Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Christabel: Vampires and Transsexualism
All great poems, and many bad poems, are open to a variety of interpretations, and it is important to keep them in mind when reading the actual poem in order for one to gain further insight into the thematic composition at play within the poetry itself. Interpretive choices must be created from sources beyond the simple lexical meaning of the words themselves. It is equally important to examine the subtext, closely scrutinizing the nuance and imagery operating between the words.
Beyond that, one would do well to consider the history of the poet, especially that history which goes into his psychological makeup and which therefore will determine various subconscious details included in the poem of which even the poet himself might be unaware. Further, a reader can often gain insight into an interpretive choice as to the meaning of a poem by being aware of such ostensibly mundane things as the poet’s selection of names for his characters, or even his choice of setting or environment.
Finally, one can even glean a great deal about the meaning of a poem by understanding the actual history of the poem itself. All of these choices must be considered when choosing to interpret Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Christabel,” and in so doing one can very easily arrive at a perfectly valid interpretation of the poem which clearly finds that it is amazingly autobiographical considering the sensational subject matter, that it contains undeniable insight into Coleridge’s own personal fears and desires, and even that the content of the poem itself may explain why the author was incapable of finishing it despite having said that the plan for the entire poem was complete in his head (Basler 48-49).
Despite his attempt to frame the story in ambient features which would divert attention away from the actual hidden meaning in the poem, “Christabel” can be successfully deciphered as an autobiographical confession. One might assume that the only truly acceptable reading of the poem is that which is contained in the way the words are strung together to tell the tale. Like all great poems, however, this one contains a story which isn’t as simple as it would seem on its face.
The poet makes distinct choices which, examined critically, can lead to a further solidifying of the interpretation that this is a thickly veiled autobiographical disclosure. For instance, Coleridge makes a deliberate attempt to distance the story from himself by placing it within the confines of a stereotypical and otherwise not very compelling gothic past right from the opening line: “‘Tis the middle of the night by the castle clock,” (1).
As Rosemary Ashton indicates, “the Gothic settingâÂ?¦is used by Coleridge much as the Gothic novelists used such trappings, as a distancing device to render the sexual and sinful acceptable subjects,” (185). The gothic setting allows Coleridge to more closely explore the darker themes of sensuality in the poem than it might had if he’d chosen a more contemporary setting.
The explicit and controversial sensuality in the poem masks the even more explosive sensuality which the poem is actually exploring. The choice of creating distance between what is happening on the page and what is going on in the life of the author is unquestionably a key concern of this poem. Indeed, the entire poem is built upon distancing itself from its writer, who is dealing with themes and situations which he will eventually learn he isn’t psychologically ready to handle.
In creating a gothic backdrop that would be instantly recognizable to the average reader, Coleridge effectively bans himself from playing a part in the poem such as he had so obviously played in a poem like “This Lime Tree Bower, My Prison.” Perhaps Coleridge thought that any attempt to infer from the poem any autobiographical detail was instantly terminated. Fortunately for the modern critical reader accustomed to Freudian theory, dismissing autobiography from any work of literature is anathema.
The reason that Coleridge found it so necessary to distance himself from the poem is that in fashioning what can affirmatively be termed a “lesbian vampire” story, Coleridge is actually creating a story about the complex relationship between two men. Indeed, the relationship isn’t between just any two men, it’s between Coleridge himself and his friend and fellow poet William Wordsworth. Obviously, Coleridge couldn’t have distanced himself from that topic much further than by dressing it up as a horror story taking place between two beautiful women in an appropriately gothic setting.
The distancing effect is immediate and successful and instantly mandates that the poem is beyond any radical interpretation. Or is it? As stated earlier, even the seemingly benign act of naming characters can often be a clue in piecing together the mystery surrounding the interpretation of a poem. In this respect, Coleridge makes choices so subtle that it’s quite possible to overlook their importance. One of his first choices was to give his apparent villainess a feminized form of the male name Gerald, which derives from the Old German for “spear-mighty” or “spear-ruler.” Clearly, Gerald is a decidedly virile name from which to turn into a woman’s name. Beyond that, in order to align with his rhyme scheme Coleridge imports onto the name a peculiarly harsh pronunciation.
As intriguing as this is, it’s nothing compared to the choice Coleridge made when naming his heroine. This is obviously a unique name in and of itself; neither now nor at the time the poem was written was Christabel a common name. In addition to its being unique, it’s an interesting choice for a female character since it amounts to a compound name resulting from combining the names of two men: the Biblical figures of Christ and Abel. Further adding to the subtlety is the fact that both Christ and Abel are figures of suffering and torment.
Appropriately, Christabel does suffer in the poem. She is certainly haunted by the guilt rising from the fact that her mother’s death came quickly upon her own birth. “Woe is me! / She died the hour that I was born,” (190-191). She also suffers guilt and shame after she realizes she has lain with Geraldine. “‘Sure I have sinn’d!’ said Christabel, / ‘Now heaven be praised if all be well!'” (369-370). According to Camille Paglia, Christabel is such a victim of suffering and torment that she is “a sacrificial victim, whom we actually see led to the alter and laying herself down nude upon it,” (335). In connection with that assessment of the character Paglia goes on to explicitly point out that that “Christabel is Coleridge” (342).
If so, then it follows that Coleridge must see himself as a suffering victim, perhaps at the hands of his own Geraldine. Could his Geraldine have been, in fact, Wordsworth? Interestingly, Stephen Weissman uses very similar language to what Paglia uses to describe Christabel when he says of Coleridge, “his poem ‘Christabel’ began to express his Christ-Abel feelings of being the sacrificial victim” (250). Weissman later repeats himself when he writes, “Like Christ or Abel, and like Christabel, Coleridge was caught in the process of becoming the ‘innocent victim,'” (287). Obviously, Coleridge’s choice of a name for his heroine was not made lightly, but indeed reflected an intense awareness of his own feelings of victimization.
Coleridge’s feelings of being a victim was deep-seated and hardly limited to his feelings toward Wordsworth, but the poem is unmistakably about-at least in part-his intricate relationship with the eventual Poet Laureate of England, and the ambivalent emotions he felt toward his friend. At first Coleridge was intimidated by Wordsworth’s poetic gifts. He wrote a letter to Robert Southey in which he actually said that Wordsworth was the only man to whom he felt inferior (Ashton, 104). To another friend he wrote, “But here you will meet too with Wordsworth, ‘the latch of whose shoe I am unworthy to loose,'” (Weissman, 173).
This idealization may have continued, but as the friendship grew it became subject to more complexity and would eventually lead to such deeply felt feelings of jealousy and resentfulness that they would find their way into being disguised into a vampire story about two women. Though Coleridge and Wordsworth collaborated together many times, Coleridge eventually began to see himself as being a victim of Wordsworth’s ambition. The relationship became an uneven one, at least in Coleridge’s mind. His repressed anger toward Wordsworth-and himself-began to grow as he realized that he had “subjugated his professional identity to him,” (Weissman, 250).
He would eventually express some of the feelings openly in his poem “To William Wordsworth” in which he praises Wordsworth’s poem “The Prelude” while at the same time bemoaning his own failure to achieve something as great (Bloom, 26). “Whether he gave Wordsworth rather more than he received, we cannot be certain; we know only that he wanted more from Wordsworth than he received,” writes Harold Bloom (5). Camille Paglia takes this idea to its logical extreme. “Wordsworth and Coleridge were locked in a sadomasochistic marriage of the minds, where Wordsworth kept the hierarchical advantage and Coleridge surrendered himself to ritualistic self-abasement,” (319).
Clearly this relationship is mirrored in the poem. Christabel is abased by her decision to sleep with Geraldine, a surprising act of sexual deviance considering that she has been described as a lady, and devout and who is betrothed to a knight. And yet Christabel must accept responsibility for her part in the relationship. She is the submissive member, true, but after all it is she who is wandering around the grounds of the castle alone at night. It is she who not only invites Geraldine back to the castle, but actually carries her over the threshold. And, finally, it is Christabel who finally decides to accept Geraldine’s invitation into sexual initiation.
Geraldine may be the one who places events in motion, but Christabel shows no compulsion to run away from her subconscious desires. The actions are decidedly commensurate with Coleridge’s decisions to maintain his relationship with Wordsworth. Both Christabel and Coleridge play an active part in residing within what would now be termed an “unhealthy relationship.” But how could Coleridge confront these uncomfortable feelings that were bubbling to the surface? Like any poet, he naturally turned to his creative muse. He discovered the perfect genre in which he could express his feelings toward Wordsworth without worrying whether what he was really expressing would be too obvious.
Coleridge’s association with Wordsworth was almost the perfect illustration of a vampiric relationship, and lent itself easily to being depicted as such with the only caveat being that it would be presented in the likeness of a vampiric relationship between two women. Consider the opinion of Weissman when he writes that “The vampire motif employed to explain the relationship between Christabel and Geraldine fits equally well the friendship between the two poets,” (287). Weissman then goes on to give a sublime example of how this comparison might be made. He asks whether it was possible that Coleridge felt “at least unconsciously, that he was allowing himself to be sucked dry of his creative juices so that Wordsworth might slake his thirst for literary immortality” (287).
There can be no doubt that Geraldine is supposed to be some sort of vampiric creature. Examine the evidence: “the midnight hour, the full moon, the spectral appearance of Geraldine, the importance of Christabel’s touch, Christabel’s invitation to the castle, Geraldine’s fainting at the threshold, her refusal to pray, the old mastiff’s growling acknowledgment of an evil presence, the blazing-up of the embers as Geraldine passes, Geraldine’s weakness when she sees the carved cherub (a Christian icon of sorts) on the ceiling of Christabel’s bed chamber” (Twitchell, 41).
The vampire element in the poem cannot be questioned. But is Wordsworth really supposed to be Geraldine? Is the connection as obvious as the one between Christabel and Coleridge? David Erdman quotes Warren Stevenson who writes that Geraldine is “a transmogrification of Wordsworth-rather as the worst element in Wordsworth’s nature,” (Erdman, 157). Stevenson then goes on to find that Geraldine’s “foul and deformed sideâÂ?¦symbolizes âÂ?¦his deep unconscious feeling that Wordsworth has arrogated to himself the title of divinely inspired poet, while denying it to Coleridge, the true aspirant,” (qtd. in Erdman, 158). Based on this reading it’s quite possible to infer that Coleridge saw Wordsworth as a vampire sucking him dry of his rightful place in the literary pantheon.
A place, not insignificantly, where Wordsworth did in fact wind up. Generally speaking, Wordsworth has consistently been held in higher esteem than Coleridge. Was Coleridge being prescient when he had even Christabel’s father choosing Geraldine over Christabel? “And, turning from his own sweet maid, / The aged knight, Sir Leoline, / Led forth the lady Geraldine” (641-643).
One of the great mysteries in Romantic poetry is what would have happened had Coleridge finished “Christabel” and, more importantly, why couldn’t he finish it. In fact, the impact of the poem would be stronger if he hadn’t even completed Part II. In Part II, Coleridge has already decided that he can’t complete what he was attempting to do in Part I. Camille Paglia correctly states that in Part II, “The poem goes flat. Unimportant people pop up and down ringing bells and telling beads,” (140). In Part II of “Christabel” the immediacy of the identifications of Christabel/Coleridge and Geraldine/Wordsworth is lost as Coleridge seems to have decided that he could not continue in the direction to which he had originally started out.
The poem lapses into a standard Gothic tale in which Geraldine transforms from simple vampire into the more complex-and decidedly more feminine-“lamia.” Snake images begin to slither into the poem, and Geraldine turns her attention away from Christabel and toward Christabel’s father. This is not a distancing device, but then neither is it an absolute annihilation of intention. Some echoes of the Coleridge/Wordsworth connection still remain in Part II, but they are severely watered down. Whatever Coleridge had intended for Part III, one can be sure that it would only have further removed the poem from its opening investigation into his relationship with William Wordsworth.
Perhaps Coleridge was just incapable of facing the feelings he had begun to explore in the first part of the poem. Or, maybe after completing the first part it only then began to creep into his consciousness what he had been subconsciously creating in “Christabel.” Another possible explanation may be that he realized the only acceptable ending was to have Christabel escape from being under the dominion of Geraldine’s power, and that was something he just wasn’t capable of writing because he was still so firmly under the influence of Wordsworth himself.
Reading a poem with a solid interpretation in mind is key to gaining the most enjoyment and understanding out of it. Like almost every other poem ever written, “Christabel” surely opens itself up to more than one explanation. Even so, certain features of the poem cannot be denied by any interpretation: the use of a vampire motif, for instance, or the homosexual undertones.
One could even read it as a simple Gothic tale. When one combines all of the above elements with the psychological history of an author fraught with insecurities, one can very easily come to the conclusion that “Christabel” is an elaborately disguised revelation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s extremely complex and disturbing feelings toward William Wordsworth.
