Comparison Between ‘Christabel’ from S.T.Coleridge’s Christabel and Madeline in John Keats ‘the Eve of St. Agnes’
Poetry (1)
Hameed Khan
Topic: Comparison between ‘Christabel’ from S.T.Coleridge’s Christabel and Madeline in John Keats ‘The eve of St. Agnes’
Christabel from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’ and Madeline from John Keats ‘The Eve of St. Agnes’ have many striking similarities. Throughout both poems, the two women are constantly referred to as pure, innocent, generally good girls. They are praised by the other characters and by the narrators. However, both women engage in behaviour that defies their descriptions. Occasionally, this behaviour even disrupts gender roles, and the position of the girls in their respective texts in question. The topic of concern is with a particular text in question so there is a limit to what extent this topic expands. The comparison is between the two leading females of their respective texts. The similarities that I want to point out to are limited to the leading female characters only and not to the entire Poems in concern. On the basis of the review of both the poems and a complete study of individual characters, this paper is an attempt to point to the fact that Madeline in The Eve of St. Agnes shows character similarities in nature and behaviour to that of Christabel in Christabel by S.T.Coleridge. When we start analyzing the text of ‘Christabel’ the first thing that we come to know about her character is that there are many instances when Christabel is described as good. First of all, she is constantly called lovely, or referred to as the lovely lady Christabel “whom her father loves so well” (Coleridge 3). Christabel is adored by her father. The narrator calls Christabel her father’s joy, his pride, “So fair, so innocent, so mild” (Coleridge 16). Another aspect of Christabel’s goodness is that she is a devout Christian. The girl is described as a “youthful hermitess… Who, praying always, prays in sleep” (Coleridge 10). There is one
Hameed Khan
Topic: Comparison between ‘Christabel’ from S.T.Coleridge’s Christabel and Madeline in John Keats ‘The eve of St. Agnes’
Christabel from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Christabel’ and Madeline from John Keats ‘The Eve of St. Agnes’ have many striking similarities. Throughout both poems, the two women are constantly referred to as pure, innocent, generally good girls. They are praised by the other characters and by the narrators. However, both women engage in behaviour that defies their descriptions. Occasionally, this behaviour even disrupts gender roles, and the position of the girls in their respective texts in question. The topic of concern is with a particular text in question so there is a limit to what extent this topic expands. The comparison is between the two leading females of their respective texts. The similarities that I want to point out to are limited to the leading female characters only and not to the entire Poems in concern. On the basis of the review of both the poems and a complete study of individual characters, this paper is an attempt to point to the fact that Madeline in The Eve of St. Agnes shows character similarities in nature and behaviour to that of Christabel in Christabel by S.T.Coleridge. When we start analyzing the text of ‘Christabel’ the first thing that we come to know about her character is that there are many instances when Christabel is described as good. First of all, she is constantly called lovely, or referred to as the lovely lady Christabel “whom her father loves so well” (Coleridge 3). Christabel is adored by her father. The narrator calls Christabel her father’s joy, his pride, “So fair, so innocent, so mild” (Coleridge 16). Another aspect of Christabel’s goodness is that she is a devout Christian. The girl is described as a “youthful hermitess… Who, praying always, prays in sleep” (Coleridge 10). There is one
Bibliography: Coleridge, Samuel T. Christabel. 1907. Keats, John. The Eve of St. Agnes. 1885. Rosemarie Maier, The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Vol. 70, No. 1 (Jan., 1971)