Denounced upon its publication as obscene and incomprehensible, Coleridge’s unfinished poem “Christabel” today ranks among the most admired of his poems and stands as an important precursor to later poems of the erotic macabre by such writers as Poe, Christina Rossetti, and Baudelaire. Coleridge began writing “Christabel” around the same time as he wrote “The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere”, which first appeared in the 1798
Lyrical Ballads. Also dating from this period is “Kubla Khan”, which first appeared in print with “Christabel” in 1816, nearly twenty years after their inception, along with Coleridge’s nightmarish poetic record of his opium addiction, “The Pains of Sleep”, which dates from 1803. Each of these poems possesses mysterious, dream-like qualities…
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Citation: Robinson, Daniel. "Christabel". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 October 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6058, accessed 23 November 2024.]