Chapter 1 Literature Review

1.1 Studies on S. T. Coleridge and Christabel Abroad
Coleridge  is  hailed  by  some  of  his  contemporaries  and  is  generally  celebrated today as a literary critic and a lyric poet of brilliant wit. The studies abroad are largely centered  on  Coleridge’s  life  experience,  poetic  imagination,  religious,  political  and philosophical view, his view of nature, and his literary aesthetics. Coleridge’s life experience is the base of further study on his thought. Allan Grant in A Preface to Coleridge (1972) gives an account of Coleridge’s journey to a poet and a thinker  by  describing  the  men  he  has  met  and  the  place  he  has  visited.  Rosemary Ashton’s  The  Life  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge:  A  Critical  Biography  (1996)  is  a relatively objective biography, substantial in content and spontaneous in writing style. It comments  on  the  fifteen  stages  in  Coleridge’s  life,  full  of  technicality  and  readability. Richard  Holmes  expressively  elucidates  the  early  life,  the  heyday,  and  the  late  years throughout  Coleridge’s  career,  including  Coleridge  (1982)、Coleridge:  Early  Visions (1989)  and  Coleridge:  Darker  Reflections  (1998).  The  author  displays  an  insightful investigation, with delicate and exquisite smoothness, into Coleridge’s thought and the social  environment  and  status  in  which  his  works  come  into  being.  Seamus  Perry publishes Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 2003 as one of The British Library Writers’ Lives. It gives a brief introduction of Coleridge’s life experience from stem to stern. 
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1.2 Studies on S. T. Coleridge and Christabel in China  
In general, the studies on Coleridge in China start relatively later than in the West; however, it has drawn more and more attention in recent years, and enhanced the studies from  a  variety  of  perspectives,  namely,  studies  on  Coleridge’s  poetic  imagination, religious and philosophical view, literary aesthetics and his view of nature. A  host  of  scholars  establish  a  platform  for  the  studies  on  Coleridge’s  poetic imagination.  Wang  Zuoliang,  in  The  History  of  Romantic  Poetry  (1991),  mainly introduces Coleridge’s imagination and details the practice of it. He puts forward that it is a dilemma for Coleridge to depend everything on imagination, and to base poetry on inspiration and genius. While in his another book The History of English Poetry (1997), he  refreshes  his  opinion  and  begins  to  appreciate  the  imagination,  regarding  it  as  the peak of a poet that none other than geniuses like Shakespeare and Milton can reach in Literary  circle.  Lei  Tipei,  in  Introduction  to  Western  Literature  Theories,  awards Coleridge’s imagination as the most “Romantic disposition” and the “extraordinary and abundant”  (Lei,  2003:  126)  one,  and  emphasizes  that  the  power  of  imagination  is considered as the highest qualification for a poet and the soul of the poetry. Coleridge’s poetry  is  suffused  with  the  fantastic  imagination,  especially  abounded  in  his  three distinctive  supernatural  poems.  In  Wu  Haichao’s  “‘Imagination  and  Fancy’:  A Comparison  Between  Wordsworth’s  and  Coleridge’s  Literary  Ideology”  (2006),  it illustrates the difference between these two Romanticists’ attitudes towards imagination and fancy – one concentrates on the emotional overflow and the other on the reasonable expression,  which  actually  agrees  with  each  other  in  nature.  Hong  Fang’s  On Coleridge’s  Theory  of  Imagination  (2006),  conducts  a  systematically  analytical  study from  the  perspective  of  materialism.  She  traces  back  to  its  social  background  and philosophical  base,  and  comments  on  the  feature  of  his  imagination,  the  value  of  its realistic significance and its historical limitation. 
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Chapter 2 Background Information

2.1 The Impact of the French Revolution 
In  terms  of  the  European  history,  it  is  a  revolutionary  age  from  the  middle-late stage  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  the  nineteenth  century,  during  which  the  French Revolution  and  the  Industrial  Revolution  advance  hand  in  hand,  extensively  shocking the old society. Upholding the principles of “liberty, equality and fraternity”, the French Revolution  unveils  with  the  astounding  events  in  1789.  It  is  more  than  a  political  or historical movement, during which the profound and extensive process in the following decades  has  developed  and  advanced  drastically.  In  Britain,  with  the  impact  of  the French Revolution and the internal conflicts intensified, there are a storm of ideas and voices emerging and blossoming across the country. Just as Thomas Paine perceives in 1791,  “It  is  much.  –  Much  to  us  as  men:  Much  to  us  as  Englishmen.  .  .  the  French Revolution  concerns  us  immediately.”1  It  is  conceded  that  almost  everything  can  be concerned with the Revolution in France, not this thing or that, but literally everything is involved in this one process, which is also the same case in the rest of the Europe. In  this  historical  moment,  the  French  Revolutionists  determine  to  create  a revolutionary culture, insisting that all traces of the corrupt aristocratic tradition should be eliminated, even to the extent of altering the kings and queens knaves on the playing cards.  The  political  responses  of  the  British  radicals,  voiced  particularly  urgently  in 1792-3, upset the conservative members in Britain, for the voices develop dramatically and menacingly accompanied by the growing violence and instability in France, and the outbreak of war in Europe. The French Revolution, as a matter of fact, turns out to be the consequence of conceptions and the propagation of notions.
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2.2 Coleridge and Romanticism 
English  Romanticism  is  acknowledged  to  be  the  undertaking  of  the  verbal momentum,  the  transcendental  energy,  and  the  ideological  self-consciousness  of  the French  Revolution.  It  is  also  the  case  that  Romantic  writers  often  seek  to  surpass  the temporal limitations and the geographical boundaries, and “to project their readers onto an  imaginative  plane  where  the  particularities  of  time  and  place  are  forgotten”  (Wu, 1998: 23). Romanticism are entitled with its own name and romance, while Romantic works  are  often  labeled  with  the  “charge  of  escapism”,  for  they  are  used  to  refusing reality and revealing history in irrelevant topics beside the point – “imagination, nature, and  the  self,  when  it  is  really  concerned  with  historical  or  political  matters”  (ibid). However, it is more likely that the Romanticists are making an attempt to address the social and political issues in their own ways. Romanticism seeks to effect in poetry what revolution aspires to achieve in politics, “innovation, transformation, defamilarization” (ibid:  26).  The  language  of  Utopian  idealism  and  revelational  vision,  especially  the whole transformational essence of revolutionary discourse, remains a primary feature of Romantic writing long after the political ambition of realizing such goals in the external world  has  been  abolished.  
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Chapter 3 Coleridge’s Nature and Vision ........... 34 
3.1 Coleridge’s Nature – The Supernatural and the Natural .... 34 
3.2 Coleridge’s Vision ..... 38 
3.2.1 Symbolic Vision ...... 40
3.2.2 Philosophical Vision ........ 44 
3.2.3 Religious Vision ...... 46 
Chapter 4 Vision of Christabel ..... 50 
4.1 The Symbolic Vision – The Supernatural Images Within ......... 50 
4.2 Frustration  and Struggles Within ...... 62 
4.3 The Religious Vision – The Sin and the Redemption ........ 70
Chapter 5 The Nature of Vision .......... 79 
5.1 Disorder and Restoration ........... 79 
5.2 The Coleridgean Unity ...... 84 

Chapter 5 The Nature of Vision

5.1 Disorder and Restoration 
As  can  be  seen,  the  world  in  Christabel  is  brimful  of  the  supernatural  images, accompanied by the complicated relationships, frustration and struggles, which echoes the  ever-lasting  exploration  into  the  symphony  of  sin  and  redemption.  With  the symbolic  vision,  philosophical  vision  and  religious vision all together, it illuminates a world that is basically founded on disorder and deconstruction, and to a certain extent serves  as  a  requirement  for  the  restoration  and  reconstruction  of  the  world,  either internal or external. There  are  a  variety  of  contradictory  elements  in  the  setting  and  the  environment, whereby the state of disorder goes from strength to strength. Since vision is a spiritual and  creative  power,  it  not  only  artistically  but metaphysically perceives  reality,  it  also participates  in  creating  the  presentation  of  reality.  And  the  power  of  imagination  and symbol-making,  because  of  their  metaphysical  implications,  work  as  an  artistic supplement  of  the  chaos  in  Christabel.  There  exist  in  the  poem  two  dimensions  of distinct worlds. First go the worlds of individual isolation and social inclination. Second are the worlds of the known and the unknown – the natural and the supernatural. The dual world structure is closely associated with the author – Coleridge, whose career and experience greatly display that the duality and contradiction of the worlds are the order of  a  day.  Wittingly  or  unwittingly,  Coleridge  puts  forth  the  paradoxical  atmosphere  in the  poem.  And  the  ambiguous  structure  and  distorting  atmosphere,  in  turn,  makes Christabel  supernatural  and  full  of  terror  and  conflicts,  which  as  a  result  reflects  the potential crisis in reality. 
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Conclusion

Coleridge, one of the renowned figures in English literature, not only serves as the genius of a poet but also as the thought of a philosophical critic. With the Romanticists advocating the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (reflection in tranquility as well), Coleridge flies his own colors in his literary theory about the poet and the poetry, imagination  and  fancy,  and  especially  art  and  nature.  And Christabel  is  considered  as one  of  the  most  ambiguous  works  of  Coleridge,  which  demonstrates  Coleridge’s humanistic care for the human beings and his unremitting pursuit of the unity of nature, humanity and the divine.  It is conceivably demonstrated that Christabel is a unity of the world where nature, man and the supernatural exist. Unfinished as it is, Christabel is anything but a failure. It is written in an age with chivalry gone – the French Revolution defines the end of the European  order  and  “the  gender  and  sexual  identities”  that  “people  take  on  in  the chivalry and aristocratic family” (Newlyn, 2002: 55). With the impact of political clash and  repression,  Coleridge  is  directly  involved  in  the  ideological  struggles  of  that  age. However, the nature of the Revolution is driven into a dilemma with the over-passion for  freedom,  equality  and  fraternity  and  the  deterioration  of  violence  and  power. Coleridge has therefore dropped his notion of political revolutions and social reforms, for  the  rise  and  fall  of  governments  is  more  likely  to  induce  man’s  evil  nature.  It  is rather  a  challenge  to  eradicate  the  social  evils  and  conflicts  by  resorting  to  the revolutionary  power.  And  Coleridge  instead turns to the reconciliation of opposites to unify light and darkness, subject and object, reason and imagination, and the conscious and the unconscious. 
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