Coleridge contributed 4 poems to Lyrical Ballads – nearly all Wordsworth’s
The Rime of the Ancient mariner , in length is a quarter of the series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrical_Ballads
“According to Wordsworth, the poem was inspired while Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy were on a walking tour through the Quantock Hills in Somerset.[6] The discussion had turned to a book that Wordsworth was reading,[7] that described a privateering voyage in 1719 during which a melancholy sailor, Simon Hatley, shot a black albatross. Punishment for a crime like the beginning of The Dungeon: Prescribed by man’s laws:
“Is this the only cure?” L 5[See the commemorative statue at Watchet, Somerset: the albatross hangs on a rope looped around the ancient mariner’s neck.
“Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.”[3]: lines 139–142 ]
As they discussed Shelvocke’s book, Wordsworth proffered the following developmental critique to Coleridge, which importantly contains a reference to tutelary spirits: “Suppose you represent him as having killed one of these birds on entering the south sea, and the tutelary spirits of these regions take upon them to avenge the crime.”[6] Nature as avenger of wrong’s done while looking at The Dungeon or Nightingale, I see him trying to express an aspect of mysticism within Nature’s effect on humans as cleansing/purifying/ – as its effect on the animal/plant world is … since we hardly ‘know’ what it might be. We’re imprisoned by our sin;
However, if one looks at The Dungeon or Nightingale, I see him expressing aspect sof mysticism ‘within’ Nature’s effect on humans, cleansing/purifying; as its effect on the animal/plant kingdoms … we hardly ‘know’ what it ‘is’. We’re prisoners for our sins/our society:
“With other ministrations thou, O Nature !
Healest thy wandering and distemper’d child :
Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,
Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,
Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,
Till he relent, and can no more endure
To be a jarring and a dissonant thing,
Amid this general dance and minstrelsy ;
But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,
His angry spirit heal’d and harmoniz’d
By the benignant touch of Love and Beauty.”
Shows a different approach; idealistic, natural healing not according to man’s harsh unbending laws ( much like Wm Blake)
A quote by Coleridge helpful to see what the LB was ‘about’ : IMO
In Biographia Literaria:
The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural, and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. And real in this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency. For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life … In this idea originated the plan of the Lyrical Ballads; in which it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least Romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. … With this view I wrote the Ancient Mariner.[13]
Romanticism young and fresh blooming! Much different 33 years later, as Boney dies on St Helena & Thomas ‘s Manning in Dartford- and what about the General ? General Bertrand exiled with Boney, his aide de camp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Gatien_Bertrand
“He died at Châteauroux on 31 January 1844 and buried in Les Invalides.[1]
Alexandre Dumas mentions Bertrand in the earlier pages of his well-known novel The Count of Monte Cristo. He is also mentioned in Book II Chapter 1 of Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanny_Dillon
“As Grand Marshal of the Palace since 1813, Bertrand chose to accompany his emperor into exile on Elba in 1814, where Fanny soon joined him. She later told Gourgaud that at this time she had been the one to inform Napoleon of Josephine’s death.[9] Following Waterloo, Fanny and her husband followed Napoleon aboard Bellerophon and to St Helena. She was present in the room at Longwood at Napoleon’s death on 5 May 1821, after which she and her family returned to England.”
Thomas Manning, Sinologist, visited St Helena in 1817 on his way home:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Manning_(sinologist)
[I found this later: A proper translation by Frances Hume]
As far as Manning’s visit to St Helena in 1817 I’ve found the 4th vol of General Bertrand’s Notebooks and translated the first part. This is the end of the Little Corporal, his last year or so. Looking over the intro I see the claim there’s a lot of material available- but is it mostly in French? An earlier vol may mention Manning’s visit specifically. This is the 4th volume of their “St Helena” material but makes no mention of Manning nor his visit .
Saint Helena: sources and bibliography: Napoleonic materials …
“With Saint Helena, however, we are dealing with one of the most documented moments in Napoleon’s journey. There is no shortage of primary sources and are generally accessible without any effort other than sometimes having to travel a little… or a lot: the archives of Governor Lowe (Paris, London), his superior Bathurst, the English Minister of Foreign Affairs Castlereagh, of the Royal Navy, of the East India Company, owner of the island of Saint Helena (London), of the allied governments (Paris, London, Vienna, Berlin, Moscow), of the local authorities of Saint Helena – for the consultation of which you still have to go to the island – the private papers (many of which, fortunately, are kept in public repositories). This set represents thousands of pages of reports and correspondence.
“We are just as well endowed with secondary sources, with several dozen published memoirs and testimonies 2 . Because, from his departure from the island of Aix (July 15, 1815) to his arrival on the island at the end of the world, three months later, from his installation at the Briars pavilion to his death in the living room of the house from Longwood, the Emperor was constantly surrounded and approached, undoubtedly more than at any other period of his life. ” Pp 1-3
” … the Notebooks of General Henri Gatien Bertrand, long ignored and published from 1949 by Paul Fleuriot de Langle 19 , in an edition which we judged could be completed and improved, using the very sources of the original manuscript, preserved in the National Archives , for the years 1820-1821; this new edition will constitute the fourth and final volume of our “Library of Saint Helena”…
“Journal has more value because it was written on the spot, in often crude terms, something the first publishers have deprived their readers of until today . In fact, the general did not seek to create a literary work, but more often than not took notes with a view to future memoirs and expressed himself “like an artilleryman” (sometimes in unison with Napoleon). For the first time, we enter here into the deep feelings of an author of Memoirs and an actor of the Helenian psychodrama: the daily life of Napoleon is as present as the states of mind – including jealousy, towards Las Cases then the Montholons, is the most constant. We then enter a house in Longwood that is not as serene and organized as we had thought. There is a lot of “human” in Gourgaud’s testimony. We will give the full version for the first time, including its embarrassing aspects.” P 18
“There remains Bertrand, the most astonishing of the great figures of exile. Let us recall in a few words that this general was not just anyone. He had participated in most military campaigns, from Italy (1797) to Austria (1809), before becoming governor general of the Illyrian Provinces (April 1811-February 1813) and, finally, grand marshal of the palace, function essential in the Napoleonic “machine”, responsible for maintaining the premises and distributing housing, but also for order and security. One day when the emperor was arguing with Hudson Lowe, as usual over questions of etiquette over which Bertrand had clashed with the governor, he said that one should not insult “a man so well known and so revered in Europe as the Grand Marshal 24 ”. He was not saying something wrong because, after the exile himself, Bertrand is the most remarkable member of the French colony of Saint Helena. It has long been deplorable that he did not write his Memoirs. Almost no one knew that he had taken notes for himself, in a personal handwriting, if not coded at least abbreviated. When they were discovered in his papers, their decipherment required his first publisher, Paul Fleuriot de Langle, a long work which we noted could be completed and sometimes improved, particularly for the years 1820 and 1821. We will discover there the sad life at Longwood during the tragic end of captivity, Napoleon being “stripped of his halo 25 ”. [Pp 21-23]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_Balcombe
She was there until 1818 and allegedly on ‘very friendly terms’ with ‘Boney’:
“The French officers and servants were jealous of the young English girl, who addressed Napoleon as “Boney”, without being reprimanded by him.
Balcombe often visited Napoleon after he was removed to Longwood House. The European press recognised the relationship between the 47-year-old Napoleon and the teenage girl and wrote about a love story. ”
Betsy’s dad worked for the EIC which had owned it; the Crown took it over while Nap was there & gave it back to the Crown in 1831
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_India_Act_1833:
” Control of the island of Saint Helena was transferred from the East India Company to the Crown.[2]“
Here’s enough interesting characters for a 2 hour screenplay: Manning arrives + with his deep hard -earned Far Eastern life knowledge , another disappointed Romantic …
Europe was full of them by the 1820s!
“Napoleon, or more exactly Bonaparte, the revolutionary general, the overthrower of old monarchies and creator of new national republics, the organizing genius who rescued France from chaos and who held off the reactionary forces leagued against him throughout Europe—that figure is the one that inspired Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, Balzac’s and Stendhal’s heroes, and the poems, paintings, and compositions of many others. Here was the model of the new man. He was the self-made man and the man of genius. His career was the manifestation of will and intelligence overcoming the greatest imaginable resistance. He typified the individual challenging the world and subduing it by his genius. A movement that numbered as many artists and geniuses as did Romanticism was bound to find in Napoleon the individual par excellence or, as might be said in modern jargon, a supremely autonomous personality.
“This perception explains why nearly all the great names of the first half of the 19th century are found on the roster of those who praised Napoleon—from Beethoven and Byron to Hazlitt and Stendhal and Manzoni. Some who were politically his enemies—Sir Walter Scott, for example—nonetheless respected and pondered over the miracle of his achievements. No comparable attention has been paid to the dictators of the 20th century, a fact sufficiently explained by the real difference between them and Napoleon.”
” Stendhal, who as a military intendant took part in the Russian campaign of 1812, stated that difference: Napoleon was a man of thought and vision, and not merely a successful soldier and politician. In everything he touched, he showed originality of conception, a stupendous grasp of detail in execution, and the utmost speed in acting out his vision. This sequence, translated to other realms, was the very pattern of the artist-creator’s imagination. It also seemed the vindication of individualism as a philosophy of life: open the world to the individual and the world will witness marvels unimagined before.
These remarks about Napoleon should convey a sense of the Romantics’ attitude toward themselves and their situation. It is true that culturally they stood in opposition to their immediate forebears. All generations do the same; yet it is not always true that out of the conflict comes great art. The Romanticists had an advantage in undergoing or being emotionally close to a quarter century of violent change. Besides being a stimulus, the tumult of battle and political overturns did its share to clear the ground for artistic innovation. When habits and expectations are repeatedly upset and frustrated in the broad public realm, the general mind opens up to novelty offered in other realms. That is one avenue of cultural, stylistic, and emotional change. When Stendhal was expounding Romanticism to the French in 1822, he argued that to go on writing in the Neoclassic vein was “to provide literary pleasure for one’s grandfather.” His remark was readily understood—at least by his young readers. Mighty events had dug a chasm between past and present, making plain the remoteness of the 18th century.”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/General-character-of-the-Romantic-movement
We’re living through a comparable time of upheaval & turbulence 200 years later
The reason given for Napoleon’s defeat was the united strength of the ‘Bonny Bunch of Roses’ – England + Scotland+ Ireland. How things have changed!
Three independent nations no longer united against a common enemy: It seems they’re united in striving for separation. Don’t know about Wales …