Hey guys I need help!
I'm totally horrible with poetry, especially this intense, potentially ambiguous romantic mumble jumble.
So I chose the topic "Christian doctrine in the poetry of Blake and Coleridge" -- I figured this was the easiest of the topics. Now I've been doing some research, but I'm terrible at that too, because I don't really know what to do with the poems and whatever. I've mostly read about their beliefs, rather than their beliefs propounded in their works.
I'm having the hardest time trying to come up with a thesis, especially since I am so unsure of myself regarding almost everything. The thing I'm most confident about is that Coleridge is more traditional in his beliefs, though radically so, if that makes sense; he focuses a lot on the trinity and the wholeness and oneness of god. Blake is completely opposed to established religion and believes that the way to god and salvation is through the self (like shutting yourself away and finding spiritual strength through yourself...), and he focuses a lot on the duality of god (forgiving and punishing, gentle and powerful, life and death, you know...)
So my kind of off-the-top-of-my head theses are:
1) "Blake's dissentation was comparable to the new testament, while Coleridge's conventional religiosity was like that of the old testament" (needs to relate more to their actual works...)
2) "Blakes religious beliefs expressed through the duality of god, versus coleridge's expression of beliefs through emotion and melody."
(not sure what I'm trying to say...)
3) "Blake expressed god as a duality (experimental...new testament), while coledridge (more traditional) portrayed god traditionally (trinity/old testament)"
(kind of an upgrade from #1, I have a couple really good points for this...but I'm not sure how I will write 15 pages about it...)
Anyway, any help would be awesome...I really don't know where to go with this topic... I only need an outline due for Friday (Monday if I need and can somehow get it to the office before I leave for Chicago), then the essay should be easy enough once I can get a good thorough outline of the points I will make...
Need a thesis on BLAKE AND COLERIDGE
Well, I can't help you much, other than to remind you to use the pyramid approach to your thesis. Start out small and expand upon your idea/opinion. Be sure to use the introductory paragraph, then the body, then the conclusion. Tie all of them up with whatever your thoughts are. Other than that, that's about all I can help you with. Probably not much and you probably already know how to write a thesis, so I guess you get no help from me.
Sam Mayer
"Son, a woman is like a beer. They smell good, they look good, you'd step over your own mother just to get one!" - Homer Simpson
"Son, a woman is like a beer. They smell good, they look good, you'd step over your own mother just to get one!" - Homer Simpson
No, that was good. I haven't written an essay since the summer, so it's good to be reminded of even the basics. Thanks for the reply Sam. I was reading poetry today, and it was actually really fun. I'm thinking I may choose a different topic...maybe "The political ideas of Coleridge"... Hmm.
The only real problem with coming up with my thesis is that I'm not sure if I'm reading the poetry right. I know their religious views are very different, but their poetry seems very similar...so I don't want to use this point as my thesis and then have my prof say, no you read the works wrong... maybe I will talk to him tomorrow if I get a chance. I kind of just want to get this out of the way and don't care too much how I do on it -- I'm kicking ass in all of my other courses.
The only real problem with coming up with my thesis is that I'm not sure if I'm reading the poetry right. I know their religious views are very different, but their poetry seems very similar...so I don't want to use this point as my thesis and then have my prof say, no you read the works wrong... maybe I will talk to him tomorrow if I get a chance. I kind of just want to get this out of the way and don't care too much how I do on it -- I'm kicking ass in all of my other courses.
Hey, after all that stressing and procrastination I just whipped up an outline in about 2 hours. I feel it is really indecisive and really vague, so now that I have something to work off of, it would be great to get some feedback!! I'm mostly concerned with my thesis...it's such a mess of thoughts that I didn't combine very well. I'm pretty happy with my points, as they give me tons to work off of.
Based on the actual assignment, I have no idea what my professor will say about my outline (I didn't really make points for EVERY paragraph...). We're not graded on the outline, which is a CRAZY relief, but here is the assignment:
"After preliminary reading of the relevant texts and some appropriate secondary material, refine the topic so that a thesis of arguement emerges from your consideration of the evidence. Make a detailed outline of that arguement, indicating in point form, paragraph by paragraph, the evidence that will support each point." (Then after this we get the outline back and work on the essay.)
And my outline:
~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis: William Blake (a dissenter, expressing his beliefs through the duality of god) and Samuel Coleridge (traditional in belief, expressing his beliefs through a focus on experience and trials), despite the similarity in the style of their romantic poetry, portray two very opposing essences of Christianity through their written works; Blake represents a new school of thinking, comparable to the New Testament, while Coleridge’s conservative beliefs are like the traditions of the Old Testament.
-Blake’s freedom of expression, evident in his poetry, rooted in his system of beliefs, versus Coleridge’s correlated freedom born from more conservative beliefs; similarities and differences in style and beliefs; respective distinctive themes used repetitively, and their relation to each other
Blake’s ideas:
-“the profound problem of good and evil” (“The Tyger”); the duality of god
-Anti-institutionalism – finding and embracing spirituality through self, through one’s experiences (“Songs of Innocence”/”Songs of Experience”); freedom of individuality (“Proverbs of Hell”)
-“The fourfold nature of man”/the cycle of the seasons/nature + romanticism
-Blake as the new wave of religiosity; representative of New Testament (“The Song of Liberty”) – change brought by Christ child
-Blake’s use of mythology tying into the Bible (“The Prophecies”, “The Four Zoas”, “Jerusalem”)
-The prophecies and their validity to all contexts of time; warnings of the future; (“The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”) – the church as a barrier against freedom of religion; the redemptive role of Satan
Coleridge’s ideas:
-the necessary marriage between personal belief and historical fact; the search for truth through all things; the Logos
-“distinction in unity” (“Biographa Literaria”, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”); paradise only attained through Christ’s sacrifice; the theme of redemption (“Pantisocracy”)
-Conservative beliefs attained/maintained through experience/experimentation; strength of his faith fortified by his experimentation; metaphysics and theology
-the image of god in relation to Blake’s duality (“The Destiny of Nations”, “Fear in Solitude”); holy, beautiful, loving – less vengeful
-Pantheism and panentheism (“Religious Musings”); nature and god; the trinity
-Coleridge’s mythological analogies (“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, “The Wanderings of Cain”, “Christabel”) – representative of Christ as the suffering hero; the similarities between all three
Tentative bibliography:
Newlyn, Lucy, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge.Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002.
Noyes, Russell, ed. English Romantic Poetry and Prose. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1956.
Sanders, Charles Richard. Coleridge and the Broad Church Movement. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1942.
Singer, June K. The Unholy Bible: A Psychological Interpretation of William Blake.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970.
Tannenbaum, Leslie. Biblical Tradition in Blake’s Early Prophecies: The Great Code of
Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.
Based on the actual assignment, I have no idea what my professor will say about my outline (I didn't really make points for EVERY paragraph...). We're not graded on the outline, which is a CRAZY relief, but here is the assignment:
"After preliminary reading of the relevant texts and some appropriate secondary material, refine the topic so that a thesis of arguement emerges from your consideration of the evidence. Make a detailed outline of that arguement, indicating in point form, paragraph by paragraph, the evidence that will support each point." (Then after this we get the outline back and work on the essay.)
And my outline:
~~~~~~~~~~
Thesis: William Blake (a dissenter, expressing his beliefs through the duality of god) and Samuel Coleridge (traditional in belief, expressing his beliefs through a focus on experience and trials), despite the similarity in the style of their romantic poetry, portray two very opposing essences of Christianity through their written works; Blake represents a new school of thinking, comparable to the New Testament, while Coleridge’s conservative beliefs are like the traditions of the Old Testament.
-Blake’s freedom of expression, evident in his poetry, rooted in his system of beliefs, versus Coleridge’s correlated freedom born from more conservative beliefs; similarities and differences in style and beliefs; respective distinctive themes used repetitively, and their relation to each other
Blake’s ideas:
-“the profound problem of good and evil” (“The Tyger”); the duality of god
-Anti-institutionalism – finding and embracing spirituality through self, through one’s experiences (“Songs of Innocence”/”Songs of Experience”); freedom of individuality (“Proverbs of Hell”)
-“The fourfold nature of man”/the cycle of the seasons/nature + romanticism
-Blake as the new wave of religiosity; representative of New Testament (“The Song of Liberty”) – change brought by Christ child
-Blake’s use of mythology tying into the Bible (“The Prophecies”, “The Four Zoas”, “Jerusalem”)
-The prophecies and their validity to all contexts of time; warnings of the future; (“The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”) – the church as a barrier against freedom of religion; the redemptive role of Satan
Coleridge’s ideas:
-the necessary marriage between personal belief and historical fact; the search for truth through all things; the Logos
-“distinction in unity” (“Biographa Literaria”, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”); paradise only attained through Christ’s sacrifice; the theme of redemption (“Pantisocracy”)
-Conservative beliefs attained/maintained through experience/experimentation; strength of his faith fortified by his experimentation; metaphysics and theology
-the image of god in relation to Blake’s duality (“The Destiny of Nations”, “Fear in Solitude”); holy, beautiful, loving – less vengeful
-Pantheism and panentheism (“Religious Musings”); nature and god; the trinity
-Coleridge’s mythological analogies (“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, “The Wanderings of Cain”, “Christabel”) – representative of Christ as the suffering hero; the similarities between all three
Tentative bibliography:
Newlyn, Lucy, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge.Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002.
Noyes, Russell, ed. English Romantic Poetry and Prose. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1956.
Sanders, Charles Richard. Coleridge and the Broad Church Movement. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1942.
Singer, June K. The Unholy Bible: A Psychological Interpretation of William Blake.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970.
Tannenbaum, Leslie. Biblical Tradition in Blake’s Early Prophecies: The Great Code of
Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.
I would take this apart and rearrange it into an introductory paragraph.Thesis: William Blake (a dissenter, expressing his beliefs through the duality of god) and Samuel Coleridge (traditional in belief, expressing his beliefs through a focus on experience and trials), despite the similarity in the style of their romantic poetry, portray two very opposing essences of Christianity through their written works; Blake represents a new school of thinking, comparable to the New Testament, while Coleridge’s conservative beliefs are like the traditions of the Old Testament.
Writers of the Romantic Era often focused on religion as inspiration for their works. Two such writers were William Blake and Samuel Coleridge. William Blake was considered a dissenter who expressed his beliefs through the duality of god while Samuel Coleridge expressed more traditional beliefs through a focus on experience through trials. Thesis Despite the similarity in the style of their romantic poetry, William Blake represents a new school of thinking, comparable to the New Testament, while Coleridge’s conservative beliefs are like the traditions of the Old Testament.
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I disagree.
Shreddaily wrote:
Started with sparse low lines, built intensity with rythmic variety, went to 16th note lines in high register, than went to octives, than block chords for my last chorus... If you understood that last sentance than you should be playing music and not checking the internet.
Thanks guys! I didn't actually change my thesis until JUST now, when I finished my paper. It's totally due in the morning, and I don't even remember if my entire paper backs up my thesis because I just changed it my intro and conclusion, but I'm finally almost finished (just waiting for my girlfriend to look it over). It's so rough and I could do it so much better, but I also have an exam to study for right now. Thanks for the input. I will try to come up with a stronger thesis right away next time. Here's the paper at this point:
The Coniunctio of Two Romantic Poets
An Essay on Samuel Coleridge and William Blake
By Erik Chan (Student #6762066)
For Professor O’Kell (Course #004.213)
November 21, 2005
Samuel Coleridge and William Blake were two very influential writers of the romantic period whose works were strongly influenced by their heavy religious stances. Though their views on religion were both unconventional, they were also not completely new, as they both had a traditional foundation in the Bible. Their spiritualities parallel, yet their means of understanding spirituality contrasted; they both studied the teachings of Christianity, yet the means by which they interpreted and dissected the Christian doctrine were very opposing. Coleridge’s views and methods of understanding Christianity were generally traditional, reinforced by new ideas from traditional modes of study; he validated his traditional beliefs with the aid of science and history – conventional forms of education not regularly associated with religion. Blake’s views and methods of interpreting Christianity were very modern and potentially unsettling in that he drew away from the influence of the Church and indulged in utterly unconventional, possibly heretic, means of defining God and humanity. This essay will compare both Coleridge’s and Blake’s biblical references and allusions to Christianity in their poetry, and in doing so animate the potential of better understanding spirituality and life through the study of both. The reader will hopefully gain a sense of the differences in approach to Christianity between the two poets; Coleridge as the scientist of the Old Testament, and Blake as the artist of the New Testament.
Coleridge’s religious views and beliefs are comparable to the Old Testament biblical prose in that they are very traditional and rooted in fundamental qualities. He was so confident of his convictions in traditional thought, in fact, that he was able to fanatically test his faith against all forms of science, history, and theology. He was so firm in his beliefs that he was determined to prove all else wrong by submitting them to the harshness of the world. He followed the Church and its teachings and found truth through it as a foundation of his beliefs; rather than following blindly the teachings of the institution (as Blake was so adamantly opposed to), however, followed what, through his studies, he conceived to be the Word of God, and the true path of righteousness. He believed his method of testing his faith against all odds to be the most accurate, methodical, and logical means of interpreting and deciphering religion and Christianity. In this sense, utilizing science and education as a means to examine and fortify his faith, he became a type of Christian scientist, in his calculating means of practice and belief – this as opposed to Blake’s more artistic, contemporary method of approach to Christianity.
Blake was a religious dissenter. Not in a purely rebellious manner were Blake’s religious views unconventional; rather he thoroughly disapproved of the institution and its control and influence over society as a Christian dictatorship. Blake firmly believed in the immersion in self as the strongest tool in becoming close to God and finding wholeness through spirituality and Christianity for one’s self. As opposed to Coleridge, who relied on the science and perspectives of culture and society and past times to influence and prove his stance, Blake focused on the reliance of self and intuition – the conscience that judges right from wrong, and of sensing for one’s self whether the conventional teachings of Christianity are acceptable and honour God. In this sense Blake is like the artist who acts on emotion and intuition of spirituality rather than Coleridge’s didactic, scientific approach. Blake’s views can therefore be associated with the wave of religious learning new to the New Testament.
Just as Christ rebuked the institution and brought about a new age of religious thinking, so William Blake found disgraceful the teachings and impressions of the Church, and searched to purify Christian thought and belief. Equally valid, Coleridge’s views rested on the foundation of Christian doctrine and proved the truth of Christianity through the truth tested and tested again, via new thought, against misinterpretation and alteration by bureaucratic religious organizations.
Coleridge believed firmly in the necessity of the marriage of personal belief and historical fact; that is, the importance of one’s personal feelings and tendencies must be verified and strengthened with aid by doctrinal fact, and, conversely, one must question doctrine and the manner in which it is presented. What Coleridge meant by this was that a student of Christianity must maintain a balance of power between self and doctrine by using all means and intelligence available to prove the ultimate truth.
Coleridge referred to the concept of “The Logos” as a means of understanding that which he utilized in aid of forming his own personal concept of Christianity. The Logos, as defined by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, refers to the human perception of the cosmos, which is representative of God and his presence in the human soul; Coleridge used this concept to differentiate between God and humankind from a traditionally Christian perspective; God existing as the single figure capable of complete self-understanding, and humanity as God’s creation gifted with the ability of free thought. Humankind is limited of understanding and will never understand God, never mind itself; nevertheless we must strive to come closer to God and understand him through the knowledge available to us, and our ability to understand all that we are capable of understanding. Through this necessary balance between self and the recorded word of God (“The Logos” as defined in the gospel of John, wherefrom Coleridge developed his theology and philosophy of “The Logos”), Coleridge placed roots in the importance of the gospel and traditional mode of interpretation thereof.
Now Blake had a similar approach to finding and embracing spirituality and God. Blake’s approach, however, focused a significantly more on individuality of mind and soul and strongly spoke against the institution which has evolved from the traditional church. Coleridge emphasized the marriage of self and institution, while Blake said that one must look inside one’s soul and immerse all faculties into self to find truth. One’s experiences mould who a person becomes, and likewise Blake stated that we must use these same experiences to mould our spirituality.
Blake’s Songs of Innocence is a collection of short verse which, as the title suggests, are generally short depictions of the quiet, passionate lives of common people. While these songs suggest grander allegorical themes, they also present spirituality in the lives of the characters as inspired by their every day lives and experiences. Examples can be seen in The Shepherd, where the Shepherd finds a connection to God through his labour in the field, a common occupation of the traditional people of biblical life, and of specific relation to the relationship of God and humankind as a metaphor of the shepherd guiding the lamb of humanity; The Little Boy Lost and The Little Boy Found shows the inevitable salvation of the boy, due to his innocence, contrasted by the uncaring, “experienced” father who abandoned his son and must re-earn the favour of God, which the child is naturally granted.
Innocence plays a large role in Christianity in that the innocent, unknowing child is spotless of sin, and therefore unobstructedly gains entrance to the kingdom of heaven; this is seen also in Blake’s A Cradle Song, wherein the Christ child’s image is likened to the image of all newborns and shows that experience is what hardens the human soul. Furthermore, Blake argued that these same experiences may be harnessed in a manner which may free the soul and open the eyes of believers to the once divine innocence of infancy. Blake applied this scientific approach of counteracting the natural loss of innocence by experience with the use of experience, similar to acts of neutralization as an overdose of poison to cure poisoning, and the balancing of bases and acids as analogous to the balance between youth and age. Blake proposed a method of redemption unlike and opposing the traditional institutionalized methods, such as the indulgences of the Catholic Church.
Coleridge also believed strongly in the impact of experience, and used the direct influence of the sciences, such as metaphysics and theology, to strengthen his faith. Unlike Blake, however, Coleridge’s approach was traditional in its scientific nature and was simply a means of validating religion through the ancient history of science as a powerful means by which to prove and disprove theory. Thus Coleridge proved his improvable “theory” of Christianity through the testing of traditional scientific method.
A clear indicator of Coleridge’s Old Testament-like nature is his view of God as a considerate, loving entity. God in both the Old and New Testaments was both loving and vengeful, yet in the Old Testament He was almost always present and supporting his people through hard times (as long as they respected and abided by his laws). The New Testament is dominated ore by individuality; God comes to earth as a man – a single human being, rather than the Old Testament Omnipresent Spirit – and less of the all-encompassing, always-present Essence of the traditional God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This spiritual individuality of the New Testament is very in-tune with the ideas of Blake and self-indulgence, over blind trust in the Church.
Coleridge beautifully expresses his image of God through the imagery of The Destiny of Nations, in which the speaker realizes the gifts of god – “infinite love” – and a unification of humankind through the body of Christ. The speaker expresses the possibility of a beautiful heaven-on-earth-like world, a greater good created through the following of God’s word; it is also suggested that God’s love is more powerful and satisfying than the pleasures of the world, and that the weakness of evil only gives more power to the good of God. Such traditional views again strengthen the association of Coleridge with the essence of the traditional scriptures. Similarly Fears in Solitude voices a melancholy regret of humanity’s sin, despite its many promises of devotion to God, and despite God’s always-loving treatment of His children and His gift of beauty in nature, again despite humanity’s perversion of it. Fears in Solitude also emphasizes the strength of the unity of the body of Christian faith, similar again to the conventional God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
While in Coleridge’s Fears in Solitude, Blake’s vision of individuality surfaces slightly through the singing of the lark (“that sings unseen The minstrelsy that solitude loves best”). Blake’s vision of God focuses on a balance between His grace and vengeance. This duality of God is epitomized in The Tyger, especially in the strength of repetition of the first stanza as the closing stanza of the poem: “Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright in the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could/Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” Blake represents the fury and mercy of God respectively as the tyger and the lamb. While focusing on the ferocity of God’s wrath, the speaker questions how a God who can create such a gentle lamb can also create such a violent beast as the tyger (“Did he who made the Lamb make thee [the Tyger]?”). The Tyger reanimates the New Testament metaphor of Jesus as the Lamb being led to the slaughter of His crucifixion – an analogy that represents God’s discipline, while simultaneously revealing His love and devotion to His people.
The position of Blake as a representation of a new wave of spirituality is further strengthened by its parallelism with the evolution of Christianity brought about by the mortal birth of Christ. As the teachings of Christ potently influence the way Christians think about and practice religion, so does William Blake’s perspective on Christianity shine a new light on the methods of interpreting and living God’s word. Blake’s A Song of Liberty, through a depiction of The French Revolution, metaphorically retells the story of Christ (represented by “Orc, the Spirit of Revolt”) as its own revolution in which Christ’s crucifixion brought about a balance in nature against the sins of humankind. In this poem Blake also represents the institutionalization of Christianity with “Urizen, the false god of convention and sterile reason”; the overthrow of Urizen represents Blake’s personal dislike of “The Church” and of Christ’s rebuking and constant battle of wit with the Pharisees of the temple.
Coleridge was very scientific in his methodology of dissecting the Christian faith. On the one hand he was very nitpicky over what is simplified in the term pantheism (the belief that everything is God), arguing that if everything is God, then there can be no separation between God and humanity (and all of life for that matter), making them equal; on the other hand it is a fine distinction from panentheism (the belief that all is in God) which Coleridge tends to more closely associate his beliefs. It is clear-cut divisions between ideas such as these that define Coleridge as the traditional, scientific, methodical Christian thinker. He became consumed by the concept of unity and its definition of character as he explains in Biographa Literaria. This is a concept which he believes better captures the essence of the subject through a focussed perspective: “by awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand.” It is this sense of re-examining the familiar – the traditional – that is so characteristically Coleridge.
Coleridge used this idea of “distinction in unity” in Religious Musings, which can be surmised from a point in his notes on the poem, “The process of his [Christ’s] Doctrines on the mind of the Individual”. What this focuses on is the wholeness – the unity – of the body of Christ through the individuality of a single being – the larger picture is framed by the marks, which build its surface. Coleridge focuses intensely on the unity of God – or panentheism – all throughout the poem, but particularly in closing the first passage (of the excerpt from Noyes’ anthology), in which Coleridge beats the concept into the reader; “and centered there God only to behold, and know, and feel, Till by exclusive consciousness of God All self-annihilated it shall make God its Identity: God all in all! We and our Father one!” Coleridge makes his voice of panentheism perfectly clear in that all of life is dependant on and a part of God.
Additionally, Coleridge applied this view to his seven-part, dream-inspired poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in which we find the tale of an old ship captain whose adventures with the supernatural change his life dramatically and shape his spiritual direction. It is the mariner’s isolation, which allows him to ultimately acquire spiritual enlightenment and consequently his isolation acts a punishment in which he is trapped until he may find wholeness in the sharing of his experience. This story is likened to the stories of the Old Testament and the mariner represents Christ in that he has suffered so that others may benefit from his experience. Where the mariner confronts Death and Life-in-Death face-to-face, so did the characters of the Bible tend to have an intimate connection with God.
A culmination of the similarities between Coleridge and Blake comes together in a comparison of two of their outstanding methods by which they propounded their ideas through the use of mythology. Blake focused very intently on what he referred to as prophecies, or warnings of the future, in contrast to Coleridge’s reinforced biblical admonitions, analogously impressing statements of God’s Word. Blake invents a new way of viewing the nature of humanity and of God, which he argues in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. He points out a valid contradiction in the nature of good and evil, in that good – or reason – is stagnancy and that evil – or desire – is the freedom to understand the nature of self and natural inclinations of humanity. He argues that the reason of goodness leads to the blindness of the senses and by this notion reasonable individuals, even angels, cannot comprehend the natural desires and tendencies of humankind: “delighted with the enjoyments of Genius, which to Angels look like torment and insanity”. He denounces the conventional beliefs of the institution, and of his former teacher, noting him as one of those very angels who has been blinded by reason. From the perspective of the devil Blake argues this view, point after point, making the devil out to be the true messiah who condones, and offers life to humanity through the indulgence of human energies as depicted by Milton in Paradise Lost. Conversely he depicts God to be a fountain of contradictions who brings great stagnation to life through his command of humanity to blindly follow his laws without question or freedom of feeling. The traditional church institution taught this single path of conventional moral-insight and Blake found it to be a forced stopper on spiritual growth, whereas he believed that the natural submission to human desire frees the mind and spirit to praise God with all the energies gifted to humanity.
Blake continued to focus on this concept of good and evil (and the body and soul) in his subsequent works. In The Prophecies he fortifies the ideas propounded in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell through mythological language, projecting his ideas as warnings to humanity of all time, rather than simply reflection on and reaction to past experience. The Four Zoas, continuing his thematic use of mythology, addresses a subject familiar to Coleridge in the fourfold nature of man. The fourfold nature of man refers to reason, emotion, senses, and energy, yet the term is limiting in that the fourfold nature also encompasses every aspect of humanity through these elements. The poem addresses Blake’s belief in wholeness attained through the combination of opposites. Carl Jung’s concept of coniunctio (the union of body and soul) and the Taoist philosophy of life based on Yin and Yang are similar to this idea that wholeness of individuality comes from the marriage of opposites; in Blake’s case these opposites are epitomized in body (desire) and soul (reason).
Jerusalem concludes Blake’s mythological reflections in which he compares the fourfold city of heaven directly to Albion (England), which represents the sinful nature of humankind. He also again reflects on the four natures of man and their relations to each other; reason –the nature of good – silences emotion and senses in stagnation, and energy – the nature of evil – is the sole element that preserves human nature.
Just as Blake used mythology to validate his modern views of Christianity, Coleridge focused on the traditional representations of Christianity through his use of mythology. His traditional views were divulged in works such as the incomplete The Wanderings of Cain, which had close ties to his successful The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Both poems use metaphor to correlate the respective heroes with Christ in His own wanderings of the earth; both poems also include temptations of evil represented by a supernatural reincarnation of the traditional image of Satan tempting Christ in the desert. An additional comparison to Coleridge’s Christabel presents this theme pungently in Coleridge’s work, and confirms his obsession with mythology in representation of traditional doctrine. It is the recurring dependence on traditional events and figures that separates Coleridge’s dissection of Christianity from that of Blake.
Although Samuel Coleridge and William Blake as contemporaries struggled with similar aspects of Christianity and harnessed often-similar methods of interpretation, their perspectives of Christianity and personal beliefs were quite opposite. As Blake’s sameness of idea compares to Jung’s concept of the opposites of body and soul creating whole, so do Coleridge’s and Blake’s views on Christianity create a strong foundation for which to interpret religious doctrine. Both poets’ views are rooted in the history and ideas contained in the Bible, yet Coleridge’s ideas coincide more succinctly with the Old Testament in their more traditional, by-the-book, scientific qualities, and Blake’s ideas clearly opposed the ideas of the traditional church, paving a fresh path by which to interpret God’s Word as Christ brought fresh perspective to the world through His preaching. Jung’s coniunctio reflects the potential wholeness of spirituality gained through the combined examination of both Coleridge’s and Blake’s work; similarly, rather than separating the Old from New Testament, just as the Bible must be read as a whole, this reflection addresses the significance in their opposing ideas and the strength that they form together. The more diverse a society is, the greater the chance is that they have to evolve – rather than blindly studying examples of similar nature, like Colridge a greater understanding of life may be obtained through the subjugation to foreign ideas. Though Coleridge and Blake had very different perspectives on Christianity, their common determination in questioning life and spirituality brings them together as Old and New Testament.
Works Cited
Newlyn, Lucy, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge.Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002.
Noyes, Russell, ed. English Romantic Poetry and Prose. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1956.
Sanders, Charles Richard. Coleridge and the Broad Church Movement. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1942.
Singer, June K. The Unholy Bible: A Psychological Interpretation of William Blake.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970.
Tannenbaum, Leslie. Biblical Tradition in Blake’s Early Prophecies: The Great Code of
Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.
The Coniunctio of Two Romantic Poets
An Essay on Samuel Coleridge and William Blake
By Erik Chan (Student #6762066)
For Professor O’Kell (Course #004.213)
November 21, 2005
Samuel Coleridge and William Blake were two very influential writers of the romantic period whose works were strongly influenced by their heavy religious stances. Though their views on religion were both unconventional, they were also not completely new, as they both had a traditional foundation in the Bible. Their spiritualities parallel, yet their means of understanding spirituality contrasted; they both studied the teachings of Christianity, yet the means by which they interpreted and dissected the Christian doctrine were very opposing. Coleridge’s views and methods of understanding Christianity were generally traditional, reinforced by new ideas from traditional modes of study; he validated his traditional beliefs with the aid of science and history – conventional forms of education not regularly associated with religion. Blake’s views and methods of interpreting Christianity were very modern and potentially unsettling in that he drew away from the influence of the Church and indulged in utterly unconventional, possibly heretic, means of defining God and humanity. This essay will compare both Coleridge’s and Blake’s biblical references and allusions to Christianity in their poetry, and in doing so animate the potential of better understanding spirituality and life through the study of both. The reader will hopefully gain a sense of the differences in approach to Christianity between the two poets; Coleridge as the scientist of the Old Testament, and Blake as the artist of the New Testament.
Coleridge’s religious views and beliefs are comparable to the Old Testament biblical prose in that they are very traditional and rooted in fundamental qualities. He was so confident of his convictions in traditional thought, in fact, that he was able to fanatically test his faith against all forms of science, history, and theology. He was so firm in his beliefs that he was determined to prove all else wrong by submitting them to the harshness of the world. He followed the Church and its teachings and found truth through it as a foundation of his beliefs; rather than following blindly the teachings of the institution (as Blake was so adamantly opposed to), however, followed what, through his studies, he conceived to be the Word of God, and the true path of righteousness. He believed his method of testing his faith against all odds to be the most accurate, methodical, and logical means of interpreting and deciphering religion and Christianity. In this sense, utilizing science and education as a means to examine and fortify his faith, he became a type of Christian scientist, in his calculating means of practice and belief – this as opposed to Blake’s more artistic, contemporary method of approach to Christianity.
Blake was a religious dissenter. Not in a purely rebellious manner were Blake’s religious views unconventional; rather he thoroughly disapproved of the institution and its control and influence over society as a Christian dictatorship. Blake firmly believed in the immersion in self as the strongest tool in becoming close to God and finding wholeness through spirituality and Christianity for one’s self. As opposed to Coleridge, who relied on the science and perspectives of culture and society and past times to influence and prove his stance, Blake focused on the reliance of self and intuition – the conscience that judges right from wrong, and of sensing for one’s self whether the conventional teachings of Christianity are acceptable and honour God. In this sense Blake is like the artist who acts on emotion and intuition of spirituality rather than Coleridge’s didactic, scientific approach. Blake’s views can therefore be associated with the wave of religious learning new to the New Testament.
Just as Christ rebuked the institution and brought about a new age of religious thinking, so William Blake found disgraceful the teachings and impressions of the Church, and searched to purify Christian thought and belief. Equally valid, Coleridge’s views rested on the foundation of Christian doctrine and proved the truth of Christianity through the truth tested and tested again, via new thought, against misinterpretation and alteration by bureaucratic religious organizations.
Coleridge believed firmly in the necessity of the marriage of personal belief and historical fact; that is, the importance of one’s personal feelings and tendencies must be verified and strengthened with aid by doctrinal fact, and, conversely, one must question doctrine and the manner in which it is presented. What Coleridge meant by this was that a student of Christianity must maintain a balance of power between self and doctrine by using all means and intelligence available to prove the ultimate truth.
Coleridge referred to the concept of “The Logos” as a means of understanding that which he utilized in aid of forming his own personal concept of Christianity. The Logos, as defined by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, refers to the human perception of the cosmos, which is representative of God and his presence in the human soul; Coleridge used this concept to differentiate between God and humankind from a traditionally Christian perspective; God existing as the single figure capable of complete self-understanding, and humanity as God’s creation gifted with the ability of free thought. Humankind is limited of understanding and will never understand God, never mind itself; nevertheless we must strive to come closer to God and understand him through the knowledge available to us, and our ability to understand all that we are capable of understanding. Through this necessary balance between self and the recorded word of God (“The Logos” as defined in the gospel of John, wherefrom Coleridge developed his theology and philosophy of “The Logos”), Coleridge placed roots in the importance of the gospel and traditional mode of interpretation thereof.
Now Blake had a similar approach to finding and embracing spirituality and God. Blake’s approach, however, focused a significantly more on individuality of mind and soul and strongly spoke against the institution which has evolved from the traditional church. Coleridge emphasized the marriage of self and institution, while Blake said that one must look inside one’s soul and immerse all faculties into self to find truth. One’s experiences mould who a person becomes, and likewise Blake stated that we must use these same experiences to mould our spirituality.
Blake’s Songs of Innocence is a collection of short verse which, as the title suggests, are generally short depictions of the quiet, passionate lives of common people. While these songs suggest grander allegorical themes, they also present spirituality in the lives of the characters as inspired by their every day lives and experiences. Examples can be seen in The Shepherd, where the Shepherd finds a connection to God through his labour in the field, a common occupation of the traditional people of biblical life, and of specific relation to the relationship of God and humankind as a metaphor of the shepherd guiding the lamb of humanity; The Little Boy Lost and The Little Boy Found shows the inevitable salvation of the boy, due to his innocence, contrasted by the uncaring, “experienced” father who abandoned his son and must re-earn the favour of God, which the child is naturally granted.
Innocence plays a large role in Christianity in that the innocent, unknowing child is spotless of sin, and therefore unobstructedly gains entrance to the kingdom of heaven; this is seen also in Blake’s A Cradle Song, wherein the Christ child’s image is likened to the image of all newborns and shows that experience is what hardens the human soul. Furthermore, Blake argued that these same experiences may be harnessed in a manner which may free the soul and open the eyes of believers to the once divine innocence of infancy. Blake applied this scientific approach of counteracting the natural loss of innocence by experience with the use of experience, similar to acts of neutralization as an overdose of poison to cure poisoning, and the balancing of bases and acids as analogous to the balance between youth and age. Blake proposed a method of redemption unlike and opposing the traditional institutionalized methods, such as the indulgences of the Catholic Church.
Coleridge also believed strongly in the impact of experience, and used the direct influence of the sciences, such as metaphysics and theology, to strengthen his faith. Unlike Blake, however, Coleridge’s approach was traditional in its scientific nature and was simply a means of validating religion through the ancient history of science as a powerful means by which to prove and disprove theory. Thus Coleridge proved his improvable “theory” of Christianity through the testing of traditional scientific method.
A clear indicator of Coleridge’s Old Testament-like nature is his view of God as a considerate, loving entity. God in both the Old and New Testaments was both loving and vengeful, yet in the Old Testament He was almost always present and supporting his people through hard times (as long as they respected and abided by his laws). The New Testament is dominated ore by individuality; God comes to earth as a man – a single human being, rather than the Old Testament Omnipresent Spirit – and less of the all-encompassing, always-present Essence of the traditional God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This spiritual individuality of the New Testament is very in-tune with the ideas of Blake and self-indulgence, over blind trust in the Church.
Coleridge beautifully expresses his image of God through the imagery of The Destiny of Nations, in which the speaker realizes the gifts of god – “infinite love” – and a unification of humankind through the body of Christ. The speaker expresses the possibility of a beautiful heaven-on-earth-like world, a greater good created through the following of God’s word; it is also suggested that God’s love is more powerful and satisfying than the pleasures of the world, and that the weakness of evil only gives more power to the good of God. Such traditional views again strengthen the association of Coleridge with the essence of the traditional scriptures. Similarly Fears in Solitude voices a melancholy regret of humanity’s sin, despite its many promises of devotion to God, and despite God’s always-loving treatment of His children and His gift of beauty in nature, again despite humanity’s perversion of it. Fears in Solitude also emphasizes the strength of the unity of the body of Christian faith, similar again to the conventional God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
While in Coleridge’s Fears in Solitude, Blake’s vision of individuality surfaces slightly through the singing of the lark (“that sings unseen The minstrelsy that solitude loves best”). Blake’s vision of God focuses on a balance between His grace and vengeance. This duality of God is epitomized in The Tyger, especially in the strength of repetition of the first stanza as the closing stanza of the poem: “Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright in the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could/Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” Blake represents the fury and mercy of God respectively as the tyger and the lamb. While focusing on the ferocity of God’s wrath, the speaker questions how a God who can create such a gentle lamb can also create such a violent beast as the tyger (“Did he who made the Lamb make thee [the Tyger]?”). The Tyger reanimates the New Testament metaphor of Jesus as the Lamb being led to the slaughter of His crucifixion – an analogy that represents God’s discipline, while simultaneously revealing His love and devotion to His people.
The position of Blake as a representation of a new wave of spirituality is further strengthened by its parallelism with the evolution of Christianity brought about by the mortal birth of Christ. As the teachings of Christ potently influence the way Christians think about and practice religion, so does William Blake’s perspective on Christianity shine a new light on the methods of interpreting and living God’s word. Blake’s A Song of Liberty, through a depiction of The French Revolution, metaphorically retells the story of Christ (represented by “Orc, the Spirit of Revolt”) as its own revolution in which Christ’s crucifixion brought about a balance in nature against the sins of humankind. In this poem Blake also represents the institutionalization of Christianity with “Urizen, the false god of convention and sterile reason”; the overthrow of Urizen represents Blake’s personal dislike of “The Church” and of Christ’s rebuking and constant battle of wit with the Pharisees of the temple.
Coleridge was very scientific in his methodology of dissecting the Christian faith. On the one hand he was very nitpicky over what is simplified in the term pantheism (the belief that everything is God), arguing that if everything is God, then there can be no separation between God and humanity (and all of life for that matter), making them equal; on the other hand it is a fine distinction from panentheism (the belief that all is in God) which Coleridge tends to more closely associate his beliefs. It is clear-cut divisions between ideas such as these that define Coleridge as the traditional, scientific, methodical Christian thinker. He became consumed by the concept of unity and its definition of character as he explains in Biographa Literaria. This is a concept which he believes better captures the essence of the subject through a focussed perspective: “by awakening the mind’s attention from the lethargy of custom, and directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us; an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand.” It is this sense of re-examining the familiar – the traditional – that is so characteristically Coleridge.
Coleridge used this idea of “distinction in unity” in Religious Musings, which can be surmised from a point in his notes on the poem, “The process of his [Christ’s] Doctrines on the mind of the Individual”. What this focuses on is the wholeness – the unity – of the body of Christ through the individuality of a single being – the larger picture is framed by the marks, which build its surface. Coleridge focuses intensely on the unity of God – or panentheism – all throughout the poem, but particularly in closing the first passage (of the excerpt from Noyes’ anthology), in which Coleridge beats the concept into the reader; “and centered there God only to behold, and know, and feel, Till by exclusive consciousness of God All self-annihilated it shall make God its Identity: God all in all! We and our Father one!” Coleridge makes his voice of panentheism perfectly clear in that all of life is dependant on and a part of God.
Additionally, Coleridge applied this view to his seven-part, dream-inspired poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in which we find the tale of an old ship captain whose adventures with the supernatural change his life dramatically and shape his spiritual direction. It is the mariner’s isolation, which allows him to ultimately acquire spiritual enlightenment and consequently his isolation acts a punishment in which he is trapped until he may find wholeness in the sharing of his experience. This story is likened to the stories of the Old Testament and the mariner represents Christ in that he has suffered so that others may benefit from his experience. Where the mariner confronts Death and Life-in-Death face-to-face, so did the characters of the Bible tend to have an intimate connection with God.
A culmination of the similarities between Coleridge and Blake comes together in a comparison of two of their outstanding methods by which they propounded their ideas through the use of mythology. Blake focused very intently on what he referred to as prophecies, or warnings of the future, in contrast to Coleridge’s reinforced biblical admonitions, analogously impressing statements of God’s Word. Blake invents a new way of viewing the nature of humanity and of God, which he argues in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. He points out a valid contradiction in the nature of good and evil, in that good – or reason – is stagnancy and that evil – or desire – is the freedom to understand the nature of self and natural inclinations of humanity. He argues that the reason of goodness leads to the blindness of the senses and by this notion reasonable individuals, even angels, cannot comprehend the natural desires and tendencies of humankind: “delighted with the enjoyments of Genius, which to Angels look like torment and insanity”. He denounces the conventional beliefs of the institution, and of his former teacher, noting him as one of those very angels who has been blinded by reason. From the perspective of the devil Blake argues this view, point after point, making the devil out to be the true messiah who condones, and offers life to humanity through the indulgence of human energies as depicted by Milton in Paradise Lost. Conversely he depicts God to be a fountain of contradictions who brings great stagnation to life through his command of humanity to blindly follow his laws without question or freedom of feeling. The traditional church institution taught this single path of conventional moral-insight and Blake found it to be a forced stopper on spiritual growth, whereas he believed that the natural submission to human desire frees the mind and spirit to praise God with all the energies gifted to humanity.
Blake continued to focus on this concept of good and evil (and the body and soul) in his subsequent works. In The Prophecies he fortifies the ideas propounded in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell through mythological language, projecting his ideas as warnings to humanity of all time, rather than simply reflection on and reaction to past experience. The Four Zoas, continuing his thematic use of mythology, addresses a subject familiar to Coleridge in the fourfold nature of man. The fourfold nature of man refers to reason, emotion, senses, and energy, yet the term is limiting in that the fourfold nature also encompasses every aspect of humanity through these elements. The poem addresses Blake’s belief in wholeness attained through the combination of opposites. Carl Jung’s concept of coniunctio (the union of body and soul) and the Taoist philosophy of life based on Yin and Yang are similar to this idea that wholeness of individuality comes from the marriage of opposites; in Blake’s case these opposites are epitomized in body (desire) and soul (reason).
Jerusalem concludes Blake’s mythological reflections in which he compares the fourfold city of heaven directly to Albion (England), which represents the sinful nature of humankind. He also again reflects on the four natures of man and their relations to each other; reason –the nature of good – silences emotion and senses in stagnation, and energy – the nature of evil – is the sole element that preserves human nature.
Just as Blake used mythology to validate his modern views of Christianity, Coleridge focused on the traditional representations of Christianity through his use of mythology. His traditional views were divulged in works such as the incomplete The Wanderings of Cain, which had close ties to his successful The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Both poems use metaphor to correlate the respective heroes with Christ in His own wanderings of the earth; both poems also include temptations of evil represented by a supernatural reincarnation of the traditional image of Satan tempting Christ in the desert. An additional comparison to Coleridge’s Christabel presents this theme pungently in Coleridge’s work, and confirms his obsession with mythology in representation of traditional doctrine. It is the recurring dependence on traditional events and figures that separates Coleridge’s dissection of Christianity from that of Blake.
Although Samuel Coleridge and William Blake as contemporaries struggled with similar aspects of Christianity and harnessed often-similar methods of interpretation, their perspectives of Christianity and personal beliefs were quite opposite. As Blake’s sameness of idea compares to Jung’s concept of the opposites of body and soul creating whole, so do Coleridge’s and Blake’s views on Christianity create a strong foundation for which to interpret religious doctrine. Both poets’ views are rooted in the history and ideas contained in the Bible, yet Coleridge’s ideas coincide more succinctly with the Old Testament in their more traditional, by-the-book, scientific qualities, and Blake’s ideas clearly opposed the ideas of the traditional church, paving a fresh path by which to interpret God’s Word as Christ brought fresh perspective to the world through His preaching. Jung’s coniunctio reflects the potential wholeness of spirituality gained through the combined examination of both Coleridge’s and Blake’s work; similarly, rather than separating the Old from New Testament, just as the Bible must be read as a whole, this reflection addresses the significance in their opposing ideas and the strength that they form together. The more diverse a society is, the greater the chance is that they have to evolve – rather than blindly studying examples of similar nature, like Colridge a greater understanding of life may be obtained through the subjugation to foreign ideas. Though Coleridge and Blake had very different perspectives on Christianity, their common determination in questioning life and spirituality brings them together as Old and New Testament.
Works Cited
Newlyn, Lucy, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge.Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002.
Noyes, Russell, ed. English Romantic Poetry and Prose. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1956.
Sanders, Charles Richard. Coleridge and the Broad Church Movement. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1942.
Singer, June K. The Unholy Bible: A Psychological Interpretation of William Blake.
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970.
Tannenbaum, Leslie. Biblical Tradition in Blake’s Early Prophecies: The Great Code of
Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.
This is extremely risky. If your paper fails to do what you are announcing it will do (and you said you're not sure that it does), then you have totally lost. In the future I would avoid addressing the reader in such a direct manner, even if you are sure the paper is cohesive.This essay will compare both Coleridge’s and Blake’s biblical references and allusions to Christianity in their poetry, and in doing so animate the potential of better understanding spirituality and life through the study of both. The reader will hopefully gain a sense of the differences in approach to Christianity between the two poets; Coleridge as the scientist of the Old Testament, and Blake as the artist of the New Testament.
Old Skool
Yea, its not always the best idea to address the reader in papers. Some readers could take offense to it, and it could negativley effect your paper. Too bad i didn't see this topic till now. My english teacher beat poetry into our heads, and made us write comparative essays. i actually wrote one on blake and coleridge. Your paper sounds very good though.
Josiah Digges
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