코울리지의 「크리스터벨」 -'여성적 글쓰기'

Coleridge's "Christabel" as l'écriture féminine

Coleridge's fame as a poet rests on the achievement of the mystery poems, "The Anceint Mariner," "Kubla Khan," and "Christabel." Coleridge's achievement in "Christabel" goes far beyond what previous critics have imagined. Coleridge is one of a handful of great writers who are included as representatives of androgyny. Throughout his life, Coleridge was accustomed to point out feminine qualities within himself. "Christabel" exemplifies the kind of writing contemporary feminist theories call l'écriture féminine. L'écriture féminine is not necessarily the creation of women but may rather be the works of those who refuse to identify with the father and the laws of paternal discourse. "Christabel" becomes Coleridge's most daring symbolic story. "Christabel" appears in its full significance as a vehicle for some profound insights into the dynamics of relationships between men and women, fathers and daughters. Through her deformity, Geraldine is actually the casualty of her father's hatred of women, and is the embodiment of all its anti-virtual aspects. The poem shows no bitterness against women, only compassion and remorse. Coleridge is sympathetically presenting Christabel's suffering as a woman at the hands of an overmastering man. Also, "Christabel" demonstrates woman power as well. In fact, the one person whose tales have any real effect within this narrative is the ambiguous Geraldine. Geraldine excels at story-telling, at making words act for her. Perhaps, despite the appearance of the surface, in which men hold all the cards, it is in fact women, or the feminine, so necessary to procreation and creativity, who hold sway here. This apparent dominion of the feminine derives at least partly from Coleridge's use of the conventions of that feminine genre, the Gothic romance. L'écriture féminine is a concept defined by its divergence from a dominant cultural norm. One may speculate that the fragmentary state of "Christabel" and "Kubla Khan" is in fact congruent with this mode of writing. If these poems imply a theoretical écriture féminine, they are by definition "incomplete," for completeness is a standard of patriarchal language and culture. More perplexing even than the other "mystery poems," "Christabel" is the true fragment of the three.