Review Tuesday: Christabel - A poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

 

Christabel

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

A woman discovers another woman in the woods who has a secret. 

This year my Halloween specials will be centered around a very controversial vampire story: CARMILLA. Expect reviews over the next couple of weeks going into the spookiest holiday of the year. However, while working on some research, I had found out about some literature may have directly influenced that story, CHRISTABEL being one of them. 

 

I knew I was familiar with the author's name, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. If you are a fan of IRON MAIDEN you will know his most famous work: THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. Okay, that's already a good start, so I gave it a shot as I am not big on poetry. 

 

In a nutshell, Christabel discovers a woman in the woods named Geraldine who has a frightful tale of woe. This made me immediately suspicious. Christabel brings her home to her castle. It's late. Geraldine is exhausted from her kidnapping misadventure, completely undresses and climbs into bed with Christabel to sleep. This confuses Christabel, but she goes to sleep as well. The rest of the poem is about how Christabel's father realizes that in his youth he was great friends with Geraldine's father until they had a silly fight. He reminisces and remembers all the good times He had always meant to mend that bridge but was never able to do so. So he pledges to fix things by going after Geraldine's abductors. That's where this thing ends. 

 

This poem was written in parts over three years and is considered unfinished. Other than the fast friendship between the women, and the titillating bed sequence, there is little that this has to do with Carmilla. I suppose that's enough because this was written over the course of 1797 - 1800 such a sequence and such things were certainly not commonplace nor very acceptable back then. I am, also, making seem more exciting than it actually is. This poem moves slowly and feels repetitious. Is this required reading for Carmilla? Not at all. Do I recommend it? Not really. At least you can find it for free on the internet.