Deconstruction of Frost at midnight by Coleridge
Deconstruction of Frost at midnight by Coleridge
Frost at midnight by Coleridge is a conversational poem set in an isolated cottage during the tranquility of night. The tone is personal and enweaves a religious process within a dream connotation.
“The Frost performs its secret ministry” at the beginning of stanza one, is implied personification used to establish a magical and religious air, this is done so as to synchronize with the overwhelming silence of nature and the natural act of frost falling outside. Such technique of nature’s simple act establishes an atmospheric feel of magic and religion working simultaneously to embellish an effect of overwhelming silence which lets the protagonist begin his imaginative journey. The word ‘ministry’ implies a religious connotation which forms a paradigm of pantheism as Coleridge contrasts the metaphysical of nature with associations of religious undertones. This concept of performing its secret ministry is used to create the effect for the responder to begin to understand how the empowering atmospheric effect makes Coleridge’s begin to verge within his mind and undertake an imaginative journey.
At home within the confounds of his cottage, Coleridge due to the surroundings, sits alone late at night, ‘the inmates… have left me to that solitude, which suits abstruse musings’ the strong word solitude emotionally conveys how disturbing it feels for himself to be isolated, this is paradoxical to the fact that he is not physically isolated but comments upon that such eerie stillness and silence of the house provokes obscure emotional thoughts and reflections. Moving systolically panning in and out of thought and surroundings, the poem begins drawing in the attention of the responder by such technique to ultimately gain such an emotive situation of inner thought and begin to undertake the journey into the imagination as well. Coleridge muses in front of a dying fire. His mind and spirit begin to journey back to his school days as he focuses on a small piece of ash film fluttering in grate of the fire. This physical entity becomes the central symbol of Coleridge’s consciousness as he describes it as ‘the sole unquiet thing’. In a position of emotive isolation Coleridge compares the ash film to himself. ‘Its motion in this hush of nature
