Conversation & Coleridge

Conversation & Coleridge

By Stephen Evans

Thomas De Quincy

1785-1859

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1772-1834

Hannah More

1745-1833

Ultimately, conversation is a highly respected and controlled tool. Hannah More recommends "Humility"

What is meant by "Conversation"?

The Dangers of Conversation

Hannah More's Essays for Young Ladies

"the injurious and irreparable consequences which sometimes attend the too prompt reply, can never be too seriously or too severely condemned."

• Hannah More claims there is a necessity of training in conversation.

• Pertness

• Flippancy

• Imprudence

p.48

"I am at a loss to know why a young female is instructed to exhibit, in the most advantageous point of view, her skill in music, her singing, dancing, taste in dress, and her acquaintance with the most fashionable games and amusements, while her piety is to be anxiously concealed, and her knowledge affectedly disavowed..."

• The power of conversation
• Conversation as a skill or as opportunity to be virtuous
• The use of conversation
• Flattery
• Showing of interest
• The improvement of wit

"In company, young ladies would do well before they speak, to reflect, if what they are going to say may not distress some worthy person present..."

p.49

Thoughts on Conversation, p. 38-39

"They will also frequently argue from exceptions instead of rules, and are astonished when you are not willing to be contented with a prejudice, instead of a reason."

"How easily and effectually may a well-bred woman promote the most useful and elegant conversation, almost without speaking a word!"

p.52-53

"Had the nightingale in the fable conquered his vanity, and resisted the temptation of shewing a fine voice, he might have escaped the talons of the hawk. The melody of his singing was the cause of his destruction; his merit brought him into danger, and his vanity cost him his life."

Thoughts on Conversation, p.40

p.61-62

p.153

"It would be better... ...if nine in ten of the winged words flying about in this world... ...had their feathers clipped amongst men, or even against women, who have a right to a larger allowance of words"

The ultimate problem, which closed the curriculum of study, was held to be spitting round a corner; when that was mastered, the pupil was entitled to his doctor's degree. Endless are the purposes of man... ...Yet for conversation, the great paramount purpose of social meetings, no art exists or has been attempted.

p.151

Thomas De Quincy's The Art of Conversation

What is meant by "Conversation"?

• De Quincy also saw conversation as a skill

• Conversation is not perceived as related to intellect

• De Quincy implies most conversation is wasteful or otherwise undesirable.

The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem

How can these views be used to understand conversation in literature?

• Which of Julia and Caroline in Letters for Literary Ladies is acting with concern for Pertness, Flippancy and Imprudence?
• Which suffers as a result of their actions?

• In Sense and Sensibility Marianne and Elizabeth both engage in different types of Conversation. Does either stance benefit or harm these female characters in the literature?

• Coleridge uses personal language, such as "You, I, My Friend, Thou and Our Sister" creating an air of intimacy.

And one low piping sound more sweet than all—

Stirring the air with such a harmony,

That should you close your eyes, you might almost

Forget it was not day! On moon-lit bushes,

Whose dewy leaflets are but half disclosed,

You may perchance behold them on the twigs,

Their bright, bright eyes, their eyes both bright and full,

Glistening, while many a glow-worm in the shade

Lights up her love-torch.

From the heart... ...springs all permanent elloquence; and the elastic spring of conversation is gone, if the talker is a mere showy man of talent, pulling an ore which he detests.

• Expressive language
• Importance of the Audience
• Imparting of Information
• The Sublime

"There sometimes arises glimpses, and shy revelations of affinity, suggestion, relation, analogy, that could not have been approached through any avenues of methodical study."

p.155

p.161

Appropriation

What is meant by "Conversation"?

• De Quincy suggests conversation has unique power

• To use conversation effectively requires passion to be successful. De Quincy is arguing it has a sublime quality which, in imitations, does not prove strong.

Conclusion

• Coleridge's language and tone both remain dominant and empowered even when his poetic character loses his awe to a sense of duty.

...for Coleridge, unless he could have all the talk, would have none. But then this was not conversation. It was not talking with the audience, it was talking to the audience

Now, the ancient Greeks had an officer appointed over every convivial meeting, whose function applied to all cases of doubt or interruption that could threaten the genial harmony, or, perhaps, the genial movement intellectually, of the company

The Art of Conversation p.170

The Art of Conversation p.177

Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement (2)

• Conversation in Romantic literature may not obey rules of conversation as dictated by essayists of the Romantic period, but may instead perform the functional component of conversation in provoking interest and discussion.

• Conversation, when interpreted through Coleridge's poetry, is deliberately expressive and provocative, and reflects passion as well as strength of ideas.

Praise, praise it, O my Soul! oft as thou scann'st

The sluggard Pity's vision-weaving tribe!

Who sigh for Wretchedness, yet shun the Wretched,

Nursing in some delicious solitude

Their slothful loves and dainty sympathies!

I therefore go, and join head, heart, and hand,

Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight

Of Science, Freedom, and the Truth in Christ.

• 8 Poems
• The Elolian Harp
• Reflections On Having Left a Place of Retirement
• This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison
• Frost at Midnight
• Fears in Solitude
• The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem
• Dejection: An Ode
• To William Wordsworth

Coleridge's Conversation Poems

• De Quincy notes that when Coleridge was talking, his attempt at conversation was, despite the passion and feeling, not true conversation as the art he describes
• To what extent is Coleridge's poetry "conversational".

• Coleridge's language makes jumps between images - directly preceding this, "The Channel, the Islands..." These poems become conversational through the expressive manner in which they are conveyed to the reader.
• Coleridge is displaying the passion in this literature which is claimed by De Quincy to be essential for artful Conversation.

Coleridge uses grand imagery, then followed rapidly with an intense emotional reaction

Omnipresence and references to God are both useful in affecting a spiritually passionate language

Coleridge uses personal language to create a tone in which the story is not simply being told or shown, but is instead imparted by a character.

It seem'd like Omnipresence! God, methought,

Had built him there a Temple: the whole World

Seem'd in its vast circumference:

No profan'd my overwhelmed heart.

Blest hour! It was a luxury ,-to be!

Reflections on Having Left a Place of Retirement