It is interesting to look at Coleridge’s “Fears in Solitude”
in conjunction with the pieces we read by More and Burke. While Burke and More
were discussing and criticizing France and its revolution, Coleridge instead is
criticizing Britain itself and saying it deserves to be punished and invaded. He
describes the British people as being “Thankless too for peace/(Peace long
preserv’d by fleets and perilous seas),” saying they are ignorant, ungrateful,
and have taken for granted the undisturbed peacetime that was fought for by
innocent men. He pulls upon the reader’s heartstrings by describing the
soldier, “who fell in battle doing bloody deeds,/pass’d off to heaven…as tho he
had not wife to pine for him/No God to Judge him!” Additionally, he skillfully
uses the imagery of undisturbed and pure nature and his love for the countryside
at both the opening and the closing of the poem. This would have been a scene
that most British people would have been familiar with which Coleridge uses to
strike fear into the reader by implying that this idyllic land which they all
grew up with might be destroyed forever.
I very much agree that in bookending "Fears in Solitude" with pastoral imagery, Coleridge catalyzed a certain amount of foreboding among his readers. Considering the tranquility with which he characterizes Britain, and the savagery with which he characterizes France, the geographic and political proximity of the two countries renders disaster imminent. While I don't think Coleridge truly felt Britain was deserving of invasion, his words speak as a very palpable warning to the British people.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Coleridge criticizes and condemns the British people, I don't agree with your analysis of his use of nature. Coleridge is not telling the British people what they are going to lose, he is, in a way, forcing himself to overcome his disdain for his own people by reminding himself of his "mother Isle". When he longingly writes of the British pastoral, he speaks to Britain, "Oh dear Britain," not of Britain, as if he is talking to the land itself, apologizing for what mankind has done on it. However, despite his disdain for the Britain, his love for his homeland is so strong, he feels he must support it.
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