Down to a Sunless Sea is set in 1797, when Wordsworth joined Coleridge in Somerset to compose Lyrical Ballads, a short anthology that would change the direction of English poetry forever.
Wordsworth was ruthlessly committed to building his reputation as a poet, but Coleridge’s appetite for literary glory had to compete with his appetite for opium, and he only contributed four poems. (The title of this novel, Down to a Sunless Sea comes from Kubla Khan, a brilliant but unfinished tour de force he began during an opium dream.)
Down to a Sunless Sea opens on a summer’s day with arrival of the Wordsworths in Nether Stowey, and finishes a year later with end of their tenancy at Alfoxden, now a hotel on the edge of the Quantocks. The events take place at Alfoxden, in the Coleridge’s damp cottage in Nether Stowey, and on the footpaths of the Quantocks and the Mendips.
The author uses extracts from the protagonists’ letters and diaries as starting points for each chapter, and gives us the female perspective on the characters and relationships, so that we see Coleridge’s irresponsible behaviour in all its abject glory. We are also presented with a very cynical and harsh picture of the Wordsworths and their notoriously strange relationship, which in the end Le Bon takes to have been incestuous.
Sarah Coleridge is the most sympathetic character. She is portrayed as both sensuous and motherly, desperate to spend time with her husband and to persuade him to settle down and make an effort to provide for his family. The scenes of lovemaking are delicate and tender, but Coleridge is never around long enough to become the father and husband he should be. Instead he is at Alfoxden with the Wordsworths discussing philosophy or writing poetry, whilst Sarah struggles at home with a young baby and no one but a consumptive nanny to help. When she discovers a stash of empty bottles that used to contain tincture of opium, Sarah tries to intervene, but in the end it is beyond Coleridge to deal with his addiction.
Sarah does not try to hide her dislike for the Wordsworths, especially Dorothy, an immature and foolish character who is attracted to Coleridge. When he becomes ill she encourages him to linger at Alfoxden rather than returning home, and panders to his narcotic longings. With Dorothy’s collusion Coleridge spends longer and longer periods away from home, leaving Sarah, penniless, to struggle in her damp cottage.
Wordsworth is the least sympathetic of the three characters, taking advantage of Dorothy’s innocent sense of sisterly duty to provide relief for his longings. He is a sly and controlling character, determined to forge a place for himself as a poet, and tired of Coleridge’s dilettantist approach to writing.
Le Blond explores Coleridge’s relationship with his brother in law, the poet Robert Southey, whose conventional hypocrisy forms a stark contrast to Coleridge’s untrammelled emotions. Other minor characters reveal something of the literary and political context though this is never at the expense of the story.
Down to a Sunless Sea is suffused with romantic and pastoral imagery in the writer’s descriptions of Sarah and Coleridge’s relationship. I enjoyed the way she debunked the great white men by showing them in juxtaposition to Sarah’s innocent physicality. Le Blond seems to be pointing out that it’s more important to love your family than to revolutionise poetry, and she’s obviously right.
I wish I knew more about the history of these poets so I could be confident about the writer’s interpretation of the events, and perhaps I will look up a biography of Coleridge who seems the most interesting of the two.
Senior Reader 