The piece of Coleridge’s from last night’s reading that I would like to discuss in this post is Frost at Midnight. This 75-line poem contains some very interesting insights into Coleridge’s ideology as a writer and of the assigned reading it was the piece that I most enjoyed. I specifically want to talk about the end of this poem as it resonates with me quite a bit as someone who grew up in a city. The way that Coleridge addresses his baby at the end of this poem regarding its upbringing in nature vs his own upbringing in a city is interesting. This poem shows readers that Coleridge sees nature as the language of God. In his eyes, one is not able to grow and learn through God in a city as they do not have access to this language.
A line that stuck out to me was the start of the last stanza: “Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,” This line was confusing to me because I am not quite sure what Coleridge is trying to say. In one way, I can see this as Coleridge saying to his baby that once he understands the language and the unity of God and nature, everything will be beautiful. If meant in this way, I have a problem with this because I think it contributes to an inaccurate depiction of nature that other romantic poets we have read also describe. In Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth says “Knowing that nature never did betray The heart that loved her.” It is lines like these that make me question the way that these writers thought about nature. The other day I saw a video of a group of male Zebras trying to kill one of their own babies because it was a male baby and a threat to the existing power structure. Nature is not kind and forgiving in the way that these poets often describe and I’m sure Wordsworth and Coleridge were familiar with this darker side of this world which they loved so dearly, so why did they shy away from these uglier aspects of the natural world? Excuse me for going a little off-topic.
The second way that I read the line “Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,” took a little more work to reach, but it is one that resonates with me strongly as someone who grew up in a very urban setting. This could be Coleridge telling his child that the comforts of the modern city force one to feel uncomfortable in nature. In a modern sense, because we are able to stay inside with air conditioning and television and everything we need at our fingertips, we are not forced to engage with nature in a meaningful way and become accustomed to this unnatural and gluttonous way of life. If this is Coleridge saying that people in cities get so caught up in cycles of meaningless comfort and convenience that they are unable to bear the discomfort required to connect to the natural world, then I think it is a beautifully written thought and one I wish he expanded on in greater detail. The idea that through growing up in nature one grows the tolerance and endurance necessary to find comfort in any setting is a beautiful one and I hope this is what Coleridge was referring to in this last stanza.
I found your comments about the line “Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee” to be very interesting, because I did not question this line much when I read it initially. I thought I’d share my thoughts in case you find them illuminating or complicating to your points.
I think I have come to view winter as a harder-to-enjoy season, for various reasons — cold, lots of death, slumber, etc. I viewed “all seasons,” i.e, the presence of winter, to represent the ability to find happiness, meaning, or God in every instance of nature, regardless of how dark they may seem at first. I think this interpretation can combine interestingly with your mention of the city-nature divide. If cities are contrasted unfavorably with nature by Coleridge, is he not aware of the parallelism between this and the summer-winter divide? Would his insistence on nature being the only platform for Godly language blind him from this irony? I think there are some hints at this tension in the poem, maybe in the wistful description of the church-bells while he is attending school in London, for example? They certainly take on a special meaning for Coleridge, but are not a part of nature. Thanks for drawing my attention to these lines