The Rime of the Ancient Mariner :-
About poem :-
Day after day, day after day,
we stick, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean."
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ( originally " Rime of the Ancyent Mariners ")is the longest major poem by English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1797-98 and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Modern editions use a later revised version printed in 1817 and featuring a gloss. Along with other poems in Lyrical Ballads, it was a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature.
Poetic form : Lyrical Ballads :-
" The Rime of the Ancient Mariner " is a celebrated literary Ballad or narrative poem written in deliberate imitation of the traditional folk ballad. Like older ballads, Coleridge's masterpiece features sensational subject matter the perilous journey of an old sailor. It also contains other conventional elements : dialogue, repetition of words and phrases,and strong pattern of rhyme and rhythm. However,there are aspects of the poem that reflect Coleridge's own romantic writing style: his emphasis on the supernatural, his sophisticated use of sound devices, and his use of archaic language. For example, notice his description of a mysterious ghost ship:
" Speck, a mist, a shape , I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged, and tacked and veered."
As you read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", observe how Coleridge reworks the traditional ballad form and creates a poem of rare beauty and complexity.
Setting :-
Just as the poem has two different narratives, it also has two different settings. The first setting is outside the wedding hall. There is no way to know in what year or even century the poem takes place, but it must have been after the Age Exploration, because the Mariner describes a voyage all the way down to the Antarctic. As for the place, we know the Mariner and the wedding guest come from somewhere in the British Isles, but not exactly where. Judging by the use of the Scottish word " Kirk", and the fact that ballads were popular in Scotland, this poem could be set in that region.
The wedding, quite frankly, sounds like a rockin time. There's singing, dancing, drinking and a whole lot of marry making. But we only hear all this revelry behind closed doors. The wedding guest is sitting on a rock outside the feast and maybe he catches a glimpse or two of the party when people enter or leaves. But that's it. Otherwise he's just sitting in the darkness listening to a grizzled old man with magnetic eyes.
The setting of the Mariner's story,on the other hand,is full of spectacular Scenery and supernatural elements. Special emphasis is put on the weather and on astrological phenomena like the sun, moon and stars. These are obviously things of great concern for sailors. The story begins in the bay with the receding shoreline. The boat travels down to the equator and then to the Antarctic Ocean, where they run into trouble in an ice field. The ice is cracking and grounding all around them.
And what about that Ocean? The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is set in time when, once you crossed a certain point in your ship, you would expect not to see other people for a long, long time. As in many works of literature, like Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, the ocean represents the mysteries of the human soul and if you want to get all Sigmund Freud about it,the unconscious. Just like the sea, an individual's personality is often like a flat, uniform surface that conceals and deepness filled with those bizerre and often unsightly creatures we call emotions or desires. So, when the Mariner pollutes his soul by killing the albatross, it's not a surprise to see that the ocean becomes polluted with slime and horrible creatures. Moreover, the imaginary of the vast, vacant ocean, particularly once the rest of the crew has died, expresses a condition of spiritual solitude and loneliness. It's the kind of setting that makes you realise we're truly all alone in this world, with seemingly infinite depths above and below us.
After the Mariner breaks the curse against him, the strange colors on the ocean disappear,but then a bunch of angels turn the poem into a zombie movie, amid a crazy night time light show with lighting and the Aurora, taking over the bodies of the sailors. They create their own retraces it's steps,moving back to the equator,and then , with the return of the wind ,to the bay where the story started. At this point, the story- within-a-story ends, and we return to scene of the wedding feast. Taken as a whole,the setting traces an are from the wedding to Antarctica and back again.
Theme of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner :-
The main themes in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" are sin and penance, the power of prayer, and mystery and the supernatural.
Sin and penance :-
After sinning by killing the albatross,the Mariner must atone through suffering. As such, is condemned to wander the world , telling his stor of woe.
Power of Prayer :-
Prayer which Coleridge links to love is presented as vital, even in the midst of despair.
Mystery and the Supernatural :-
The supernatural elements of the poem underscore ots urgency as a story of sin and belief.
Characters :-
Night- mare Life- in-Death
The Mariner
Pilot
Death
Wedding Guest
Major conflicts :-
The conflict of the narrative poem begins the Mariner shoots the albatross who had just led the ship to safety. Not only is the ship's crew angry with him but the Mariner also faces the wrath of the spiritwho seek to punish him for this act.
To read more about the original poem : The Rime of the Ancient-Mariner. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43997/the-rime-of-the-ancient-mariner-text-of-1834
Thank you !...
Word count :- 990
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