Analysis of The Improvisatore
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 (Ottery St Mary) – 1834 (Highgate)
Scene--A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining.
Katharine. What are the words ?
Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore ; here he comes. Kate has a favour
to ask of you, Sir ; it is that you will repeat the ballad [Believe me if
all those endearing young charms.--EHC's ? note] that Mr. ____ sang so
sweetly.
Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies ; but I do not recollect the
words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this :--
Love would remain the same if true,
When we were neither young nor new ;
Yea, and in all within the will that came,
By the same proofs would show itself the same.
Eliza. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont and Fletcher, which my
mother admired so much ? It begins with something about two vines so close
that their tendrils intermingle.
Friend. You mean Charles' speech to Angelina, in The Elder Brother.
We'll live together, like two neighbour vines,
Circling our souls and loves in one another !
We'll spring together, and we'll bear one fruit ;
One joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn ;
One age go with us, and one hour of death
Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy.
Katharine. A precious boon, that would go far to reconcile one to old
age--this love--if true ! But is there any such true love ?
Friend. I hope so.
Katharine. But do you believe it ?
Eliza (eagerly). I am sure he does.
Friend. From a man turned of fifty, Katharine, I imagine, expects a
less confident answer.
Katharine. A more sincere one, perhaps.
Friend. Even though he should have obtained the nick-name of
Improvisatore, by perpetrating charades and extempore verses at
Christmas times ?
Eliza. Nay, but be serious.
Friend. Serious ! Doubtless. A grave personage of my years giving a
Love-lecture to two young ladies, cannot well be otherwise. The
difficulty, I suspect, would be for them to remain so. It will be
asked whether I am not the `elderly gentleman' who sate `despairing
beside a clear stream', with a willow for his wig-block.
Eliza. Say another word, and we will call it downright affectation.
Katharine. No ! we will be affronted, drop a courtesy, and ask pardon for
our presumption in expecting that Mr. ___ would waste his sense on two
insignificant girls.
Friend. Well, well, I will be serious. Hem ! Now then commences the
discourse ; Mr. Moore's song being the text. Love, as distinguished
from Friendship, on the one hand, and from the passion that too often
usurps its name, on the other--
Lucius (Eliza's brother, who had just joined the trio, in a whisper to the
Friend). But is not Love the union of both ?
Friend (aside to Lucius). He never loved who thinks so.
Eliza. Brother, we don't want you. There ! Mrs. H. cannot arrange the
flower vase without you. Thank you, Mrs. Hartman.
Lucius. I'll have my revenge ! I know what I will say !
Eliza. Off ! Off ! Now, dear Sir,--Love, you were saying--
Friend. Hush ! Preaching, you mean, Eliza.
Eliza (impatiently). Pshaw !
Friend. Well then, I was saying that Love, truly such, is itself not
the most common thing in the world : and that mutual love still less
so. But that enduring personal attachment, so beautifully delineated
by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly, perhaps, in the
well-known ballad, `John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in addition to a
depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence, supposes
a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature ; a constitutional
communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul ; a delight in the
detail of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament
within--to count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But
above all, it supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide
of life--even in the lustihood of health and strength, had felt
oftenest and prized highest that which age cannot take away and which,
in all our lovings, is the Love ;----
Eliza. There is something here (pointing to her heart) that seems to
understand you, but wants the word that would make it understand itself.
Katharine. I, too, seem to feel what you mean. Interpret the feeling for
us.
Friend. ---- I mean that willing sense of the insufficingness of the
Scheme | A X BXCD EX BFGG XXH B XBXXXD XI C X X EB X IXX J EEDAX K BFX EXKB EX C EK X A E L XXXEEXHEXXXXLI FX BJ E |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10101011101010 101101 0101101011111101 111111111101010111 110101111110111 10 11101101001111010 1010010111011111 11010111 11010111 1001010111 1011110101 0101101101011001011 1001011101110011111 111010 1111110010001010 110101111 1001010101010 1101001111 1111110111 11111011011 111010111110 1001011111110111 1111111110111 1111 10111011 01010011111 11011110101010010 110010 100101101 1101111010111 111000101101 101 010111100 110010011111100 110111101011100 100010111111011111 11011101100111 010111011111 01010101011111010 1011110101010001101 1001000101101111111 01001 1111111001110100 101011100111010 1101011010101110 1111010 10110111101001010 1111101011 1011101101111 010101111110110010 101011111010 1011101111111 0101111111010 111011010 01001001 1111110111011011 0110100101100111 11101010001011000100 111101110100 11101100111001010 101001100111001010010 00100100010011000100 101110100100 01110000100100110100 0111110010101111 0111010011100010101 1110001110111 101101111010101 011010101 0101110110101111 011110111110101 10111111110100101 1 111110110110 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 4,376 |
Words | 716 |
Sentences | 86 |
Stanzas | 31 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 4, 2, 4, 3, 1, 6, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 5, 1, 3, 4, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 14, 2, 2, 1 |
Lines Amount | 75 |
Letters per line (avg) | 43 |
Words per line (avg) | 10 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 104 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 24 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 21, 2023
- 3:37 min read
- 145 Views
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"The Improvisatore" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 12 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/34350/the-improvisatore>.
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