William Blake

A Pre-Romantic Author

William Blake (1757-1827)

• engraver, printer, publisher and poet• invents relief etching, working together with his

wife poems published as illuminated volumes• prophetic inclinations God is present in

imagination• favours energy and passion; against restrictive

religion as institution

Some Works:Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794)The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)America, A Prophecy (1792)Milton (1804-1811)Jerusalem (1804-1820)

William Blake: Imagination and VisionWILLIAM BLAKE TO DR TRUSLER (23 August. 1799. Abridged)Revd Sir,I really am sorry that you are fall'n out with the Spiritual World, Especially if I should

have to answer for it. I feel very sorry that your Ideas & Mine on Moral Paintingdiffer so much as to have made you angry with my method of study. If I am wrong, I am wrong in good company. You say that I want some-body to Elucidate my Ideas. But you ought to know that What is Grand is necessarilyobscure to Weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worthyof my care. [...]

I feel that a Man may be happy in This World. And I know that This World Is a World of Imagination & Vision I see Every thing I paint In This World, but Everybody does not see alike. To the Eyes of a Miser a Guinea is more beautiful thanthe Sun & a bag worn with the use of Money has more beautiful proportionsthan a Vine filled with Grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. Some See Nature all Ridicule & Deformity & by these I shall not regulate my proportions, & SomeScarce see Nature at all But to the Eyes of the Man of Imagination Nature isImagination itself. As a man is So he Sees. As the Eye is formed such are itsPowers You certainly Mistake when you say that the Visions of Fancy are notbe found in This World. To Me This World is all One continued Vision of Fancyor Imagination & I feel Flatterd when I am told So.

• This letter came about because Dr Trusler did not like the result of a

There is No Natural Religion (The Author & Printer W Blake)

[a] THE ARGUMENT

Man has no notion of moral fitness but from Education. Naturally he is only a natural organ subject to Sense.

I Man cannot naturally Perceive but through his natural or bodily organs. II Man by his reasoning power can only compare things & judge of what he has

already perciev'dIII From a perception of only 3 senses or 3 elements none could deduce a fourth

or fifth. IV None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if he had none but

organic perceptions. V Man's desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what he has not

perceiv'd. VI The desires & perceptions of man untaught by any thing but organs of sense,

must be limited to objects of sense.

[b] I Man's perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception. He percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover.

II Reason or the ration of all we have already known is not the same that itshall be when we know more.

III [this page is missing]IV The bounded is loathed by its possessor. The same dull round even of

a universe would soon become a mill with complicated wheels. V If the many became the same as the few when possess'd, More! More!

is the cry of a mistake soul; less than All cannot satisfy Man. VI If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, despair must be

his eternal lot. VII The desire of Man being Infinite, the possession is Infinite, & himself

Infinite. He who sees the Infinite in all things sees God. He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only.

THEREFOREGod becomes as we are that we may be as he is.

CONCLUSIONIf it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things, & stand still, unableto do other than repeat the same dull round over again.

William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience

• “two contrary states of the human soul”(not of age!)

• innocence = uncorrupted state of childhood

• experience = does not refute innocenceboth states present a view of truth

• explores the tensions between reason and intuition; law and passion; oppression and liberty

William Blake (1757-1827), "The Piper", from Songs of Innocence.

Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me:

"Pipe a song about a lamb." So I piped with merry chear. "Piper, pipe that song again." So I piped: he wept to hear.

"Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe; Sing thy songs of happy chear." So I sang the same again, While he wept with joy to hear.

"Piper, sit thee down and write

In a book, that all may read."

So he vanished from my sight;

And I pluck'd a hollow reed.

And I made a rural pen,

And I stain'd the water clear,

And I wrote my happy song

Every child may joy to hear.

William Blake, „Hear the Voice“, from: The Songs of Experience (Introduction)

HEAR the voice of the Bard,Who present, past, and future,

sees;Whose ears have heardThe Holy WordThat walk'd among the ancient

trees;

Calling the lapsèd soul,And weeping in the evening dew;That might controlThe starry pole,And fallen, fallen light renew!

'O Earth, O Earth, return!

Arise from out the dewy grass!

Night is worn,

And the morn

Rises from the slumbrous mass.

'Turn away no more;

Why wilt thou turn away?

The starry floor,

The watery shore,

Is given thee till the break of day.'

Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?Gave thee life, and bid thee feedBy the stream and o'er the mead;Gave thee clothing of delight,Softest clothing, woolly, bright;Gave thee such a tender voice,Making all the vales rejoice?Little Lamb, who made thee?Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:He is called by thy name,For he calls himself a Lamb.He is meek, and he is mild;He became a little child.I a child, and thou a lamb.We are called by his name.Little Lamb, God bless thee!Little Lamb, God bless thee!

Tyger! Tyger! burning brightIn the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eyeCould frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skiesBurnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art. Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread graspDare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning brightIn the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eyeDare frame thy fearful symmetry?

“London” (Songs of Experience)

I wander thro' each charter'd street. Near where the charter'd Thames does flowAnd mark in every face I meetMarks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,In every Infants cry of fear,In every voice: in every ban,The mind-forg'd manacles I hear

How the Chimney-sweepers cryEvery blackning Church appalls,And the hapless Soldiers sighRuns in blood down Palace walls

But most thro' midnight streets I hearHow the youthful Harlots curseBlasts the new-born Infants tearAnd blights with plagues the Marriage hearse

Two Generations of Romantic Poets

First Generation – “Lake Poets”• William Wordsworth

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge

• Robert Southey

Characteristics of Romanticism

• concern with history (medievalism, romance)• ‘return to nature’ (cf. Rousseau)• literary primitivism (folk art models; e.g.

Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry)• ‘subjective idealism’ interiority, introverted

remoteness of poet (also: critique of escapism)

• individualism (political and poetic)• importance of imagination and sensibility• poetry as (original) creation (= poiesis) rather

than imitation (= mimesis; cf. Classicism); emphasis on expression

Imagination • Enlightenment: reason and judgment

understanding; phantasy = merely an instrument of memory

• Romanticism: imagination mode of perception that transforms and reforms the exterior worldRomantic imagination…

a) unites different elements to one organic whole;b) perceives a deeper truth and reality between

the surface of the material world;c) transforms the material world according to the

poet’s vision.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Biographia Literaria (1815 [1817]) 2 ("from Chapter IV") ("from Chapter XIII") ("Chapter XIV") ("Chapter

XV") ("Chapter XVII") ("Chapter XVIII") ("from Chapter XX") ("Chapter XXII")

From Chapter XIII

The IMAGINATION then, I consider either as primary, or secondary. The primaryIMAGINATION I hold to be the living Power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary Imagination I consider as an echo of the former, co-existing with the conscious will, yet still as identical with the primary in thekind(i) of its agency, and differing only in degree(i), and in mode(i) of itsoperation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate; or where thisprocess is rendered impossible, yet still at all events it struggles to idealize and to unify. It is essentially vital(i), even as all objects (as(i) objects) are essentiallyfixed and dead.

FANCY, on the contrary, has no other counters to play with, but fixities and definites. The Fancy is indeed no other than a mode of Memory emancipatedfrom the order of item and space; while it is blended with, and modified by thatempirical phenomenon of the will, which we express by the word CHOICE. Butequally with the ordinary memory the Fancy must receive all its material readymade form the law of association.

Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the

Sublime and the Beautiful(1757)

The Beautiful• causes love

• clarity• delicacy and fragility• small, limited extension• smoothness, gradual

variation

does not depend on reason or utility

‘pleasure principle’

The Sublime• astonishment mixed with

horror• terror• obscurity• power, vastness and

infinity• irregularity• uncontrollable

a play on the senses, overpowering reason

‘pain principle’

Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins o f Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)

The passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is Astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul, in which all its motionsare suspended, with some degree of horror. In this case the mind is so entirely filled with its object, that it cannot entertain any other, nor by consequence reason an that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us an by an irresistible force.

Vincent Arthur De Luca, „Blake‘s Concept of the Sublime,“ in: Wu, Duncan (Hg.). Romanticism. A Critical Reader. London: Blackwell, 1995, 17-54.

"Astonishment," then, cannot be described so much as circumscribed by a ring of mutually canceling figures such as motion/arrest, penetration/resistance, heaviness/lightness. The figures are drawn from physical mechanics, but they compose no mechanics that Newton would recognize. Here the continuum of cause and effect breaks down; outward forces have unpredictable inward consequences. As Burke presents it, "astonishment" marks the intervention of sharp discontinuities in the spheres of both nature and mind: nature suddenly manifests itself in so overwhelming a fashion that normal relations of subject and object are abolished; at the same time, the mind loses its consistency of operation and becomes a thing of paradox, of self-contradictory extremes. (19)

Two possible sublimes quiver in the indeterminacy of the moment of astonishment: one, the sublime of terror and deprivation most closely associated with Burke, and the other, a sublime of desire and plenitude. Blake's imagination is repeatedly drawn to the Burkean sublime, but he appears skeptical that it can serve as a mode of genuine elevation and access to a liberating power. Burke would have us believe that the moment of disequilibrium, suspension of faculties, and immobilization of will arises from the access of an overwhelming external power or magnitude. Blake reads such scenes otherwise: encountering "terrific" objects, his protagonists reel not at a magnitude of power made present, but rather at the magnitude of power lost, at the degree of petrifactionrevealed in so-called powers by the time they present themselves as natural "terrors.“ (22)

Pain and pleasure

Pain and pleasure are simple ideas, incapable of definition. People are not liable to be mistaken in their feelings, but they are veryfrequently wrong in the names they give them, and in theirreasonings about them. Many are of the opinion, that pain arisesnecessarily from the removal of some pleasure; as they thinkpleasure does from the ceasing or diminution of some pain. For mypart, I am rather inclined to imagine, that pain and pleasure, in theirmost simple and natural manner of affecting, are each of a positive nature, and by no means necessarily dependent on each other fortheir existence. The human mind is often, and I think it is for themost part, in a state neither of pain nor pleasure, which I call a stateof indifference.

Sympathy

It is by the first of these passions that we enter into the concerns of others; that we are moved as they are moved, and are never sufferedto be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do orsuffer. For sympathy must be considered as a sort of substitution, bywhich we are put into the place of another man, and affected in manyrespects as he is affected; so that this passion may either partake of the nature of those which regard self-preservation, and turning uponpain may be a source of the sublime or it may turn upon ideas of pleasure; and then whatever has been said of the social affections, whether they regard society in general, or only some particularmodes of it, may be applicable here. It is by this principle chiefly thatpoetry, painting, and other affecting arts, transfuse their passionsfrom one breast to another, and are often capable of grafting a delight on wretchedness, misery, and death itself. It is a commonobservation, that objects which in the reality would shock, are in tragical, and such like representations, the source of a very high species of pleasure.

Lyrical Ballads1798; 1800; 1802

by William Wordsworthand

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The "preface" as an attempt to write a "defenceof poetry":

"a selection of the real language of men in a state of vivid sensation"

"a class of poetry ... well adapted to interestmankind permanently, and not unimportant in the quality and in the multiplicity of its moralrelations".

"to prefix a systematic defence of the theoryupon which the poems were written".

The incompatibility of the Lyrical Ballads with comtemporary taste:

poems are "so materially different from those upon which generalapprobation is at present bestowed".

"a full account of the present state of the public taste in this country, and to determine how far this taste is healthy or depraved".

He cannot determine this "without pointing out in what mannerlanguage and the human mind act and re-act on each other, and without retracting the revolutions, not of literature alone, butlikewise of society itself."

A general definition of poetry as a historical art based on Hartley:

"the act of writing in verse" "certain classes of ideas and expressions"

"certain known habits of association."

Principal object and form of poetry:

"incidents and situations from common life" "language really used by men". "throw over them a certain coloring of imagination, whereby

ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusualaspect„

"primary laws of nature"

Attack on poetic diction:

"humble and rustic life„"repeated experience and regular feelings" poets using poetic diction : "they are conferring honour

upon themselves and their art in proportion as theyseparate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious manners of expression."

The subjects and purpose of the Lyrical Ballads:

"all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."

reader: "the reader must necessarily be in some degreeenlightened, and his affections strengthened and purified.„

"For the human mind is capable of being excited without theapplication of gross and violent stimulants."

poet: "but by a man who, being possessed of more than usualorganic sensibility, had also thought long and deeply. For ourcontinued influxes of feeling are modified and directed by ourthoughts, which are indeed the representatives of all our pastfeelings.„

"that to endeavour to produce or enlarge this capability is one of the best services in which, at any period a writer can beengaged; but this service, excellent at all times, is especially so at the present day."

The historical and cultural background:

"a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now actingwith a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of themind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor."

"great national events." (1) frequency (2) "the increasingaccumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of theiroccupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident whichthe rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies." (3) "frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies, and ... idleand extravagant stories in verse".

"this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation".

The style of the Lyrical Ballads:

Rare use of personifications of abstract ideasImitation and Adaption of "the very language of man„Avoidance of poetic dictionStrife for a style of "good sense„Being cut of oneself from traditional "phrases and

figures of speech", which have been abused and repeated for too long a time "by bad poets"

Defence of prosaisms: "there neither is, nor can be, anyessential difference between the language of proseand metrical composition„"a selection of the language really spoken by men" makes the difference, not the distinction betweenmetrical language and prose.

What is a poet - What is poetry?

(1) a man speaking to men (2) endowed with more livelysensibility, more enthusiasm, and tenderness (3) who has a greater knowledge of human nature (4) a morecomprehensive soul (5) a man pleased with his own passionsand volitions (6) who rejoices more than other men in the spiritof life that is in him (7) disposition to be affected more than othermen by absent things as if they were present (8) impelled to create volitions and passions as manifested in the on- goings of the universe, when he does not find them (9) an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far frombeing the same as those produced by real events, yet pleasingand delightful {i.e. supernatural, but not gothic } (10) acquires a greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks and feels, (11) and especially those thoughts and feelingswhich, by his own choice, or from the structure of his ownmind, arise in him without immediate external excitement.

What is a poet - What is poetry?

(12) he will feel that there is no necessity to trick out or to elevatenature (13) the more industriously he applies this principle, thedeeper will be his faith that no words which his fancy orimagination can suggest, will be to be compared with thosewhich are the emanations of reality and truth . (14) the poet is in the situation of a translator, "who does not scruple to substituteexcellences of another kind for those which are unattainable byhim; and endeavours occasionally to surpass his original, in order to make some amends for the general inferiority to whichhe feels that he must submit." "Poetry is the image of man and nature" being according to Aristotle the most philosophicof all writing: "its object is truth, not individual and local, but general and operative". (15) "the poet writes under onerestriction only, namely, the necessity of giving immediate pleasure to a human being". This "necessity of producingimmediate pleasure ... is an acknowledgement of the beauty of the universe." (16) The poet "considers man and the objects thatsurround him as acting and re-acting upon each other, so as to produce an infinite complexity of pain and pleasure"

(17) The poet "considers man and nature as naturally the mirror of the fairest and most interesting properties of nature." (18) Scientist vs. poet: "The man of science seeks truth as a remoteand unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude: the poet, singing a song in which all human beings joinwith him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friendand hourly companion." (19) Quoting Shakespeare who saidthat the poet "looks before and after", {Shakespeare, Hamlet, IV,iv,37} the poet is regarded as "the rock of defence forhuman nature; an upholder and preserver ..." (20) "the poetbinds together by passion and knowledge the vast empireof human society, as it is spread over the whole earth and overall time". (21) Since "poetry is the first and last of all knowledge," the poet "will be ready to follow the steps of the man of science, ..., he will be at his side, carryingsensation into the midst of the objects of the science itself. Theremotest discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, ormineralogist, will be as proper objects of the poet's art as anyupon which it can be employed ..."

A general summary: [20-21:]

"poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerfulfeelings: it takes its origin from emotionrecollected in tranquility; the emotion iscontemplated till, by a species of re-action, thetranquillity gradually disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the subject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itselfactually exist in the mind. In this mood successfullcomposition generally begins ... the mind will, uponthe whole, be in a state of enjoyment ... an indistinctperception perpetually renewed of language closelyresembling that of real life, and yet, in thecircumstance of metre, differing from it so wildely ..."

The Eternal language of God

Samuel Taylor Coleridge'sFROST AT MIDNIGHT

But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breezeBy lakes and sandy shores, beneath the cragsOf ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,Which image in their bulk both lakes and shoresAnd mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hearThe lovely shapes and sounds intelligibleOf that eternal language, which thy GodUtters, who from eternity doth teachHimself in all, and all things in himself.Great universal Teacher! he shall mouldThy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

William Wordsworth, “Daffodils” (1804)I wander’d lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o'er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze

Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the Milky Way,They stretch'd in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but theyOut-did the sparkling waves in glee:A poet could not but be gay,In such a jocund company:I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils.

IN Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to man

Kubla Khan

Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile groundWith walls and towers were girdled round;And there were gardens bright with sinuous rillsWhere blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;And here were forests ancient-as the hills,Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But O, that deep romantic chasm which slantedDown the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!A savage place! as holy and enchantedAs e'er beneath a waning moon was hauntedBy woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathingA mighty fountain momently was forced; Amid whose swift half-intermitted burstHuge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and everIt flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motionThrough wood and dale the sacred river ran,Then reach'd the caverns measureless to man,And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from farAncestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasureFloated midway on the waves;Where was heard the mingled measureFrom the fountain and the caves.It was a miracle of rare device,A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

***********

A damsel with a dulcimerIn a vision once I saw:It was an Abyssinian maid,And on her dulcimer she play'd,Singing of Mount Abora.Could I revive within me,Her symphony and song,To such a deep delight 'twould win me,That with music loud and long,I would build that dome in air,That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

*********

And all who heard should see them there,And all should cry, Beware! Beware!His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,And close your eyes with holy dread,For he on honey-dew hath fed,And drunk the milk of Paradise.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

In 'Purchas His Pilgrimage' (1613) SAMUEL PURCHAS reports: "In Xamdu did CublaiCan build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant springs, delightfull Streams, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure..."

Kublai Khan (1215-1294) was "the fifth of the Mongol great khans and the founder of the Yüan Dynasty in China (1279-1368). He is best known in the West as the Cublai Kaan of Marco Polo... Kublai founded what was intended to be his brother's new capital but became in effect his own summer residence, the town of Kaiping. It later was named Shang-tu or 'Upper Capital' and was immortalised as the Xanadu of Coleridge's poem."

COLERIDGE himself indicates that he was inspired by travel literature (s.b.). In 'Purchas His Pilgrimage' (1613) SAMUEL PURCHAS reports: "In Xamdu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace, encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant springs, delightfull Streams, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure..."

KERMODE also refers to J.L. LOWES who "demonstrated that other borrowings from Purchas are important, particularly from the account of Alvadine, the Old Man of the Mountain, who employed his earthly paradise or garden of delights to train the assassins whom he sent against his enemies.“

BEER finds substantial parallels in J. RIDLEY'S Tales of the Genii in which the Merchant Abudah "was shown a vision of a dome, made entirely of precious stones and metals, which seemed to cover a whole plain and reach to the clouds, and who voyaged along a meandering river by woods of spices." BEER gives further examples taken from the Merchant's adventures, in which he perceives "huge fragments ..., a dismal chasm ... [and] warlike music" and comes to the conclusion "that the corresponding elements in Coleridge's poem are rooted deeply in recollected reading of Eastern romance."

The subtitle of the poem is Or, a Vision in a dream. A Fragment. To the first publication of the poem, COLERIDGE adds the following explanatory note (excerpts): "... In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he [COLERIDGE] fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's Pilgrimage: 'Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall.'"

According to his own account, COLERIDGE had the feeling that during his sleep "he could not have composed less than from two to three hundred lines..." and that "all the images rose up before him as things, with a parallel production of the corresponding expressions, without any sensation or consciousness of effort. On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and instantly wrote down the lines... At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business", which interrupted his recollection of ideas. In a note added to a manuscript copy COLERIDGE himself added that the vision was "brought on by two grains of Opium..."

With regard to the Alph theme, Greek mythology may have inspired him: in one mythical account, Alpheus, the god who gave his name to the river, fell in love with a nymph by the name of Arethusa who fled from him; he pursued her and, after she has turned into a spring, "for love of her Alpheus mingled his waters with her."

In a different account, the earth opens up to prevent the latter, and the goddess Artemis guides her away "through underground channels..."