Essay - Eolian Harp Samuel Coleridge's Poem 'Eolian Harp' is a Poetic...

Eolian Harp

Samuel Coleridge's poem "Eolian Harp" is a poetic depiction of the choices we make in life and the consequences we accept from those choices.

"Be but organic harps diversely framed" (Coleridge 45). What Coleridge seems to be saying ***** that each individual could in all actuality be a God designed '***** Harp' echo*****g the sounds of the 'one intellectual breeze' (***** 47) that is instilled in each man's soul and with which he has been contemplating for quite a long period of time. If th***** is truly what the narra*****r ***** *****, then the use ***** ***** word 'plastic' in line ***** gives the reader pause to examine why ***** narrator would use that particular word in regards to a hum*****n harp shaped by God's design.

Plastic does not seem to go with the other ********** in ***** line, or even in that stanza. The narrator could be thinking of the physical bodies of man, and how plastic they seem to *****, or he could be referring to the Eolian Harps that *****re alluded ***** in many poems at ***** time (the footnotes for this part of the poem states that an Eoli***** ***** was a "favorite household furnishing that was repeatedly alluded to in Romantic poetry.) ***** he were referring ***** ***** as it was used *****n, he ***** referring to ***** ***** seem to be a false sense of the world. Which is almost exactly opposite of what current readers think when they see the word plastic. It is also interesting ***** Coleridge used that ********** phrase in a poem supposedly written ***** his wife. His use of the word 'plastic' ***** analyzed from that viewpoint is very telling indeed.

Although many experts believe that Coleridge wrote t***** poem to his wife, Sara, and though this is the prevailing line ***** thinking, some disagree, saying that his wife Sara was a tad ***** feisty to be described as 'pensive Sara' (***** 1).

"The inference ***** ***** figure of 'My pensive ***** in Samuel Taylor ***** poem 'The Eolian Harp', is a reference to the poet's *****, Sara Fricker Goelridge, h***** become *****ficial convention with its specific references to the period of the Coleridges' engagement and the site of *****ir first home, a***** ***** Coleridges's tendency to use *****uthobiographical material ***** his poetry, makes this inference ***** reasonable" (Ross 17).

***** there is a difference between the ***** and the poet could be a key distinction in ***** particular poem. If we assume that Coleridge is actually the narrator, and that he ***** address*****g the poem to his wife, *****n we can also safely assume that his use ***** the ***** plastic was meant as a ***** subtle hint to his wife that she should probably not take ***** the poem says too seriously.

***** experts have taken this same tack, including Harper in 1925. ***** sates; "the conclusion of the ***** seemingly depicts Coleridge rejecting in toto all of ***** metaphysics expressed in the poem and