The Mystery of Eros: Sexual Initiation in Coleridge's "Christabel"

Author(s): Jonas Spatz

Source: PMLA , Jan., 1975, Vol. 90, No. 1 (Jan., 1975), pp. 107-116
Published by: Modern Language Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/461353

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 JONAS SPATZ

The Mystery of Eros: Sexual Initiation in Coleridg

"Christabel"

A LTHOUGH "CHRISTABEL" has not re- missed as unworthy of, or unrelated to, the first
ceived the attention accorded "The Rime two parts.
of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla This view, although well grounded in the psy-
chological facts, fails to take into account the
Khan," it has remained, for scholars and laymen
alike, a fascinating fragment. Its powerful and
ideological and creative context from which
troubling atmosphere, redolent of unnameable"Christabel"
evil emerged. Despite the doubts of
Wordsworth, Lamb, John Taylor Coleridge (the
and repulsive yet irresistible desire, has haunted
readers as it did Coleridge himself. Yet, serious
poet's nephew), and many subsequent commen-
tators, Coleridge himself insisted that he had en-
critics have been reluctant until recently to speak
visioned the poem in its entirety and always had
authoritatively about an unfinished work, particu-
larly one posing so many unanswered questions: its continuation clearly in mind.5 Over a period of
Who or what is Geraldine? How would Coleridge years, Coleridge was unsystemalically developing,
have completed the poem? What are its sexualinim- his notebooks and letters, definite ideas about
plications? How does the poem relate to
theits
nature of human sexuality and its relation to
author's life? Historical critics tended, for the
love and marriage. In a series of poems, culminat-
most part, to ignore these and other problems
ing in "Christabel," he dramatized these ideas.
of interpretation in favor of discussing sources,
Here, I hope to describe this context and through
parallels, conventions, and supernatural para-
it to discover in "Christabel" the masterpiece he
phernalia. Since the publication of the Note-
intended.
books and the first volumes of the Collected
I
Letters, however, this reticence has all but evap-
orated. As the intimate details of Coleridge's Coleridge's clearest statements about sex, love,
private life have been examined with increasing and marriage appear in his notebooks and letters.
enthusiasm, "Christabel" has become an in- Although his perceptions are scattered over many
dispensable document in the psychoanalysis of years and express immediate and sometimes tran-
its author. It has been ingeniously employed, with sient or contradictory feelings, he was, in these
varying degrees of success, to help establish thatrandom comments, progressing toward a coherent
Coleridge was repelled by sex,1 resented his chil-philosophical position. These documents consti-
dren,2 hated his mother,3 and feared women in tute a monologue that sometimes eddies but in-
general.4 Interpretations such as these assume eluctably evolves as the author's wisdom and ex-
that the poem is primarily a transcription of perience grow. Stated briefly, for Coleridge, sex,
Coleridge's unconscious fantasies rather than a love, and marriage form the base, middle section,
conscious work of art. Because it is so difficult to and apex of a pyramid. Man's animal sexuality is
determine from the text what his general purpose the base underlying the uniquely human capacity
was, critics have supposed that the poem's night- for the spiritual feeling he calls love. This feeling,
marish vision was too close to the terrors of his in turn, supports the institution at the apex called
waking life to allow Coleridge the esthetic dis- marriage, which belongs to man only as a civilized
tance necessary to create a coherent structure. It and Christian being. In this scheme, sex is a natural
has even been suggested that Coleridge never and necessary human function: "If a man's con-
really knew how his plot was going to be resolved. duct cannot be ascribed to the angelic, nor to the
As a result, even plausible sequels have been dis- bestial within him, what is there left for us to refer
107

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 108 Sexual Initiation in Coleridge's "Christabel"
it to, but the fiendish? Passion without any ap- desire may have led you to believe it. For Love is a
petite is fiendish."6 And further: "Can it be true Desire of the whole Being to be united to some object,
as necessary to its completion in the most perfect
what is so constantly affirmed, that there is no sex
in souls?-I doubt it, I doubt it exceedingly" manner that Reason dictates and Nature permits. And
(Table Talk, p. 38). herein does Friendship differ from Love, that it is not
(or in the case of man and man), cannot be, a union of
More frequently, however, Coleridge expressed
the whole Being-Perfect Friendship is only possible
his repugnance for the beast that man becomes
between Man and Wife: even as there is to be found
when erotically aroused. In a prophetic insight the bitterest enmity. (Collected Letters, iv, 904)
into his unhappy relationship with Sara Fricker,
he writes to Southey: "But to marry a woman Love is friendship plus "a Desire of the whole
whom I do not love-to degrade her, whom I call Being to be united to some object, as necessary to
my Wife, by making her an Instrument of low its completion"-that is, the erotic impulse. Love
Desire-and on the removal of a desultory Ap- is attainable only where sexual consummation is
petite, to be perhaps not displeased with her possible, even if the actual result is "bitterest
Absence!"7 enmity." But the chemistry of friendship plus sex
Yet, here as elsewhere, Coleridge rejects not equals love is too simple. As Coleridge writes
physical drives as such but the illusion that elsewhere,
they "Sympathy constitutes friendship; but
can replace love. And it is not only the seducer's in love there is a sort of antipathy, or opposing
cynical rationalization that confuses the two. passion. Each strives to be the other, and both
Even young men with noble intentions are likely together make up one whole" (Table Talk, p. 110).
to mistake the adolescent itch for love, and withThe erotic possibility alters the equation, and the
predictable consequences. Coleridge at age forty- force that unites the two elements threatens also
six, after a lifetime of disillusioning experience, to tear them apart again, into mutually repellent
counsels a young man on the dangers of the heart entities. Sex remains a potentially degrading and
and other organs: alienating influence, but love is inconceivable
But my experience as well as my insight into human without it.
Nature (even in the best of Men . . . ) authorizes, If our description stopped here, we would be
compels me to hold it not merely possible but highly justified in concluding, as Norman Fruman does,
probable that the sexual impulse, acting not openly in
that for Coleridge sex was a necessary evil (p. 371).
the excitement of conscious desire . . . but acting
By the time his marriage had soured and he had
covertly & unconsciously in the imagination, and in
fallen in love with Sara Hutchinson, however,
that form contracting a temporary alliance with the
sexual fulfillment had become a pillar of his
best moral Feelings, may assume and counterfeit the
appearance of exclusive Love. Nothing is more com-
philosophy. He came to believe not only that
mon than for a young man to make up in his own "love makes all things pure and heavenly like
fancy an Ideal representative of all that his Heart itself" (Collected Letters, I, 145) but that its sexual
yearns after, and then christen it by the name of the expression could somehow lead to moral improve-
first pretty or interesting girl that attracts & will receive ment. Coleridge distinguishes between an imper-
his attentions. How else could it be that what are called fect yet noble virtue, consisting of the denial of our
Love-matches are so proverbially unhappy . . . ?
desires in the name of duty, and an "angelic"
(Collected Letters, iv, 906-07) happiness toward which we are continually striv-
But if sex without love is bestiality, love without ing and where duty and inclination become one.
sex is merely friendship. Although, as Yarlott Love comes not from denying our drives but from
points out (pp. 37-38), Coleridge often impossibly consuming them in the purity of our passion until
idealizes and "mystifies" love, his distinction be- pleasure itself becomes identical with duty. The
tween it and friendship seems extremely sensible. virgin who recoils from her physical self out of
Here he is again advising his young friend: loyalty to an ideal has achieved a laudable moral
Has the woman an understanding so far propor- position but has not acquired the "Peace and
tionate to your own as to make her capable of being a Harmony between all parts of human Nature"
judicious Friend, an occasional Advisor, & a fire-side characteristic of perfect love.8 Thus, according to
Companion? If not, it is impossible that you should Coleridge, the sexual act can be a sacred com-
have loved her, however much the delusion of animal mitment to a higher order of being. This difficult

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 Jonas Spatz 109

concept was further complicated by his passion confers on sexual intercourse transforms it into a
for Sara Hutchinson, to whom he addressed a sacred ritual that actually intensifies the love be-
particularly torrid entry in his notebooks. It il- tween man and wife, as we can see from the fol-
lustrates the heavy philosophical burden he placed lowing lines from "The Happy Husband":
on his perfectly normal but guilt-ridden urges: Nor bless I not the keener sense
I felt strongly how apart from all impurity if I were And unalarming turbulence
sleeping with the Beloved these kind and pleasurable
Of transient joys, that ask no sting
feelings would become associated with a Being out of
From jealous fears, or coy denying;
me, & thereby in an almost incalculable train of conse-
But born beneath Love's brooding wing,
quences increase my active benevolence. ...
And into tenderness soon dying,
O Yes, Sara! I did feel how being with you I should
Wheel out their giddy moment, then
be so very much a better man/-and why should it
Resign the soul to love again;
be a Wonman, & a hbeloved Woman? will the Sneerers
ask. They have not the Heart to understand the A more precipitated vein
answer; but I trust that if I have virtue enough to live, Of notes, that eddy in the flow
that I shall instruct the good to put the feelings of their Of smoothest song, they come, they go,
own Souls into thewir a language, that shall kindle those And leave their sweeter understrain,
feelings into tenfold heat and blaze- so that finally Its own sweet self- a love of Thee
whatever is really and truly a part of our existing That seems, yet cannot greater be!9
Nature, a universally existing part, may become an
object of our love, & admiration- yea, that the Pres- We have reached the summit of Coleridge's pyra-
sure of the Husband's Hand or swelling chest on the mid. The base, consisting of undifferentiated sex-
bosom of the beloved Wife shall appear as strictly and ual desire, is raised and narrowed to the love that
truly virtuLous, as Actively virtuous, as the turning partakes of it and yet transforms it. Love and sex,
away in the heat of passion from the Daughter of Lust in turn, are raised and limited to those few who
or Harlotry. 0 best reward of Virtue! to feel pleasure sanctify them in the institution of Christian
made more pleasurable, in legs, knees, chests, arms, marriage. Finally, sex blends its pleasure with
cheek *^h all in deep quiet, a fountain with unwrinkled
the higher duty of marriage to increase the love
surface yet still the living motion at the bottom, that
contained in that marriage and to construct from
"with soft and even pulse" keeps it full-& yet to
it a fruitful and enduring relationship.
know that this pleasure so impleasured is making us
more good, is preparing virtue and pleasure for many
known and many unknown to us. II
(Notebooks, Entry 2495)
This is not merely an abstract or theoretical
Whatever the imagined joys of this relationship, scheme. The passionate intensity with which Cole-
and the moral gymnastics Coleridge put himself ridge stated these ideas indicates how strongly he
through to justify them, he was certainly aware of felt that his unhappy life with Sara Fricker re-
its illicitness, and that he was trying, in effect, to sulted from his ignorance of the nature of sex, love,
turn vice into virtue. Hence marriage became and marriage. His exaggerated sense of obliga-
essential. On the lowest level, marriage is, for tion,1O his mistaking of desire for love,11 and, para-
Coleridge, a social convenience-as St. Paul said, doxically, his underestimation of the importance
preferable to burning. But it is also the instrument of sexual compatibility'2 had led him into an un-
with which love tames desire: "Great indeed are suitable marriage. In his subsequent comments on
the moral uses of Marriage It is Variety that the subject, he tried to convey the lessons of his
cau'tharidizes us. Marriage, that confines the ap- unfortunate experience. In the period from 1797
petites to one object, gradually causes them to be to 1801, he composed a group of poems dramatiz-
swallowed up in afecotioz. Observe the face of an ing the problem of sexual maturation and empha-
whoremonger or intriguer, and that of a married sizing its importance as the basis of love and a
man-it would furnish physiognomic demonstra- happy marriage. "The Ballad of the Dark Ladie,"
tion" (Collectcd Letters, I, 213 14). "Love," "The Three Graves," and Osorio all con-
Yet, just as sex is both the foundation and anti- centrate on the difficulties of a young girl on (or,
thesis of love, it has a positive as well as a negative
as in "The Ballad of the Dark Ladie," just over)
function in marriage. The legitimacy that marriage
the threshold of sexual initiation. These poems

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 110 Sexual Initiation in Coleridge's "Christabel"
provide an additional context for understanding Mature love can emerge only when sex is accepted
Coleridge's intention in "Christabel." freely and without remorse.
Let us begin with some lines, already quoted, The fragmentary "Ballad of the Dark Ladie,"
from "The Happy Husband," describing the joys to which "Love" was to have been the introduc-
of marital sex: tion, approaches the problem from a different
Nor bless I not the keener sense viewpoint. Here the young girl is already be-
And unalarming turbulence trothed to her lover but has been scorned by her
friends because she has prematurely surrendered
Of transient joys, that ask no sting
to him:
From jealous fears, or coy denying;
"My Henry, I have given thee much,
"Jealous fears" and "coy denying" are the reac-
I gave what I can ne'er recall,
tions of a frightened virgin who, tormented by the
I gave my heart, I gave my peace,
false teachings of Chastity, denies her feelings. O Heaven! I gave thee all."
For Coleridge, a mature sexual relationship exists (CPW, i, 294)
only between lovers who trust each other and
accept the pleasures of their union. This is the Her lover promises that they will elope secretly as
theme of "Love." The narrator recounts how he soon as night comes, but she refuses:
won the love of Genevieve who had first modestly "The dark? the dark? No! not the dark?
turned away from his passionate pleas. He arouses The twinkling stars? How, Henry? How ?"
her sympathy with a ballad about a knight driven O God! 'twas in the eye of noon
mad by the "cruel scorn" of his Lady. The knight He pledged his sacred vow!
resists the urge to kill himself and saves her "from (CPW, 1, 294)
outrage worse than death." The Lady repents herHer pride, like Genevieve's, suddenly replaces her
obstinate chastity, but too late; the knight must
shame. She recognizes that it is the public procla-
die. The tale is a lesson to Genevieve, who now
mation of their love and its sexual expression, not
ends her own resistance. Her "modest grace" a clandestine marriage, that will legitimize their
turns to confusion and excitement, as her long-
illicit intercourse. In the wedding of two sympa-
repressed desires struggle to the surface, over- thetic souls, the Dark Ladie imagines that her
coming her guilt:
guilt will vanish and she will regain the modesty
All impulses of soul and sense and purity of a virgin bride:
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale, And in the eye of noon my love
The rich and balmy eve; Shall lead me from my mother's door,
Sweet boys and girls all clothed in white
And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, Strewing flowers before:
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued, But first the nodding minstrels go
Subdued and cherished long! With music meet for lordly bowers,
The children next in snow-white vests,
She wept with pity and delight, Strewing buds and flowers!
She blushed with love and virgin-shame;
And like the murmur of a dream, And then my love and I shall pace,
I heard her breathe my name. My jet black hair in pearly braids,
(CPW, i, 334) Between our comely bachelors
And blushing bridal maids.
She is momentarily torn between passion and her
(CPW, i, 294-95)
"virgin-shame."13 In the last stanza, however, she
resolves the issue, suddenly growing from a child In Genevieve and the Dark Ladie, Coleridge
into a woman: explores the traditional mythology that divides

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride.
(CPW, i, 335)
woman into two images-the spotless maiden
and the degraded whore-separated forever by
sexual experience. Yet, in these poems, the two
gradually converge, as love drives the maiden
toward her initiation, and the acceptance of sex

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 Jonas Spatz Ill
restores her innocence to the fallen woman. In My love, a timorous and tender flower,
Coleridge's philosophy and psychology of love, Closes beneath his touch. (CPW, i, 522)
experience can fuse the images into a mature and Osorio, tormented by his lust, has ordered Albert
passionate being. murdered, but he escapes and returns to expose
Coleridge, however, understood from his own Osorio and marry Maria. Clearly, the events of the
misfortunes how frequently fear and guilt over- play externalize the conscious and unconscious
whelm even the most desperate need for love. In relationships among the characters in "Christa-
"The Three Graves," the love of the hero and bel," with Christabel as Maria, the absent knight
heroine proves too weak to withstand their own as Albert, and Geraldine as Osorio, the projection
doubts about it. After Mary and Edward are be- of forbidden and uncontrollable desires.
trothed, Mary's mother offers herself to Edward, Thus, in these four significant poems, Coleridge
implying that her daughter is only a child and was experimenting with a series of closely related
will never satisfy him sexually.14 From Mary's psychological situations that embody the percep-
viewpoint her mother's sexual aggressiveness tions of his notebooks and correspondence and
dramatizes her doubts about her ability to func- that were to culminate in "Christabel." Each of
tion as a woman. In this predatory figure, she these works focuses on the betrothal of an ado-
recognizes her own fear of the physical demands lescent girl threatened by her own developing
marriage will make on her. For Edward, the shock sexuality. "Love" and "The Ballad of the Dark
follows not only from deep revulsion at the incest Ladie" emphasize the moral and conventionally
threat but also from the sense that he is, as Cole- romantic aspects of sexual initiation, and "The
ridge expresses it elsewhere, "in lust with" MaryThree Graves" reveals its unconscious psychology.
and that her mother's proposition is a projection ofIn Osorio and in the common folktale, Coleridge
his real feelings (Notebooks, I, Entry 448). Even found the shape of his plot. And in a burst of
after they marry and formally discard these mis- genius, he transcended the partially unrealized
givings, the mother's curse survives to blight their images of the Dark Ladie, the devouring mother,
marriage and ultimately destroy them. The poem and the male aggressor to discover in Geraldine
ends with Edward awakening from a nightmare the projection of the part of itself that innocence
with the words, "0 God, forgive me! . . . / I have must finally encounter on the way to knowledge.
torn out her heart,"-words that could describe
his vengeance on his mother-in-law or the wrong III

he has done to his "barren wife." In the Preface,
Coleridge speaks of the imagination paralyzed,
as in primitive witchcraft, by the effect of "an
idea violently and suddenly impressed on it"
(CPW, I, 269). The paralysis in "The Three
Graves," as in "Christabel," as we shall see, can be
explained only by the horror of a mind forced to
confront its own distorted reflection.
The plot of the last of these poems, Osorio,
most resembles that of "Christabel." Maria, "an
orphan of fortune," has been betrothed to Albert,
who is now presumed dead after a long absence.
Osorio, Albert's brother, woos her, but she refuses
him, partly because she is horrified by the idea
that Albert will return to find her with Osorio's
child-that is, to find that she has sacrificed love
to appetite. But Osorio's phallic presence also
dismays her:
I have no power to love him!
His proud forbidding eye, and his dark brow
Chill me, like dew damps of the unwholesome night.
"Christabel" traces its heroine's attempt to
come to terms with her sexuality, to recognize its
essential role in her love for her absent knight
and in their approaching marriage, and to pro-
gress from adolescence to womanhood. Geraldine
is the projection of that sexuality, with its desire,
fear, shame, and pleasure. The "witchcraft" that
makes her beautiful or ugly, inviting or menacing,
depends on Christabel's changing attitude toward
herself. In Christabel's dreams, Geraldine is the
woman she at once yearns and fears to become.
Much of the poem's suspense arises from the
question of whether Christabel will expel her
unconscious fantasies by acting them out with
Geraldine or whether these fantasies will destroy
her.
Christabel first meets Geraldine in a sexually
charged atmosphere. It is early spring, a time of
growth and regeneration. Although it is midnight,
"the crowing cock" is awake. Christabel ventures
from the protection of her father's castle to pray

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112 Sexual Initiation in Coleridge's "Christabel"
for her far-off lover under "the huge oak tree"
with its "rarest mistletoe," further symbols of
fertility.15 She has been dreaming about her knight
and, although Coleridge does not choose to tell us
in the text what sort of dreams they were, two
lines erased before publication indicate that they
have upset, confused, and perhaps erotically
stimulated her.l6
Christabel's mood throughout Part I is a mix-
ture of eagerness and excitement. Her prayers are
apparently answered when Geraldine suddenly
materializes behind the tree, uttering a moan in
response to her own (Enscoe, pp. 43-44). Christa-
bel is startled but attracted by her lovely appear-
ance-a combination of opulence and captivating
disorder:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare,
Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were,
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
(CPW, i, 217)
Geraldine further excites her with the tale of her
kidnapping and probable rape by five warriors.
Christabel sees her, initially, as a maiden threat-
ened by sexual violence, perhaps imagining her-
self, as a prospective bride, to be in the same po-
sition. She projects her own modesty onto the so-
phisticated Geraldine and herself assumes her
lover's role, gently wooing Geraldine as she hopes
the knight will woo her. Christabel encourages and
leads to her bed a sometimes reluctant lady. As
soon as she learns Geraldine's story, she offers
her hospitality, generously but perhaps too ar-
dently.17 Like a bridegroom she carries Geraldine
across the threshold (Enscoe, pp. 44-45) and
offers a "cordial"18 wine of "virtuous powers" to
revive the fainting maiden. After undressing,
Christabel is too excited to sleep, so she reclines in
bed watching Geraldine disrobe. Thus, despite the
sinister overtones of Geraldine's invasion of the
household, Christabel seems eager to consum-
mate their relationship. Her agitation ebbs only
after she has been sexually embraced:
Her limbs relax, her countenance
Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids
Close o'er her eyes; And tears she sheds---
Large tears that leave the lashes bright!
And oft the while she seems to smile
As infants at a sudden light!
(CPW, i, 226)
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The blood "tingles in her feet," and she falls
asleep with "a vision sweet" (CPW, I, 226). From
one point of view, this adventure is Christabel's
dream of bliss with her lover. She temporarily
plays the male role to push the incident quickly to
its climax, but, as she lies with Geraldine after-
ward, she has become a deflowered but grateful
female.
As even a cursory reading of Part I will indicate,
Geraldine is also a foul witch whose influence will
curse and paralyze Christabel in the manner that
the mother in "The Three Graves" ruined those
around her. As she disrobes, she reveals her
"bosom and half her side," which, in the manu-
scripts, "are lean and old and foul of hue" (CPW,
I, 224, n.). Again Christabel's fantasy, this time of
sex as a repulsive marital duty, is depicted by
Geraldine. It is Geraldine who is disgusted by her
body and the act it must perform. After a long
moment of indecision, she "Collects herself in
scorn and pride, / And lay down by the Maiden's
side" (CPW, I, 224). As she casts her spell, she
sentences Christabel to share "This mark of my
shame, this seal of my sorrow" (CPW, i, 225).
By the Conclusion to Part I, Christabel imagines
that she has been stained by male caresses and will
grow hideous and diseased from sexual excess:
"0 sorrow and shame! Can this be she, / The
lady, who knelt at the old oak tree?" (CPW, 1,
225).
In Part I of "Christabel," then, Coleridge has
described a conflict not between helpless inno-
cence and supernatural evil but between two of
Christabel's attitudes toward her own sexual
being. Pleasure and disgust struggle for control,
but her psyche cannot resolve the battle. She
awakens the next morning to find a rejuvenated
Geraldine, the beautiful and "lofty lady" she has
dreamed of becoming. Christabel, however, is now
perplexed by a sense of having committed "sins
unknown."
In Part II, "the vision of fear" continues to alter-
nate with "that vision blest," but the loathing that
slowly changes Christabel into a hissing serpent
is due to a third image of Geraldine. In Part i,
Christabel speaks of her dead mother, a guardian
spirit, who had vowed on her deathbed to "hear
the castle-bell / Strike twelve upon my wedding-
day" (CPW, i, 222). Geraldine addresses the
spirit and drives her away, but, more significantly,
she replaces her and becomes, in effect, Christa-
 Jonas Spatz 113

bel's stepmother, whose ardent caress is both
conjugal and maternal:
And lo! the worker of these harms,
That holds the maiden in her arms,
Seems to slumber still and mild,
As a mother with her child.
(CPW, i, 226)
This image, with startling variations, continues
into Part II, where Coleridge enriches the psycho-
logical situation by introducing Christabel's
father, Sir Leoline. The relationship between
father and daughter is extremely complex, as in-
dicated by the passage on parental love that con-
cludes Part II. The Baron has morbidly marked
each day since his wife's death. As Basler points
out (p. 45), the Baron's love for his daughter is
distorted by the knowledge that his wife died in
childbirth. He unconsciously identifies the pain of
his deprivation with his feeling for Christabel. She,
in turn, although needing desperately to compen-
sate for her father's loss, feels incapable of captur-
ing his affection. At this critical moment in her life,
when Christabel is to leave her father for her
future husband, Geraldine appears as her step-
mother, a projection of Christabel's desire to be
simultaneously a wife and daughter to her father.
When, however, Leoline is attracted to Geraldine
with a more than paternal passion,19 Christabel
sees in her "stepmother" the daughter who can
compete for her father's love in the only way the
conscious Christabel cannot: sexually. Geraldine
embodies the Oedipal feelings that Christabel's
conscious mind has repressed. And, finally, for a
moment, in her father's response to Geraldine,
Christabel imagines another sexually aggressive
male endangering her chastity with his advances.
The result is that she again sees "that bosom old"
and feels "that bosom cold." She begs him to send
Geraldine away and restore their unblemished
relationship. The Baron, however, refuses, and by
the end of Part ii Christabel has been overwhelmed
by the horror of the incestuous vision.
This intensification of Christabel's repulsion is biographer.
reflected, of course, in the serpent imagery dom-
inating Part ni. The symbolism functions prin-
cipally on two levels. The serpent represents the
primal sexual sin, death's origin, and thus em-
bodies the phallic potency that frightens the youngOver the mountains, the Bard, as directed by Sir
girl and compels her to cling to her father. On thisLeoline, "hastes" with his disciple; but in consequence
level, Christabel's unconscious mind identifies
love with death and portrays her impending mar-
riage as a danger to her life as well as her virtue.
This is the serpent of Bracy's dream, strangling
the dove in an embrace strongly suggesting rape as
well as murder:
When lo! I saw a bright green snake
Coiled around its wings and neck.
Green as the herbs on which it couched,
Close by the dove's its head it crouched;
And with the dove it heaves and stirs,
Swelling its neck as she swelled hers!
(CPW, I, 232)
The serpent also symbolizes the deceit of Satan
and Eve, which enabled them to seduce more
ingenuous beings. Geraldine, as Christabel's
other self, has shown her that she is subject to
forbidden desires, even if their exact nature is
unknown to her conscious mind. Tormented by
seemingly inexplicable feelings of guilt for "sins
unknown," Christabel begins to impersonate the
serpent she has observed in Geraldine. This mzta-
morphosis climaxes the struggle that has raged
throughout the poem. Christabel discovers in her-
self the source of her terror and aversion. Her
initial adolescent distaste at the idea of male vio-
lation has, through the power of destructive
fantasy, turned to a self-hatred that threatens not
only her engagement but her capacity to mature
into an adult able to give and receive lox e.20
IV
This, of course, is as far as Coleridge went. How
would he have continued? Is it possible that the
theme and structure of "Christabel" came to
Coleridge in finished form and that he knew how
he was going to continue at the time he abandoned
it? There can never be definitive answers to these
questions, but we can do more than speculate.
Coleridge provided various clues in response to
questioning by friends and relatives. But he made
by far the most complete and detailed suggestion
to James Gillman, his physician and later his
I believe that it not only tells us how
the poem was to end but also establishes that
"Christabel" was meant to be the final symbolic
expression of his ideas on sex, love, and marriage.
Here is Gillman's synopsis of the proposed ending:
of one of those inundations supposed to be common

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114 Sexual Initiation in Coleridge's "Christabe'l"
to this country, the spot only where the castle once worthy of him and discovers to her surprise and
stood is discovered,-the edifice itself being washed delight that he is really a handsome prince in dis-
away. He determines to return. Geraldine being guise.
acquainted with all that is passing, like the Weird
More important, these tales and others indi-
Sisters in MacbPth, vanishes. Re-appearing, however,
cate that Coleridge's treatment of the psychology
she waits the return of the Bard, exciting in the mean
time, by her wily arts, all the anger she could rouse in
of human sexual and emotional development had a
the Baron's breast, as well as that jealousy of which he traditional as well as an autobiographical source.
is described to have been susceptible. The old Bard Psychoanalytic interpretation of this motif has
and the youth at length arrive, and therefore she can revealed insights into sexual initiation closely
no longer personate the character of Geraldine, the resembling Coleridge's:
daughter of Lord Roland de Vaux, but changes her
Tales . . . in which the lover appears alternately as
appearance to that of the accepted though absent
an animal and as a beautiful male, could be seen,
lover of Christabel. Next ensues a courtship most dis-
psychoanalytically, as illustrations of a process where
tressing to Christabel, who feels-she knows not why
guilt and fear because of the sexual desires are followed
-great disgust for her once favored knight. This cold-
by sublimations of these wishes into something pure
ness is very painful to the Baron, who has no more
and fine. Usually, in these tales, the lover is human in
conception than herself of the supernatural transfor-
mation. She at last yields to her father's entreaties, and
the darkness of the night, yet returns to his animal
form or disappears altogether in the daytime. When
consents to approach the altar with this hated suitor.
The real lover returning, enters at this moment, and Psyche prematurely lightens the flame of knowledge
revealing the beauty of Eros, he disappears, and she
produces the ring which she had once given him in
sign of her betrothment. Thus defeated, the super- has to seek him a long, long time. Only gradually can
natural being Geraldine disappears. As predicted, the we hope to become consciously aware of the mystery
castle bell tolls, the mother's voice is heard, and to the of Eros, recognizing him not as an animal monster,
not as a diabolical force, but as a beautiful being.23
exceeding great joy of the parties, the rightful marriage
takes place, after which follows a reconciliation and
Clearly, Christabel is the reluctant maiden. Leo-
explanation between the father and daughter.21
line the troubled father (who in "Beauty and the
If the argument to this point is valid, the organic Beast" surrenders his daughter to the monster),
relationship between the extant parts of the poem and Geraldine the "monster" or "diabolical
and this summary is apparent. But there are other force," who will either be transformed into or re-
reasons for accepting it. placed by the handsome knight. Geraldine, alter-
The key to the poem's total structure lies in the nately a beautiful woman and an evil witch, sym-
conventions of romance and folktale that Cole- bolizes more effectively than the Frog Prince or
ridge so heavily depended upon in his narrative the Beast the "mysteries of Eros" because, as
poetry. He wrote of "Christabel" that it "pre- another female, she reflects more directly Christa-
tended to be nothing more than a common Faery bel's own doubts and desires.
Tale."22 Even our brief glimpse at five of his There is not enough external evidence to insist
poems has revealed familiar archetypal characters, on a specific source for "Christabel," but if Cole-
among them the innocent maiden, the wicked ridge discovered in this motif an inspiration for his
stepmother, the evil enchantress, and the hand- poem, then Gillman's summary could very well
some knight. And in the plots of some of the most represent the remainder of his plan for the whole.
popular European fairy tales, there are impressive Any acceptable sequel must be of a piece with
parallels to "Christabel," not in its extant form the first two sections of the poem, structurally,
but with the Gillman summary added. In "Beauty psychologically, and symbolically. As Basler says
and the Beast," "Cupid and Psyche," and "The (p. 46), both "the realistic psychological ele-
Frog Prince," for example, a young girl, usually ments and the traditional elements of folklore
half orphaned and dominated by grasping sisters and myth demand the lover's return for the re-
or a cruel parent, is confronted by a monster who solvement of the complications." Like the
wishes to make love to her or does so in darkness. monsters in "Beauty and the Beast" and "The
At first she is too repelled or frightened to recog- Frog Prince," Geraldine must vanish if she is
nize his true identity. But by overcoming various evil, or be converted or transformed if she is part
internal and external obstacles, she proves herself or all good. Finally, Christabel must pass through

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 Jonas Spatz 115

her trials and become the sexually and emotionally
adjusted adult Coleridge implicitly describes in his
notebooks and letters. Gillman's summary quali-
fies on all counts. According to the logic of the
fairy tale, it is the only possible ending.
Our main interest, however, is in the poem's psy-
chology and symbolism. Christabel's confronta-
tion with Geraldine, as we have seen, has gone
through several stages, each one more revealing
and upsetting than the last. Geraldine has imper-
sonated Christabel as threatened virgin, ardent
lover, resigned bride, mistress, and finally the
stepmother as wife and incestuous daughter. As
the snake imagery and Christabel's increasing dis-
gust indicate, she is approaching the secrets of her
unconscious and the discovery that her identifica-
tion of sex with violation (five lusty knights), death tience, sympathetic understanding or keen judgment.
(the strangling dove), and primal taboo (her
passionate father) are all masks for her fear of
marriage and all it implies. As she becomes in-
creasingly conscious of this truth, she moves
toward a direct confrontation with the knight in surrounded its creation lead one inevitably to the
his "monstrous" form. Geraldine must performconclusion that Coleridge was not homosexual,
one final impersonation before she vanishes for- repressed, impotent, or any of the other things
ever. It is here that the Gillman summary is most
striking:
[Geraldine] changes her appearance to that of the
accepted though absent lover of Christabel. Next en-
sues a courtship most distressing to Christabel, who
feels-she knows not why-great disgust for her once
favored knight. This coldness is very painful to the
Baron, who has no more conception than herself of
the supernatural transformation. She at last yields to
her father's entreaties, and consents to approach the
altar with this hated suitor.
Christabel has (or would have) reached the crisis
in her development. When Geraldine appears as
the lover, Christabel nears the recognition that she
identifies her love for the knight with her dread
of his sexual and emotional demands. She must
face these anxieties if the real knight is ever to re-
place the false one. At the moment of realization,
Geraldine disappears, presumably merging with
the adolescent Christabel to form a loving and
virtuous wife. Unfortunately, the brief summary
does not describe the mechanism of this metamor-
phosis, but given Coleridge's feeling about the
relationship between emotional maturity and the
capacity to love, the following might suggest what
lay in store for Christabel:
We find that in the fairy tale the overcoming of this
ambivalence is not accomplished by the removal of
"fixations," "complexes," or "taboos" which might
have turned the young lady against sex, but by the
cultivation of qualities which are specifically human,
be it unselfishness, modesty, humility, courage, pa-
They all contribute to the formation of a strong,
mature Ego for which Eros loses the animal or
monstrous aspects. (Heuscher, p. 131)
This reading of "Christabel" and the ideas that
with which he has been taxed by recent revisionist
critics. On the contrary, what impresses the mod-
ern reader about Coleridge's writings on sex and
love is his normality. He sympathized with the
human need for sexual and emotional fulfillment,
and he understood the psychological and social
forces that impede its attainment. We find in him
that combination of philosophical profundity and
experiential wisdom possible only to the man who
has felt as well as thought. His tragedy, here as in
so many other phases of his life, was that he had
to be deprived of love in order to understand and
appreciate completely its true value.
University of Missouri
Kansas City

Notes

1 Norman Fruman, Coleridge the Damaged Archangel
(New York: Braziller, 1971), p. 372.
2 Geoffrey Yarlott, Coleridge and the Abyssinian Maid
(London: Methuen, 1967), pp. 191-98.
3 David Beres, "A Dream, a Vision and a Poem," Inter-
national Journal of Psychoanalysis, 32 (1951), 106-08.
4Edward E. Bostetter, The Romantic Ventriloquists
(Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 1953), pp. 121-22.
5 Arthur H. Nethercot, The Road to Tryermaine (New
York: Russell, 1962), pp. 24-26.
6 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Specimens of the Table Talk
of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Henry N. Coleridge
(London: John Murray, 1836), pp. 70-71.
7 The Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed.
Earl L. Griggs (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1956-71),
I, 145.

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116 Sexual Initiation in Coleridge's "Christabel"
8 The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ed. Kath- and sometimes sought to tone down her urgency. The text
leen Coburn, II (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1961), reads:
Entry 2556.
But we will move as if in stealth,
9 The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Cole-
And I beseech your courtesy,
ridge, ed. Ernest Hartley Coleridge (Oxford: Oxford Univ.
This night, to share your couch with me.
Press, 1912), I, 388. In the remainder of this essay, refer-
(CPW, I, 220)
ences to the 2 volumes will be incorporated into the text
and abbreviated CPW.
The manuscript version, however, emphasizes the secrecy
'0 "Mark you, Southey!-I will do my Duty" (Collected
of their movement toward the bedroom and Christabel's
Letters, I, 145). importunity:
11 See "Lines Written at Shurton Bars," CPW, i, 96-100,
So to my room we'll creep in stealth,
and "The Hour When We Shall Meet Again," CPW, I, 96.
And you to-night must sleep with me.
12 E.g., "Sara is uncommonly cold in her feelings of
(CPW, i, 220, n.)
animal Love-" (Notebooks, i, Entry 979).
13 The erotic intensity of this passion can be more clearly 18 The manuscript reads "spicy" (CPW, i, 222, n.).
seen in a stanza Coleridge added in 1810 but later discarded: Another example of Coleridge's tendency to "spiritualize"

[heave Christabel's personality occurs at 1. 137, where "devoutly"

I saw her bosom heaveand swell,
Heave and swell with inward sighs-
I could not choose but love to see
Her gentle bosom rise.
(CPW, i, 334, n.)
14 It is interesting in this connection to note the dis-
crepancy between the mother's speech in the text accusing
Mary of pride, envy, hypocrisy, and prodigality and the
Preface, where Coleridge has her say simply, "0 Edward!
indeed, indeed, she is not fit for you-she has not a heart
to love you as you deserve" (CPW, i, 268). Coleridge's real
intention emerges in the Preface, written long after the
fragment.
15 am indebted for these details to Roy P. Basler, Sex,
Symbolism, and Psychology in Literature (New Brunswick,
N. J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1948) and Gerald Enscoe, Eros
and the Romantics (The Hague: Mouton, 1967).
16 Dreams, that made her moan and leap,
replaces "sweetly" (CPW, i, 220, n.). These revisions clearly
indicate that Coleridge was aware and perhaps ashamed of
the erotic element in the feelings he was describing. In one
of his frequent attacks of revulsion against "Christabel,"
he compared it unfavorably with Wordsworth's "Ruth," a
poem whose heroine is deserted by her dissolute lover but
who, unlike Christabel, maintains the purity of her passion
to the end. See Collected Letters, i, 631-32.
'9 See 11. 447-50, 475-79, 566-72.
20 The suggestion that Geraldine frequently embodies the
threat of sexual violation is closer to the surface of the
poem than it seems. When "Christabel" was published in
1817, it was condemned as obscene, and Coleridge was en-
raged by the rumor that "Hazlitt from pure malignity had
spread about the Report that Geraldine was a man in
disguise" (Collected Letters, iv, 918). See Nethercot, The
Road to Tryermaine, pp. 33-35, for a discussion of this
episode.
21 James Gillman, The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(London: Pickering, 1838), pp. 301-02.

As on her bed she lay in sleep.
(CPW, i, 216, n.)
17 Coleridge apparently sensed the immodesty involved
22 Biographia Literaria (New York: Wiley & Putnam,
1847), Ii, 680.
23 Julius E. Heuscher, A Psychiatric Study of Fairy Tales
(Springfield, 1Il: C. C. Thomas, 1963), pp. 130-31.

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