Page 139 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

History of English Literature

Notes Difference from the Gothic Romancers

The medievalism of romantic poets was quite different from that of the Gothic romancers who had
earlier shown in their crude Gothic stories new interest in the Middle Ages. Horace Walpole and
Mrs. Ann Radcliffe were the most important among them. Walpole, like some other dilettanti of
the second half of the eighteenth century, did something practically Gothic by erecting an actual
castle (not one in the air) after the Gothic style-at least, what he thought was the Gothic style.
Critics are forward enough to dub his Gothicism-both that of his architecture and his Castle of
Otranto-as, sham. These Gothic novelists had little real knowledge of the middle Ages. They were
crude sensation-mongers who found the Middle Ages a convenient repository in which all
supernatural and blood-curdling events and characters could be dumped with impunity. Their
approach to the middle Ages was neither sincere nor psychological, nor artistic. For one thing,
none of them really believed in all that he wrote about. Walpole was an enervated intellectual
who cultivated the creed of Gothicism just to kill boredom. Mrs. Radcliffe, wife of a journalist,
wrote her stories just to keep herself occupied during the frequent hours of leisure. None of the
Gothicists made the middle Ages his or her spiritual home. Coleridge, Scott, and Keats on the
other hand, dealt with the middle Ages with extreme sensitiveness and psychological integrity.
Coleridge and Keats, at least, believed in their own “romanticised” versions of the middle Ages.
They breathed the very air of the period and made themselves quite at home in that atmosphere.
Their approach to the middle Ages was not the approach of a painstaking historian or cold dilettante.
They transported themselves into the spirit of those times though without bothering about fidelity
to historical details. Their interest lay in living rather than describing the Middle Ages.

Coleridge

Coleridge was the pioneer in the psychological and artistic handling of the middle Ages. His
medievalism and supernaturalism go hand in hand. The middle Ages for him provide a very
appropriate period for his poems which contain supernatural and mysterious events rich in
romance. His greatest poems – “Christabel” and “The Ancient Mariner” have both for their backdrop
the England of the Middle Ages. In the former we have the usual medieval accoutrements-such as
an old-fashioned castle, a feudal lord, mystery, superstition, magic, and terror. The castle is
surrounded by a moat and is “ironed within and without/’ There is the witch woman Geraldine
who casts her evil spell on the chaste Christabel who is every inch the beautiful and young heroine
of a typical medieval romance. The medieval atmosphere, along with Coleridge’s subtle and
imaginative handling of his subject, gives the poem a colour of credibility. It also enables him to
dispense with any elaborate machinery for the generation of eerie and remote terror. As is usual
with him, Coleridge works in Christabel through subtle suggestion rather than explicit description.
It must be noted that Coleridge values the middle ages not for their own sake but for their capacity
to provide a suitable setting for the supernatural which it is his purpose to hint at or to display
openly. Only once does he go beyond this-while describing the shadowy picture in Christabel of
The charm carved so curiously
Carved with figures strange and sweet
For the Lady’s chamber meet.
Otherwise, the medieval atmosphere is kept vague rather than concretely depicted, though it
permeates everything. Even when he alludes to the trials by combat in Part II of Christabel he does
not give precise details. Contrast his approach with Keats’s description of Madeline’s chamber in
The Eve of St. Agnes and we will find the difference between Coleridge and other romantic poets
in this particular.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is, likewise, provided by Coleridge with a medieval setting. The
references to the crossbow, the vesper bell, the shriving hermit, the prayer to Mary-all point to the
medieval setting of the poem. The deliberate archaisms like eftsoons”, “countree,” and “swound”
serve the same purpose. The supernatural events in the poem find a befitting backdrop in this
medieval setting.

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