Most interpretations of “Christabel” ignore the creative context from which it emerged. In his notebooks and letters, Coleridge developed a theory of the nature of human sexuality and its importance as the foundation of love and marriage. In a series of poems written from 1797 to 1801, Coleridge dramatized the problem of sexual maturation by focusing on the betrothal of a girl threatened by her own sexuality. “Christabel,” the culmination of this period, traces the heroine's attempt to come to terms with her erotic impulses, to recognize their essential role in her love for her absent knight, and to progress from adolescence to womanhood. Geraldine, the projection of those impulses, is the woman she yearns and fears to become. Although the poem is unfinished, its fairy-tale structure, psychology, and symbolism, along with its relation to Coleridge's other poems and his ideas about sex, love, and marriage, indicate that the continuation summarized by James Gillman accurately describes Coleridge's intentions.