COLERIDGE, ERASMUS DARWIN, AND THE NATURALIZING OF DECEIT IN "CHRISTABEL"

Erasmus Darwin gave the first comprehensive account of biological mimicry, a phenomenon which he boldly attributed to the instinct for self-preservation in both the plant and animal kingdoms, and ascribed histologically to an involuntary mode of imitation. Coleridge's interest in his idea of physical adaptation can be traced back to 'The Eolian Harp' but becomes central in Christabel where it provides, through the vehicle of Bracy's dream, a unifying metaphor for Geraldine's successful strategy of passing herself off for what she is imagined to be. But it serves also to naturalize the concept of deceit, thus critically implicating the status of ethics. The process of 'forc'd unconscious sympathy' through which Geraldine incapacitates Christabel at the close of the poem tallies closely with Darwin's notion of sympathetic mimesis, but while this process is endorsed at a physiological level it is shown to be morally unavailing. The essay ends by placing Christabel in the context of the deontological critique of utilitarianism that Coleridge offered piecemeal over the years, but intended, at the time, for a book to be published simultaneously with the poem. Christabel owes its greatness, nonetheless, to the depth and finesse of its psychological observation.