Christabel

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1816

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Christabel” is a long, Gothic Romantic narrative poem written in two parts. It has 679 lines of varying lengths. Coleridge argues in his preface to the poem that he uses accentual verse: in “each line the accents will be found to be only four” while the syllables “vary from seven to twelve” (Preface to “Christabel”). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics has a separate entry for this meter. “Christabel” was once considered a strong example of accentual verse; however, as the editors note, Coleridge is actually using accentual-syllabic verse, which means that most of the lines are octosyllabic and iambic. Octosyllabic means lines that have eight syllables, and iambic means a pattern of unstressed, stressed syllables. In other words, in most of Coleridge’s lines, stresses fall on the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth syllables. Using the final line of “Christabel” as an example: “So talks | as it's | most used | to do” (Line 679).

Rhyme

Coleridge uses rhyme throughout “Christabel.” Often, he uses couplets, which are two lines with end words that rhyme. For example, Lines 71-72 are a couplet: “The lady strange made answer meet, / And her voice was faint and sweet.” However, Coleridge also employs other rhymes. Consider stanza 18:

A Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare,

A And jealous of the listening air

A They steal their way from stair to stair,

B Now in glimmer, and now in gloom,

B And now they pass the Baron's room,

C As still as death, with stifled breath!

D And now have reached her chamber door;

E And now doth Geraldine press down

D The rushes of the chamber floor (Lines 166-74).

Here, the rhyme scheme includes: a tercet, or three adjacent lines that rhyme; a couplet; an internal rhyme, or rhyme within the same line—here, “death” and “breath”; and alternating rhyme, where every other line rhymes. This kind of ornateness is an element that shows up in many Gothic works.

Questions

Coleridge’s speaker uses many questions throughout “Christabel.” Some are used to relay information about the events that occurred outside of the timeframe of the poem’s narrative. For instance, asking “What makes her in the wood so late, / A furlong from the castle gate?” (Lines 25-26) gives the speaker the opportunity to tell the reader that Christabel had a dream about her fiancé, which inspired her to pray in the forest, in the following lines.

Other questions heighten tension and create cliffhanger moments in the presence of the supernatural. By asking “Can she the bodiless dead espy?” (Line 209) rather than asserting that Geraldine can see the ghost of Christabel’s mother, the speaker deepens the ambiguity of the situation, allowing readers more easily to suspend their disbelief.