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Coleridge's CHRISTABEL, lines 23-42.(Samuel Taylor Coleridge)(numerical and biblical symbolism)(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)

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From: The Explicator
Date: 19940622
Author:FRANSON, J. KARL

That strange fragment, Christabel, [1] begins at midnight as Christabel ventures alone into the forest beyond her father's castle to pray "for her lover that's far away" (line 30). A "furlong from the castle gate" (26) she kneels beneath "a huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree" (42), only to be startled by a moan coming from the opposite side of the tree (39-42). The sound emanates from the lovely Geraldine, "perhaps the most extraordinary of all Coleridge's poetic creations [and] an embodiment of pure sexual energy," who corrupts Christabel in a bedroom scene replete with ...

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