This photograph, by Julia Margaret Cameron, is titled "Christabel," after the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which we'll be discussing in episode three of The Literary Horror Archive.
Who is Christabel and why has this poem endured for over 200 years? Find out next Tuesday...
Christabel in part 1 was an antiwedding: instead of noonday bells, midnight bells; instead of witnessed, secret; instead of a binding of two in love, a pair of strangers; instead of woman and man, woman and woman.
Beyond subverting the idea of how a marriage occurs, there is also a narrative convenience to having a Geraldine instead of a Gerald. After all, it's much less likely for a pious girl to let a strange man into her bedroom; and even if she did, it would be possible for an affair to be resolved through marriage, rather than a relationship irreconcilable with the institution of the church.
Part 2:
Here, we have the introduction to Sir Leoline (Christabel's father) of Geraldine, who claims to be the daughter of "Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine," an estranged best friend of Sir Leoline. Here we have:
Sir Leoline: He sees returning Geraldine as a perfect opportunity for him to apologize to and make up with Roland and thus tells Bracy the bard to go send a message to Roland.
Bracy the bard: Starts recounting the weird dream he had about a snake in the woods strangling a dove. *gets ignored*
Christabel: Wants to warn her father but is only able to say very little because Geraldine did some sort of enchantment on her to prevent her from revealing Geraldine's insidiousness.
Geraldine: You know that thing where a character will make it so the main character is unable to reveal their wrongdoing (normally through attacking credibility, though a geas is also an option) and then in a public space during a moment only the MC can see their face makes an expression (like sticking their tongue out or turning their eyes into snake eyes for a moment) to gloat? That's Geraldine to Christabel in this scene. This does add one more layer of subversion into the antimarriage: instead of lasting a lifetime, the two are separate the very next day.
At the start of reading this, I had assumed that Coleridge would be a normal amount of homophobic and other similar traits for the era. What a fool I was to think that. He was a poet (that on its own does a lot to invalidate that expectation); the French Revolution just happened; he wanted to create a utopia of equality in the middle of Pennsylvania (the name could use some work though, pantisocracy sounds like a society where class stratification is based on how fancy your underwear is). This guy was friends with Lord Byron. If you're reading poetry, always make sure to check what stuff they were up to, because sometimes what's outside the poem is what will inform you on whether a poem is satirical or extremist.
With the context about the life of Coleridge, here are my thoughts on possible interpretations through a queer lens:
The perception of Geraldine as a snake is not Geraldine being a snake, rather a representation of society training it's members to see attraction towards women (including/especially from other women) as predatory.
Christabel has a fairly obvious name meaning (Christ + belle) so we know she's beautiful and either pious or Christlike. Geraldine, or Gerald, comes from spear and power (thanks Wiktionary); my first thought for symbolism was Longinus, being as he's the main guy famous for a spear, and then I thought of the phallic interpretation. These have the same result, Geraldine piercing Christabel. I was expecting name symbolism, but I wasn't expecting them to be named after how they have sex. I continue to see how this man became friends with Byron.
Christabel (who I keep wanting to call Claudia as something of a mix of Christabel and Laura) being silent aside from saying that Geraldine should be kicked out is the result of feeling guilt about having a gay time last night.
Leoline has had an incurable feeling of hollowness ever since a spat with his best 'friend'? Sure, just your friend... Though this is something I just say for fun and for padding out this list, at least until I find a time machine and can get Coleridge to write the next part to see if this will turn into Citrus with Leoline and Roland turning into each other's daughter's stepdad.
Leoline is a feminine form of Leander (lion man) (source here). I must assume that Roland is named as such so that Durandal (the unbreakable sword of the paladin Roland/Orlando of Charlamagne's court) can likewise be used for phallic symbolism. Never mind what I said about there being no actual reason to believe they're gay. Like fathers, like daughters, I guess.
Bracy's there, I guess. I couldn't even find a meaning for his name.
And the last topic for now, what is Geraldine? Geraldine doesn't really have the traits of a vampire nor of a succubus (at least not of a folklore-compliant variety) so the most precision I'd give is she-devil, and that's only thanks to the snake eyes she did at Christabel; without that I would be more inclined so say some kind of faerie (it's always a question how fairy will come out spelled) due to the reaction to the iron gate. I've previously mentioned the probable influence on Carmilla, but Byron was also familiar with (and quite the fan of) this work prior to the competition that resulted in Byron's "A Fragment" that inspired The Vampyre* so even with Carmilla "Christabel" would still have claim to having influenced the very foundation of the genre. It's therefore safe to call Geraldine a proto-vampire.
*Additionally, it does seem that Polidori was at least made familiar with Christabel, though not necessarily sober (Percy Shelley was definitely not anything near sober). Sources for this asterisk:
Across the many works about vampires, one can see influences from earlier vampires on newer ones, but vampires need not only be influenced by other vampires and can take inspiration from other sources. While we don't have a definitive list of influences on J. S. Le Fanu's Carmilla, it is often considered that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's unfinished poem "Christabel" may be an influence on the story of Carmilla or even that Carmilla may count as an adaptation.
"Christabel" is a poem in two parts, though Coleridge intended to continue the story to 5 parts. Today I intend to go through part 1, and on another day part 2. And perhaps eventually I'll do one of these on the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner".
Part 1:
Much like in Varney the Vampire (though this was written a half-century earlier) we begin with church bells marking midnight. There is something I find a bit funny in the mixing of the vulgar into high art sort of way in his rhyming of rich with bitch, though as there is an actual dog being referred to it's not as though the vulgarity is intended. Important about the dog, though, is that in the last line of the first stanza, it's presented as a possibility that the dog sees "my lady's shroud".
It's cold night in April, but not dark, and Christabel has headed out a furlong (1/8 mile; 1/5 km) into the woods by her father's castle to pray for the welfare of her Knightly fiancé. She's praying silently beneath an oak tree that has mistletoe; I wonder if kissing under the mistletoe is an old enough tradition for that to be a possible way for the supernatural lesbian to get a kiss. Brittanica says there's an example from the 1780s, and this started being written in the 1790s, so maybe! We of course still need to meet the supernatural lesbian.
There is a mysterious moan from around the tree, what could that possibly be? It's still cold out and hardly windy enough to say it must have been the wind. Let's check it out, decides Christabel, who finds a woman that wearing a sleeveless white robe; no shoes and generally dressed way too lightly for this weather, yet still has hair filled with jewels. Notably, though, this woman's skin is white enough to make the robe look grey by comparison.
Christabel (paraphrased): "Jesus Christ! Who the hell are you?"
Geraldine introduces herself and explains her circumstances as the daughter of a noble and having been kidnapped and left here temporarily. Christabel promises aid in Geraldine's return home, but for now takes her back to her own father's castle.
At the castle gate Geraldine starts feeling immense pain Christabel has to carry her in, and once in Geraldine is fine, albeit still tired from the kidnapping ordeal. I expect this often gets brought up as an example of needing permission to enter, but it's an iron gate so it may very well be an aversion to iron instead. Depends on if she'll have similar trouble with exiting later, but even if she does that does not detract from the possibility of influencing the need to ask for permission to enter.
Making their way to Christabel's room, quietly as Sir Leoline, Christabel's father, has enough trouble sleeping already, a couple things occur as Geraldine passes by: the sleeping dog growls and a near-dead fire grows a tongue of fire.
Finally in Christabel's room, Christabel trims the lamp held by silver chain and Geraldine is again having issues. Problems with silver too?
Christabel's dead mom is brought up, and it's mentioned that said mom heard the bells striking 12 of Christabel's wedding day. It's possible those bells are not of noon, but instead of this midnight, while still about romance.
Geraldine has an episode of something. I think quite possibly driving off the spirit of Christabel's mother who is attempting to protect her from Geraldine. Whatever holy thing it was that attacked Geraldine, it was not long after that Geraldine told Christabel to unrobe (for reasoning I don't quite get of needing to pray yet already being in bed). Christabel did as such and laid in bed, and then Geraldine removed her own clothing, but then does nothing for a bit; a moment of oddness.
Then of course Geraldine joins Christabel in bed and holds her, saying that Christabel will know tonight and tomorrow "this mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow". The last lines of part 1 prior to the conclusion thereto definitely are discussing sex, but I feel there is another half to it which I'm not quite putting together.
Conclusion to Part 1:
This summarizes what we've seen so far but also covers the morning after before the rising from sleep. Christabel is tearing up in the morning, which makes me wonder if there is a pattern beyond this and The Great Awakening of sex (particularly sex that society would disapprove of) being implied by crying after the act.
Geraldine, "worker of these harms," is described holding Christabel "As a mother with her child." My memory may not be the best, but I seem to recall that at times in Carmilla I felt as though some moments the difference in maturity due and the tendency to take command resulted in something that made it feel like Carmilla would at least be of an older generation.
The last major aspect is that this part does focus on the immense holiness of Christabel. It would seem to be that after the midnight encounter with Geraldine, there is not any injury to that holiness.
Part 1 end.
There's definitely a lot more that can be said and looked into, but my understanding of poetic language (and at times archaic language) aren't quite enough to dive deeply into the religious/holy aspects that come up, as there's something going on with Christabel that I'm not able to parse the piece we have in part 1 to the level it deserves, though hopefully part 2 will help with some of that. On the other hand, if I need part 2 to help understand part 1, then the lack of parts 3+ may make understanding part 2 nigh impossible for me. We'll only know when we get there though.
If I keep at this long enough, then at some point I'm going to have to start looking up and getting actual citations for these, as I do want to continue having some supplemental information beyond just that which is contained within the texts. In the meantime, it's safe to assume that most of my contextual information is from Wikipedia, though the actual texts tend to be from elsewhere—in this case, the Poetry Foundation.
