Talk:Christabel (poem)

Removal of the poem
I removed the text of the poem from this article that had been added by the previous editor. A Wikipedia article that is supposed to be about Christabel shouldn't contain the full text of Christabel. I'm in the process of moving the text to Wikisource, which did not have it before, so, whoever that masked editor was, your typing will not have been in vain. Marksman45 18:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
 * There. See http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Christabel
 * Now I just need to find that template that says "Wikisource has text pertaining to this" or whatever it is that says. Marksman45 19:15, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

-hey, would be nice if you could include at least a rough idea of the plot of the poem


 * I don't know the plot of the poem. It's very long and I don't have enough patience to read it. Marksman45 16:49, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I've added a basic plot. Feel free to add spoiler tags if  you want, though most of what I added is not actually in the poem, but rather is the unwritten conclusion of it.  The Jade Knight 06:46, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * So, how do you guys feel about copying and pasting websites and putting them in Wikipedia? http://www.answers.com/topic/christabel-1 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.26.101.71 (talk) 16:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC).
 * answers.com is the one that copypastes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answers.com#Wikipedia_controversy Iruka 18:11, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Geraldine
I lack the background to do the proper research and referencing, but for whoever does eventually take this article beyond stub form: I just read the poem, knowing nothing else of Coleridge, and noticed that Geraldine falls down fainting before the iron gate and Christabel has to carry her through. This would suggest to me that Geraldine is a fairy of some sort, since they are traditionally hampered by iron, and this would make this one of the traditional fairy/ghost/changeling stories. Yes? No? The scansion is miserable, isn't it? SkepticalGal (talk) 03:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I hadn't heard that one about fairies. Would that be something Coleridged would have expected to think?  The Jade Knight (talk) 18:12, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, Coleridge would have known this. It was and is common knowledge among those who are interested in folklore that fairies and other supernatural beings are afraid of iron.


 * Some people think this idea dates back to a time when iron-wielding invaders opposed a group of indigenous people who had only bronze weapons.


 * Evangeline (talk) 19:11, 31 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Alternatively it's not the iron that matters: it's the fact of the gate. Vampires, it was believed, couldn't cross a threshold without being invited, and Christabel is widely believed to be a vampire story. FergusM1970 (talk) 02:25, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

When you say 'the scansion is miserable' do you mean because the number of syllables in each line varies so much? This was deliberate. Coleridge says in his preface that he was counting the accents, rather than the syllables. Sure enough, the number of syllables varies but each line has exactly four accents. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.104.226.130 (talk) 21:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

In one of the appendices to Robert Bridges' Milton's Prosody he argues that many verses in Christabel do not have the full four accents, and that Coleridge relies on the reader supplying artificial stresses in order to fulfill his metrical aims. Maybe this could be referred to somewhere on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.140.245.180 (talk) 22:50, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Poorly integrated material in article
There's an extended quote plus some wiki-stuff about User:Drwpthompson and clicking "edit this page" which doesn't belong in the article in that form. I didn't remove it as it's not vandalism, but I haven't the foggiest how to integrate it properly. Can anyone clean it up? 79.78.244.72 (talk) 13:41, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, there's unsourced criticism here:

'Geraldine, who initially appears to be an almost mirror image of Christabel, is later revealed as being far more complex, both sexually and morally:'

and then the quote given is mysteriously missing it's second half (something like 'behold her bosom and half her side, a sight to dream of, not to tell, oh shield her, shield sweet Christabel') I always thought that far from erotic, that stanza was meant to be horrific - i.e. Geraldine unclothed has some sort of marking or grotesquerie (as a child I imagined she was a rotting corpse on one side when I read this) to further distinguish her as supernatural evil. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.145.252.66 (talk) 13:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)