Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"My mind feels as if it ached to behold and know something great, something one and indivisible—and it is only in the faith of this that rocks or waterfalls, mountains or caverns, give me the sense of sublimity or majesty!"

Coleridge to Thelwall, 14th October 1797

I. Essential Questions

• How is Coleridge's tone and manner different than previous writers (in the 18th Century) and even contemporaries (such as Jane Austen)?
  

II. Background Notes

Read the following:

• Read this and any other tab on Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
• Read of his death from Poets' Graves

Take notes on Coleridge:

• Years
• Religious Ideas
• Literary Philosophy
• Career
• Struggle with Laudinum (opium)
• Death

 
 

III. Terms

IV. Reading

• • "Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath"
  • "Kubla Khan"
  • "On Donne's Poetry"
  • The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (illustrated be Gustave Dore)
  • For More: Poems 

  V. Journal: Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

• After Part the Fourth
• 1.  Why can't the mariner pray effectively?  When this changes, what does the mariner attribute the change to?  The reader may partly agree with the mariner but sees another reason (perhaps related) for the change.  What is it?  Why is this fitting?

• 2. In the Bible, is there ever a time when we learn that our prayers will be hindered by our actions?  Or that God does not listen to or says that he will not listen to a prayer?  Where?  How does that relate to the the prayers of the ancient Mariner?  Do you think God would ever refuse to hear someone's prayers today?

• After Part the Sixth
• 3.  Again the ancient Mariner cannot pray.  Why not?  Why can he pray again?  What might this reflect about our own repentance? 

• After Part the Seventh
• 4. Every vision of life on earth is, in some way, a vision of the good life.  According to the Mariner, what is the good, sweet life?  How does his understanding of the good life contrast to his experience on the ship? 

• 5. According to the Mariner, what is essential to effective prayer?  How might we restate his idea to be a general principle of approach to life that helps us remain in a ready state for prayer? 

•  6. Who is a "sadder and a wiser man" at the end of the poem?  Why would the person be sadder?  

• 7. Application: 

• Did you feel any sadder or wiser during or after reading this poem?  Why or why not?

• 8. Does the Bible ever say that wisdom and sadness may go together?  Or not go together?  Find one verse, passage, or story that supports the idea of wisdom and sadness naturally going together or not naturally going together.  

• 9. Why do you think that sad or tragic things often seem more wise and mature than comic things?  Have you ever found tragic and comic effect reversed (where the comedy seems deeper than some tragedy)?  Explain.

 

VI. Further Thoughts 

The Waterboys

• "Strange Boat" 

Bastille

• "Weight of Living" 

Johnny Cash

• "I Hung My Head"

 

Monday, 3/20/14: All Hail the Queen!

* Open

* Check Victorian Notes

• Review

* ICE, ICE, Lady

HW: 

• Take More Victorian Notes
• Our gracious, accomplished guide will be Dr. George P. Landow, of Brown University.  His compiled notes, links, and work may be found on The Victorian Web.

The main currents of Victorianism — some attempts at definition.  Read these short pieces.  Take notes on the three in bold and italics (note five things from each linked passage).

• Victorians and Victorianism — an Introduction
• The Complex Realities of Victorianism
• Main Currents in Victorian Intellectual History — Some Handy Oversimplifications
• How to go about understanding the Victorian age (Chesterton, 1913)
• Three main trends of Victorian thought: Utilitarianism, the Oxford Movement, and Romantic Protestantism (Chesterton, 1913)

Block your Prejudice: Sensing the Sensibility of an Essay Written with Pride

Open

• Read: All Hail Queen Karen!

* Poetry: Review and New

• The Villanelle
• The Triolet

* Review Austen, literary criticism, etc.

• Austen's Arguments

* Review passage-based quiz.

Go outside if possible:

• Writing Warmup
• ICE

HW: Read and take notes on the The Victorian Period (1837-1901)

Elizabeth and the Colonel: Passion? No. Romance? No. Possibility? Probably not. Attraction? Probably.

Ch. 33 (Vol. II, Ch. 10): Colonel Fitzwilliam explains that he cannot marry whomever he wishes.  He has to marry, at least in part, for money, being a younger son.  This implies both affections for Elizabeth and a warning for her not to set hers on him:
CF: "Younger sons cannot marry where they like.''
EB: ``Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often do.''
CF: ``Our habits of expence make us too dependant, and there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money.''
EB: ``Is this,'' thought Elizabeth, ``meant for me?'' and she coloured at the idea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, ``And pray, what is the usual price of an Earl's younger son? Unless the elder brother is very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds.''

Ch. 34 (Vol. II, Ch. 11): Darcy comes to propose, and Elizabeth, when she first hears the door bell, thrills that it might be Colonel Fitzwilliam rather than Fitzwilliam Darcy:
"She could not think of Darcy's leaving Kent without remembering that his cousin was to go with him; but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he had no intentions at all, and agreeable as he was, she did not mean to be unhappy about him."

"While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the door bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to enquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room."

All Aboard!

 Somehow, the links are working again; blimey!

You need to take notes on 4 pieces in total.  See below:

• Dr. Peter Leithart
• Austen's Religious Background
• Pride and Vanity
• Mr. Collins's Proposal and The Book of Common Prayer 
• How Revolutionary was Austen? 

• Austen and Enlightenment

• More Goodness
• Austen's Arguments (Pairs well with Collins and Common Prayer)