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For Friday: Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, parts I-IV


 

NOTE: No questions for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, since I want you to concentrate on simply reading (and enjoying?) the poem. It's basically a Romantic ghost story, with a lot of Wordsworth's ideas about innocence and experience baked in. Read it for the sounds (so many amazing sounds!) and the story first, and then think about how it relates to Wordsworth's ideas--as well as Turner's painting, The Slave Ship (see the post below on that: ).

You only have to read parts I-IV for Friday, since we can't possibly cover the entire poem in a single class (we certainly couldn't cover much of Tintern Abbey on Wednesday, could we?). Below are some ideas to consider as you read, and we'll talk more about these on Friday:

* The Plot: the poem is basically about a man (the Mariner) who crashes a wedding party and hypnotizes three Wedding Guests with his weird eyes and strange tale. He tells a story about being on an expedition to the South Pole, and how on the way there, suffering from storms and cold, he shot an albatross with a cross-bow. This dooms the ship, and everyone starts to die except the Mariner, who is forced to watch the supernatural beings of the Pole overtake the ship and torment him. Finally, a ship comes to rescue him, but it's a death ship piloted by Life-in-Death, a living corpse. 'She' makes the crew die one by one and leaves him there until finally he repents, and the crew returns to animation to pilot the ship home again. Yet now he's cursed to travel from port to port telling people his tale, complete with its incongruous moral, "He prayeth well, who lovetgh well, Both man and bird and beast...All things both great and small." 

* The History: the poem was originally published in a volume called Lyrical Ballads (1798) along with fellow poet, Wordsworth. They wanted to collaborate on a volume of revolutionary, cutting-edge poetry that was based on supernatural elements that seemed to be real, and completely ordinary, day-to-day people and events that might seem sublime and profound. However, Wordsworth felt that Coleridge's poems were too shocking and 'out there,' and tolerated only a few of them, including The Rime. Years later, when he republished the book, he claimed that "the style of myself and Coleridge would not assimilate," and he rejected almost all of his poems, keeping only The Rime, and moving it to the end of the volume. So you might think about why the poem works against some of Wordsworth's style and/or ideas, even though today they're usually taught side-by-side.

* The Glosses: the poem is full of strange side-glosses (descriptions) written in an arcane style and full of scholarly information. These were not originally part of the poem. Coleridge started adding them in 1800, and continued to add more and more as the years went on. Don't take them too seriously. In fact, read them side by side with the poem and ask yourself, "is this really explaining the poem?" Some of them should make you laugh. Finally, stop reading them at all and just focus on the poem. 

* The Sounds: read this poem out-loud: it's amazing. Think about why such a ghastly and strange poem sounds like this: "It is an ancient Mariner,/And he stoppeth one of three./"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,/Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?" This opening is rather comical and the sound doesn't make the poem scary, exactly...more like something else. 

* The Style: Coleridge writes in an outdated, archaic style as if he's writing a poem written a hundred or so years ago. Why might he do this? Why not make it sound modern? (hint: Wordsworth hated this!). 

* The Sublime: this poem is full of sublime imagery and situations. Consider what the Mariner sees at the South Pole. And how does this poem use elements of horror to reinforce the power of Nature and the smallness of man? 

* An Intertextual Bonus: if you like 80's heavy metal, the band Iron Maiden wrote an 11-minute epic based on this poem, called "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" off their 1984 album, Powerslave. It might sound silly to you, but it does capture the unique rhythm of the poem and it's unusual music. You can probably find it on You Tube. 

GOOD LUCK! We'll talk more on Friday...


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