Eng 302 Rime
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The document discusses Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and includes summaries and analyses of the poem from both Coleridge and Wordsworth. It provides context for the origins and intentions of the poem as part of the Lyrical Ballads publication and highlights some of the key events and themes in the poem, including the shooting of the albatross and the mariner's curse. The document also references the concept of mesmerism and its potential influence on the supernatural elements of the poem.
Eng 302 Rime
- 1. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony returns: And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns. 582-85
- 2. Biographia Literaria XIV The thought suggested itself (to which of us I do not recollect) that a series of poems might be composed of two sorts. In the one, incidents and agents were to be, in part at least, supernatural, and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions, as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real. And real in this sense they have been to every human being who, from whatever source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under supernatural agency.
- 3. Biographia Literaria XIV For the second class, subjects were to be chosen from ordinary life...In this idea originated the plan of the 'Lyrical Ballads'; in which it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least Romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. ... With this view I wrote the 'Ancient Mariner'.
- 4. Wordsworth on the Rime From what I can gather it seems that the Ancient Mariner has upon the whole been an injury to the volume, I mean that the old words and the strangeness of it have deterred readers from going on. If the volume should come to a second Edition I would put in its place some little things which would be more likely to suit the common taste. --Letter to Joseph Cottle, 1799
- 5. W.W. in Lyrical Ballads The Poem of my Friend has indeed great defects; first, that the principal person has no distinct character, either in his profession of Mariner, or as a human being who having been long under the control of supernatural impressions might be supposed himself to partake of something supernatural; secondly, that he does not act, but is continually acted upon; thirdly, that the events having no necessary connection do not produce each other; and lastly, that the imagery is somewhat too laboriously accumulated.
- 6. W.W. in Lyrical Ballads Yet the Poem contains many delicate touches of passion, and indeed the passion is every where true to nature, a great number of the stanzas present beautiful images, and are expressed with unusual felicity of language; and the versification, though the metre is itself unfit for long poems, is harmonious and artfully varied, exhibiting the utmost powers of that metre, and every variety of which it is capable. It therefore appeared to me that these several merits (the first of which, namely that of the passion, is of the highest kind) gave to the Poem a value which is not often possessed by better Poems.
- 8. With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross 83
- 10. The wedding- guest sat on a stone 17
- 12. At length did cross an albatross 63
- 14. The spirit Plagued us so; Nine fathom deep he had Followed us 133
- 16. A bout my neck W hung as 1 43
- 19. The twain were casting dice; “The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!” 195-96
- 21. I looked upon the rotting sea, And drew my eyes away 242
- 23. The moving Moon went up the sky, And no where did abide 263
- 28. And the rain pour'd down from one black cloud 320
- 34. Upon the whirl where the ship sank 556
- 35. Mesmer • Franz Memser 1734-1815, Vienna • “Glittering eye” • “Cannot choose” • “Bright eyed” • “Cursed me with his eye” (215)
- 36. “I fear thee, ancient Mariner”: Powers of Influence • Anxiety • Authority and power • Influence • Hypnosis • Trance • Mesmerism