A READING OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE’S “WORK WITHOUT HOPE” IN THE LIGHT OF HORACE’S “ARS POETICA”

“Work Without Hope” is a 14-line poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1825. It presents the author’s musing of nature’s busyness in contrast to his emotional self. It is a romantic poem which presents nature as a reflection of beauty and of human’s emotions as well.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, according to Bio.com (2013),

…was born on October 21, 1772 in Devon, England. A friend to poet William Wordsworth, Coleridge was a founder of the English Romantic Movement. His best known poems are "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan," the latter of which was reportedly written under the influence of opium. Coleridge died in 1834.

To help read and analyse the poem “Work Without Hope” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Horace, a Roman Poet, expressed some guidelines of writing Poetry in his work, “Ars Poetica” or “The Art of Poetry”. “Ars Poetica” deals with the art of poetry under three heads: the subject matter, the form, and the poet.

This paper will point out the rules stated by Horace in “Ars Poetica”, which include the Subject-Matter, Diction, Purpose, Form and Content Match, and Feelings, to help read and analyse Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Work Without Hope”.

Subject-Matter

The subject of poetry, according to Horace, must be within the limitations of the writer’s power:

You who write, choose a subject that’s matched by

 Your powers, consider deeply what your shoulders

Can and cannot bear. Whoever chooses rightly 

Eloquence, and clear construction, won’t fail him. (167)

            This points out to the writer’s field of knowledge or expertise. A writer must know his limitations as a writer and make them as subjects in his poetry. For Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as a Romantic Poet, he chose nature and human’s emotions as subjects in his poem “Work Without Hope”. The persona in the poem can be Coleridge himself and the emotions reflected in the poem may be from his own emotional state and experience.

            According to Professor Mandell of Miami University (2003), Coleridge went to Cambridge in 1791 for poetic fame but soon got ill during this time and began taking laudanum as a drug for his illness. This started his addiction in opium that resulted in his being penniless while turning at a Newspaper work. “No matter how hard he worked at his writing, there was still no hope of ever making a decent wage that he would not throw away on acquiring more laudanum.” (Mandell, 2003). It is by his laudanum addiction that he became hopeless in life, and this hopelessness was being reflected in his poem “Work Without Hope” in the last four lines:

With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll: 

And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? 

WORK WITHOUT HOPE draws nectar in a sieve, 

And HOPE without an OBJECT cannot live. (Coleridge, 1825)

Coleridge describes his addicted person by saying that he strolls “with lips unbrighten’d” and his brow “wreathless”. The “spells” he mentions in the twelfth line are the spells of his addiction that “drowse[s] [his] soul”. Lastly, the last two lines summarize the overall subject of the poem which is based on the author’s life’s experience. To work without hope is impossible like drawing “nectar in a sieve”. Coleridge worked but he did not have hope of having a good life because his wage could not sustain him especially that he spends all of it for laudanum. “HOPE without an OBJECT cannot live” because people could not just hope without something to hope for. The author hopes for a better life but his laudanum addiction caused by his depression regarding his illness prevents him from getting enough wage that could sustain his living. Being a poet, Coleridge imitated a real experience and produced his poem reflecting that experience, as in Horace’s advice in “Ars Poetica”:

I’d advise one taught by imitation to take life,

And real behaviour, for his examples, and extract

Living speech” (177)

Diction

Horace in his “Ars Poetica”, like Aristotle in his “Poetics”, mentioned that the words chosen by the poet must not be like the language of common people:

As a writer of Satyr plays, dear Pisos, I’d not

Embrace only tame and simple verbs and nouns” (174)

 “Work Without Hope” by Coleridge possesses the proper diction that Horace was describing. The poet used words that are formal and not used commonly by people like “slugs”, “lair”, “slumbering”, “ken”, “amaranths”, “fount”, “whence”, and “ye”. These words are proper for a poem. Coleridge also used a word that is of Greek origin as “amaranths” [Greek amarantos "not corruptible, not fading"] (Encarta Dictionary, 2013), which Horace mentioned in “Ars Poetica” to gain acceptance:

“Indeed, new-minted words will gain acceptance

That spring from the Greek fount, and are sparingly used.” (168)

Purpose

Horace stated that the poet’s aim in writing his poetry is to delight or to inform what is “both enjoyable and helpful to living” (178). In addition, he also mentioned that to combine these purposes is favourable:

The ranks of our elders drive out what lacks virtue,

The Ramnes, the young knights, reject dry poetry:

Who can blend usefulness and sweetness wins every

Vote, at once delighting and teaching the reader.

That’s the book that earns the Sosii money, crosses

The seas, and wins its author fame throughout the ages. (Horace, 178)

In “Work Without Hope”, Coleridge has combined delight and information through his imageries and theme. With the imageries of the busy nature in the first four lines, Coleridge pleased his readers:

ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair—
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing—
And WINTER, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! (Coleridge, 1825)

We can see visual imageries, as well as feel tactile imageries, in the poem. We can see the slugs leaving their lair, the bees stirring, and birds flying. We can also feel the coldness of winter. These imageries give pleasure to us as we are reading it. With regard to the purpose of teaching, Coleridge explicitly tells us the lesson in the last two lines: “WORK WITHOUT HOPE draws nectar in a sieve, And HOPE without an OBJECT cannot live.” (Coleridge, 1825). He says that work and hope are worthless if they do not go together. Working without hope is impossible, as hoping without an object to hope for could not sustain. These lessons could help us in living life.

Combined with the imageries of nature that is enjoyable for the readers and the lesson from the author’s experience that is helpful to life, Coleridge conforms to Horace’s advice of combining usefulness and sweetness in poetry.

Form and Content Match

Horace stated that Form and Content should match together, which means that the poet’s style must be proper. By proper, Horace means that the serious and trivial matters should not be written in the same way. If it is a serious matter, it should not be written in a trivial way, and vice versa, so the readers would not be confused and could react appropriately to the content as he reads. In “Ars Poetica”, Horace said:

Your troubles might pain me: speak inappropriately

And I’ll laugh or fall asleep. Sad words suit a face

Full of sorrow, threats fit the face full of anger,

Jests suit the playful, serious speech the solemn. (169)

S. T. Coleridge in “Work Without Hope” matched his form with the content of his poetry. Because it is of a serious matter, Coleridge wrote it in serious form. However, the poet has never extended his emotions in long verses. He limited his poetry only in a form of 14 lines: six lines describing the contrasting activity of nature and his addicted self, another six lines for the persona’s rejection of nature’s beauty to shine over him, and the last two lines stating the overall point of the poem.

The reason of the poem’s form which is limited only to 14 lines can be explained through the purpose of poetry. To repeat what has been stated earlier, the purpose of the poet is to entertain or to instruct.

Horace advises in “Ars Poetica” that:

When you give instruction, be brief, what’s quickly

Said the spirit grasps easily, faithfully retains:

Everything superfluous flows out of a full mind. (178)

            Coleridge gives the instruction only in two concluding lines in “Work Without Hope” following Horace’s advice. These lines are:

WORK WITHOUT HOPE draws nectar in a sieve, 

And HOPE without an OBJECT cannot live. (Coleridge, 1825)

This therefore proves that S.T. Coleridge’s “Work Without Hope” is a work of beauty and substance as it matches Form and Content.

Feelings

In order for a poetry to be called a poetry, it must contain, not just only pleasure or information, but also feelings emanating from the poet’s thoughts and emotions. As Horace puts it:

It’s not enough for poems to have beauty: they must have

Charm, leading their hearer’s heart wherever they wish.

As the human face smiles at a smile, so it echoes

Those who weep: if you want to move me to tears

You must first grieve yourself… (169)

Horace points out in his “Ars Poetica” that in order for the poet to inspire emotions to his readers, he must first experience the feeling that he wants his audience to feel. Earlier in this paper, it is stated that Coleridge himself experienced the hopelessness and idleness that contrasts with the behaviour of nature in the poem.

In “Work Without Hope” , While Nature is “at work”, the persona is a “sole unbusy thing”. While Nature is in the Winter season that dreams of a SPRING “with his smiling face”, the persona, in contrast, does not make honey, “nor pair, nor build, nor sing”. Like the persona, Coleridge is an unbusy thing, an idle creature, a hopeless poet. He could just watch nature doing his works while he stays unmoved because of his illness and addiction. He is not a participant of the beautiful work of life. He is not cooperating with nature. He is hopeless. He is just a mere observer who muses for his unbusy life and not dream of spring like Nature because he does not have hope. He remains in winter coldness without a smiling face for a dream – only “lips unbrighten’d” and a “wreathless brow”. Through this experience, Coleridge inspires his readers to feel the persona’s musings and to sympathize with the speaker of the poem.

Conclusion

Horace’s “Ars Poetica” presented rules and included advice for poets in writing their poetry. These rules dealt with the Subject-Matter, Diction, Purpose, Form and Content Match, and Feelings. These rules were followed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem “Work Without Hope” (1825). With the rules followed, Coleridge’s Subject-Matter for his poetry is within his limitations. As a Romantic poet, he chose nature and human’s emotions as his subject, as well as his own life’s experience. The Diction used by Coleridge contains words that are not used commonly by ordinary people. Coleridge’s purpose in writing the poem is to delight and to teach his readers as what Horace pointed out. The poet also matched Form and Content in his poem, that is, a serious content was matched with a serious form of writing. Lastly, Coleridge’s poem evoked feelings from his poem because he first experienced the feeling being evoked because the poem is imitated from his life. This proves that Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Work Without Hope” contains the proper elements of a poem in the light of Horace’s “Ars Poetica”.

APPENDIX

“Work Without Hope”

By Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1825)

ALL Nature seems at work. Slugs leave their lair— 
The bees are stirring—birds are on the wing— 
And WINTER, slumbering in the open air, 
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring! 
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, 
Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing. 

Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow, 
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow. 
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may, 
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away! 
With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll: 
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul? 
WORK WITHOUT HOPE draws nectar in a sieve, 
And HOPE without an OBJECT cannot live.

 Works Cited

“amaranth”. Encarta Dictionaries. Microsoft® Encarta® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. 05 July 2013.

 “Samuel Taylor Coleridge Biography”. Bio.com. © 1996–2013 A+E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Web. 05 July 2013. [http://www.biography.com/people/samuel-taylor-coleridge-9253238].

“The Satyrs, Epistles, and Ars Poetica by Horace”. Translated by A. S. Kline. © 2005 All Rights Reserved.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. “Work Without Hope”. 1825.

Mandell, Laura. “Biography of S.T.C.”. Miami University Website. 22 April 2003. Web. 05 July 2013. [http://www.orgs.muohio.edu/anthologies/bijou/vissat/biography.htm]