Origin of Names
"It was a lovely sight to see
The lady Christabel, when she
Was praying at the old oak tree.
Amid the jagged shadows
Of mossy leafless boughs,
Kneeling in the moonlight,
To make her gentle vows."
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
A.S Byatt's book 'Unruly Times' charts the friendship between Coleridge and William Wordsworth.
"Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, Night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad
And the musk of roses blown."
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Tennyson grew up on the Lincolnshire Wolds and much of his work reflects the landscape, this is also where a vast portion of 'Possession' is set.
"There they stood, ranged along the hillside met
To view the last of me, a living frame
For one more picture! In a sheet of flame
I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug horn to my lips I set
And blew 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came'"
Robert Browning
The romance between Christabel LaMotte and Randolph Henry Ash is similar to Robert Browning's affair with Julia Wedgewood which was revealed in the late 20th century.
"I cannot tell you what it was;
But this I know: it did pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
With all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and grey."
Christina Rossetti
It is widely believed that Christina Rossetti was the model for Christabel LaMotte.