Coleridge, who was so often his own best
critic, especially when the criticism was to remain inactive, wrote on an
autograph copy of this poem now belonging to Professor Dowden: "N.
critic, especially when the criticism was to remain inactive, wrote on an
autograph copy of this poem now belonging to Professor Dowden: "N.
Coleridge - Poems
At all events, it is not presented as poetry, and it is in no
way connected with the Author's judgment concerning poetic diction. Its
merits, if any, are exclusively psychological. " Exclusively, it would be
unjust to say; but to a degree beyond those of any similar poem of
Wordsworth, certainly.
p. 78. _Dejection_. This ode was originally addressed to Wordsworth,
but before it was published in its first form, the "William" of the still
existing MS. was changed to "Edmund"; in later editions "Edmund" was
changed to "Lady," except in the seventh stanza, where "Otway" is
substituted. The reference in this stanza is to Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray,"
and the germ of the passage occurs in a letter of Coleridge to Poole,
printed by Dykes Campbell in the notes to his edition: "Greta Hall, Feb. 1,
1801. --O my dear, dear Friend! that you were with me by the fireside of my
study here, that I might talk it over with you to the tune of this night-
wind that pipes its thin, doleful, climbing, sinking notes, like a child
that has lost its way, and is crying aloud, half in grief, and half in the
hope to be heard by its mother. "
p. 9O. _Fears in Solitude_.
Coleridge, who was so often his own best
critic, especially when the criticism was to remain inactive, wrote on an
autograph copy of this poem now belonging to Professor Dowden: "N. B. --The
above is perhaps not Poetry,--but rather a sort of middle thing between
Poetry and Oratory--_sermoni propriora_. --Some parts are, I am
conscious, too tame even for animated prose. " It is difficult to say
whether, in such poems as this, Coleridge is overtaken by his besetting
indolence, or whether he is deliberately writing down to the theories of
Wordsworth. Another criticism of his own on his early blank verse, where he
speaks of "the utter want of all rhythm in the verse, the monotony and dead
_plumb down_ of the pauses, and the absence of all bone, muscle and
sinew in the single lines," applies only too well to the larger part of
his work in this difficult metre, so apt to go to sleep by the way.
p. 1O7. _Hymn before Sun-rise_. Coleridge was never at Chamouni, and
the suggestion of his poem is to be found in a poem of twenty lines by a
German poetess, Frederike Brun. Some of the rhetoric of his poem Coleridge
got from the German poetess; the imagination is all his own. It is perhaps
a consequence of its origin that the imagination and the rhetoric never get
quite clear of one another, and that, in spite of some magical lines
(wholly Coleridge's) like:
"O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars:"
the poem remains somewhat external, a somewhat deliberate heaping up of
hosannas.
p. 114. _The Nightingale_. The persons supposed to take part in this
"conversation poem" are of course William and Dorothy Wordsworth.
way connected with the Author's judgment concerning poetic diction. Its
merits, if any, are exclusively psychological. " Exclusively, it would be
unjust to say; but to a degree beyond those of any similar poem of
Wordsworth, certainly.
p. 78. _Dejection_. This ode was originally addressed to Wordsworth,
but before it was published in its first form, the "William" of the still
existing MS. was changed to "Edmund"; in later editions "Edmund" was
changed to "Lady," except in the seventh stanza, where "Otway" is
substituted. The reference in this stanza is to Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray,"
and the germ of the passage occurs in a letter of Coleridge to Poole,
printed by Dykes Campbell in the notes to his edition: "Greta Hall, Feb. 1,
1801. --O my dear, dear Friend! that you were with me by the fireside of my
study here, that I might talk it over with you to the tune of this night-
wind that pipes its thin, doleful, climbing, sinking notes, like a child
that has lost its way, and is crying aloud, half in grief, and half in the
hope to be heard by its mother. "
p. 9O. _Fears in Solitude_.
Coleridge, who was so often his own best
critic, especially when the criticism was to remain inactive, wrote on an
autograph copy of this poem now belonging to Professor Dowden: "N. B. --The
above is perhaps not Poetry,--but rather a sort of middle thing between
Poetry and Oratory--_sermoni propriora_. --Some parts are, I am
conscious, too tame even for animated prose. " It is difficult to say
whether, in such poems as this, Coleridge is overtaken by his besetting
indolence, or whether he is deliberately writing down to the theories of
Wordsworth. Another criticism of his own on his early blank verse, where he
speaks of "the utter want of all rhythm in the verse, the monotony and dead
_plumb down_ of the pauses, and the absence of all bone, muscle and
sinew in the single lines," applies only too well to the larger part of
his work in this difficult metre, so apt to go to sleep by the way.
p. 1O7. _Hymn before Sun-rise_. Coleridge was never at Chamouni, and
the suggestion of his poem is to be found in a poem of twenty lines by a
German poetess, Frederike Brun. Some of the rhetoric of his poem Coleridge
got from the German poetess; the imagination is all his own. It is perhaps
a consequence of its origin that the imagination and the rhetoric never get
quite clear of one another, and that, in spite of some magical lines
(wholly Coleridge's) like:
"O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars:"
the poem remains somewhat external, a somewhat deliberate heaping up of
hosannas.
p. 114. _The Nightingale_. The persons supposed to take part in this
"conversation poem" are of course William and Dorothy Wordsworth.
