NOTE: I encourage you to
read the entire poem, but feel free to read slowly, even if you don’t quite
finish it. In this poem, the details are more important than the overall
story, so look at it less as an actual narrative than a series of short poems
that cohere into a larger theme. But most of all, read carefully and look
for the metaphors, since poetry is all about how metaphors transform our
perception/experience of the world.
Answer TWO of the
following:
Q1:. The Rime of the
Ancient Mariner opens with a
frame narrative, that of the Mariner stopping a Wedding Guest and putting him
under a spell so he can tell his story: “He holds him with his glittering
eye.” Why do stories typically employ a frame narrative (think of ones
you know from previous classes) and why might it be especially important in a
work of fantasy? Why not simply tell the Mariner’s tale without the
artifice of telling it to someone else?
Q2: Read the glosses on
the left side of the poem carefully: are they really there to clarify the action of the
poem? While at times they seem to merely summarize the events, where do
they do something else? Do you find passages that seem to add unnecessary
detail or comically deflate the narrative? Consider particularly this
gem: “Like vessel, like crew!” (also consider, if the glosses are so
important, then why not simply write prose instead of a poem?)
Q3: Why does the Mariner
kill the Albatross? How does the crew initially react to this death, and
why does their reaction change over time? In the fantasy logic of the
poem, why does this seem to be a “sin”? Is it a sin cosmically, or merely
a sin in the minds of the men? Or simply in the mind of the Mariner
himself?
Q4: We’ve
already discussed the sublime in art/poetry, and in many ways, this poem is a
built on the bones of the sublime. Where do we see this specifically in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner?
Where does the poem trying to inspire awe, fear, and reverence in the metaphors
and imagery? How might this underline the theme or ideas in the poem
itself?
Q3: The Mariner kills the Albatross out of ignorance. He has not yet learned to respect all of God's creatures. The crew is initially upset with him, because they believe the bird brought them good luck. As the fog and mist disperse, however, they praise the Mariner for killing the evil bird. Unfortunately, not long after killing the Albatross, nature rears its head: the wind drops away, the sky grows hot, and there is such a serious lack of water that even the ship itself begins to dry up. I think this is indicative of a cosmic sin, because the Mariner is not freed from these conditions of death and destruction until he observes the beauty of the water snakes: "O happy living things! no tongue/ their beauty might declare:/ A spring of love gushed from my heart,/ And I blessed them unaware" (Part IV). Almost immediately, the Albatross falls from his neck and conditions improve.
ReplyDeleteQ4: Like most romantics, Coleridge held an obvious reverence for nature. We see this in the beautiful lines that capture a complete awe at the power of nature when it is defied: "About, about in reel and rout/ The death-fires danced at night;/ The water, like a witch's oils,/ Burnt green, and blue and white" (Part II). Clearly, Coleridge wants us to realize our connection with the sublime. It is a part of our past, present, and future; it is something to be respected. By the end of his journey, the Mariner passes on this knowledge to the Wedding-guest: "He prayeth best, who loveth best/ All things both great and small;/ For the dear God who loveth us,/ He made and loveth all" (Part VII).
Yes, he kills it because he's scared of it and everything around him (probably). It's terrifying because he sees everything as a threat. So it threatens and attacks him. As you suggest, once he learns to see the world as a work of art, or a mirror of his inner nature, does the world give him a break.
Delete2.) At first, it did feel like the "annotations" to the side were set in place to simply help clarify the actions of the poem. However, as I read on, it felt like something else could be happening here. As I went back through and read the glosses on the side without reading the poem in juxtaposition, they were perfectly punctuated to tell the story as a "short story" versus as the poem it is. It incapsulates all of the detail in fewer words. I'm wondering if this could be someone else who has heard the story and is relaying it to another individual, or if it is the Gallants retelling of it to the others that were with him. It seems like the same story being told twice. The ancient Mariner is telling it with the intense wonder and fantastical narration he is able to employ with the poem, while the Gallant is relaying the facts to the others. This would also help explain the fact that the glosses aren't told in first-person pov like the poem was, because it is being relayed and would then require third-person for the Gallant to tell the story.
ReplyDelete3.) As stated in another comment - the Mariner kills the Albatross with a hint of ignorance. He seems to do it to prove that there is no means of supernatural at work within that of nature - and later learns his lesson at the end. Initially, the crew is displeased because of their superstitions. However, it is their superstitious beliefs that allow their minds to ease when the fog clears and it seems like all is well. By the poem's logic, the sin is that the bird is a symbol of good luck and is also innocent. Thus, having killed the bird puts the blood on your hands of taking life away from something innocent and seen as a positive symbol to have alongside them. Also, going back to the previous answer I left to question 2, all of this could be in Mariner's head. that would mean the glosses on the side are a rendition of how he planned to tell the story before he told it, and the "sin" of killing an Albatross is a fabrication to push the story along.
Yes, the glosses are a kind of story told by someone else to help someone else read the poem. And possible, to "misread" it. Note that the glosses are often redundant, in much more archaic language than the poem, and sometimes overload the poem in an elaborate footnote. This may be Coleridge's joking way of reminding us that poetry isn't supposed to be a story that has an easy moral or meaning; it means something different to each reader, and the closer we look, the more we see ourselves. The glosses prevent us from looking too deeply!
DeleteQ1: It gave me a sense of ease dropping in the story. Kind of like walking by someone else’s camp fire and hearing their scary stories. It draws interest as well as curiosity. For example if someone was looking into your face and telling you a story you might not pay attention to it as much as you would a story someone else is telling their friend from across the room.
ReplyDeleteQ4: He brings forth nature in its most terrible. With the fog followed by a horrible heat and dehydration then death. He makes it sound like mother nature caused them pain then felt sorry for them buy sending them the albatross. But when it was killed mother nature turned spiteful. Pretty much marking everyone for death. Thus killing all but the one who killed the bird. Leaving the worst kind of fear. Dyeing lone.
Good points--I like the campfire idea, which is probably the ancient epic aspect Coleridge was going for in the first place. It also allows us to 'believe' in the story more, since we know it's just a story--not real even in the world of the poem. This helps us read it more symbolically and excuse some of the more outrageous aspects.
DeleteQ1. Frame narratives are important because they are a story within a story. This technique is important because it allows the story to be seen from multiple points of view. In Tales of a Thousand and One Nights, the frame narrative allowed us the chance to look at many different stories. The amount of stories we were able to look at was significant because he story had a different moral meaning behind it. Frame Narratives are extremely important in fantasy because it gives you the opportunity to get lost within the story. The deeper and deeper you get into the fantasy the more you get enveloped within the story. Telling the Mariner’s tale would lose the sense of wonder. It would also lose the fantastical feeling of a story. You want those crazy stories. People thrive off of them. It would also lose credibility as well because if you say you heard this story from so on and so fourth, people will more than likely believe it more because it is “famous”
ReplyDeleteQ4. I think right off the bat the poem starts into the awe. In stanza 15 the lines say, “The ice was here, the ice was there,/The ice was all around:/It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,/Like noises in a swound” giving you this feeling of cold and how I would picture The Day After Tomorrow in real life. It gives you this feeling of bitterness because you associate dark things with the cold. It almost makes you fear what is happening, or beginning to happen. I think this may be significant to the underlying metaphors because ice and cold it adds to the darkness within the poem.
Glad you remembered the Tales of the 1,001 Nights! Like those stories, the frame narrative here distances us from the 'real world' and gives us a suspension of disbelief (which was a term Coleridge originally coined) so we can meet the story on its own terms. It's not supposed to be literal, or coherent, or easily explainable (despite the glosses). By being old and from another time, we take it more seriously as you suggest--it becomes 'famous' immediately.
DeleteQ1:The frame narrative is especially important in a work of fantasy because it grounds the reader, and offers a greater contrast between "reality" and the fantastic story. In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", it further serves to set up the (possibly) unreliable narrator. It also serves to add to the comedic effect and deflation of the narrative, like the glosses. The poem is anticlimactic, which leaves the reader to wonder about the purpose of the poem.
ReplyDeleteQ2: The glosses exist for the sole purpose of comedic effect and deflating the narrative. The sing-song quality coupled with the glosses serve to poke fun at "high art". If the poem was written as prose, it could not serve the dual functions of being both childlike, and making fun of scholars who frequently employ the use of glosses.
Very interesting points...why do you find the poem anticlimactic? Because of the moral? Or because the Mariner simply escapes but has to endlessly repeat his penance? I think you're right about the glosses: they deflate the meaning and try to make this poem simpler and more prosaic than it is. And they are also very anticlimactic!
DeleteIrrelevant, but I just want to point out that the title says for Tuesday instead of Monday. Oops!
ReplyDeleteq1. You know, that makes me think of Cinderella, one of many Disney-produced tales that begin the same way. Shrek even! It starts with a storybook and the pages flip to the story. I think if the story was told directly it would lose its magic. That's what makes you want to read (or watch) more.
q3. He kills the bird because he wants to prove that it's not bringing them luck. He's trying to be realistic and disprove the superstition while trying to prove to the sailors that the albatross isn't keeping them safe, but to his surprise, it actually was playing a "magical" part by being the cause of the fog. The sailors were mad at him at first for killing it because they thought they depended on it. They realized just the opposite after the death of the bird, though.
Sorry about the Tuesday bit! I was planning a Tuesday class and it spilled over.
DeleteYes, Coleridge wanted a fairy-tale/folklore feel when he wrote this poem, since those stories immediately evoke the sublime by their age and their strangeness. It tells us that the events don't take place in our world and thus might not make sense. They might be symbolic. They might be supernatural. We just can't trust that anything makes sense like it 'should.' Not even the glosses!
Q1: I think that Coleridge employs the frame narrative because it allows the writer to create the setting and tone for how the story should be interpreted. However, in "Rime of The Ancient Mariner", it makes the story even more complex and difficult to interpret because it is unclear 1.) if the Mariner is reliable, and 2.) why the Mariner chose a wedding guest basically off the street to tell this important story to. I think that we are meant to kind of identify with the young man. He wants so badly to be with his friends and to be having a good time, but is instead stuck talking to an old man who is going on and on about his life. I think that Coleridge is telling us, through that piece at least, that the most important tales we will hear may come at the least opportune time from the least desirable person, but we should keep in mind that it makes them no less important. I also think that frame narration is important in works of fantasy because it keeps the reader grounded in some sort of reality so that their mind doesn't get carried away with the story and miss the whole point and meaning of the poem.
ReplyDeleteQ2: The glosses are not there to add clarity in any form or fashion. They poke fun at people trying to dissect poetry simply as a story, instead of something with metaphorical and symbolical meaning. I imagine Coleridge did this to spite Wordsworth after Wordsworth said all of the nasty things about the poem. To me, poetry should never have footnotes or glosses unless they are explaining a word that has become obsolete or has a different meaning today than it did in the time that the poem was written. The glosses to "Rime of an Ancient Mainer do comically deflate the narration and the beauty of the actual poem. They attempt to lead the reader astray, should the reader chose to use them, or they repeat what is said in the poem. These glosses, as a whole, are unnecessary.
I like the idea that the frame narrative, as you say, immediately makes us question the narrator. Can we trust him? Probably not! We have to wonder why he's really telling this story, and if hte moral matches up to the rest of the poem. Even the glosses are a kind of unreliable narrator, since they don't necessarily tell us the truth--or the story!
DeleteQ2: The glosses are used almost mockingly, as if Coleridge had set out to prove just how unnecessary glosses were. Many times the glosses have proven pointless, such as with the first one that simply restated things and used ridiculous words. Some of the glosses are less summary and are either a commentary or a definition. In some ways it’s almost as it’s a work depicting how glosses can detract from a poem and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a bonus poem that is used as an example.
ReplyDeleteQ4: Coleridge applied heavy amounts of personification to the natural world, making it hostile and terrifying. The sublime is very prominent in the Albatross, which is used as a symbol of purity and is described almost like friendly spirit. The Albatross is the light in the darkness that leads them out from among the glaciers that are described like vicious animals that will kill the sailors happily. By treating the Albatross with kindness, they were rewarded by the very glaciers cracking apart to set them free while the Albatross led them out. Killing the Albatross got all but the Ancient Mariner killed in turn, and he was spared by Life-In-Death. The Ancient Mariner essentially bit the hand that fed him and the hand hit him back.
Great responses...note that nothing in the natural world is dead here; it all lives and breathes, and is largely animated by the way the Mariner and his crew approach it. When he deals death, it kills the crew...when he sees it as beautiful, the curse is temporarily lifted. It's a very Romantic idea, that the world is what you make it--and it reflects the light or darkness within us.
DeleteElyse Marquardt
ReplyDeleteQ1. Telling the story in a frame narrative makes it more impersonal to the "narrator" and therefore more mysterious. It gives the poem the air of a legend being passed down from elder to youth. Typically, legends were tales that might not have been totally true, but which contained a riveting storyline that captivated the audience more than any bland first-person relaying of information could have done. This style of storytelling makes us think of ancient firesides and glowing eyes of children as they listen to their grandfathers tell tales of drama, heroism, and epic battles. In a way, this frame narrative makes us (and the wedding guest) the children by the fireside as we listen to the ancient mariner weave his poem.
Q4: As we discussed in class, we see the sublime in the vivid imagery which Coleridge employs to describe the ice and the wind. Not only do these elements of nature pose a threat to the wellbeing of the ship and its crew, but they also are personified in such a way that they seem to be intentionally hunting down the unfortunate crew. This suits the poem quite well, as later on in the story we see Death coming for all who are on the ship; everything is given a personality in this poem. It makes the story go deeper than being plain scary and gives it a sinister feeling. This is the darker side of the sublime.
Elyse Marquardt
Yes, a frame narrative immediately puts us back several hundred--or a thousand--years, as do slight misspellings such as the title "The Rime" rather than "the Rhyme." Yet age itself is sublime, since it makes us realize that art can cheat death and survive forever. Thus we're already contemplating the sublime before we read a line or two of the poem.
ReplyDeleteQ3- The Mariner kills the Albatross because it brought the storm with it. At first the crew thinks it's bad to kill the Albatross because they see it as a good omen and that it is there to bring good weather guide the ship home. Later, they realize that the Albatross was actually bringing bad weather. It was a sin because the Mariner killed one of the Spirits brethren and the Mariner had to pay for his sin.
ReplyDeleteQ4- It tries to inspire the sublime with it's description of the ice and the storm. Life in death is a character that seems to portray the sublime as well. When the crew dies and is "possessed" by angels, the description of the look in their eyes and on their faces sparks fear. The whole poem is strange and wonderful and even the wedding guest is afraid because he thinks he is speaking to a spirit.