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The "Forest Hermit" in Coleridge and Wordsworth.Author(s): Lane CooperReviewed work(s):Source: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Feb., 1909), pp. 33-36Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2916638 .

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MODERN LANGUAGENOTESVOL.XXIV. BALTIMORE, FEBRUARY, 1909. No. 2.

THE "F OREST HERMIT " IN COLE-RIDGE AND WORDSWORTH.The romantic magination,e are to under-stand, ays emphasis pon hepartas against hewhole uponthepoetic etail s against he argeand unified oetical onception upontheindi-vidual element npoetry-soAristotlemight utit-as against heuniversal; upon he ndividual

man also as against he state n and for tself.Hence, n a measure, risesthephenomenonfthe beautiful ragment,ike Christabelr KubicaKhan, which ts author s powerless o finishforwant of a dominant rchitectonicdea,forwant f an original nd compelling nity, e isunable o subordinateach separate hrase, achaccretion f images, o the inexorable volutionof a complete and harmoniousmasterpiece.Hence also, f wemaymake such a leap, comesinpart he romanticdealization f thesolitary,theanchoret,he recluse; of the individualwhowithdraws rom he social organism nd tries oexist lone ndforhimself.His retreat,fcourse,mustbe voluntary. Ifit s forced, r forciblyrolonged, e willshortlybe heard amenting ithCowper's elkirk

0 Solitude! where re the charmsThat sageshave seen n thyface?Andeven f itbe altogether f his ownvolition,he can by no means enyhimself he ocial oy oftelling thers bout his preference.Thus in adozenplacesDe Quincey eveals he secret fhiscarefully ourished passioin for olitude. Hispassion, f course, epresents mood that everyone feelsnow and then. But undoubtedlyheairwas surcharged ith he mood after hetimeof thatnatural man Rousseau. Even CharlesLamb, most affable nd accessibleof mortals,confesses o a like "passion," though his con-fession as thefaintest roma of literarynherit-ance. The mood was a part of the literarybequest rom generationreceding.

Undoubtedly,oo, here s an element ere frevivedmedievalism. Theromanticolitary ar-ries abouthim somereminderf the cloister rthe staffndscrip. In any case,retire rwanderas faras hewill,he can neverquite succeed nbeing creatureundered romhegenerality,orafter ll there re many ikehim and inspite fhis cry, II am myself, yself lone " if wedraghim ndhis nearestneighborromheir e-spectivemossy ells, he sunlightmay disclosesimilaritiesetween lhemmountingo thefixedcharacteristicsf tvpe.In readingThe Rimeof heAncientMlariner,thepresent riterong imaginedhat heHermitwho ppearsnPartvi to shrive heherohad anoriginal n some real personage. Andthismaystillbe true. The momentheMariner eachesshore, e enters landscape, longtheSomersetcoast of the Severn Sea, with whichColeridgeandhis erstwhileollaborator, ordsworth,erethoroughlyamiliar it may be thatsomewherein theirramblings mong the QuantockHillsone or both f thepoetshad seen recluse orres-ponding, fter fashion, o the Hermitof theWood. At the ametime, his Hermithassuchfirst-classiteraryntecedents,nd suchclear ndoccasionallyrtificialarallelsnWordsworthndColeridgehemselves,s toshakeone'sbelief hateitherpoet necessarily ad " his eye on theobject" when the holyman of the Rime wastaking hape. Thehermitsn English iteratureare numerous. It might e interestingo com-pare this one with Spenserian haracter homhegreatly esemblesalbeit the latter s a piousfraud); for t willbe recalled hatbothColeridgeandWordsworth ereeagerly eading penser nQuantockiandays. First,however,t may bewellto comparehimand his habitatwithotherhermitss conceived y the two modern oets;since,whatever is origin, e is withoutoubtstereotypediguren both, nd forWordswortha stockpoeticalresource, ot unlikeseveralofthe pseudo-classicdevices which Wordswortheschewed.

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34 MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. [Vol. xxiv,No. 2.Save for a traditionalslip in theprinting,' hedescriptionof the "forest Hermit" in the finaltext ofthe AncientMariner (lines 508-541, 560-563, 570-577) is substantially he same as that

first iven in theLyrical Ballads of 1798. Cole-ridge had indeedintroduced touch of somethingsimilar n a poem whichDykes Campbell assignsto the year 1793, entitled Lines to a BeatttifulSpring in a Village:Northine nseenncavern epths odwell,The Hermit-fountainf ome rippingell 2

-where the contextsavors of an influence romVirgil or even Theocritus. And it is believedthathe had in mindthe same scene as that ustcited from the AncienttMlariner,when he puttogether certain lines in a " ballad-tale" forwhich Wordsworth ave him the subject n 1797,The Three Graves:

'Tis sweetohear brook,tissweetTo hear he abbath-bell,Deep na woody ell.His limbs long hemoss, isheadUpon mossy eap,With lhut-upenses, dwarday;Thatbrook 'en on a workingayMight hatterneto sleep.3

Again, we may not be far from he holy Hermit'scushion plump,when we are taken in the mid-nightwood to watch Christabel praying underthe traditionalnmossyak:Thesighs heheavedwereoft nd ow,Andnought asgreen pon he akBut moss ndrarestmistletoe:She kneels eneathhehuge aktree,And nsilence rayethhe.4

IThis slip is worthnoting. In most of therecent er-sions, ncluding he standard extofDykesCampbell, ines529-530 ofthe AncientMariner re madetorun:The planks ookedwarped and see those ails,How thintheyare and sere tAside from the impossible asttense, ookedwarpeds anodd bitof acophony o foist pontheauthor fChristabel;it is about as melodious s thecelebrated legiac line com-posed-says De Quincey-by Coleridge's old pedagogue,Jemmy oyer:'Twas thouthat mooth'd'st herough-rugg'd ed ofpain.2Coleridge,PoeticalWorks, 893,p. 24.3The ThreeGraves492-500,PoeticalWorks, . 92; seeHutchinson'seditionofLyricalBallads, pp. 217, 258.Christabel2-36, PoeticalWorks, . 116.

Finally, there s a directreference o the tradi-tional hermit,with a generalreminiscence f hissylvan dwellinig, n Coleridge's Mad Monk, apoem written bouit hreeyears aftertheAncientMariner, and like the Lines to a Beautiful Springin a Village, indebted to a bucolic source n theclassics. The familiaroak has changed to a treeof equally good literaryparentage,the Sicilianchestnut:

I heard voice romtna's ide;Where 'era cavern'smouthThatfrontedothe outhA chestnutpreadtsumbrage ide:A hermitra monk hemanmight e;But him couldnot ee:Andthus hemusic low'dlong,Inmelodymostiketo oldSicilian ong:"Therewas timewhen arth,nd ea, nd kies,Thebrightreen ale, ndforest'sark ecess,With ll things,aybefore ine yesIn steadyoveliness:Butnow feel, nearth's neasycene,Such orrowsswillnever ease;-I only skfor eace;If mustive toknowhat uch time asbeen!"The rest s not now to thepoint. The tale closesabruptly,with a hint of the hermit's ustomaryenvironment:

Hereceased hevoice. In deepdismay,Down hroughheforestpursu'dmyway.5So much forsylvanhermits n Coleridge; nowfor a few n Wordsworth. The first hatwe comeupon in the latter poet is scarcelytypical-he isa man witha family; but he is fairly rtificial.He dwells on the border of Lake Como, whereWordsworthwith careful circumstantiality ic-tureshimin theDescriptive ketches f 1793

Oncedid pierce owhere cabin tood,Thered-breasteacehadbury'dt nwood,There, y hedoor hoary-headedireTouch'dwith iswither'd and naged yre;TheM31ad onk1-16, 46-47. This poem,bytheway,ought ometime o be comparedwithWordsworth'snti-qnmatonsf mmortalitynd Coleridge'sDejection; forthediscoverywillyetbe madethatthey reall threeIn melodymost ike toold Sicilian song.The conventional urn, There was a time . . But now

. . ." (cf. Dejection, tanza 6, Intimationsf mmortality,Stanza1) is thesamemodulation hatwe find n Lycidas:But 0 theheavychange,nowthouartgon.



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February, 909.] MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. 35Beneath an old-grey ak as violets ie,Stretch'd t his feetwith tedfast, pward eye,His clhildren's hildrenoin'd the holy sound,A hermit-with his family round.6

Whatever eality aybeneath hisdescription,the artificial ide of it becomes appareint heinstant we examineWordsworth' subsequentrevision. For example,the Popian lyre givesplace to a "Iruide iol," whichmayor nmayothave been a real elementn the original deli-cious cene ':But once I piercedthemazesofa woodIn which a cabin undesertedtood;There an old man an oldelnmeasure cannedOn a rudeviol touchedwithwitheredhand.As lambs or fawnsn April clustering ieUndera hoaryoak's thincanopy,Stretched t his feet,withstedfast pwardeye,His children'schildren istened o thesound;-A Hermit withhis family round.

However, o far s I have observed,he ypicalHermit f the Wood does not appear in Words-worth ntil fterhis emancipationrom hegen-eral artificialityfDescriptive Sketches, r untilhis alliance with Coleridge n Lyrical Ballads.We have noted he type n the first f the Bal-lads, that is, in theAncient Mctriner we maynote t also in thepoem withwhich he collectioncloses-in TinternAbbey. Revisiting he ylvanWye, hedevoteefnature lances ver pastorallandscape, escryingere nd there

wreaths fsmokeSent up, in silence,from mongthetrees!With some uncertainnotice, s might eem,Ofvagrantdwellers n the houselesswoods,Or ofsome Hermit'scave,wherebyhis fireThe Hermitsits alone.8Here, one might anicy,s the identical olymanof theAncientMariner, wellinig,ot along thesylvanWye, butsomewheremong heQuantockHills, and transferredor henonce otheneigh-borhood fTintern bbey. And inthefollowing

6Descriptiveketches,793, ines 168-175, Poetical Works,ed. Dowden, 7. 285; cf. An Evening Walk 219, PoeticalWorks . 272.7Descriptive Sketches final version) 145-153, PoeticalWorks, . 27.8Lines Composed fewMiles boveTinter-nbbey 7-22,Poetical Works, . 146.

descriptionnemight e temptedofind he ameholymuan's oodlandlhapel for he" shelteringcove or recess n themountainss almost er-tainly n the vicinity f Alfoxdenor NetherStowey: A spotwlhere,n a sheltering oveA littlechapel stands lone,Withgreenestvyovergrown,And tuftedwith an ivygrove.9-onoly his happens o be the chapelofWords-wortlh'serventMethodistn PeterBell. Verylikely t m-aaye identified ith the woodlandchapel n TheThreeGr'aves.Is there, then, no hernit in Peter BellfWordsworthimselfseemnso expect one. Hav-ing conductedhis hero to a suiltableglade in thevery heart of thewoods, he inquires:

And is thereno onedwellinghere,No hermitwithhis beads and glass?10No, there is no hermit; none, at least, in theordiniaryense. The sole iillnabitant f thisdeepand quiet spot is-

A solitaryAss.Peterhimself s surprised. It was ust thle lacefora real, human eremite. \VTordsworth's uerysuppliesone ofthemainy oilntsofcontactbetweenihis poemand theAncient H'akiner forPeterBellis the ballad of the supernatural wlichl Words-worth Was conistrainiedo write when he foun.dhimself unable to proceed co6njointly iith Cole-ridge n making theRine.Still otherpoems ofWordsworth describe thischaracterin.tenrmshat remnilnds of Coleridge.In bothpoets, of course,the really curioLusthingabouLt hese holymein s theLact thattheyalwaysdwell in the woods. They do not perch on pil-lars ; they anrenot enamoreclof the lheath r thesandywaste. They are Joversof shade, of ivy,Moss, and oak. They are amateurs in the con-templationif foliage. Thus the confessor f theAncientMariner likens those sails, so tllin andsere,to

Brown keletons f eaves that agMy forest-brooklongg;9PeterBell 852-855, Poeticml Vorks,. 248.10Peter Bell, 376-377, Poetical Works 2. 232.



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36 MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. rVol.xxiv, No. 2.and thusWordsworth,ebelling gainst hecom-plicated ifeofLondon,observeshat

livingmenAreofttimeso their ellow-meno moreThan to theforest ermitre the eavesThathang loftn myriads.1"

These ines were writtenn the year1800. Noespecial connections to be traced between hethoughtn them nd that n tne familiar oninetcommencing:Nunsfret ot ttheir onvent'sarrowoom;Andhermitsre contented ith heir ells; 2

-the date of whichhas not been ascertainied.Nordoes t seempossible o establishny preciserelation between he Inscriptionsupyposedo befound n and neara HUermnit'seli five f themcomposedn 1818) and the earliermaterial hatwe have beenstudying. The lines, again,Forthe Spotwhere heHermitagetood n St. Her-bert's sland, Derwent- ater,which belongtothe earlier,Grasmere eriod,are contemporarywith heRecluse; yettheir tmosphereoes notseemcloselyallied to that of the Recltse or Tin-ternAbbey. St. Herbert is interesting becausehe gives a local habitation and a n-ame o oine fWordsworth'shermits, nd because Wordsworthknewsomethinig f his history. But as yet seeno ground for imagining that either he or anyotherparticularrecluse ofthemiddle ages unider-lies the general conception in WordsworthandColeridge. St. Herbert,forexample, was nlotaforest ype ; be lived on an islanid.The holymenof the typehereexaminedappearin Coleridge and Wordsworth chiieflyn poemswrittenbetween 1797 and 1804. A final ex-ample, representingthe latter date, might betaken from the Prelude, where Wordsworth isrelating his experiences in France during theyear 1792, when he walked along the Loire incompanywithBeaupuy:

Fromarliest ialogues slippednthought,And etremembranceteal oother imes,When, 'erthose nterwovenoots,moss-clad,And mooths marblera wavelessea,llAncient Mlariner 33-534; Recluse 605-608, Words-worth,PoeticalWorks, d. Morley, p. 342. Cf. Iliad 6.146-149 ; Dante, Paradiso 26. 137-138.12 Wordsworth,oetical Works, d. Dowden, 3. 3.

SomeHernit, from is cell forth-strayed,ightpaceIn sylvanmeditatiolnndisturbed.13All these passages would gain in significance,if we set beside them several stanzas fromSpenser,

a few well-known lines fromMilton, and a quota-tion from some eighteenth-centurypoet-say Par-nell. The hermit of the nineteenth-century ro-mantic poets is necessarily in large part thecreature of tradition. How much of him is aninheritance, and how much is due to the origin-ality of Wordsworth and Coleridge, may belearnied as well, perhaps, by a brief as by anextended comparison. I would call particularattention to the similarity between the first twostalnzas in Part vii of the Ancient Mariner andthe followinig tanza fromnhle Faerie Queene

A litle lowlyHermitage twas,Down in a dale, hard by a forests ide,Far from esort fpeople thatdid pasIn traveill o and froe: a litlewideTherewas an holy cliappell edifyde,Wherein heHermitedewlywont osayHis liolythiingesach morne and eventyde:Thereby christall treame id gently lay,Whichfrom sacredfountainewelledforth lway.14Were there space, two passages from Milton

might be added: II Penseroso, 67-172, Comus,385-992. There are reminiscences from both inWordsworth's EcclesiasticalSonnets XI, XXII.NYe may close our list with the first ix lines ofParnell's Hermnit, n many ways a fair exampleof what Wordsworth is supposed to have dislikedin the age of Pope:Farina wild, nknownopublic iew,Fromyouth oage a reverendermitrew;Themoss isbed,hisdrinkhe rystal ell;Remote romman,withGod hepass'd hedays,Prayer ll hisbusiness,ll hispleasureraise."1

Here is artificiality with a vengeanice. Yet,after all, is not the type in Wordsworth almostas conventional ?LANE COOPER.Cornetl niversity.

3Prelude 9. 438-443, Poetical Works,. 182.14_. Q. 1. 1. 34. Compare asso,Gcr.Lib. 8. 27,28,41, 42; Ariosto,Orl. ur. 8. 29 ff.15 arniell, oeticalWorks, ldineEdition,p. 100.
