Fairy Tale Resemblance in Christabel

What are the traits of a fairy tale? Usually, fairy tales are focused around a particular female main character whose one wish is for her beloved knight or prince to come rescue her. Sorcery and magic are always involved in the tales we know and love. In Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, Christabel, the resemblance to a fairy tale is uncanny. Perhaps Coleridge did not have intentions of his readers thinking of Chrisabel as a fairy tale, however, the poem was never finished meaning that the outcome consists in the writers mind. The qualities that sum up a fairy tale are evident in Christabel: a princess, her knight, the conniving temptress or sorceress, as well as the setting. Even if this poem was not intended on being a fairy tale, it shares a considerable amount of the same characteristics a fairy tale has.
The opening lines of the poem start out with laying out the setting for the readers to grasp the feeling of the moment. It is midnight in Lansdale Castle and ev...