“Hidden truths will always be revealed in the end”: Truth and Secrecy in Coleridge's "Reflections" Fatima Zahra Kureishi 11th Grade

Hidden truths were a motif that was set from the beginning of the romantic era; the romantics lived in secrecy, and places hidden away from society. A common example was in 1816 when the romantics, Lord Byron, Percy Shelly and Mary Shelly stayed in the “Villa Diodati” which was a secluded place and they were somewhat concealed from the outside world, spending evenings and nights in this frightening place with thunder and lightning rolling down mountains. This was their hidden truth, which was revealed in the end when Mary Shelly produced “Frankenstein” and other stories about their mysterious nights there. In terms of Philip Cox essay “Gendering” and Coleridge’s poem “Reflections”, the hidden truth lies between the impractical, set-up conflict of Male vs Female, yet in the end we discover the “truths” that both genders are fighting for the same purpose, and that we in fact have this metaphorical conflict between nature, not between ourselves, and that nature seems to overpower mankind.

Coleridge’s poem “Reflections” implicitly focuses on the opposition of male and female supremacy; he compares each nature, the pastoral nature and the small aspects of nature to either gender. For example, “Low was our pretty cot” has feminine...