Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Coleridge, Austen, Collins

But you don’t expect much from poor human nature-
so don’t expect much from me.

-Gabriel Betteredge

In many regards Gabriel Betteredge’s aforementioned quote regarding human nature acts as the common thread or ligand between the three works that will be discussed in this essay. As the title suggests, the topic of innocence and experience can be found in varying degrees in the works of Coleridge, Austen, and Collins; in Coleridge the tension of innocence and experience can be traced to the Ancient Mariner in lieu of the Wedding Guest; in Austen, Catherine Moreland’s coming-of-age narrative is off-set by her experience discovered in the narrative of the Gothic; finally, in Collins we find a rather ambivalent narrator in the likes of Gabriel Betteredge. In short, can he be trusted, and if so is he reliable? Combined, they provide a rather clean sketch of innocence and of experience, while at the same time measuring the scope of human knowledge. The more knowledgeable the individual, the less innocent they appear to be.

The scope of this essay is to pinpoint not just the links involving innocence and experience amongst these author’s works, but to follow a main protagonist’s maturation from innocence to experience throughout each work; to examine a few of the ambiguities without exhausting all of them; and, by examination of these things, to prepare and argue for the bigger meaning of knowledge and the contrary state of the soul. This knowledge arguably involves a level of truth-telling and/or revelation which then threatens the stability of naiveté, or innocence.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his attempt to re-invent the art of poetry combined a syncretic style of rhetoric alongside what Blake considered, the Great Code of Art. This description of the Bible also suggests that “literature is an interpretation of scripture (Blake).” If we adhere to such a suggestion, then what exactly can be learned via the Great Code regarding the dual contrary states of the human soul? On one level innocence is child-like viewed by one in the absence of experience. This can be noticed by Coleridge’s wandering Wedding Guest.

Though the Wedding Guest is aware of where he wants to tread and aims for the wedding, Coleridge suggests an eye-opener is in order. The Ancient Mariner, a man of experience, or harbinger of knowledge, wishes to impart such wisdom to an ignorant host. In light of the Wedding Guest’s innocence, Coleridge utilizes the Mariner’s experience as a stimulus toward revelation or truth. Once truth is imparted, there can be no turning back. The Wedding guest suggestively expresses his desire to abate his learning from the experienced Mariner stating, “I fear thee, ancient Mariner! / I fear thy skinny hand! (228-9).” This initial fear is rooted in the absence of innocence as the Wedding Guest perhaps learns the truth about such earthly delights as a wedding.

Moreover, the Mariner time and again reminds the Wedding Guest, “Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest! (234)” The language here, as in Shakespeare connotes the pronoun “thou” as existing in the lesser. Hence, it can be argued that the Mariner, a man of experience, or a man who bears knowledge, looks down upon such a weak vessel as the Wedding Guest.

Furthermore, the weakness of the Wedding Guest, a man of innocence and of a child-like disposition, carries with him perhaps a false humility or quasi-innocence which places him in the category of hypocrite. Is innocence then hypocritical in light of the knowledge of the experienced?

Again, Coleridge suggests that his Mariner acts not as the catalyst but the stimulus or the occasion for the development of the seeds of knowledge. This knowledge then is implanted in the innocent soul, and gives birth to experience. This experience of the Mariner suggests some foundational elements.

First, experience does at some level measure the scope of human knowledge, and proves indispensable to sound judgment and prudence. The Mariner in seeking out the Wedding Guest “hath his will (16).” The Wedding Guest, powerless, “can not chuse but hear (18)” as the Mariner at once “holds him with his glittering eye (13).” This gaze is beyond mere mortal sight and penetrates from the experienced Mainer into the contrary state of innocence in the Wedding Guest.

Likewise, experience of the supernatural establishes a response to guilt and shame whereas innocence leaves the stone of ignominy unturned. It is not the Wedding Guest that beats his breast because he is guilty, but because he is aware. This awareness can be interpreted as revelation, or simply knowledge.

The Wedding Guest learns and gleans from the sharing of the Mariner’s experience, yet he can never possess it fully. Again, the Mariner begins his story and quickly replies to the Wedding Guest, “Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest! (350)” What can one who has newly learned a piece of information or knowledge do, especially in their state of child-likeness (innocence)? Only quiver under their new revelation and long for a return to innocence. The Wedding Guest mentions, “I fear thee, Ancient Mariner! (349)” That’s it! There are no strings attached and no high and mighty diatribes, just simple repetitions of “I fear thee, Ancient Mariner!”

The reader is finally introduced to a Wedding Guest that has undergone change from innocence to experience. The separation of the two can be clearly noted in the following poetic lines told by the peripheral voice of the narrator. He mentions, in describing the Wedding Guest, a man who “went like one that hath been stunned, / And is of sense forlorn: / A sadder and wiser man, / He rose the morrow morn (626-29).” Coleridge achieves the sublime of the soul’s misgivings and maturation from naiveté toward revelation. Combined, this must then yield judgment.

Arguably, the Mariner is seen as the wanderer who stops those he knows are meant to hear his story. However, what of the Wedding Guest and his change? The Wedding Guest is now sadder, yet wiser. Is Coleridge perhaps playing on the chords of knowledge and wisdom? The Great Code of Art suggests innocence must be off-set by experience; perhaps then, the Wedding Guest had no choice, but to transition from innocence to experience.

Solomon wrote in his Ecclesiastes, “For the greater my wisdom, the greater my grief,” and moreover, that “to increase knowledge only increases sorrow (1:18).” This is the state of the Mariner and the new change, though not by choice, in the Wedding Guest. It would then suggest not only that innocence and experience can be paired, but that one exists at the expense of the other. Put another way, a person will increase in wisdom and sorrow; with the addition of experience, knowledge is attained, and knowledge disappoints. The latter can be tracked in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey through the voice of her protagonist Catherine Morland.

We begin the novel as a tool of prose that instructs as it delights; the novel then is at once didactic as it is entertaining, or what Chaucer coined, in his Canterbury Tales, as sentenciae and solas.

Jane Austen, by pitting Catherine Morland in the reality of everyday Bath, sets up her protagonist, a lover of the Gothic genre, specifically Ann Ward Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, to desire the elements of Gothic to her mundane world. Austen throughout her novel parodies the elements of the Gothic genre in order to expose their farce as well as their lack of knowledge. This suggests that the Gothic genre exists in the phase of child-like innocence.

If the Gothic can be utilized as an element of what is false, then what does this suggest about the novel? Austen clearly was doing something new with the novel form and in presenting Catherine as a woman enraptured with the Gothic familiar, exposes it for what it is-an element of the farcical.

Moreover, this view presents the possessors of knowledge as the experienced and those without, as false, or at the very least existing in the comical. Catherine is of the latter element and Henry Tilney, of the former.

We are told that Catherine’s imagination steeped in the Gothic, substitutes for the sagacity necessary to make prudent decisions. Her judgment then is faulty. Austen, in describing Catherine’s feelings, mentions them as existing in “an unsettled state; divided between regret for the loss of one great pleasure, and the hope of soon enjoying another one (103).” Is Catherine then so unstable in her innocence that she needs her reality shaken? Undoubtedly so.

Moreover, as Catherine fantasizes about castles from Radcliffe’s Udolpho, it is Austen who presents her heroine as inexperienced, or innocent, and the butt of the joke. Catherine is the joke, the whole joke, and nothing but the joke-so help her experience!

Austen’s comedy reaches new heights as she not only parodies the Gothic genre, but her own protagonist, who supports the Gothic genre.

In describing Catherine, Austen cites, “On the other hand, the delight of exploring an edifice like Udolpho, as her fancy represented Blaize Castle to be, was such a counterpoise of good, as might console her for almost anything (103).” What can be said about a character who finds solace in the text of the innocent and foolish? Simply, that they lack experience, or knowledge. Catherine is of this design as she continues to ponder “on broken promises, and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys, and trap-doors (103).” Again, she is at a loss.

Catherine Morland when faced with reality is ill-equipped to handle the elements of reality, and as such is usually pained to acquire their understanding. For example, Catherine, while undergoing the vehement diatribe of Isabella Thorpe’s disdain for the Tilney family’s favor toward her, is left “to think these reproaches strange and unkind (113).” She is incapable of understanding Isabella’s disingenuousness. She even questions Isabella’s methods toward friendship, which exist outside of her Gothic realm, as “what part of a friend…exposes her feelings to the notice of others? (113)” And again, “these painful ideas crossed her mind, though she said nothing (113).” These ideas, steeped, in the reality of the mundane shortcoming of the young women of Bath, are simply unknown to one such as Catherine, who suggestively exists in a vacuum, or a Gothic fantasy.

If the Gothic can be established as the text for the innocent, and the readers of such text as wanting in knowledge, then it can be argued that the limit of experience in the absence of the Gothic is supremely advantageous and desirably prudent. Catherine recognizes her shortcomings, citing, “the little she could understand,” “she was heartily ashamed of her ignorance…a misplaced shame,” and that “she confessed and lamented her want of knowledge (124-25).” In short, Catherine recognizes her limitations, and responds accordingly with shame and guilt at her own ignorance. Perhaps then innocence, in the absence of knowledge, produces the ignominy witnessed earlier in this essay through another character, resulting in shame and the revelation of truth. Exposed truth, demands an answer from those to whom it appears.

In moving forward, is it possible to meld the two contrary states of the human soul into an intermediary balance? Will this balance answer the claim for truth, truth-telling, or simple application of this element of truth toward reliability. Wilkie Collins tackled such a complex inquiry through his protagonist, Gabriel Betteredge.

Collins, in creating Gabriel Betteredge, presents to his readers a character who demands an answer from his audience. In other words, is Betteredge a reliable narrator? Does he tell the truth? Is he innocent, experienced, or a hybrid of both suiting his own, personal need? Upon close readings of Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone the judgment placed upon his protagonist is as analogous to the answer such compounded inquiries raise. However, Betteredge is definable and so we will begin there.

The nomenclature of a given name may illuminate the backdrop, to some extent, that character’s disposition, tendencies, fallibilities, etc. The term Gabriel means “man of God,” and to a lesser extent, “messenger.” If in his own way Gabriel Betteredge is a messenger of sorts, then what is that message, and is that message reliable? In his own defense, Betteredge cites, “I am innocent as I knew myself to be (407).” His verbal choice of innocent provokes the opposite notion of guilt, or shame. This re-occurring theme presents itself in the person who is indeed experienced, or at least is on their way to revelation; their departure from innocence results in an acquisition of knowledge, or truth. This truth then demands an account, and a sharing of this account. Enter Betteredge, the accountant, or steward of information.

If on one level experience is necessary for the induction of knowledge, then it can also be suggested that experience itself is to be praised as something to be enjoyed for its own sake, serving no end beyond itself.

Betteredge is given the responsibility as narrator to be reliable in his accounting of the stolen moonstone, yet he himself exclaims, “…you don’t expect much from poor human nature-so don’t expect much from me (82).” Is this to be taken as tongue-in-cheek, or as fact? The ambiguity of experience here suggests no need for praise or adulation for the steward, and yet the reader still demands an honest account.

The validity of innocence is determinate to the character and action of the person, and not necessarily commensurate to that individual’s praise, “I am innocent! (407)” Betteredge again mentions the philosophy of innocence alongside the reality of guilt. He states, “We often hear (almost invariably, however, from superficial observers) that guilt can look like innocence (407).” For the experienced then, this presents a problem. Thus far throughout this essay it would seem that the reason experience exists is because innocence exists, and that the two are somewhat mutually exclusive. If Betteredge can be viewed as the harbinger, to some varying degree, of both, would this make him reliable? Betteredge himself responds, “I believe it to be infinitely the truer axiom of the two that innocence can look like guilt (407).” This revolving door statement from Betteredge leaves the reader wondering as to his true loyalty. Is it that guilt can look like innocence or that innocence can look like guilt?

Furthermore, this implies that we know what both look like to begin with. Besides, when a narrator suggests the task of accounting the details, as they supposedly happened, regarding the moonstone, and cites, “I am asked to tell,” or “don’t expect much from me,” credibility seemingly escapes through the window of reliability. Betteredge is not innocent, nor can we account for his experience. He exists in the hybrid perhaps, or what will be labeled as “the other.”
If we are to utilize Aristotle’s accounting of knowledge as “much memory, or memory of many things, is called experience,” then Betteredge lacks this experience.

Admittedly, Betteredge mentions, “If he could only have recovered in a complete state of oblivion as to the past, he would have been a happier man. Perhaps we should all be happier, […] if we could forget! (437).” The desire to lose memory is in direct conflict with experience, and would suggestively situate Betteredge into a state of quasi-innocence. This level of innocence would further suggest his inability to relate truth, if truth indeed is an element of experience. However, should we be so harsh on poor, old Betteredge? Maybe he has an explanation of sorts. After all, experience allows for explanation with intent toward possible revelation. The question to be raised then, what does Betteredge reveal?

If revelation is the end result of well-placed experience, then those without revelation or proper understanding of that revelation are co-terminus with the absence of experience and the presence of naiveté, or innocence.

Gabriel Betteredge, like Abraham, seems to be crying out, “Will you destroy both innocent and guilty alike? Surely you wouldn’t do that! Should not the judge of all the earth do what is right? (Genesis 18:23, 25)” This cited passage taken from the Great Code of Art is reflective of Betteredge’s character as he disclaims, “…but you don’t expect much from me (82).” The reader’s response-“Yes, Betteredge, we do!” The reliability of Betteredge’s narration is dependent on his embrace of truth-telling. This truth-telling is steeped in experience and not in innocence. The latter must give way to the former, if knowledge and truth are to abide.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience ring true in their own separate chords, however from time to time two notes sound better than one, and in fact by their merger may heighten the awareness of each other.

Likewise, it is possible to discover the hybrid or transitional overlap between innocence and experience. If we took each character as described throughout this essay this point of overlap could be explained.

Suppose the Ancient Mariner alongside his side-kick, the Wedding Guest were in a circular room. Within that room was also Catherine Morland, with Udolpho in hand, as well as Gabriel Betteredge, with his drop, as he called it. Now, in open discussion we could easily move by categorizing who would remain in the column of innocence, and who would remain in the column of experience; arguably, the Ancient Mariner would be the most experienced, followed by the Wedding Guest, then Betteredge, and finally Catherine. At first glance all is well, but upon a closer reading one can notice that the divisions are rigid and somewhat biased, exposing their fallibility. This would demand judgment of some kind. Catherine in listening to the Mariner may increase in knowledge, thereby shunning more of her innocence. Moreover, Betteredge, sober, could prove to be reliable and share the truth within that room. The Wedding Guest, if we were to take him at the end of his poem, would be wise, though sad. He could make a case for wisdom existing as a form of proper knowledge, and in essence surpass the experience of the Mariner. Catherine with maximum exposure would surely desist with her reliance on Radcliffe for reality, and would take her on only for escapism (ironically what the novel legacy has perhaps become).

The point in weaving this example surrounding our various protagonists is to bring to the forefront the idea that the separation of innocence and experience, if at all rigidly possible, is not without its varying overlaps; they go hand in hand in the same circular room and are to be judged accordingly.

Recall, that an a priori judgment is not solely determined by experience per se nor does it always need empirical verification. To test such experience requires more judgment than what this paper set out to offer, and admittedly its author is neither that bold, nor that wise to do so.