The Improvisatore, Or, 'John Anderson, My Jo, John' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Poem, Summary, & Analysis)

 

The Improvisatore, Or, 'John Anderson, My Jo, John'

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

(Poem, Summary, & Analysis) 

The Improvisatore, Or, 'John Anderson, My Jo, John'

Scene -- A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining.

 

Katharine. What are the words ?

 

Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore ; here he comes. Kate has a favour

to ask of you, Sir ; it is that you will repeat the ballad [Believe me if

all those endearing young charms.—EHC's ? note] that Mr. ____ sang so

sweetly.

 

Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies ; but I do not recollect the

words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this :—

 

Love would remain the same if true,

When we were neither young nor new ;

Yea, and in all within the will that came,

By the same proofs would show itself the same.

 

Eliza. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont and Fletcher, which my

mother admired so much ? It begins with something about two vines so close

that their tendrils intermingle.

 

Friend. You mean Charles' speech to Angelina, in The Elder Brother.

 

We'll live together, like two neighbour vines,

Circling our souls and loves in one another !

We'll spring together, and we'll bear one fruit ;

One joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn ;

One age go with us, and one hour of death

Shall close our eyes, and one grave make us happy.

 

Katharine. A precious boon, that would go far to reconcile one to old

age—this love—if true ! But is there any such true love ?

 

Friend. I hope so.

 

Katharine. But do you believe it ?

 

Eliza (eagerly). I am sure he does.

 

Friend. From a man turned of fifty, Katharine, I imagine, expects a

less confident answer.

 

Katharine. A more sincere one, perhaps.

 

Friend. Even though he should have obtained the nick-name of

Improvisatore, by perpetrating charades and extempore verses at

Christmas times ?

 

Eliza. Nay, but be serious.

 

Friend. Serious ! Doubtless. A grave personage of my years giving a

Love-lecture to two young ladies, cannot well be otherwise. The

difficulty, I suspect, would be for them to remain so. It will be

asked whether I am not the `elderly gentleman' who sate `despairing

beside a clear stream', with a willow for his wig-block.

 

Eliza. Say another word, and we will call it downright affectation.

 

Katharine. No ! we will be affronted, drop a courtesy, and ask pardon for

our presumption in expecting that Mr. ___ would waste his sense on two

insignificant girls.

 

Friend. Well, well, I will be serious. Hem ! Now then commences the

discourse ; Mr. Moore's song being the text. Love, as distinguished

from Friendship, on the one hand, and from the passion that too often

usurps its name, on the other—

 

Lucius (Eliza's brother, who had just joined the trio, in a whisper to the

Friend). But is not Love the union of both ?

 

Friend (aside to Lucius). He never loved who thinks so.

 

Eliza. Brother, we don't want you. There ! Mrs. H. cannot arrange the

flower vase without you. Thank you, Mrs. Hartman.

 

Lucius. I'll have my revenge ! I know what I will say !

 

Eliza. Off ! Off ! Now, dear Sir,—Love, you were saying—

 

Friend. Hush ! Preaching, you mean, Eliza.

 

Eliza (impatiently). Pshaw !

 

Friend. Well then, I was saying that Love, truly such, is itself not

the most common thing in the world : and that mutual love still less

so. But that enduring personal attachment, so beautifully delineated

by Erin's sweet melodist, and still more touchingly, perhaps, in the

well-known ballad, `John Anderson, my Jo, John,' in addition to a

depth and constancy of character of no every-day occurrence, supposes

a peculiar sensibility and tenderness of nature ; a constitutional

communicativeness and utterancy of heart and soul ; a delight in the

detail of sympathy, in the outward and visible signs of the sacrament

within—to count, as it were, the pulses of the life of love. But

above all, it supposes a soul which, even in the pride and summer-tide

of life—even in the lustihood of health and strength, had felt

oftenest and prized highest that which age cannot take away and which,

in all our lovings, is the Love ;——

 

Eliza. There is something here (pointing to her heart) that seems to

understand you, but wants the word that would make it understand itself.

 

Katharine. I, too, seem to feel what you mean. Interpret the feeling for

us.

 

Friend. —— I mean that willing sense of the insufficingness of the

self for itself, which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the

total being of another, the supplement and completion of its own

;—that quiet perpetual seeking which the presence of the beloved

object modulates, not suspends, where the heart momently finds, and,

finding, again seeks on ;—lastly, when `life's changeful orb has

pass'd the full', a confirmed faith in the nobleness of humanity, thus

brought home and pressed, as it were, to the very bosom of hourly

experience ; it supposes, I say, a heartfelt reverence for worth, not

the less deep because divested of its solemnity by habit, by

familiarity, by mutual infirmities, and even by a feeling of modesty

which will arise in delicate minds, when they are conscious of

possessing the same or the correspondent excellence in their own

characters. In short, there must be a mind, which, while it feels the

beautiful and the excellent in the beloved as its own, and by right of

love appropriates it, can call Goodness its Playfellow ; and dares

make sport of time and infirmity, while, in the person of a

thousand-foldly endeared partner, we feel for aged Virtue the

caressing fondness that belongs to the Innocence of childhood, and

repeat the same attentions and tender courtesies which had been

dictated by the same affection to the same object when attired in

feminine loveliness or in manly beauty.

 

Eliza. What a soothing—what an elevating idea !

 

Katharine. If it be not only an idea.

 

Friend. At all events, these qualities which I have enumerated, are

rarely found united in a single individual. How much more rare must it

be, that two such individuals should meet together in this wide world

under circumstances that admit of their union as Husband and Wife. A

person may be highly estimable on the whole, nay, amiable as a

neighbour, friend, housemate—in short, in all the concentric circles

of attachment save only the last and inmost ; and yet from how many

causes be estranged from the highest perfection in this ! Pride,

coldness, or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or

ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper,—one or

the other—too often proves `the dead fly in the compost of spices',

and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction.

For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort

of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself

alive by sucking the paws of its own self-importance. And as this high

sense, or rather sensation of their own value is, for the most part,

grounded on negative qualities, so they have no better means of

preserving the same but by negatives—that is, but not doing or saying

any thing, that might be put down for fond, silly, or nonsensical

;—or, (to use their own phrase) by never forgetting themselves, which

some of their acquaintance are uncharitable enough to think the most

worthless object they could be employed in remembering.

 

Eliza (in answer to a whisper from Katharine). To a hair ! He must have

sate for it himself. Save me from such folks ! But they are out of the

question.

 

Friend. True ! but the same effect is produced in thousands by the too

general insensibility to a very important truth ; this, namely, that

the MISERY of human life is made up of large masses, each separated

from the other by certain intervals. One year, the death of a child ;

years after, a failure in trade ; after another longer or shorter

interval, a daughter may have married unhappily ;—in all but the

singularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum total

of the unhappiness of a man's life, are easily counted, and distinctly

remembered. The HAPPINESS of life, on the contrary, is made up of

minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a

smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a

playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of

pleasurable thought and genial feeling.

 

Katharine. Well, Sir ; you have said quite enough to make me despair of

finding a `John Anderson, my Jo, John', with whom to totter down the hill

of life.

 

Friend. Not so ! Good men are not, I trust, so much scarcer than good

women, but that what another would find in you, you may hope to find

in another. But well, however, may that boon be rare, the possession

of which would be more than an adequate reward for the rarest virtue.

 

Eliza. Surely, he, who has described it so well, must have possessed it ?

 

Friend. If he were worthy to have possessed it, and had believingly

anticipated and not found it, how bitter the disappointment !

 

(Then, after a pause of a few minutes),

 

———————————————————

ANSWER, ex improviso

 

Yes, yes ! that boon, life's richest treat

He had, or fancied that he had ;

Say, 'twas but in his own conceit—

The fancy made him glad !

Crown of his cup, and garnish of his dish !

The boon, prefigured in his earliest wish,

The fair fulfilment of his poesy,

When his young heart first yearn'd for sympathy !

But e'en the meteor offspring of the brain

Unnourished wane ;

Faith asks her daily bread,

And Fancy must be fed !

Now so it chanced—from wet or dry,

It boots not how—I know not why—

She missed her wonted food ; and quickly

Poor Fancy stagger'd and grew sickly.

Then came a restless state, 'twixt yea and nay,

His faith was fix'd, his heart all ebb and flow ;

Or like a bark, in some half-shelter'd bay,

Above its anchor driving to and fro.

 

That boon, which but to have possess'd

In a belief, gave life a zest—

Uncertain both what it had been,

And if by error lost, or luck ;

And what is was ;—an evergreen

Which some insidious blight had struck,

Or annual flower, which, past its blow,

No vernal spell shall e'er revive ;

Uncertain, and afraid to know,

Doubts toss'd him to and fro :

Hope keeping Love, Love Hope alive,

Like babes bewildered in a snow,

That cling and huddle from the cold

In hollow tree or ruin'd fold.

 

Those sparkling colours, once his boast

Fading, one by one away,

Thin and hueless as a ghost,

Poor Fancy on her sick bed lay ;

Ill at distance, worse when near,

Telling her dreams to jealous Fear !

Where was it then, the sociable sprite,

That crown'd the Poet's cup and deck'd his dish !

Poor shadow cast from an unsteady wish,

Itself a substance by no other right

But that it intercepted Reason's light ;

It dimm'd his eye, it darken'd on his brow,

A peevish mood, a tedious time, I trow !

Thank Heaven ! 'tis not so now.

 

O bliss of blissful hours !

The boon of Heaven's decreeing,

While yet in Eden's bowers

Dwelt the first husband and his sinless mate !

The one sweet plant, which, piteous Heaven agreeing,

They bore with them thro' Eden's closing gate !

Of life's gay summer tide the sovran Rose !

Late autumn's Amaranth, that more fragrant blows

When Passion's flowers all fall or fade ;

If this were ever his, in outward being,

Or but his own true love's projected shade,

Now that at length by certain proof he knows,

That whether real or a magic show,

Whate'er it was, it is no longer so ;

Though heart be lonesome, Hope laid low,

Yet, Lady ! deem him not unblest :

The certainty that struck Hope dead,

Hath left Contentment in her stead :

And that is next to Best !

 

Summary

Setting and Characters: The poem begins in a drawing-room where music is being played nearby. Three characters—Katharine, Eliza, and the Friend (the improvisatore, or impromptu poet)—engage in a reflective and philosophical conversation about love, aging, and truth in affection.

 

Opening Scene and Themes Introduced:

Katharine asks Eliza about a particular song that touched her. Eliza defers to the Friend, who is entering the room. Katharine requests him to repeat a ballad—most likely Thomas Moore's "Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms."

The Friend replies that while he doesn’t remember the exact words, he recalls the essence: true love remains unchanged by the passage of time or physical change, and manifests itself consistently through proof and sincerity.

 

This introduces the poem’s central idea—whether love can persist beyond youth and beauty.

 

Dialogue and Quoted Poetry:

Eliza then brings up a poetic excerpt that her mother admired, about intertwined vines. The Friend identifies it as Charles’ speech to Angelina from The Elder Brother by Beaumont and Fletcher. He recites it:

 

“We'll live together, like two neighbour vines…”

(ending with the ideal of love persisting through life until death, shared even in burial)

 

Katharine reflects that such a love would make old age more bearable—“if true!”—and questions whether such love really exists.

 

The Friend says he hopes so. Katharine presses him further, asking if he believes it exists. Eliza jumps in, affirming that he does.

 

The Friend acknowledges that, being over fifty, Katharine may expect a more cautious answer.

 

Deeper Reflection:

Katharine seeks sincerity rather than certainty. The Friend offers a thoughtful reflection on aging and love:

He speaks of how early impressions and passionate affections may fade, but habitual love, tested and true, can become stronger.

He describes this deeper love not as something born of immediate passion but as one rooted in familiarity, mutual experience, and trust.

He shares personal musings—how people can mistake momentary passion or self-love for true love, and how time exposes these illusions.

 

Coleridge here explores the difference between infatuation and enduring love, emphasizing that the latter is grounded in mutual sacrifice, shared trials, and daily companionship.

 

Contrast Between Appearances and Reality:

The Friend discusses how false appearances often mask true emotions. People may appear cheerful while hiding inner turmoil; likewise, affections may seem genuine but prove shallow when tested.

True love, in contrast, withstands trials and is marked by quiet perseverance rather than dramatic declarations.

 

Philosophical Insight:

He illustrates his point with poetic metaphors—comparing false lovers to actors and true lovers to faithful wayfarers who tread the same rugged path side by side.

The conversation becomes an almost confessional monologue, where the Friend admits that while he has seen love in many forms, he believes in the existence of sincere love—though it may be rare.

He implies that such love is often overlooked because it is unassuming, not loud or flashy.

 

Closing Mood:

The poem ends in a reflective tone, with the Friend expressing a hopeful belief in lasting love, matured through time and shared struggle.

The characters remain thoughtful, perhaps moved by the Friend’s insights, appreciating that true love is not an illusion, though it may be quiet, steady, and rare.

 

Overall:

"The Improvisatore" is a conversational lyric poem that mixes prose-like dialogue with poetic interludes, quoting from other poets and drawing upon familiar songs. Through a blend of wit, sentiment, and gentle irony, Coleridge offers a moving reflection on love that survives youth and beauty—a meditation on constancy, sincerity, and emotional maturity.

 

Analysis in Detail

Form and Structure

The poem is structured as a dramatic dialogue, with three characters: Katharine, Eliza, and the Friend (the improvisatore, or impromptu speaker/poet).

The format is conversational and theatrical, resembling a scene from a play rather than a traditional lyrical poem.

Coleridge blends poetry and prose, inserting quotations from other authors (e.g., Thomas Moore, Beaumont and Fletcher), thus creating a meta-literary dialogue—poetry within poetry.

The blending of spontaneous speech with literary allusion emphasizes the improvisatore’s role: someone who reflects and composes in real time, drawing from memory, emotion, and experience.

 

Tone and Voice

The tone is reflective, gentle, and at times playful, particularly in the teasing and curious remarks of Katharine and Eliza.

The Friend’s tone is more meditative and philosophical, suggesting age and experience. His words carry the weight of lived reflection, in contrast to the youthful curiosity and idealism of the women.

There's an undertone of melancholy, especially in the Friend’s implied regrets and admissions about lost opportunities, failed loves, or illusions dispelled by time.

 

Themes and Ideas

1. The Nature of True Love

Central to the poem is the question of enduring love—can love remain strong and meaningful after youth, beauty, and novelty fade?

The Friend distinguishes between passion, which is often fleeting, and true love, which is built on shared experience, quiet devotion, and long-standing familiarity.

 

“Love would remain the same if true,

When we were neither young nor new…”

 

He counters the romanticized notion of love with a more realistic, mature view: true love grows not from infatuation but from habit, trust, and companionship over time.

 

2. Illusion vs. Reality

Coleridge uses the metaphor of acting to explore how people hide their true feelings behind appearances.

The Friend suggests that many emotions—especially love—are often misrepresented or misunderstood, particularly when driven by vanity or self-love.

The poem urges a deeper emotional honesty, even if that honesty means admitting doubt, weariness, or imperfection.

 

3. Aging and Emotional Maturity

Aging is not just physical but emotional and spiritual. The Friend, who is over fifty, is portrayed as having deeper insight into the nature of love and life.

Through his dialogue, Coleridge explores how perspectives change with age—what was once seen as romantic may now seem illusory, while true value may lie in simple constancy.

Katharine’s question, “But is there any such true love?” challenges the Friend to separate hope from belief. This question underscores the skepticism of youth and the wisdom of age.

 

4. Memory and Quotation

The poem features intertextuality—the Friend recalls lines from other poets, quoting Moore and Beaumont & Fletcher.

These quotations serve multiple purposes:

They anchor the conversation in literary tradition.

They show the Friend’s inner world, shaped by literature and memory.

They illustrate how love has long been idealized, and Coleridge contrasts that ideal with the Friend’s more grounded view.

 

Character Dynamics

Katharine and Eliza are inquisitive and idealistic. Katharine is especially curious about whether true love exists. Her tone shifts from playful to serious.

Eliza is more emotionally intuitive. She immediately affirms that the Friend believes in true love, acting as a bridge between Katharine’s questioning and the Friend’s reflective answers.

The Friend serves as a mouthpiece for Coleridge’s own philosophical reflections. He is thoughtful, perhaps tinged with regret, but still hopeful and quietly affirming of lasting affection.

His role as "Improvisatore" suggests that truth and poetry can coexist, that art can be both spontaneous and profound.

 

Symbolism and Metaphors

The intertwined vines: represent the ideal of marital unity—growing together, aging together, and ultimately dying together. It's a metaphor for spiritual and emotional fusion.

The grave: Symbolizes not just the end of life, but the peaceful culmination of a life shared in harmony—“one grave make us happy.”

Masks and roles: Point to the social performance of emotions, especially love, suggesting people often behave in ways expected by others rather than from genuine feeling.

 

Coleridge’s Purpose

Coleridge challenges overly romantic notions of love with a more realistic and spiritual conception.

He creates a poetic conversation that reflects how love must be tested by time and trial.

Ultimately, he does not dismiss love, but refines it—from fireworks to a steady flame.

Love, Coleridge seems to say, is not a performance but a quiet, enduring partnership.

 

Final Thought

The Improvisatore is not just a meditation on love, but also a poetic conversation about belief, time, and truth. Coleridge, through the Friend, invites readers to think deeply about what they mean when they speak of love—and what it takes for love to last.