Frost at Midnight

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1798

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

The City and the Country

The difference between life in the city and life in the country has been a theme in Western literature since the development of cosmopolitan cities. Coleridge and other Romantic poets underline this difference through attention to how rural landscapes allow encounters with the natural world. In “Frost at Midnight,” Coleridge plays out this distinction primarily through the juxtaposition of the city’s “old church-tower” (Line 29) of his childhood and the divine nature of his present rural locale.

The poem presents the church bells that impressed upon Coleridge’s childhood as an impoverished version of natural phenomena. Whereas Coleridge is able to hear the “owlet’s cry” (Line 2) in his country cottage, the church bells in the city are the “poor man’s only music” (Line 30). The music of those bells evokes “wild pleasure” (Line 33) in Coleridge. Due to the wildness of his emotions, however, he is unable to experience the fulfillment of this pleasure within the city. Instead, he views the feeling as “articulate sounds of things to come” (Line 34). Coleridge is looking back on this emotion, so his sense of “things to come” (Line 34) likely references actual experiences he has had since childhood.

Despite Coleridge being raised “[i]n the great city, pent ‘mid cloisters dim” (Line 53), he maintains a spiritual connection to nature. The longing produced by the city’s church bells might have drawn his attention to the divine, but he only comes to understand these ideas through direct encounters with nature. The poem’s “dim” (Line 53) cloisters and “old church-tower” (Line 29) appear dull, uninspiring, and difficult to interpret. The “lovely […] sky and stars” (Line 54) and “lovely shapes and sounds intelligible” (Line 60) that Coleridge finds in nature provide a clearer path to understanding the world.

Natural Education

One of the main ideas behind the first wave of English Romanticism was that the Christian God demonstrates himself through his works. Typically, this belief manifests itself in the way Romantic poets thought about nature in childhood education. Prior to the Romantic period, the idea that childhood is an important part of a person’s development was not widely accepted. Poets like Coleridge and William Blake advocated for childhood as a time for education and exploration.

The importance of both education and exploration, combined with the Romantic emphasis on natural education, meant that Romantic writers encouraged children to encounter the natural world. The fourth stanza of “Frost at Midnight” lays out the kind of curricula for such a natural education. The child is expected to “wander like a breeze / [b]y lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags / [o]f ancient mountain” (Lines 55-57). Coleridge’s attention to geological objects such as lakes and mountains suggests that he believes it important to observe nature on a large scale. He reinforces this sense of scale by repeating “far other” (Lines 51-52) when thinking his child will “learn far other lore, / [a]nd in far other scenes” (Lines 51-52). Romantic writers often associate mountains in particular with the sublime (or a natural phenomenon both terrifying and beautiful, typically due to the thing’s scale).

In a religious context, the sublime helps one understand their small place in the universe. Coleridge’s poem, however, focuses more on how the landscape’s “lovely shapes” (Line 60) reflect the “eternal language, which thy God / [u]tters” (Lines 61-61). In this way, Coleridge as speaker instructs his child to read nature as if it were a holy text. If done appropriately, he believes that “all seasons”—of life and the year—“shall be sweet” (Line 66) to the child.

Quietude and Stagnation

Learning, like self-reflection, requires quietude and stagnation. Coleridge as speaker accentuates the need for quietude primarily in the poem’s first stanza. He notes that “solitude […] suits / [a]bstruser musings” (Lines 5-6) and considers how the “numberless goings-on of life / [are] [i]naudible as dreams” (Lines 12-13) in his cottage. This quietude and stagnation, like the “[f]rost” (Line 1) that instigates his reflection, is “[u]nhelped by any wind” (Line 2).

Coleridge’s focus on the unmoving air suggests that he is not speaking the poem at all, but thinking it (See: Symbols & Motifs). While this inward turn is common in lyrical poetry, “Frost at Midnight” is explicit about the value of internal, unspoken musings. Not only do these silent musings allow Coleridge to not disturb the “[b]abe, that sleepest cradled by [his] side” (Line 45), but they also let him observe the world without influencing it. Were he actually speaking the poem, for instance, he would wake the sleeping child or be unable to hear its “gentle breathings” (Line 46).

This quietude and stagnation also extends to the natural world. The “owlet’s cry” (Line 2) echoes in the stagnant air, allowing Coleridge to hear it twice. Animals, however, do not factor in his natural education for his child, nor do humans. The “mountain crags” (Line 59) and “sandy shores” (Line 56) that provide their education are unpopulated. This makes the landscapes stand in contrast to the city and the “populous village” (Line 11). The landscapes, in this way, mimic Coleridge’s “cottage, all at rest” (Line 4), allowing for silent contemplation. While he does introduce a “redbreast” (Line 68) in the poem’s final stanza, he presents it as an encounter that happens after his natural education, which, one can assume, was largely undertaken alone.