Coleridge

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SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.
This long ballad was published in the Lyrical Ballads of 1798 together with poems by Wordsworth. It is divided into seven parts introduced by a short summary of the story.
This is a literary ballad but it was written, differently from traditional ballad which was composed by a single author and passed on orally from generation to generation. It can be considered the manifest of English Romanticism.
Part I.
An ancient mariner stops three young men who are going to a wedding feast; the old man is the protagonist who tells a story to the wedding guests, who are the other characters. In the first stanza we can already notice the presence of a third person narrator who is impersonal and doesn’t intervene. Moreover in this ballad there is an abrupt passage from narration to direct speech; in fact they alternate in the first part of the text. This doesn’t happen frequently in the second part.
In the second stanza we can find the formal aspects of traditional ballad: as regard the stress pattern there is an alternation of 4 stresses and 3 stresses; the rhyme scheme is very elementary, that is ABCB; then there are some internal rhymes, for example, in line 7, “met”-“set”. Alliterations and repetitions of some phrases or lines are used to advance the story line, to highlight a detail and to increase the memorability of the text.
As regard the setting we can notice a difference between the narration and the story told by the mariner: in the first case it is very realistic and popular, in fact the context of the meeting is a wedding feast, while in the second case the atmosphere is surreal and symbolic at the same time.
The ancient mariner wants to tell a story but the guests don’t want to listen to him. In this way the poet identifies himself with the old man while the guests can represent the readers: the mariner wants to bring the reader to know true things, but the reader is reluctant. But he is gifted with supernatural powers; in fact he takes the will of the guest-reader to listen to the story with his “glittering eye”. So the guest becomes a “three years’ child” who is ready to hear the old man’s tale.
In the fifth stanza this static situation finishes and the story begins in the sixth stanza, but at the end of the text the initial context is introduced again.
In line 32 the sounds of bassoon is one of the many recalls to real life of the initial situation, in fact the guest wants to go away because he is attracted by the feast and it merry recall.
In this ballad we can distinguish two levels of narration: in the first case there is a third person narrator, who is impersonal, while in a second time there is a first person narrator, who is the mariner. Also the use of the verbal tenses is different, because the tale is told in the past, while the narration of the meeting is in the present.
As regard the direct speech, also in this case we can find a lot of internal rhymes, for example in the 6th, 7th and 8th stanza. At the beginning of the tale, all seems joyful: the ship was going to the Line with a good wind and fair weather.
An important device is the use of personification for the sun and the moon: the poet refers to the sun with the pronoun “he” and to the moon with the pronoun “she”. In this case the sun has a negative meaning, while the moon a positive one.
The first symbolical element is the Storm-blast which is the reason why the Ship changes its course and steers the South Pole. The Storm-blast can be compared with Dante’s “Selva oscura”: we can see a situation where the order is upset. So we can notice the important role of Nature, which is a mirror of human’s soul; in fact the storm-blast, as the ice, is something interior: it represents interior chaos, while the ice represents total loneliness. In the 15th stanza there are onomatopoeic sounds which represent the sounds of the ice.
Also the Albatross is a symbolical element, in fact it represents a sacred link, a religious friendship, between men and nature. It is a symbol of a living soul who becomes friend of men. We are away from the idea of Industrial Society of “giving and having”, founded on profit and exploitation: in fact in this case the most important value is friendship that something sacred and spiritual.
Another symbolical element, typically romantic, is the Moon, which represents a sort of harmony that exists in men’s soul. It is a sort of rebirth connected with the image of water, so it is a sort of spiritual renewal with a positive meaning.
The Mariner’s action of killing the Albatross represents a sort of original sin; for this reason the Mariner is considered a romantic figure who is against social and religious laws in particular. So, from this moment, for the Ancient Mariner and for the crew a period of pains and sorrows begins.
SUMMARY OF THE STORY OF MARINER
An ancient mariner stops three young men who are going to a wedding feast. The ancient mariner wants to tell a story but the guests don’t want to listen to him. The mariner wants to bring the guest to know true things, but the Gallant is reluctant. But he is gifted with supernatural powers; in fact he takes the will of the guest-reader to listen to the story with his “glittering eye”. So the guest becomes a “three years’ child” who is ready to hear the old man’s tale. The protagonist of the story is the Mariner who sails with his ship with a good wind and a fair weather. The ship has to reach the Line but, after passing it, it goes to the South Pole drawn by a storm. When the storm finishes the ship grounds in an iceberg, but an albatross takes the ship out of danger. The albatross, also after the accident, always follows the ship; but a day the mariner has something to reveal: he killed the albatross.
ROMANTIC FIGURES.
These romantic figures overcome the problem of death defying God: they are dead creatures in life or living creatures in death. They are:
1) The Vampire. It has an outrageous aspect like the other two figures. For his sin, he is condemned to live only during the night and to feed on human blood.
2) The Wandering Jew. He is an ancient dead figure who hasn’t obeyed to God’s laws and so he has been punished to wander through the sea just as the Ancient Mariner. He has to find a way to save himself in a spiritual sense. The return home is the reaching of his identity.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is inspired by this romantic figure.
3) The Searcher after forbidden knowledge. He is Frankenstein, a doctor who wants to win death; using the technology available in that period, he creates a human being taking various parts of dead bodies. He succeeds in assembling a body and gives life to it. This is a challenge to God, in fact the scientist doesn’t want only to defeat death, but also create life, power that is only of God. For this reason he receives a terrible pain: the monster he creates kills his relatives and his friends.

According to Coleridge, there is a competition between God and the poet because the poet creates something living, he gives life to his works, but only God has the power to create things. For this reason the poet is a sort of devil. Coleridge’s idea is different from that of Blake who identifies the poet with God.
The relationship between the man and Industrial Society is completely different from that between readers and poems: in the first case there is the relation of “giving and having”, while in the second the relation is founded on the readers’ sensitivity and on the ability of the poem of provoking feelings and emotions.

SUMMARY OF THE SECOND PART.
After the revelation of the Ancient Mariner who has killed the albatross, the ship goes to the Line, in fact the sun rises upon the right and goes down into the see on the left. When the weather and the situation in general are negative, the crew cries out against the Ancient Mariner for killing the bird of good luck; while when the fog and the bad weather go away, the mariners justify his crime thinking it was the better thing to do. The fair breeze drives the ship towards north crossing the Pacific Ocean. Suddenly the wind drops and the ship doesn’t move anymore, and this situation remains for several days. So the shipmates can’t drink and breath because there is no water and the air is torrid: this is the avenge of the Spirit of the Albatross which has followed the ship from “the land of mist and snow”. The shipmates put the blame on the Ancient Mariner and for this reason they hang the dead seabird round his neck.
Part II.
In this second part the scene changes because the course of the ship is different: it goes to the Line. So for the Mariner and the crew a period of rising disease and pain begins, in fact they have to be punished for killing the Albatross. In a first moment the situation seems to be favourable to the ship which is driven by a fair breeze, but suddenly the wind doesn’t blow anymore and so a static situation begins. There is a total immobility and absence of movement which is given by the image of “a painted ship upon a painted ocean”. The sea could represent Mariner’s feelings and emotions: they are completely still because he doesn’t feel guilty yet or perhaps he doesn’t know his sin. The sea is one of the most extensive symbols because it is frequently present in the ballad.
Then the sea becomes slimy and the atmosphere is unreal and horrid: there is a typically romantic gothic level with elements arousing fear and horror. The rotting sea could be interpreted as the sense of guilt, as the sin, which is destroying the Mariner’s soul: he begins to feel the blame of the killing.
There are some supernatural images which happen in the sea: it shows death-fires and becomes green, blue and white.
“From the land of mist and snow” a Spirit has followed the ship: it is that of the Albatross which brings all the possible pains to the ship. The “bloody Sun” represents a sort of divine punishment and it introduces the period of sorrow caused by the Spirit.
As regard the formal aspect of this part, it consists of 14 stanzas, 12 of them are quatrains while the third and the forth are made of six lines. There are a lot of alliterations that in most case are used to create onomatopoeic sounds: in fact in the fifth stanza the frequent use of “f” gives the idea of “breeze” and “foam”. Moreover we can notice the presence of internal rhymes that make the rhythm more melodious.

After the second part there is a ghost-ship on which there are two supernatural characters who are playing chess: “Death” and “Life in Death”. Life in Death is a woman who is white as the leprosy and gives a very strange image. She wins the game of chess and so she can decide the destiny of the Ancient Mariner. The old man has to tell all the world his story in every time. The scene of the chess game wants to underline he won’t die nor continue to live, but he will always hover between life and death. For this reason his soul survives while all the shipmates die. Nevertheless normal life will be impossible for the mariner.
Part IV.
In the first two quatrains we can find an abrupt passage from the guest’s speech and the Mariner’s one. The guest is afraid that the Mariner is dead and so he is speaking with a Spirit, but the old man reassures him saying he didn’t fall in the sea. The guest describes the Mariner as a tall, lank and brown man with a “skinning hand” and “glittering eye”, characteristics which give the idea of the sea floor.
In the third stanza the Mariner’s story begins again: the man is alone on the ship and the only things he can see are the rotting sea, the bodies of the dead shipmates and thousand slimy things. The Mariner becomes himself something slimy because he is conscious of his terrible destiny.
In the 6th quatrain he wants to pray but he can’t because of a wicked whisper that makes his heart “as dry as dust”. He is devastated by the image of death and horror expressed by the dead men’s eyes. He lives this situation for seven days and seven nights, till the arrive of the Moon. The poet uses the personification of the Moon which represents a positive aspect and reintroduces a world made of harmony. Moon’s beams are above the horror and they doesn’t change in spite of the warm and sultriness of the sea and the air. So the ship is still in a negative condition of malediction, while the Moon emanates a beneficent influence, positive energy. Thanks to Moon’s beams the Mariner can see the water-snakes which moves “in tracks of shining white”. He succeeds in loving them and so he restores the sacred link that he destroyed with the killing of the Albatross. With this change of the situation the Mariner can pray and when he does it the dead bird, hung to his neck, falls in the sea.
Part VII.
In the last four quatrains the initial situation of the ballad is taken again: the Mariner says farewell and tells the guest to love all things that God made and loves; only in this way men can pray well. Then the Mariner goes away and the guest decides not to go to the wedding-feast; he is like one that has been stunned, but he rises sadder and wiser next morning. We can say that there is an identification with the reader that, after reading the ballad, changes his opinions and is ready to live in the best way without defying God and the power of nature as the Ancient Mariner has done.

BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA.
It is the Coleridge’s longest prose work, written in 1815 and published two years later. In it the poet explains his own theory of Romantic poetry.
In this text Coleridge gives an account of the origins of the “Lyrical Ballads”, work which includes both Coleridge’s poems and Wordsworth’s ones. In fact the two poets were neighbours, and often used to work together; but their friendship ended when Coleridge fell in love with Wordsworth’s sister. On the basis of an agreement, the two poets decided to write a series of poems of two different types.
Coleridge had to represent supernatural events and characters making them real to the readers. Coleridge’s purpose was to provoke the same emotions a real thing can provoke, in fact his poems come from a source of unreality but they must give the sensation of reality. In other words he tries to affect readers’ sensitivity and to arouse real emotions and feelings in them through the introduction of supernatural elements.
On the other hand, Wordsworth had to represent situations and events chosen from ordinary life; in this way the poet wants to bring to light common people’s feelings and emotions. He had to reproduce faithfully the nature of things and the reality in order to highlight what is magic and fantastic in them and to provoke love and admiration for them in the most striking sensitivities.
The most important part of the text goes from line 13 to line 18. here Coleridge says he should have dealt with supernatural and fantastic elements in order to arouse human interest. to feel emotions reading a poem, the reader must attribute dignity to the poem, have poetic faith and voluntarily suspend his disbelief. For this reason he has to believe supernatural things as real, because in them there is something real.
Instead Wordsworth had to introduce new aspects in the representation of real situation in order to avoid that people’s mind could fall in the “lethargy of custom” and to direct them to the loveliness and the wanders of the world. This “lethargy” consists of the absence of sensitivity, feelings and emotions caused by the “selfish solicitude”.