Christian Karrs' Canonball Final Draft

Coleridge’s Romantic Imagination in a Painful Context

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a poet that is inseparably related to the Romantic Movement in regards to British Literature. Many regard his poetic collaboration with William Wordsworth in the writing of Lyrical ballads, with a few other poems in 1798 as ushering in the Romanticism of England. However, while for many Wordsworth’s poetry is firmly tied to the concept of Romantic Imagination, it is more difficult to ascertain the position Coleridge’s writing takes in terms of the former and romantic irony. Many of Coleridge’s poems such as “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” begin with an anxious context, in this case of the author’s entrapment, but ultimately convey an optimistic message of resolution founded in the beauty of nature. However these are contrasted with the decidedly pessimistic works such as “Dejection: An Ode” and the subtle feeling of futility communicated in “Kubla Khan.” Much of Coleridge’s own life was characterized by his plaguing anxieties. These were accompanied by a failed marriage, his unrequited love for Wordsworth’s sister-in-law and a damaging opium addiction, and these personal hardships are detectable in his poetry. “The Visionary Hope” is significant for its depiction of Coleridge’s unique form of Romantic Imagination that manifests itself in a painful context reminiscent of his own experiences.

Coleridge begins his poem with the sentence that establishes an ambiguity and interchangeable nature of the piece’s speakers. “Sad lot, TO HAVE NO HOPE!” he writes (1). It is equally conceivable that the nameless man discussed in the poem, the poetic speaker, or the literal Coleridge himself delivers this phrase. This line establishes a precedent that allows the poem to be seen as directly reflective of Coleridge’s sentiments. Coleridge goes on to describe the unnamed subject’s position as one of complete dejection, yet not without desire for revival. He writes, “Tho’ lowly kneeling / He fain would frame a prayer within his breast (1-2). The man’s “kneeling” posture indicates his distraught state, which, Coleridge qualifies as “lowly” to emphasize the fallen nature of the man. However, a position of kneeling is also a position of prayer, and Coleridge tells us that the man, “fain would frame a prayer within his breast”. The man’s wish to pray suggests that while he has been stricken down in some manner, he still has thoughts of reviving himself. And yet the fact that he would “fain” or willingly beseech higher powers for aid, but has not, implies that there is some reservation acting on the man’s will. The man is in a crushed state not uncommon in Coleridge’s poetry, yet while he still is able to contemplate seeking aid there is something that causes him to refrain. He continues to have agency even in his despairing state. Coleridge goes on to indicate that the man’s state is a result of some great strike against his hopes. He writes, “He strove in vain! The dull sighs from his chest / Against his will the stifling load revealing” (5). This indicates that the man held expectations, and strong investment or hope with regards to them. This further clarifies the first line “Sad lot…” having specifying meaning in regards to the man’s current state being near to having “no hope” (1). Coleridge further strengthens this impression, denoting that the man’s pain has transformed his literal and figurative dreams into anguish, with the lines “Tho obscure pangs made curses of his dreams / And dreaded sleep, each night repell’d in vain” (11-12). These lines suggest that the anxiety of the man’s dashed hopes have invaded even his sleeping hours. It also lends itself to a figurative interpretation suggesting that the man’s aspirations have been poisoned, so that what were once inspiring goals, now only serve to further his distress. The individual discussed in the poem, who can also be seen as representative of the poetic speaker and Coleridge himself, is in the utmost torment, being plagued by the anguish of “no hope”. His waking hours are misery in the knowledge that his plans and expectations were folly, and this feeling has pervaded even his dreams and considerations for the future.

However, Coleridge indicates that although the man has been completely broken down by his vain hopes he has never been able to sincerely want a freedom from the pain. He states, “Yet never could his heart command, th’ fain, / One deep full wish to be no more in pain” (15-16). Coleridge has thoroughly illustrated the gravity of the man’s distress; however, at this point it is clearly stated that which is subtly hinted at earlier in the poem; even in light of the disabling anxiety his unrequited hopes have brought him he is unable to fully let them go. The man’s heart is still the ruling factor, we see here, and it still cannot completely wish to release its hope in exchange for release from pain. Through this depiction of pain, which the man endures to preserve his hope, Coleridge illustrates the strength with which the heart clings the latter. This endurance of pain to permit hope’s existence is again emphasized in the last four lines of the poem, which state, “ Disease would vanish, like a summer shower / Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide bower! / Or let it stay! Yet this one Hope should give/Such strength that he would bless his pains and live” (25-28). Coleridge illustrates that the “disease” inflicting human existence could be made to simply and completely cease. But, he suggests that there is an alternative, which his subject has chosen and which perhaps applies to Coleridge’s own experiences with Sara Hutchinson as well as several of his unfinished literary projects and own poetical aspirations in light of the inferiority he felt in comparison to Wordsworth. This alternative is to indulge the heart’s desire to preserve even dying hope, to fervently maintain a belief in its eventual realization which acts as a driving force, that even if it should not come to fruition the worth of such hope is of its own merit and is an end unto its self. This belief allows that such hope would give a man “strength that he would bless his pains and live” (28).

Coleridge’s impressive imaginative writing and influence on England’s Romantic movement thoroughly establishes his position amongst its canonized writers. In, “The Visionary Hope” he provides a striking and unique depiction of the decision to preserve dying hope even at the expense of pains, as a resolution rather then a process. This depiction provides a defensible position of Coleridge as a poet of the Romantic Imagination, in way that accurately encompasses the emotional complexities of his writings and personal life.