|
2. House of Pleasure of the Kings of Kashmir |
F
Bernier
Coleridge tended to follow references from book to book. In a book by
Maurice, he found Major Rennell praised as the author of an intelligent
memoir, and a very accurate map of Hindustan. Coleridge entered "Major
Rennell" in his notebook, then perhaps read Rennell's book about Kashmir,
and if he read Rennell, Coleridge may have come upon this passage:
Bernier wrote about Kashmir with imagery like that of Xanadu, but he also
promises to "decide unto you the old controversy touching the causes of the
increase of the Nile." Churchill 237.
In Delhi, Bernier met two ambassadors
from Ethiopia, who told him that the Nile "issueth out of the earth at two
big bubbling springs," and, as "a pretty river…it runs bending" from those
sources. 243.
The chain of reference is plausible, but not certain. Even Lowes admits that
he cannot prove that Coleridge read Bernier, but if so, "he would also find
a lively account of Cashmere itself, set down with a wealth of picturesque
detail-an account which is extraordinarily rich in its links with that other
reading which we know to have poured its imagery into the dreams." 385
Lowes
is struck by the correspondences between the visions of Kashmir and the
Nile, and argues that "If Coleridge had ever read the Voyage to Surat, its
marvels could not but have linked themselves in the dream with the like
'charms and Tremendities of Nature' in Purchas and Bartram and Bruce and
Maurice." 386
Of course, the clincher for Lowes is that unlike all the other authors,
Bernier describes a pleasure dome, surrounded by water, like the "great and
vast dome of white marble," the Taj Mahal. So now, "without question," there
are elements that might have "risen up, blended and transfigured, in the
lovely image of the dream. And in their light the probability that Coleridge
had looked up Bernier approaches certainty."
Having done his best to prove that Coleridge must have read Bernier, Lowes
feels free to enter into Coleridge's creative process.
Set aside the special pleading, the double negatives, and the
question-begging. Perhaps Lowes is right.
Perhaps Coleridge really did absorb imagery from Bernier, and perhaps that
imagery coalesced with similar visions from other authors, as he sank into
the opiate repose, and wrote, not fully awake, but not asleep. With Lowes,
we ourselves slide into the twilight state.
Passages from F. Bernier, Voyage to Surat, reproduced in Churchill, A Collection of Voyages and Travels. 6 volumes.
1744-46,
and Volumes VII -VIII, London, 1747, printed by Thomas Osborne. |
 Other sources
William Bartram
|