“THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER” By S T Coleridge

VAIBHAV A GANGANE

MA II (2014-2015)

DNYANOPASAK COLLEGE, PARBHANI

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)

Poet, critic and philosopher Born in Devonshire (a country in south west England), as the youngest of 14 children of a vicar Collaborating with wordsworth on the revolutionary Lyrical Ballads of 1798 Poems such as “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, “christabel” and “Kubla Khan” demonstrate Coleridge’s talent for fantastic imagery “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is the first poem in Lyrical Ballad

“RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER”

Context :-

First published in Lyrical Ballads The poem written in Romantic Style protagonist Ancient Mariner is the narrator of the story Poem is full of imagination, fantasy and supernatural elements

Characters :-

1. Ancient Mariner2. Wedding Guest3. The sailors4. Albatross (The Birds)5. Death6. The Night-mare Life-in-Death

A Short Synopsis ……

The Wedding guest – the voyage – struck in ice – he kills the Albatross. Mariner stops a wedding guest and forces him to listen to his story The ship sails south to equator Ship drives by storm into desolate Antarctica, They stuck in ice An Albatross appears through the fog like a messenger of hope It is befriended by the shipmates The ice splits, south wind springs up and takes them northward Mariner shoots Albatross with his crossbow The ship becalmed in the Pacific

Part 1st :-

Part 2nd :-

Shipmates punish him for his crime.

The crew get angry against his deed They suffer from thirst but no water to drink They hang dead bird around Mariners neck

“Day after day, day after day,We stuck, nor breath nor motion

As idle as a painted shipUpon a painted ship.”

Part 3rd :-

A skeleton ship comes, and the shipmates dies.

A ship of skeleton appears with crew of two Death and Life-in-Death The cast dice and Life-in-Death wins Mariner Suddenly crewmates drop down dead one after another with a silent course upon Mariner Their souls fly away audibly, leaving behind dead and rotten bodies, laying with open eyes Which constantly stairs at him

Part 4th :-

He is left alone for seven days. He blesses the water snakes and spell is broken.

The wedding guest is afraid that he is speaking to a ghost, but the Mariner assures him that he did not die. He is alone on the ship and tries to pray but he cannot. For seven days he looks at the dead men staring at him and cannot die.When he sees water-snakes he blesses them and he finds that he can pray.The albatross falls from his neck.

Part 5th :-

Its rains, The ship is moved north, crew rise.

He sleeps and then it rains. A roaring wind and storm comes, and the dead crew rises and manage the ship. The spirit from the snow and ice moves them to the equator again, and the ship stands still. Eventually the mariner reaches home, but the curse remains with him in that he must wander ever after land to land, seizing upon people and compelling them to hear his tale.

Mariner forces guest to listen his story…..

A storm hits the ship and impels in south.

Ship stuck in the ice

Mariner kills “Albatross”Albatross

messenger

of hope

Shipmate

punish

Mariner

Dead

Albatross

hanged around

Mariner’s neck

Skeleton ship

arrives

crewmates

drop down

dead

Ship moving North

MAJOR THEMES :-

1. The Natural World :

Realistic description of natural that helps in winning the reader’s faith

“The sun came upon the left,Out of the sea came he!

And he shown bright, and on the rightWent down into the sea”

The natural world dwarfs and asserts its awesome power over man

The natural world seems to be a character itself, which interacts with Ancient Mariner

Killing of Albatross (representative of nature) is the action against nature which takes him and shipmates to thought of dead

2. The Spiritual World :

It had popularly interpreted as an allegory of man’s connection to spiritual and metaphysical world After attempts at prayer and realization of what he has done, his penance to forgiveness begins spiritually-

“I looked to heaven and tried to pray” Albatross - here a mortal creature is intimately tide to the spiritual world The Ancient Mariner detects spirits several times in the poem

3. Religion :

It is a religious allegory conveying numerous themes pertaining to Christianity a religious allegory carrying a main religious theme that reflects Christian beliefs Albatross represents holy bird Ancient mariner fails to respect god’s rules and so suffers by curse which is similar to the religious stories of Adam and Eve At the end he kept alive to pass words of god’s greatness onto others

4. Retribution :

The poem is a tale of retribution, throughout the poem Mariner spends most of his role playing for his impulsive error (sin) of killing Albatross Spiritual world avenges the Albatross’s death by curse on the Mariner and shipmates Even they are thirsty, their lips bake black in the sun, they must endure the torment of seeing water all around them while being unable to drink it Retribution is blind- The sailors suffer with the Mariner though they themselves have not erred

5. Depiction of The Supernatural Elements :

The greatness of S. T. Coleridge’s The Ancient Mariner lies chiefly in the technique by which the supernatural has been

made so believable and convincing that easily appeals to reader : “ Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold ;Her skin was as white as leprosy,

The night-mare Life-in-Death was she,Who thicks man’s blood with cold”

Such suggestive description of supernatural elements is enough to enable reader to imagine for himself of Life-in-Death (Horrible woman)

Coleridge depicts tactfully how nature punishes supernaturally for killing its innocent member :

“All in hot copper sky,The bloody sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,No bigger than the moon”

To grasp the dreadfulness of Life-in-Death poet says :

“One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,And cursed me with his eye”

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