Milton Parallels?
Shelley’s Interpretation?
(Paradise Lost)
(Frankenstein)
STRUCTURE:
Many critics see
the ‘Rime of the
Ancient Mariner’
as an allegory of
some kind of fall,
like……
Sin, Punishment, Redemption…
Of Lucifer -
Of Adam -
…cast into hell?
…forbidden fruit?
“…slimy things …
“I shot the albatross”
Slimy sea”
“…the very deep did
rot…”
“…and I had done a
hellish thing…”
Of Coleridge …opium?
“witch’s oils, / … burnt
green, and blue and
white”
Phantasmagoria!
Purely inspirational?
Dark gothic?
“cursed me with his eye”
“poetry gives most
pleasure when only generally
“Life-in-death”
and not perfectly understood"
“spectre bark”
- Coleridge
Many critics maintain, as Christopher Lamb does,
that the ‘Ancient Mariner’ is a work of complete
and pure imagination. As…
No single interpretation seems to
fit the entire poem…
In essence, it is a very imaginative
and unusual piece…
Gustav Doré’s Dark Etches…
Just as the
Ancient Mariner
has to re-tell his
Coleridge felt a deep sense of sin,
tale, Coleridge
for his opium addiction and
has to keep on
otherwise.
returning to this
poem and
revising
it…
The poem could be his way of fathoming
his
feelings.
The “strange power” of the Ancient Mariner, as his difficult feelings.
“mingled strangely with my fears”
“I know that man … must hear me” / “To him my tale I teach”
Hence, his sensitivity and saying that the poem
should not be analysed…?
(“poetry gives most pleasure when only
generally and not perfectly understood“)
“Instead of the cross, the Albatross/
About my neck was hung”
“I had killed the bird / That made
the breeze to blow”
“Hailed it in God’s name”
“Christian soul”
“Crimson red like Gods own head”
- “Hid in mist”
- “dungeon-grate”
Crew
distanced
from God
“blessed them
unawares”
Vs.
Some critics maintain that this ballad was
an exploration, by Coleridge, into the
science vs. spirituality debate:
There are many mysterious fantastical images,
at
the
“glittering
with itshe“strange
He was
a point
in hiseye”
life where
was more
power”
concerned
with the rational than the empirical,
 the
“polar
spirits” andof“seraph
band”
this poem
was
an exploration
the former.
The latin preface says, “Human cleverness
has always sought knowledge of these
things, never attained it”.
THE
END.