Superstitious Marginalia: Coleridge and "Waverley"

Abstract

In late 1820s, commenting on in margins of Waverley (I:24), Coleridge interpreted Scott's novel of Scottish rebellion and Union in terms of his transcendental imagination: In most reflecting minds there may, nay must, exist a certain 'reserve of Superstition', from consciousness of vast disproportion of our knowledge terra incognita yet be known--Between these is a region of indistinctness, not forms, but which [begin strikethrough]you[end strikethrough] we give a form/ [begin strikethrough]Less[end strikethrough] Some few are aware, form is their own gift yet without denying a SOMEWHAT seen/ whenever last understood causes must be, still aliquid superstat--and these it is, which constitutes reason of Superstition, and makes it (CM IV 579). [A]liquid superstat echoes Coleridge's description of imagination as tertium aliquid, third thing, in Biographia Literaria, chapter 13 (1817; NC 485, 485nl). Like imagination, reasonable was for Coleridge a faculty gave rational form sights at border between knowledge and unknown. Coleridge's note appears where Waverley, injured in a stage hunt, passive and dependent, is nursed by a Highland surgeon combining the characters of a leech and a conjuror (189) and murmuring Gaelic prayers or spells, which narrator dismisses as gibberish (190). Edward observed, with some surprise, Scott writes, that even Fergus, notwithstanding his knowledge and education, seemed fall in with superstitious ideas of his countrymen; either because he deemed it impolitic affect skepticism on a matter of general belief, or more probably because, like most who do not think deeply or accurately on such subjects, he had in his mind a of which balanced freedom of his expressions and practice upon other occasions (Scott 191, CM IV 579). Where Waverley condescends, Coleridge identified a reserve of an enabling superstition, in Scott's men of action. Coleridge had been thinking about in Waverley's derogative sense as early as 1804, on his return from Malta, when he observed unaccountable terrors and apprehensions Hume, another Scot who wrote on superstition, had attributed Weakness, fear, [and] melancholy, together with ignorance (Hume 73). Coleridge had begun an essay on its philosophical and most comprehensive Sense' [in] of action--soldiers, sailors, fisherman, farmers, even lovers and gamblers--who are placed 'in absolute Dependence on Powers & Events, which they have no Control' (CN II 2060, Holmes DR 11). In An Essay on Scrofula, he wrote about eradication of unfounded by science; and, in and Natural Philosophy, he concluded Philosophy guided by Torch of History will cleanse dark and noisome cave of superstitious Error! (CC 11.I 27). In On Constitution of Church and State and his Notebooks, too, Coleridge used superstition denote ignorant idolatry, which he associated with Fancy. This was Keats would deride in his sonnet Written in Disgust of Vulgar Superstition (1816). In 1821, however, Coleridge explored etymology and potential puns of superstition in his Notebooks. The English word is a derivative of Latin superstitio, a compound of super and stare--above and to respectively. H. J. Jackson notes root-words superstare, to stand above, and superstes, one standing over or a survivor (CM IV 579n; cf. CN IV 4605, 4605n, 4708, and 5274). Coleridge's play with etymology of echoes puns he used in his Conversation poems. Like signatures S.T.C., [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and ESTEESI, alludes St. …