Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Question 1

1772

Answer 1

born in Devonshire

Question 2

1791

Answer 2

enters Cambridge University

Question 3

1794

Answer 3

leaves Cambridge University w/o a degree
- plans “Pantisocracy” a utopian democratic community in rural Pennsylvania w/ Robert Southey (doesn’t come to fruition)

Question 4

1795

Answer 4

befriends Wordsworth

Question 5

1798

Answer 5

publishes Lyrical Ballads w/ Wordsworth and spends winter in Germany w/ him
- where he studied German philosophy and literary criticism

Question 6

1800-01

Answer 6

becomes reliant upon laudanum (opium dissolved in alcohol) for physical pain

Question 7

1808

Answer 7

begins lecturing on literature and poetry in London, especially for female audiences who couldn’t attend university

Question 8

1810

Answer 8

falling out with Wordsworth

Question 9

1817

Answer 9

publishes Biographia Literaria (an autobiography that also includes critical essays on lit and poetry)

Question 10

1834

Answer 10

passes away

Question 11

From Biographia Literaria: Fancy and the Imagination & On the Imagination

Question 12

Fancy and imagination as distinct

Answer 12

“Repeated meditations led me..and the same power” (pg 495)
- most humans have a little of both => what differentiates one from another?

Question 13

The imagination (on the imagination)

Answer 13

“The imagination…are essentially fixed and dead” (496)
- “agent of perception” => helps you interpret the world
- primary = human perception => create something from scratch
- secondary = agent of conscious world, a memory of the primary => contemplate emotions and try to evoke it in the audience, recreating something of the original act
- “eternal act of creation” = power to create in our minds, build something new
- imagination creates originality, but maybe an imitation of something already there
- create something out of thin air
- not everyone possesses imagination

Question 14

Fancy (on the imagination)

Answer 14

“Fancy..from the law of association” (496)
- if God is imagination then fancy would be man’s actions
- fancy applies to material things => bound to concrete reality
- “Law of association” => using what you already have to build something (reconfigures, combines, rearranges)
- putting two things together => might not end up as the same thing
- bring out pre-existing materials and reconfiguring it into something new

Question 15

From Lectures on Shakespeare: Fancy and Imagination on Shakespeare’s Poetry

Question 16

Shakespeare’s imaginative and fanciful writing

Answer 16

” Shakespeare possessed the chief..upon an extended prospect” (504-05)
- bringing together two things that coexist
- imagination creates things out of the blue that doesn’t compare to fancy
- what romantic poets are doing is similar to Shakespeare

Question 17

Movement and motion in Shakespeare

Answer 17

“Thus the flight of Adonis…over inanimate objects” (505)
- “He in the night from Venus’ eye” => fancy
- poetry about movement and how it’s constantly shifting
- Shakespeare pushes specific poetic language to its breaking point

Question 18

Shakespeare’s originality

Answer 18

“is Shakespeare a great…true imitation of the essential principles?” (506)
- in first question: is Shakespeare great b/c he resembles older poets?
- second qs: or do we like him b/c he’s different from them? => marks departure from them
- does he have a free imagination or just obeying status quo
- for Coleridge: part of what Shakespeare’s originality is that he breaks from tradition

Question 19

Shakespeare’s genius and freedom

Answer 19

“For it is even this..under laws of its own origination” (506)
- using rules to spur invention

Question 20

Mechanic vs. Organic Form

Question 21

Organic form

Answer 21

“The form is mechanic…wisdom deeper than consciousness” (507)
- organic: raw materials that hasn’t been pressed on by man, a convention that’s not rigidly bound to poetic convention => in poetry: blank verse, free verse
- put into poetic convention 2 unlike things => a disservice to the muse
- choose a poetic form that’s most appropriate => choose a topic
- mechanical form: dictates what you write
- subject matter should determine what you write about, what you convey in the poem (Coleridge)
- organic => writing in a style that the muse dictates
- shouldn’t start w/ poetic convention first but subject first

Question 22

Eolian Harp

Question 23

Embodied contact b/twn nature and the harp

Answer 23

“And that simplest Lute…is music slumbering on her instrument” (lines 12-33)
- exchange b/twn human imagination and nature

Question 24

This Lime Tree Bower My Prison & Kubla Khan

Answer 24

• both explore the power of creativity and the imagination
  -“This lime tree bower” creates realistic visions of people based in reality
• “Kubla Khan” imagines speculative, extraordinary landscapes => divorced from reality

Question 25

Mi Metic

Answer 25

imitation of real world through art, realistic

Question 26

This Lime tree bower my prison

Question 27

Solitude and imagination

Answer 27

"Well they are gone...of the blue clay-stone" (lines 1-19) - bower: pleasant shady place underneath a tree etc. - "this lime tree bower my prison" => tone is dramatic and emotional (like he's in a prison), feeling of isolation, all hope is lost, trapped in his body and can't get up (being sick is like incarceration) - missing out on his friends wandering nature -shift fr. own imagination to friends doing something => virtual knowledge of what friends are up to (imagining, putting himself in their position) - physically captive to a certain area but his mind is wandering => transcend his physical body - in the beginning, very detailed as if writing himself into the scene => laying down the scene

Question 28

Picturing his friends in present tense

Answer 28

"Now, my friends emerge...and strange calamity" (lines 20-32) - invoking city/country tension => nostalgia going on - picturing what they're doing but we don't know for sure - Coleridge's imagination => system where nature brings you back, emotions are restored - nature is a site of social exchange ("Intercourse")

Question 29

apostrophe

Answer 29

a figure of speech in which a speaker addresses an abstraction, object, or dead/absent person - ex: prayer that addresses an abstract personification of something - Coleridge addressing his friends => creativity takes place of his body

Question 30

Addressing nature

Answer 30

"Ah! slowly sink...spirits perceive his presence" (lines 32-43) - nature is good and peaceful (how Marianne relates to nature) - why is speaker addressing sun or the blue ocean? => sun and the ocean are the most "organic" forms we have in the world, thinking of nature leads to thinking of other people - creating something that's not literally in front of them (active imagination) - some kind of personality trait that links you to natural phenomenon

Question 31

Imagined, virtual pleasures

Answer 31

"A delight...asI myself were there" (lines 43-45) - poem becomes surrogate experience => substitute for real life experience - ability to create virtual experiences

Question 32

Nature as a friend

Answer 32

"Henceforth I shall know...the joys we cannot share" (lines 59-67) - imagining the joys not shared w/ him - personifies nature => "never deserts" "may lift the soul" - nature can teach us about love and beauty -"keep the heart awake to love and beauty" => keeps us receptive

Question 33

Kubla Khan

Answer 33

- the imagination possesses a power that is omnipotent and godlike - transport and altered states

Question 34

Paradise Lost by John Milton

Answer 34

- mind is its own place => can be in the beautiful place in the world and have a fight w/ someone and ruin it - can make something terrible into something great - imagination can give you freedom => reign supreme

Question 35

Kubla Khan: The opium induced vision

Answer 35

"In the summer of the year...that are here preserved" (pg 464-465) - go from real life to having elaborate dream sequence => describing and transcribing a dream sequence

Question 36

The ephemeral vision

Answer 36

"though he still retained...which a stone had been cast" (pg 465) - poet trying to hold onto a flighty vision that fades away

Question 37

The autonomy of art

Answer 37

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan...enfolding sunny spots of greenery" (lines 1-11) - mythical location essentially Garden of Eden

Question 38

Kublai Khan more info

Answer 38

- founder of the Yuan dynasty of China (1271-1368) - emperor of the Mongol Empire (1260-1294) - Xanadu based upon Shangdu, Khan's summer palace - elaborate fantasy of the racial politics => summer house as a refuge of imagination - Khan associated w/ beauty, decadence

Question 39

Orientalism

Answer 39

- term coined by Edward Said - study of the "Orient" (the "Middle East") by the "Occident" (the "Western World) - notice the relational geography of these terms => the East only acquires meaning in relation to the West - Said's study Orientalism explores discourses related to the "Orient" (literature, philology, painting) and how they influence/justify colonial and imperial domination

Question 40

Abyssinia

Answer 40

"A damsel with a dulcimer...singing of Mount Abora" (37-41) - Abyssinia is what Ethiopia used to be called - cross racial politics: from asia to ethiopia - Mount Abora: a product of fantasy but also rooted in Ethiopia => creating extravagant, supernatural version of it that crosses over different traditions

Question 41

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Question 42

Edward Said on Orientalism

Answer 42

"Taking the late 18th c. ..during the post-Englightenment period" (1978) - discourse refers to idealogical purpose, politicized - literary representations of the world => Orient - "What it means to be European, Western etc."

Question 43

Medieval Romance

Answer 43

- a verse narrative that depicts a chivalric age in which a hero embarks upon a quest (usually a knight in order to gain a lady's favor) - emphasizes chivalric traits of courage, loyalty, honor, and manners - often includes supernatural occurrences - modifications of the epic - similar estrangement happening in Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan => set in geographically remote places, tapping into historical drama

Question 44

The opening

Answer 44

"There was a ship...the bright eyed Mariner" (lines 9-20) - "thus spake" - sound shakespearean - "cannot choose but hear" = last poem in Lyrical Ballads - waiting for wedding ceremony to start => minstrel, kind of like a ballad, telling a story

Question 45

The mariner, marriage, and modernity

Answer 45

"The wedding guest here beat..the merry minstrelsy" (lines 31-36) - institutional forms of attachment - marriage is a sign of futurity or keeping alliance b/twn two bloodlines - Mariner is an outdated figure that can't be assimilated into structure

Question 46

The Mariner as a poet-minstrel-troubadour

Answer 46

"I pass like night...which biddeth me to prayer" (lines 582-596) - circularity => ends w/ man teaching us a story - Mariner is like a romantic poet => only select people that can evoke language, alone b/c he 'passes from land to land' (isolation to romantic poet) - maybe something incompatible b/twn isolation and heterosexual institution

Question 47

Style

Answer 47

- deliberately archaic, antiquated style of Rime invites readers to consider the continuities b/twn the medieval and the contemporary era

Question 48

Gothic

Answer 48

- genre interested in pleasurable terror and horror - mystery, supernatural, and the macabre - emphasizes emotion, irrationality, overwhelming thrills, and the unconscious - refers to an architectural style ("Gothic") associated w/ medieval era => ancient castles, ruined abbeys, abandoned monasteries => something archaic, dilapidated has held on

Question 49

When Gotchic originated

Answer 49

- originates in 18th c. as a response to Enlightenment: a philosophical movement characterized by logic and reason - 1764: Horace Walpole publishes The Castle of Otranto (one of the earliest novels) based upon a fictitious medieval manuscript and salacious circumstances => one of the most popular topics - 1790s: Novels featuring horror, mystery, and bizarre become increasingly popular - 1818: Mary shelley, Frankenstein

Question 50

More on Gothic

Answer 50

- explores the unconscious and irrational - what haunts us might be historical traumas and atrocities or it might also be the monster within => excavate unresolved traumas haunting a society, Mariner seems like a ghost that haunts England - doubles and doppelgangers => the repressed underside of modern life - what's repressed will inevitably resurface => the more you suppress, the more fixated you'll be - often a gateway to the taboo and transgressive

Question 51

Death at sea

Answer 51

"Are those her ribs through...Quoth she, and whistles thrice" (lines 185-198) - supernatural appearance of woman (w/ death) => description is angelic - facts, logic, reason where we think we're superior to reason => brings out of the made up rationality and brings us back to nature that we think we're so above - death isn't necessarily a horrific thing => can be beautiful - "the game is done, I've won" => a siren (gothic uncanny happening)

Question 52

Unable to die

Answer 52

"The cold sweat melted...and yet I could not die" (lines 253 - 262) - what makes human human is the ability to die - can't die on sea => become monstrous (reinforce ideas of conventions) - Mariner is traumatized individual who's surrounded by death => something monstrous about extremity of being too young or too old

Question 53

More on Rime

Answer 53

- Rime part of broader rise of sea fiction (Robinson Crusoe) => literature set at sea makes ocean into metaphor for variety of different things, sea fiction about empire, mapping the world, understanding relation of human and nature - Maritime expeditions a matter of empire (colonial territories), science (natural history and botany), and psychology (depths of the sea) => depths of sea become unconscious - Mariner occupies a tenuous relation to England => not really British (outcast), goes to sea which changes relationship w/ his home country

Question 54

Limits of the Known world

Answer 54

"With sloping masts and dipping prow...like noises in a swound" (lines 45-62) - something about north and south pole that fascinated humans in this time - surrounded by ice => imagery

Question 55

Murdering the albatross

Answer 55

"And a good south wind...I shot the Albatross" (lines 71-82) - violent, murderous relationship - no psychological interiority/exploration => no reason he shot it - modern => irrational side of human subjectivity - different predatory relationship b/twn human and natural world - albatross associated w/ wind (like wind w/ Wordsworth) => kills it = wind stops and ship also stops and when there's no wind they're stuck in the water - undoing natural harmony w/ natural world