Summary
This article contextualises the ecocritical assumption that nature determines one's ideology within a chaos-theory framework, and argues that Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight" can be seen as an ecosystem, symbolic of the complex relationship between humans and nature. It then proceeds to argue that the complexity of this relationship, which is expressed thematically, is also mirrored in the poetic language that Coleridge employs in the poem--specifically in the repetitions and images that he uses, which seem to "repeat" natural processes. The article shows, through close reading, how Coleridge's view of humanity (as represented by his child) in relation to nature is ...