But you allow some elaborate beauties—you should have extracted 'em. "The Ancient Mariner" plays more tricks with the mind than that last poem [Tintern Abbey], which is yet one of the finest written.[1]
Is there, perhaps, one other evidence of the influence upon Coleridge of Taylor's introduction to the German ballad? There can be no doubt that the visit to Germany of Coleridge and the Wordsworths was proposed by the former. It is true Coleridge had been interested in German literature for some time. He had read a translation of Schiller's Robbers as early as 1794-95, and had written a sonnet to its author. Parts of Osorio (1797) were based upon Schiller's Ghostseer. In the autumn Coleridge had begun to learn German in order to read Wieland's Oberon.[2] Yet none of the biographers make entirely clear when the idea of the visit to Germany first came to him. It seems to have been first proposed to the Wordsworths in May, 1798, when the arrangement for the publication of the Lyrical Ballads was made with Cottle.[3] Probably it had been talked of before, as indicated by a letter of Wordsworth in March.[4] Brandl connects it with Coleridge's beginning to learn German, which he places in the autumn of 1797, and this gives it priority to any mention of the plan by Wordsworth.[5] May it not be that Coleridge's known interest in Taylor's translations of Bürger again turned his attention to German literature, and perhaps suggested the journey which he was soon to take.
The general and particular likeness of Christabel and the Dark Ladie to Bürger's Lenore has been noted by Brandl. Especially does he call attention to Geraldine's story in the former of having "been carried away upon a wild horse and left in the wood half-dead with fright."[6] He also thinks that the Ballad of the Dark Ladie was purposely left a fragment because of its close similarity to Lenore. Be this as it may, the likeness of both poems in the strange, weird, and supernatural show their intimate association with the poems of Bürger influence.
- ↑ Letters of Charles Lamb (Lucas) p. 130.
- ↑ Brandl's Life, pp. 124, 227.
- ↑ See Dykes Campbell's Introduction to Coleridge's Poetical Works, p. xliii.
- ↑ See letter of March 11, Knight's Life of Wordsworth, I, 147.
- ↑ Life, p. 151: "Then it occurred to him, as he had just begun to learn German, to undertake at once a translation of all Schiller's works; to proceed with the fruits thereof to Jena, to study chemistry and anatomy, the theologians Semlar and Michaelis, and the great metaphysician Kant; and so enriched to return to England and set up a private academy for education."
- ↑ Life of Coleridge, p. 211.
