SOURCE: Eilenberg, Susan. “‘Michael,’ ‘Christabel,’ and the Poetry of Possession.” Criticism XXX, no. 2 (1988): 205-224.

In the following essay, Eilenberg examines the substitution of Wordsworth's “Michael” in place of Coleridge's “Christabel” as the last poem in the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads. The author then evaluates the interrelationship between “Michael” and “Christabel,” as well as that of their authors.

Literary history suggests a significant intertextual relation between two poems not ordinarily read together, Wordsworth's “Michael” and Coleridge's “Christabel.” “Michael” was written during the autumn of 1800 in order to provide a conclusion to the second volume of the 1800 Lyrical Ballads after Coleridge's “Christabel,” earlier intended for that position of honor, was expelled from the volume. “[I]f Coleridge had been able to finish ‘Christabel’ Wordsworth would never have written ‘Michael,’” Stephen Parrish remarks,¹ and indeed there would have been no reason for the hasty composition of “Michael” had not the removal...