The roles of women in the apocalyptic myths of Coleridge and Keats

In the wake of the French Revolution, the Romantic poets resorted to apocalyptic myth as a means of dealing with their historical situation. Revelation's Whore of Babylon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun and Spenser's Una and Duessa have provided models for succeeding writers, including the Romantic poets, who use the structure of Apocalypse. This study investigates the roles which women play in Coleridge's and Keats's, and to a lesser extent Blake's and Shelley's, apocalyptic myths in relation to Spenser's and Revelation's women.

Coleridge's women, who are usually inspirational figures similar to Una and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, aid the poet/prophet in his search for an Apocalypse which will purify the earth. The relationship of these women to the poet reflects Coleridge's theory of the imagination; women represent the primary (inspirational or passive) imagination, and the poet represents the secondary (creative or active) imagination. Thus, the women are complements to the men in this idealized role. Keats's use of apocalyptic is unusual because he identifies the reasons that dreaming of Apocalypse cheats the individual of life. His positive women have more in common with the Whore of Babylon than with the Woman Clothed with the Sun. Generally, apocalyptists, including Coleridge, seek an escape from history, but Keats embraces history.

In addition to its chapters on Coleridge and Keats, this study looks briefly at Blake's and Shelley's most important apocalyptic myths which illustrate the importance of the apocalyptic structure for the Romantic period and illustrate the changing role of women in society. While Coleridge tended to idealize his women, the other poets, beginning to realize that women are equal to men, suggest this changing view by the active roles which they accord women. Interested in those forms of society which limit the individual's freedom, the Romantics recognized that women are restricted by society's institutions more than men. As long as men condone the institutions which relegate women to second-class status, they are part of the tyranny which perpetuates corruption and misery—that is, they delay the advent of the perfected society envisioned in Revelation.