Journeys

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Recommended: The role of imagination in Coleridge's poetry

Imaginative Journeys

The Imaginative Journey is one that is intangible, and remains un-bounded to the realms of the physical world by means of; time, reality and consciousness. It provides the ability to those who undertake such a journey, to consider and thus in some instances comprehend, the cognitive processes of their inner psyche. The poems; “Frost at Midnight”, and “This Lime-Tree Bower my Prison” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge encompass such aspects of the imaginative journey. This is enabled as Coleridge endows the reader with an account of his personal experiences that have at the outset restricted him, but rather as he comes to terms with his predicament he is able to surmount these dilemmas. The children’s novel Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce, also portrays various aspects of the notion of an imaginative journey, which are expressed by the means of dreams within which we are free but whilst awake remain oppressed. Finally the short film A-Z directed by Zenon Kohler, shown in the “2007 Sony Trop-fest finalist CD” renders to the viewer a satirical, example of the inner psyche working defiantly against logic, when in reality it is presented with obstacles and choices.

“Frost at Midnight” is the imaginative journey of Coleridge, as he is left alone with his child under the mystical effects of the frost which “performs its secret ministry.” He is catalysed by the placidity of the milieu, to envisage his childhood through the eye’s of his baby. By doing so he relives some joyous moments of his childhood, whilst also foreseeing some of the delights that were to follow his child’s upbringing. The tone of the poem initially is serine with “The inmates of my cottage, all at rest…My cradled infant slumbers peacefully” giving the reader a perception of absolute silence with correspondence to the effects of the frost, drawing upon sentiments of serenity. The poem soon evolves into Coleridge reliving his childhood with memories such as “how oft, at school…Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower” bringing upon the proposition of Coleridge’s youth, allows readers to emote with his childhood, and take on the journey with him to the surroundings with which he was raised. Coleridge continues to give memories of his youth, with vivid illustrations of his curious nature “Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars…so sweetly that they stirred and haunted me, with a wild pleasure falling on mine ear…For still I hoped to see the stranger’s face.

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