Gothic Elements In Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Christabel

2.1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Christabel”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born in 1772 in Devon, England, is regarded as a precursor of British Romanticism as well as a representative of the writers’ movement named The Lake Poets. Although he did not finish his studies, Coleridge was in his youth initially a scholar of Christ’s Hospital School and subsequently a student of Jesus College in Cambridge. Moreover, the author was politically involved in the French Revolution as a pamphleteer. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his companion William Wordsworth initiated the English Romantic Era with their collection of poems entitled Lyrical Ballads. (“Samuel Taylor Coleridge”)

Written in two parts although never completed, “Christabel” belongs to Coleridge’s

The text appears to be particularly revolutionary because of the fact that it introduces the prototype of female villain and lesbian vampire. The poem takes place in settings typical of Gothic fiction, such as forest, a castle haunted by its late owner or a dark bedchamber, and includes unnatural events – these are for instance ominous sounds, presence of spirits, animals’ howling and Geraldine’s spell. What is more, one’s subconscious and dream-like visions play a significant role since the plot of the poem seems to be expanded upon its figures’ imagination and the strength of their

He was an Irish author born in 1847 in Dublin, who similarly to Joseph Le Fanu, studied at Trinity College, but in contrast to him, Stoker graduated from it with a Master’s degree. He worked as the Daily Telegraph reporter as well as the drama critic for the Dublin Evening Mail and then as the manager of Henry Irving’s theatre, which presumably commenced his writing career. (“Bram Stoker”) Bram Stoker was particularly absorbed not only with the supernatural, Irish legends but also occultism – “various theories and practices involving a belief in and knowledge or use of supernatural forces or beings” (Encyclopaedia