Whatever happened to Christabel?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s long ballad “Christabel” has captivated audiences from the time of its conception. The first audience of Part I, most likely in the summer of 1798, was William Wordsworth. He and Coleridge bonded quickly and intensely that year as muses for each other’s creative process. Co-creators of the Romantic movement, that prolific period was defined by
“an experiment . . . to be tried by [Coleridge] and Wordsworth, to see how far the public taste would endure poetry written in a more natural and simple style than had hitherto been attempted; totally discarding the artifices of poetical diction, and making use only of such words as had probably been common in the most ordinary language since the days of Henry II” (Nicolson 293).
Another two years would pass before Coleridge produced Part II. To the everlasting disappointment of the poet himself, not to mention fans of the ballad, “Christabel” was never finished.
This site compiles, summarizes, synthesizes, and analyzes Coleridge's intentions for its completion, conversations about those intentions, speculations about its possible ending, and opinions about whether he would, could, or should divulge Christabel’s ultimate fate.
“an experiment . . . to be tried by [Coleridge] and Wordsworth, to see how far the public taste would endure poetry written in a more natural and simple style than had hitherto been attempted; totally discarding the artifices of poetical diction, and making use only of such words as had probably been common in the most ordinary language since the days of Henry II” (Nicolson 293).
Another two years would pass before Coleridge produced Part II. To the everlasting disappointment of the poet himself, not to mention fans of the ballad, “Christabel” was never finished.
This site compiles, summarizes, synthesizes, and analyzes Coleridge's intentions for its completion, conversations about those intentions, speculations about its possible ending, and opinions about whether he would, could, or should divulge Christabel’s ultimate fate.