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Melissa Tyndall Brit Lit II Dr. Calovini June 21, 2003

Miserable Love, and Terrorizing Hate of the Night Using optimistic imagery, writing dark gothic tales, being inspired by nature, and being politically inspired by the French Revolution are all elements characteristic of writings of the Romantic period. Thus, it is no wonder that Charlotte Smith and Samuel Taylor Coleridge have a lot in common. Despite their similarities, however, the lives and writings of Smith and Coleridge are in some senses worlds apart. Coleridges The Pains of Sleep is dark, foreboding, and affected by the irregular patter of the external and Smiths To Night reflects the melancholy optimism reflected in romantic sonnets placing the poems on opposite sides of the Romantic writers rainbow. Coleridges The Pains of Sleep focuses on the dark, foreboding, and almost gothic spectrum of Romanticism most likely due to experiencing the execution of Louis XVI, living through The Reign of Terror, and battling the severe withdrawal symptoms he was experiencing due to his addiction to opium and ether. In lines fourteen through seventeen, Coleridge writes: But yester-night I prayed aloud In anguish and agony, Up-starting from a fiendish crowd Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me: These lines further elaborate on the typical Romantic battle between good and evil Coleridge seems to be going thorough. Lines fourteen through thirty-two illustrate the battle the speaker of the poem, most likely Coleridge in his battle against opium, fights

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against evil. In contrast, the other parts of the poem seem to show that the author is recovering slowly, though he despises the night calling it an unfathomable hell within/the horror of their deeds to view and claims to loathe the night (46-48). Perhaps the most pervasive element of The Pains of Sleep, although an overflow of emotion, is the evident bitterness, anger, and unconventional prayermethods in the poem. In the first four lines, the speaker refuses to pray in a manner that would be considered proper: Ere on my bed my limbs I lay, It hath not been my use to pray With moving lips or bended knees; But silently, by slow degrees. He refuses to speak, or leaves his bed to drop to his knees but gives in to the spirit of the higher power possibly the either ether or opium that he was still accustomed to taking. Also, using iambic tetrameter, Coleridge also typifies Romantic poetry in experimenting with the length of his stanzas and his rhyme patterns each differing from the next. While stanza ones thirteen lines generally have couplets, the nineteen lines of stanza two and the twenty lines of stanza three alternate in rhyming patterns. This also parallels the speakers voice, which seems to have no control over the outside forces that affect him. Coleridge writes that he scorned those only strong, perhaps indicating a hate for not only those not affected by (or momentary hate for those making him quit) opium, but those who were tyrannical rulers of the English and French nations (20). Coleridge also was reflecting his hate for the drug he was addicting to, for he had said it was a greater evil than the diseases it did not cure (pg. 417).

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On the other hand, Charlotte Smiths, To Night reflects a differing aspect of Romanticism than Coleridges The Pains of Sleep. Smith indicates unlike Coleridge, that she loves the night, and places the reader in the position that despite her melancholy she feels optimism perhaps due to the occult-like mysticism in the poem. Smith cries: I love thee, mournful, sober-suited night! / When faint moon, yet lingering in her wane, / And veild clouds, with pale uncertain light (1-3). While Coleridge saw terror and threat in the night, Smith feels safe and loves the night because the moon given a female sex and usually though to be representative of disillusionment in occult practice represents some higher being watching over her. Smith also embodies the Romantic notion of placing ones own emotions into a poetic work. Although, Smiths emotion in lines seven through ten embodies that of sorrow: And tell the embosomd grief, however vain, To sullen surges and the viewless wind. Though no response on thy dark breast I find, I still enjoy theecheerless as thou art; She remains optimistic that Heaven will hear her plea which is a classic example of anti-Neo-Classical Romanticism. In these passages, it is then reflected and seemingly apparent that Smith is affected by her internal faith waiting for a change to be brought by higher powers-- while Coleridge seems to blame outside forces (elements or people) as the cause of his miseries. Smith writes: While to the winds and waves its sorrows given, / May reachthough lost on earth the ear of Heaven! (13,14).

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Charlotte Smiths To Night also sets a standard before Coleridges The Pains of Sleep, for it was not only written fourteen years before Coleridges (although she was nearly a decade younger and a woman), but she also brought the sonnet back to life (pg. 32). Not only did the sonnet influence Coleridge, but her form also allows the reader to draw specific connotations from the text. The sonnet, written in iambic pentameter, allows the reader to assimilate the poem to a prayer often written in a similar singsong fashion. Smith further illustrates her point and her poetic style by using alliterations such as deep depression and sullen surges (5,8). This plays a rather ironic role considering Coleridges refusal to pray in the first stanza of his poem, The Pains of Sleep. While many Romantic writers follow a particular creedor a list of particular elements typical to that genrethe lives and works of Romantic writers differ considerably. While Samuel Taylor Coleridge focuses on his hate for the dreadful, dark terrors of the night, Charlotte Smith writes that she loves the night not in spite but because of its melancholy splendor. This is due to different paths in their lives one filled with the terrors of drug addiction -- the other a life full of death, abuse, and abandonment. Also, Coleridge uses iambic tetrameter and an unbalanced number of lines in his stanzas succumbing to the Romantic freedom of being able to experiment within ones own poem. Smith on the other hand, set the precedent of waking the sonnet from its ardent slumber making both of the authors Romantics but in ways that distance from a bed of withdrawals to that of the moon.

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Works Cited Abrams, M.H. Charlotte Smith. The Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. II. Editor: M.H. Abrams. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 2000. 32. Abrams, M.H. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. II, Editor: M.H. Abrams. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 2000. 417. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. The Pains of Sleep. The Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. II. Editor: M.H. Abrams. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 2000. 462. Smith, Charlotte. To Night. The Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol. II. Editor: M.H. Abrams. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 2000. 33.