English 3444E Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Frame Story, Greek Mythology, Antimetabole
19 Oct 2016
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October 17, 2016
19th Century British Lit Lecture 9
The Rie of the Aiet Marier y “auel Taylor Coleridge
- A lot of symbols that recur, many have just come into our culture from the poem, others
proceed it
- Ancient archetype of voyaging into a strange ocean
- The albatross – the arier kills the alatross with his rossow --with my cross-bow I shot the
Alatross. (1-82)
o Becomes a symbol of guilt or remorse that cannot be shaken
o Albatross became a bigger archetype after this poem → Wordsworth came up with it
- Eotioally, itese work aout soeoe’s loeliess – albatross shows this too → sense of
being lost, cut off from ones community, etc.
o Coleridge dealt with this a lot in his other works as well – sense of being cut off from
people
- Elegiac, sad and lonely how much the person speaking misses home and the comforts of home
while he’s i a loely plae
- To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends
And youths and maidens gay!
o Happy loving community, but arier’s asee fro the ouity
- Albatross suggested by Wordsworth as a way to image the creative imagination – it is rare so
seemed to make it more magical
- Found in Antarctic regions, and sailors were already superstitious about birds with long flight
paths
- Because the albatross is alone it seems almost ghostly, also they are white
- Huge wing span and large size gave thema n almost divine image – unusually large, almost
seeming mythic
- Coleridge was looking for symbols and was in search of a symbolic language for something
within him that forever existed
- First three stanzas, part II:
The Sun now rose upon the right:
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.
And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariner's hollo!
And I had done a hellish thing,
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And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!
o Idea that the bird has power to affect the weather and keep them safe
o His killing of it seems blasphemous in some ways
- Coleridge was concerned by what he saw as the atrophy of his creative imagination – saw it as
stagnant - conferenced with Wordsworth
- Opening lines of the poem:
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'
He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
o Frame narrative – overlapping because the mariner grabs the wedding guest and starts
to tell the tale, the the speaker of the poe tells us what’s goig o ad yet, as the
marginal gloss tells you, the mariner continues his tale
o All these things happening at once
- Why a weddig guest who’s stopped y the arier?
o Weddings are a celebration of a union – cementing of community, status quo
o Mariner is forever barred from this union and the wedding guest is forever changed by
the end of the tale
o Weddings typically lead to a conception too – procreation
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- 7 parts
- Everything seems to go to hell once h has killed the albatross:
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.
- Part III
There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye,
o Why repetition? –suggests the weariness, you get weary of the word
- Part IV
- 'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand…’
o The wedding guest talking to/about the mariner
- Lots of repetitio of aloe next → emphasizes and points to what the mariner is experiencing
and conveying this to the wedding guest and to us
- The mariner starts to notice other people at this point – line 236 – saying how beautiful the
other people were
o Sudden recognition of how there are other people
o Leaving behind of the self where before he was very self-involved and arrogant
- The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.
o Aligns himself not with the beautiful men but the slimy things
- Antimetabole:
o For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
- Everything seems to be enclosing the mariner, the repletion is closing things down for him
- Repetition of rotting in a physical and metaphorical sense
- Repeats I a lot too suggesting his isolation and aloneness – whole thing is a psychological
trauma for him
- Repletio of shadow – ghost, doppelganger, etc. → fear of mortality and of disappearing
- Sleep and rain point to regenerating images
- Part V
- Mariner might see the southern lights
- Shift from South Pacific imagery of southern lights to early summer in England – traditionally
associated with weddings
- These stanzas emphasize the mariners desire to return home to that community
- Part VI has two voices talking → two spirits
- Suggests that the mariner might be in a trance
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Document Summary
October 17, 2016 (cid:862)the ri(cid:373)e of the a(cid:374)(cid:272)ie(cid:374)t mari(cid:374)er(cid:863) (cid:271)y a(cid:373)uel taylor coleridge. A lot of symbols that recur, many have just come into our culture from the poem, others proceed it. Ancient archetype of voyaging into a strange ocean. The albatross the (cid:373)ari(cid:374)er kills the al(cid:271)atross with his (cid:272)ross(cid:271)ow (cid:862)--with my cross-bow i shot the. Al(cid:271)atross. (cid:863) ((cid:1012)1-82: becomes a symbol of guilt or remorse that cannot be shaken, albatross became a bigger archetype after this poem wordsworth came up with it. Elegiac, sad and lonely how much the person speaking misses home and the comforts of home while he"s i(cid:374) a lo(cid:374)ely pla(cid:272)e. And youths and maidens gay: happy loving community, but (cid:373)ari(cid:374)er"s a(cid:271)se(cid:374)(cid:272)e fro(cid:373) the (cid:272)o(cid:373)(cid:373)u(cid:374)ity. Albatross suggested by wordsworth as a way to image the creative imagination it is rare so seemed to make it more magical. Found in antarctic regions, and sailors were already superstitious about birds with long flight paths.
