"Christabel" (1797-1801)
Things to Consider:

• Dove imagery and conflation of Christabel (Bard Bracy's report of dream) and Geraldine (Sir Leoline's response)
• Portrayal of Sexuality
• Snake Imagery

Homework Questions:
598:

• Why does Coleridge make such specific efforts in the preface to counter potential threats of plagiarism?

599:

• Describe the imagery that is used to open the poem (1-22).  What kind of mood is established?
• Why does Christabel go into the woods to pray instead of staying at home?

600-601:

• How plausible is Geraldine's story of how she happened to be at the oak tree?  Explain.

601:

• Explain the footnote to line 129.
• Explain lines 140-48.

604:

• Explain lines 246-48.

605:

• What is the significance of the comparison of Geraldine to a mother in lines 286-89?

607:

• Why does Christabel believe she has sinned (369)?

610-11:

• Explain Bard Bracy's dream.

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Other Discussion Questions:
603:

• Explain Geraldine's comments in lines 199-207. In what ways, if at all, are these lines reminiscent of the competition between Death and Life-in-Death in the "Ancient Mariner" (195-98)? Explain.

606:

• What is the purpose of the image of the "three sinful sextons' ghosts" (341)?

608:

• Who is Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine (395)?

609:

• Explain lines 422-31. Is this a realistic promise? Explain.
• Explain lines 438-50.

612:

• Is it possible to passively imitate someone (593)?  Explain.

613:

• Why does Leoline experience rage and pain (626)?
• Why does Leoline feel dishonored?
• How does "The Conclusion to Part 2" relate to the narrative that precedes it?

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Things to Consider:

• "Poem and prose introduction together enact the quintessential fiction of the so-called fragment" (CLA 309).
• "Interruption and loss are the necessary guarantors . . . of ideal vision:  the fragment is the form that artfully intimates a whole beyond human potential to achieve" (CLA 309).
• Interesting interpretive essay 

Homework Questions:
"Kubla Khan" (1797)
615-16:

• What exactly is this poem about?
• Where does it appear the interruption in composition occurred? What is the relationship between the two sections?
• Describe the portrayal of women in this poem. 
• Describe the figure of the poet in this poem.

"Dejection: An Ode" (1802)
620:

• What is an Aeolian lute (7)?
• Explain lines 17-20.
• Explain the imagery used in lines 21-22.
• Explain lines 37-38.
• How does the reference to genial spirits (39) compare with the description found in "Tintern Abbey" (114ff)?

622:

• How is the wind functioning in lines 96-109?

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Other Discussion Questions:
"Kubla Khan"
614:

• Explain: "if that indeed can be called composition in which all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the correspondent expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort" (614).
• Explain: "All the rest had  passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone had been cast" (614).

"Dejection:  An Ode"
621:

• Explain lines 45-46.
• How do descriptions of "shaping spirit of imagination" (86) and the claim that "We receive but what we give, / And in our life alone does Nature live" (47-48) compare with "the artfully equivocal representation of the exchange of mind and nature in 'Tintern Abbey [esp. 103-112]?'" (CLA 311).
• Explain lines 67-70.
• Compare lines 76-81 with "Intimations Ode," lines 1-9 (page 528).

623:

• What friend is he discussing in lines 127-136?
• Explain the final three lines.

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