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[page 94, column 2, continued:]
COLERIDGE'S POETRY.ON POE'S INFLUENCE
To the Editors of Mod. Lang. Notes.
SIRS: — The indebtedness of Poe as a poet to Coleridge is greater and more specific than is commonly believed. Mr. Woodberry (in his Life of Poe) states that Coleridge was the guiding genius of Poe's entire intellectual life; but he does not follow up this assertion by examples from the latter's verse. Yet there are some which are almost unmistakable, — most of them from the earlier poems, as indeed would naturally be the case. One, however, occurs in The Raven (1845):
“‘Prophet,’ said I, “thing of evil! — prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us — by that God we both adore —
Tell this soul with sorrow laden,” etc.
The corresponding passage in Christabel can hardly be a coincidence:
“That saints will aid if men will call,
For the blue sky bends over all.”
Of the early poems, The Sleeper (1831) is most definitely influenced — which is significant, for Poe himself declared that he preferred this poem to The Raven, adding what hardly seems true at the present day: “There is not one man in a million who could be brought to agree with me in this opinion.” In the first place, the metre is the same as that of Coleridge's Christabel, though not handled with equal freedom. Moreover, the opening line is suspiciously similar: [page 95:]
“At midnight, in the month of June.”
(The Sleeper.)
“ 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock.”
(Christabel.)
And, Just as Geraldine is a peculiarly strange, unexplained creature from an unknown land, so the lady of The Sleeper has come
“O’er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor I strange thy dress! “
As one reads on, one finds that the atmosphere of the whole poem is delicately redolent of Cole- ridge. It is a kind of divine opium vision. The moon is a “mystic moon,” and
“An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim.”
The lines which follow, in marvellous adaptability to purpose, have not been excelled by the English poet:
“And softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.” [of sleep]
The City in the Sea (1831, revised 1845) betrays hints of The Ancient Mariner, especially in the emphasis upou the sea as “hideously serene”; but the similarity is more subtle than the kind that may be indicated by quoting parallel pas- sages. (Both the City in the Sea and the Sleeper, by the way, obviously resemble some parts and elements of The Fall of the House of Usher). Israfel (1831), again, has at least one passage drawn from Coleridge:
“None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars (so legends tell)
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.”
“And now it is an angel's song
That makes the heavens mute.”
(The Ancient Mariner.)
Even the reference to the albatross in the song from Al Aaraaf (1829), “‘Neath blue-bell or streamer,” is probably not accidental. And it has long been known, of course, that the repetends of Ulalume, Lenore, and The Raven were suggested by Coleridge in Christabel and other poems.
In the light of such evidence it becomes questionable whether Poe's originality as a poet has not been at least a trifle overestimated. It still remains sufficiently great; but no service is done to the poet's memory by attempts to prove that his product was unique. Even that almost unique masterpiece, The Haunted Palace (1839), seems — perhaps fancifully — to the present writer to have [column 2:] certain faint mist-wreaths of Kubla Khan hanging about it; but it is none the worse for that!
HARRY T. BAKER.
Beloit College.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - MLN, 1910] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Coleridge's Influence on Poe's Poetry (Harry T. Baker, 1910)