Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge is certainly a challenging author. I generally did not like many of Coleridge's works. I found myself reading and re-reading and still feeling like I did not have a good handle on what he was trying to convey to the reader. While I thought Coleridge's poems were hard to read, I decided to focus on one specific poem, "Frost at Midnight." I am sure there are aspects of this poem that I have overlooked, but there are a few aspects of the poem I want to explore further.

The first concept I want to discuss from this poem concerns the transition from the first to second stanza of the poem. The transition seems abrupt and I am not sure why the Coleridge allows the speaker to switch subjects so quickly. The speaker starts out by describing his surroundings and the silence that fills his home: "'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs/And vexes meditation with its strange/And extreme stillness" (344). The speaker seems disturbed by the silence that surrounds him and desperately yearns for something to break the silence. The speaker then continues by focusing on the fire within his home and the way it also burns silently. He notices that a piece of ash is the only thing moving and the "sole unquiet thing" (344). The speaker finds comfort in this floating piece of ask and ponders if "...its motion in this hush of nature/Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,/Making it a companionable form..." (344). At this point, the speaker seems to find comfort in the movement and resulting noise of the ash. His mind seems to also be wondering from one possibility to the other about the affects of the ash on his present surroundings. Then, the speaker abruptly begins the second stanza discussing his memory of school as a child: "How oft, at school, with most believing mind,/Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,/To watch that fluttering stranger!" (344). Why did Coleridge write the poem this way? One idea is that the speaker, while lost in thought, is reminded of "fluttering strangers" while looking upon the fluttering ash. As he sits alone at home, his mind is left to move from one subject to another without any real reason. Another idea for why the speaker may switch from one subject to another upon starting the second stanza is that he had a fire pit at his old school house. Although the speaker does not specifically reference a fire in the school house building, I am guessing that they may have had one in the school house to keep the children warm during the winter months. A third option for the abrupt transition is based on the idea of daydreaming. The speaker in the first poem is overwhelmed by the silence of his home and nature and his mind seems to be somewhere else. Perhaps his daydreaming in his present life reminded him of the way he used to daydream while at school.

While I am not sure exactly what Coleridge was thinking as he wrote this poem, I do think it is important to discuss the possibilities of this transition in order to understand the poem further. I know it was not an accidental transition, but I think the abrupt way in which it is incorporated in the poem should be noted. I have decided that it could be any of the above reasons, or a combination of them all; however, I think the most significant reason for this transition in thought is one I have yet to discuss. During this time that the speaker remembers his past, I think it is important to look at what the speaker was daydreaming at that time:

"...and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot fair-day
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!" (344)

I think in many ways it seems that the speaker alludes to this time passed because of the joy that he felt due to the sounds that he was thinking about. He is currently sitting in utter silence and thinking back to a time when noise brought him joy may be a way for him to find peace and pleasure now. Perhaps the speaker wants to sleep in the fist stanza (though we do not know for sure because he does not say) and dreaming of times past will help him sleep as it did before: "So gazed I, till the soothing things I dreamt/Lulled me to sleep..." (344). Thinking about the way he used to lure himself to sleep by dreaming of melodic sounds will perhaps help him find sleep in the silence he is currently experiencing.

Another idea I would like to explore further is the connection that Coleridge seems to make between the speaker and his child by contrasting their experiences with nature. The speaker thinks on his own past with nature and it seems to be a relatively negative experience as he states that he "...saw naught lovely but the sky and stars" (345). The speaker does not have fond memories of growing up in an area that taught you to appreciate nature because he "...was reared/In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim" (345). Based on this description, it is clear that the speaker was born and raised in the city life--including all the noise and sounds that makes cities seem alive and moving at all times. Living in a more rural area would not have allowed the speaker to experience such constant chaos, which is perhaps why the silence he experiences makes him long for sound of some sort. On the contrary, the speaker seems to yearn for his child to experience and love nature; he wants his baby to appreciate the beauty and silence within the realm of the country life which is something he is currently unable to do. The speaker reveals his dream for his child when he says, "But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze/By lakes and sandy shores..." (345). The speaker longs for his child to be a part of something greater in nature than he was able to experience in the city. I think the idea of always wanting something better for your children is applicable in this poem and still today. While I am not a parent just yet, I know I have heard my parents say time and time again that they want more for me and my siblings than they had as children. I think the speaker's love and compassion for his child is very evident in this longing and it makes the poem very sweet and meaningful to many.