Experimental form in Victorian poetryof an uncertain performativity, notably at the moment when her claimed
identity has to be constructed in terms of the social context provided by the
"hunter sons" who finally encircle her (204). At that moment, she neither
stands alone nor speaks alone. The assertion of a single unified voice is
disturbed by the intruding strands of class difference and racial threat: the
voices of the "hunter sons" echo in her monologue as she accosts them with
the marks on her wrist where she was tied for flogging, and she speaks for
all slaves in their rebellion against oppression - "We are too heavy for our
cross, / And fall and crush you" (244-45). Both "Childe Roland" and "The
Runaway Slave," therefore, produce a similar formalist effect. In each
monologue, formal properties of art are tied to the dramatization of human
experience. This link means that the principle of aesthetic unity is enacted
as a feature of personal desire while it is simultaneously subverted as an
impossible ideal.
The concept of form as a homogeneous whole was promoted by
Romantic aesthetics. In this concept, all parts cohere: they should,
according to Coleridge, "mutually support and explain each other." 7 The
model is an organic one, taken from nature - from plants that consist of
distinct yet inseparable components (roots, stem, and leaves). Organic
form, Coleridge writes, "shapes as it develops itself from within, and the
fullness of its development is one and the same with the perfection of its
outward form." 8 In this organicism, however, there remains a fundamental
conflict between form as a fixed completed object and form as an ongoing
process. Coleridge's formulation implies an inward essence that is repre-
sented by an outward shape. Yet the organic model also allows for growth:
a dynamic movement toward wholeness. Does, then, the truth of the oak
reside only in its fully grown shape? Or is it also present in the acorn from
which the oak will grow? Presumably, the essence of the oak includes both
acorn and tree. But wherein lies the whole? In the moment of completion?
Or in the progress toward it? In other words, how far should a concern
with form as innate being incorporate vigorous process and growth
(temporality and movement) as well as fixed shape or architectural space
(aestheticized truth)? 9
This inquiry underscores the necessary materiality of all poetic form.
Coleridge acknowledges the point when he says that the spirit of poetry
"must embody in order to reveal itself." 10 But he nevertheless continues to
privilege the truth of the spirit that precedes the embodiment, neglecting
how the mode of revelation might affect the nature of what is revealed. The
materiality of appearances leaves an inherent ambiguity between their
function as representation and their function as constitution. The former
gives rise to the sense of a reality or truth that is ahistorical or transcendent