Keats Lamia is described as
something beautiful that has turned into something dark, sinister and
miserable, but still holds a bit of the former beauty. Like line 55 and 56
where is says she seemed “some penanced lady elf, some demon’s mistress”. This
is different from Geraldine because Geraldine has two looks. She can look like
a damsel or the serpent. There is no in between. She had shrunken serpent’s
eyes when not the damsel, that were dull and full of malice and dread. Keats
description of Lamia makes me feel sad about the tragic beauty the being has
that makes them so good at tricking their targets. While Coleridge’s
description of the serpent woman make me feel distrustful of her and wary. Something
about her seems off and the hissing does not help. What stands out about the
descriptions is the different feel you get from reading them. They impress upon
me different warnings, Keats dangerous beauty while Coleridge trickery and
not always believing what you see and hear.
The fact that both Keats and Coleridge choose to portray a woman as a snake is essential because of its biblical interpretation of the snake in relation to women. Eve was betrayed by a snake and as punishment for her sin she was banned from the land of paradise. Jose de Espronceda, is a Spanish romantic poet of the early eighteen hundreds that wrote a poem about his particular view of the woman and the snake, which I believe could have relevance and further depth in to why many men of this literary era wrote so pessimistically of women, inclusively being thought of as a heartless person. Despite the fact that Spanish romanticism appeared at a later time in Spain than it did throughout the rest of the countries, they all shared a common interest for being romantics. This particular author describes women (descendants of Eve) as being marked by the depths of hell because of her sin, as described in his poem “Canto a Teresa” or “Song to Teresa”. Since she was deceived by the snake and instead of following the rules or conditions to which she should live under she listened to the snake and fell under its evil deceitful demonic intentions. This in turn caused all descendants of Eve to be cursed with her sin and is to follow them forever which in Keats and Coleridge’s case they were cursed by being turned into the very creature the deceived them.
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