Rime of the Ancient Mariner

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Rime of the Ancient Mariner

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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I. Introduction

• Coleridge was one of the great (seminal) minds of
  the 19th century (creative genius, philosophical
  genius, critical genius)
• Great friends with Wordsworth
• Lyrical Balladsa new kind of
• poetry is codified

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Introduction (cont)

• STCs rheumatismuse of laudanum
• --affected imagery (see especially Kubla Khan)

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II. Rime of the Ancient Mariner (STCs
Purgatorio)

• Coleridge is a moral philosopher
• Attempt to reconcile immediate end (pleasure)
  with ultimate end (moral)
• STC wished to show the relationship between the
  imagination and the moral sense (heart, emotion)

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II. Rime of the Ancient Mariner

• Frame StorySacramental (marriage) universe
• --the wedding guest average insensitive
  person
• needs his imagination
• awakened

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II. Rime of the Ancient Mariner

• Main Theme Sin?Guilt?Redemption
• Mariners Sinlack of imagination?does
• not appreciate the miracle
• Separation of mariner
• from Nature
• c. Mariner seeks salvation
• through art

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II. Rime of the Ancient Mariner

• Archetypal Images (see symbol chart)
• Albatrossthe human soul (concept of the
  sacramental universe)
• The mysitcal journey
• heat storm
• home ice
• death new ocean
• calm

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II. Rime of the Ancient Mariner

• The supernaturalalways (or almost always)
  symbolizes the psychological or universal element
• Death and Life in Death
• Seraph men
• Spirit from the Pole
• Living dead

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II. Rime of the Ancient Mariner

• 6. Conclusion (part VII)
• a. Change in the Wedding Guest
• b. Imagination can be destructive force (the
  gale wind) but the calm can be worse
• c. The moral of the poem