by way of sport through a military hospital, or force us to sit at the dissecting-table of a natural philosopher. To trace the nice boundaries, beyond which terror and sympathy are deserted by the pleasurable emotions—to reach those limits, yet never to pass them— hic labor, hic opus est.” Greever, p. 193.

88 He has pointed out that of the richly ornamented oratory, in Act iii, sc. iii, to Christabel's curiously carved chamber, besides comparing to Christabel's guardian spirit that of the late countess who rocked her child to sleep nightly (Act ii, sci. i).

89 Greever, p. 190. The review appeared August, 1798; it was written before March, 1797 (Greever, pp. 29 ff., 165); the novel was published 1796.

90 Mary Robinson, Hubert de Sevrac, A Romance of the Eighteenth Century (London: Hookham, 1796), ii, 198. All references to Hubert de Sevrac will be made to this edition. (3 vol.)

91 ii, 199–201.

92 ii, 202.

93 If, as it seems probable from E. H. Coleridge's discussion (Christabel, p. 20 ff.)— and see the poet's express statement in his preface (E. H. Coleridge, Poems, p. 213)—the second part of Christabel was written after July 24, 1800, when Coleridge was living at Greta Hall, Keswick, the suggestion that Coleridge was influenced by Hubert de Sevrac is especially interesting. For Coleridge had certainly met Mrs. Robinson sometime in or before his previous stay at London, circ. Nov. 17, 1799, to April 21, 1800. Coleridge wrote letters and poems to her and about her, quoted her line “Pale Moon! thou Spectre of the Sky” with admiration, praised her “Genius,” gained publication for her verse, mourned her death, and defended her fame. For the details of this unusual literary friendship, see Earl Leslie Griggs, “Coleridge and Mrs. Mary Robinson,” Mod. Lang. Notes, xlv (Feb. 1930), 90–95.

94 i, 247–248. The incident begins p. 240.

95 ii, 60–61.

96 Compare Christabel, 11.470 ff., 597 ff.

97 i, 250.

98 i, 35.

99 iii, 206.

100 i, 25.

101 1, 52.

102 Except Hubert de Sevrac, which was supposedly more “modern” than the rest, but the difference is superficial.

103 Compare Stark, op. cit., p. 323, referring to the ballads, “Perhaps it was because he had no traditional model to sustain him that Coleridge confessed he had ‘scarce poetical enthusiasm enough to finish Christabel’.”