COLERIDGE, HARTLEY, AND 'THE NIGHTINGALE'

Coleridge, towards the end of his annus mirabilis, famously recorded in the Gutch Notebook that a dead dog at a distance could smell like elderflowers. The observation—which has always been taken to be his own—was copied, in fact, from the first part of David Hartley's Observations on Man, the volume primarily concerned with psychology. That it falls in the Notebook between two other entries that contributed substantially to 'The Nightingale' suggests that the influence of Hartley—which is commonly thought to have peaked in the middle years of the decade—was still active when Coleridge wrote what he was first to describe as a 'conversation poem'. With some glances at the other poems in this group, the article reads 'The Nightingale' in the light of a number of Hartleyian reflections. These range from his concept of how an abstract idea can be 'enlivened' by a vivid sense impression, to his view that the appreciation of nature undergoes radical change through the 'different periods' of life, a concept that seems to have had repercussions on 'Tintern Abbey'. Of particular relevance to 'The Nightingale' is the strong analogy that Hartley draws between human and animal passions, and his concern with the non-verbal utterance of feeling.