“Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Qs 2 – 6, p.753
2. a. The Mariner tells his story on the occasion of a wedding.
b. Coleridge may use the occasion of a wedding for the poem
because the Mariner’s story is a warning about the isolation and
guilt brought about by a break with nature and society, while a
wedding affirms unity and community.
3. a. The crew says that the Albatross is responsible for the fog and
then that the Albatross is responsible for the wind that keeps their
boat moving.
b. The Mariner kills the Albatross with his crossbow.
c. The Mariner wears the Albatross around his neck as a sign of his
crime in killing it.
4. a. The Mariner’s shipmates drop dead.
b. The deaths might symbolize the ways in which guilt can cut off
an individual from others.
5. a. The Albatross falls off his neck because his guilt is forgiven.
b. The Albatross is a symbol of guilt for man’s break with a
community; it may also symbolize the interconnectedness of all
things.
6. a. The Mariner’s lifelong penance is to wander the Earth telling
his tale and teaching love for “all things both great and small.”
b. It leaves him “sadder” and “wiser.”
c. Coleridge’s poem might suggest that people need to respect
God’s creation but that they are in danger of failing to respect it.
Some thoughts on “Kubla Khan”
Coleridge read a 17th century travel book about the Chinese ruler
Kubla Khan, took a prescribed dose of opium and fell into a
“reverie.” This poem was originally 200+ lines but while
Coleridge was writing from memory, a visitor interrupted him and
when he returned to the work later, he discovered he had forgotten
the rest.
Lines 1 – 36 describe the pleasure-dome. It is an image of wildness
combined with gentleness, heights and depths, explosive creative
force with calm obliteration, warmth and coldness, holiness with
demonism, tumult with lifelessness, momentary present with an
ancestral past, light and dark, a peaceful scene with prophecies of
war. In essence, a vision of creation and destruction.
In line 37 the vision the poet once had of an exotic maiden
connects the image of the pleasure-dome to the song. If he could
revive within himself the feelings aroused by this vision, he too
would be able to create “in air” what Khan did on earth. The poet
would be seen as a holy man of magical powers. Alas, it is only a
wish!
“Kubla Khan”
Qs 1 – 4, p. 756
1. a. The grounds of the pleasure dome are “twice five miles” in
size, and it contains gardens, creeks, incense-bearing trees,
and sunny spots of greenery.
b. The associations with the romantic chasm are threatening and
chaotic; they include a woman wailing for her demon lover and
the explosive underground pressures that force the river to jet
above the ground. By contrast, the dome itself is orderly and
peaceful.
c. Beautiful elements include “gardens bright with sinuous
rills,” “incense-bearing trees in greenery. Sinister elements
include “a sunless sea,” “a waning moon,” “a woman wailing
for her demon lover,” the chasm and the emptying of the
fountain, and the “lifeless ocean.”
2. a. A fountain comes from the chasm and it bursts out of the
earth and tosses up fragments of rock as it makes its way to
the ocean.
b. Wild disorder of the kind present in the chasm might
represent to pressures that drive artists to the ordered creation of
works of art like the dome. In order to create new patterns, as
artists do, it may be necessary to dissolve old patterns in chaos
or to start from what is without order. I like you.
3. a. The speaker would build the dome in the air if he were
able to revive the maid’s song. All who heard would then
“see” the dome.
b. All who heard would cry “beware,” form a circle around him,
and close their eyes.
4. a. The power of art is an unstable one that challenges the
certainties of ordinary life.
b. The dread experienced by the vision of inspired art suggests
that, just as the setting of the dome includes a mysterious
chasm, an inspired work of art taps into deep, chaotic forces as
well as presenting orderly forms.