Reflections on the Lovely Lady Christabel

Lorrie Millington: Lady Christabel (1983)

 

 

I.

 

I have to admit, my knowledge of the English Romantic poet Coleridge is fairly limited; I know he was pals with Wordsworth; I know he helped introduce the English-speaking world to German idealism; and I know he was fond of opium. 

 

If pushed, I suppose I would also admit to knowing he was an influential literary critic and dreamed at one time of establishing an egalitarian community on pantisocratic lines. 

 

Oh, and I know of course that he's the author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) and Kubla Khan (completed in 1797, but not published until 1816). 

 

However, it's the long narrative poem Christabel that fascinates me at the moment and which I would like to briefly reflect on here ... 

 

II.

 

Christabel consists of two parts; the first writen in 1797 and the second in 1800. [1]

 

The story concerns a central female character - Christabel - who one day goes into the woods to pray by a large oak tree. There, she encounters a strange young woman named Geraldine, who claims to have been abducted from her home by men on horseback. 

Sympathetic to Geraldine's plight, she takes her home with her and they spend the night together, sharing a bed (this despite a number of supernatural signs that Christabel might have been well-advised to take as warnings). 

Whilst Christabel remains somewhat enchanted by Geraldine, she gradually begins to realise the latter's malign (possibly inhuman) nature. Her father, however, is completely enthralled by the latter and orders a grand procession to celebrate her rescue.

 

Somewhat frustratingly, that's where the (unfinished) poem stops; it appears that Coleridge couldn't quite make up his mind about how to end it.    

 

III.

 

This poem appeals to me for its queer gothic character, founded upon a number of perverse and supernatural elements, and I'm not surprised to learn that Shelley and Byron were both obsessed with Christabel. If it gave the former nightmares, the latter was delighted by its sapphic undertones (the relationship between Christabel and Geraldine is implicitly sexual).   

 

Other writers who have fallen under the poem's spell include Edgar Allan Poe [2], Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu [3], Renée Vivien [4], and A.S. Byatt, who names a fictional romantic poet Christabel in her award-winning novel Possession (1990).  

 

Unsurprisingly, Christabel also became favourite reading amongst feminists; the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, for example, named her daughter in honour of the poem's eponymous heroine (though she might have been more appropriately named Geraldine in my view) [5].   

 

 

IV.

Finally, a brief note on the image used to illustrate this post ...

Initially, I was going to reproduce Julia Margaret Cameron's 1866 photograph named after Coleridge's poem and depicting the titular character [6]. 

But then I remembered that in an old photo album kept in a box in the attic, I still had a picture sent to me by the artist, model, dancer, and writer Lorrie Millington [7] over forty years ago, of a mannequin named Lady Christabel with whom she shared a house in Leeds. 

 

In the summer of 1984, I began writing a 20,000 word novella entitled 'The Girl in the Mystery Castle', about Miss Millington and her relationship with the lovely Lady Christabel and it has always been my intention to one day complete this tale.

 

However, as this now seems very unlikely, I have decided to share the photo here ...

 

If one looks closely enough, one will see that Christabel is wearing a wig that has been braided pirate style and has an Apache war stripe painted across her nose, the reason being that Lorrie and I were both Ant People back in the early-mid '80s.   

 

Notes

 

[1] Coleridge planned on adding three further parts, but these were never completed. The work was published in a pamphlet in 1816, alongside Kubla Khan and another poem, The Pains of Sleep (written 1803). Christabel can be read on the Poetry Foundation website: click here. 

 

[2] Poe's poem 'The Sleeper' (1831) is said to be inspired by Christabel. It can be read on the Poetry Foundation website: click here.

 

[3] Le Fanu based the character of Mircalla, the Countess Karnstein, on Geraldine. See my post of 13 April 2020 on the topic of vampiric lesbianism in which I discuss Le Fanu's novella Carmilla (1872): click here.  

[4] Vivien's 1904 novel L'Etre Double, a lesbian romance, was also inspired by Coleridge's poem Christabel. See my post of 9 October 2013 in praise of sapphic decadence in which I discuss the work of Renée Vivien: click here.

 

[5] I'm not a fan of the militant idealism and the terrorist tactics advocated by Pankhurst, which invariably collapse into the black hole of fascism. See the post dated 17 February 2024 on suffragettes and the BUF: click here. 

 

[6] For more details and to view the photograph, please visit the Met Museum website: click here. And for a post dated 23 June 2023 written with reference to Cameron's photography, click here.  

 

[7] For a post dated 18 April 2015 written in memory of Lorrie Millington, click here.

Why I Love Aleksandra Waliszewska

Aleksandra Waliszewska

waliszewska.blogspot.com
@aleksandrawaliszewska

 

 

I would like to express my affection and admiration for Polish artist Aleksandra Waliszewska ... 

 

I like the fact that she's a bit Old School in her influences and points of reference: early Renaissance painters and Slavic folklore. And I love the fact that her queer gothic vision is often more amusing than terrifying. 

 

For the fact is, whilst the nightmarish symbolism and perverse sexual violence of her work might be dark and often gruesome, the mood seems strangely lighthearted; even the monsters, devils, and demons who populate her pictorial universe alongside fabulous beasts, creepy children, and often mad-looking women make smile.

 

I don't quite know why that is, but suspect it has something to do with her technique, which is detailed and precise, but retains a certain childlike innocence and nonchalance: I think she cares a great deal about her work, but not about what people might think of it (or her); she paints what makes her happy, even if what makes her happy happens to be what others describe as macabre or obscene (or even evil).

 

Below is a (typically) untitled work from 2018, but I like to think it's a self-portrait with her green-eyed cat, Mitusia (who so often acted as her feline muse).  

 

 

 

Notes

 

(i) Readers who are lucky enough may still be able to find a limited edition two volumed collection of work by Aleksandra Waliszewska entitled PROBLEM / SOLUTION (Timeless, 2019), with a foreword by David Tibet and an afterword by Nick Cave. 

      A short promotional video (of sorts) with the same title was made by the artist in collaboration with Jacek Lagowski, featuring Kaja Werbanowska: click here.

 

(ii) Alternatively, those interested in knowing more about Waliszewska and her work might like to purchase a new book published by the University of Chicago Press (2023); The Dark Arts: Aleksandra Waliszewska and Symbolism, ed. Alison M. Gingeras and Natalia Sielewicz.

 

(iii) Waliszewska's imagery has inspired many other artists working in many different fields, including musicians. Here are two short pieces readers may enjoy: the first by Andrea González (2019): click here and the second by Jeff Pagano and Ben Zervigon (animation by Wiktor Striborg): click here.

 

 

Her Rich Attire Creeps Rustling to Her Knees

Image from phantomseduction.tumblr.com

Manufacturers of extremely beautiful and limited edition handmade silk knickers Strumpet and Pink make use of an intriguing tagline or company slogan in their advertising: Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees. 

For those who don't know, this is taken from a famous verse by Keats entitled The Eve of St. Agnes, written in 1819 and published the following year. Considered by many to be amongst his finest poems, it gripped the literary and pornographic imagination of the 19th century telling the tale as it does of a pair of illicit lovers, Madeline and Porphyro.

Keats based his poem on the popular belief that a young girl could summon a future husband to her if she performed certain magical rites on the eve of the feast day of Christian martyr Agnes of Rome, patron saint of virgins. These rites include going to bed without supper, stripping naked and then lying flat on the bed with eyes wide shut facing the heavens, hands kept firmly under the pillow at all times. 

No matter what she experiences, Madeline is instructed by a wise woman to remain silent and supine; only then is the man she yearns for guaranteed to appear - in dream form if not actually in the flesh - and he would come with kindness, kisses and good things to eat for his bride-to-be. 

Originally, Keats played up the erotic aspect of this tale, but his publishers obliged him to tone it down fearing they would be at the centre of a public scandal. Even so, there remain plenty of controversial and kinky aspects: for having secretly stolen into Madeline's bedroom on this very night, Porphyro hides in the closet from where he spies on the girl as she says her prayers, lets down her hair, takes off her jewellery, and then removes her clothes: 

"Anon his heart revives: her vespers done, / Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees; / Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one; / Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees / Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees."

Porphyro continues to play the peeping tom and to perv on Madeline as she lays on the bed in a semi-conscious state, gently trembling with the cold and anticipation. She has never looked more beautiful to him than at this moment, naked in the moonlight; he is entranced by her and the sound of her breathing. He also continues to be fetishistically fascinated by her discarded clothes and gazes long upon her empty dress. 

Finally, believing Madeline to be fast asleep at last, Porphyro creeps out from his hiding place and approaches the bed. His plan is for them to enjoy a midnight feast together of rare exotic delicacies that he has brought along with him, including candied fruit, quince jelly, and spiced syrup. Unfortunately however, he has trouble waking her and when Madeline does rouse she mistakenly thinks him to be part of a dream and pulls Porphyro onto the bed with her - the poem thus taking a sudden diversion into the problematic area of sexsomnia. 

Only after they have consummated their relationship does Madeline fully wake-up and, although feeling vulnerable and violated, she tells Porphyro that she cannot hate him for his actions, as her heart belongs to him. Concerned, however, that, having fucked her, he might now simply abandon her, Madeline seeks some reassurance: she tells him that if he leaves her now she'll be damaged goods; like a forlorn bird with a broken wing. Happily, Porphyro declares his love for her and the two of them elope into the night - like two phantoms.

I'm not sure really what to say about the poem; at 42 stanzas it's certainly lengthy and, at times, slow in pace and dull to read. Nevertheless, its combination of supernatural elements and illicit sexual activity qualify it as an interesting example of queer gothic verse. And although it might seem as if Madeline is both object and victim, it could be of course that the whole thing is just her spectro-masturbatory fantasy; that she simply imagines a fair knight who comes to carry her off to a far-away land and make her his wife against the wishes of her parents - doesn't every girl?