It is now September, and I know for many of you that means it’s time to go back to school. It’s become a yearly tradition for me to put together a reading list of Gothic works you may encounter on your English syllabus. So far, I’ve done my initial Back to School Reading List of Gothic novels, a Short Story Edition, and a Drama Edition. Now it’s time to tackle poetry! Here are a few of the darker poems you may come across in class:
1) Paradise Lost by John Milton
This seventeenth-century epic poem isn’t a Gothic work per se, but it was profoundly influential on later Gothic writers. For instance, Mary Shelley references it directly throughout the text of Frankenstein: a quote from Paradise Lost appears as the epigraph on the novel’s title page, and the poem is one of the three books that the Creature owns and through which he learns to understand the world around him. Paradise Lost picks up immediately after Satan’s fall from heaven and goes on to tell the story of his involvement in the fall of man. The poem contains many proto-Gothic elements, most notably its focus on Satan as a somewhat sympathetic anti-hero. By casting the villain of the story as its central protagonist, Paradise Lost prefigures later Gothic works like Matthew Lewis’s The Monk. Milton’s Satan also becomes a model for the later character trope of the Byronic hero. He is deeply flawed and morally imperfect, but he is also charismatic, beautifully tragic, and irresistibly alluring. Don’t let the challenging language and stylized structure of Paradise Lost scare you off, it’s actually a really fun read!
2) “Christabel” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Christabel” is an unfinished two-part narrative ballad by Coleridge, one of the leading poets of the Romantic Movement. In the poem, a young woman named Christabel goes outside at night where she meets a mysterious woman named Geraldine who claims to have been abducted. In pity, Christabel takes Geraldine home with her, but strange supernatural occurrences hint that the lady may not be what she seems. Just as Christabel begins to sense that something is wrong, her father becomes smitten with Geraldine and dashes any hopes of a speedy departure. But exactly what Geraldine is we’ll never learn, since that’s where the poem ends! This haunting tale of a wraith-like woman would prove to be a major influence on the later poet, Edgar Allan Poe. Themes from “Christabel” also find strong parallels in Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s early vampire tale, Carmilla.
3) “Lamia” by John Keats
John Keats was another celebrated Romantic poet. Though he is perhaps best known for his odes, such as “Ode on Melancholy” and “Ode to a Nightingale,” many students also read his longer narrative poem “Lamia,” which features a malevolent serpent-woman from Greek mythology. In Keats’ poem, Hermes comes across Lamia as a serpent and returns her to her human form after she does him a good turn. Lamia then goes and courts a Corinthian man named Lycius, but the sage Apollonius reveals her true identity at their wedding feast. Lamia then vanishes with a scream and Lycius dies of grief. Like Geraldine in “Christabel,” Lamia is a woman whose outward beauty conceals her inner monstrous nature—in this case she quite literally is a monster, taking the form of a giant snake.
4) “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe
But not all women in Gothic poetry are monsters! Many of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems focus on a beautiful and virtuous woman whose death the speaker mourns. After “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee” is probably his other most popular poem on this theme. With melodic verses that continuously repeat the phrases “kingdom by the sea” and “Annabel Lee,” this poem tells the story of a young couple who were so in love with each other that the angels grew jealous and sent a chilling wind to kill the woman. Many years later, her lover still mourns beside her tomb. While “The Raven” ends on a note of despair when the speaker realizes he’ll be grieving for his lost love forever, “Annabel Lee” is a more uplifting portrayal of grief, celebrating a love that cannot be defeated even by death. It’s also a great text to use for studying rhyme and repetition in poetry.
5) “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti
Speaking of romantic, let us take took at another poet who continued the tradition of the earlier Romantics: Christina Rossetti. She is best known today for her fairy tale-like poem “Goblin Market,” which tells the story of two young sisters who encounter a band of goblin men selling fruit along the riverbank. While Lizzie resists the allure of the fruit, Laura gives into temptation and gorges herself one night. Afterward, however, she grows ill and begins to waste away, pining for the fruit. Lizzie must confront the goblin men and endure their wrath in order to bring some of the fruit juice home to save her sister.
The poem is highly allegorical, with the fruit representing temptation and sexuality. Many critics also highlight the homoerotic overtones in the poem. Unlike in the poems of Coleridge and Keats above, the women in this poem aren’t the monsters. Rather, they resemble the archetypal Gothic heroine whose virginal purity is endangered by monstrous men. Lizzie is the more passive version of this heroine, who falls victim and needs to be rescued—though notably she is saved by her sister and not a dashing young man as was the case in many early Gothic novels. Laura resembles the more active Gothic heroines that we see in the works of feminist writers.
Are any of these poems on your syllabus this year? What about other Gothic poems? Share your thoughts with me in the comments, and good luck with your classes!