RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Plot and Settings The ballad is composed of seven parts and the setting is the wide sea. The introduction is an “Argument” that has a short summary of the poem and consists of two narratives: one is composed of the captions and the other is the poem itself. It tells about a story of a mariner who kills an albatross. This story is told by a mariner during a marriage, which tells of how his ship had been blocked by ice at the South Pole and how the arrival of an albatross has brought a good luck with breaking the ice, but the fleet was hit by a curse and all the sailors died except one, who had killed the bird, and he tells his story to the people he met. In the first part the ancient Mariner stops a wedding guest to tell him his dreadful tale. He narrates how he and his fellow mariners reached the equator and the polar regions after a violent storm. After several days an albatross appeared through the fog and was killed by the Mariner. The shooting of a bird may seem a matter of little moment, but Coleridge makes it significant in two ways. First of all, he does not say why the Mariner kills the Albatross and what matters is precisely the uncertainty of the Mariner’s motives, which suggests the essential irrationality of the crime. Secondly, this action is against nature and breaks a sacred law of life. In the second part the Mariner begins to suffer punishment for what he has done, and Coleridge transfers the corruption and the helplessness which are the common attributes of guilt to the physical world. The world which faces the Mariner after his crime is dead and terrible; the ship has ceased to move and the sailors are tortured by thirst, and the only moving things are slimy creatures in the sea at night. The third part shows how the Mariner’s guilty soul becomes conscious of what he has done and of his isolation in the world. A phantom ship comes closer to the crew and is identified as a skeleton ship. On board Death and Life-in-Death cast dice; the former wins the Mariner’s fellows, who all die, and the latter wins the Mariner’s life. In the fourth part this sense of solitude is stressed. Then the Mariner, unaware, blesses the water and begins to re-establish a relationship with the world of nature. The fifth part continues the process of the soul’s revival. The ship begins to move and celestial spirits stand by the corpses of the dead mariners. In the sixth part the process of purification seems to be impeded. In the last stanzas of the seventh part the Mariner gains the wedding guest’s sympathy. Coleridge does not tell us the end of the story, but lets the reader suppose that the Mariner’s sense of guilt will end only with his death. Atmosphere and Characters THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT The mood of the poem is characterized by mystery, which is a consequence of the combination between the supernatural and the real; natural elements turn into supernatural pictures and the colours have a magic effect on the reader. The mariners are more stereotypes than human beings and their suffering is universally human. The Mariner is passive in guilt and remorse and acts impulsively. From his paralysis of conscience, the Mariner gains his authority but he still remains an outcast. Nature had an essential role in poetic creativity because in nature the poet could find the reflections of his emotions and feelings. Unlike Wordsworth, Coleridge did not find consolation nor happiness in nature, because of his strong Christian faith, he did not identify nature with God. The Rime has similar characteristics as the traditional ballads, such as the combination of dialogue and narration, the four-line stanza, archaic language, alliterations, repetition and onomatopoeia. But what makes it a Romantic ballad is the presence of a moral at the end. The poem may be the description of a dream, the supernatural and the unconsciousness of his psyche allow the poet to relate to a familiar experience. Coleridge’s poem may also be an allegory of the life and the soul, in its way from sin, punishment and redemption. The most relevant interpretation seems to be the one that sees the poem as a description of the poetic journey of Romanticism. The Mariner is the poet, enchanted by a song that comes from guilt, which is the regret for a state of lost innocence caused by the Industrial Revolution PARAFRASI THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER The wedding guest is fascinated by the eyes of the old sailor and forced to listen to his story. He holds it with his sparkling eyes- The wedding guest stopped, And he listens like a three-year-old: The sailor has the will of him. The wedding guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but to listen; And so he spoke to that ancient man, The bright-eyed sailor. 'The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, We happily broke up Under the kirk, under the hill, Under the top of the lighthouse. The Sailor tells how the ship sailed south in good wind and good weather, until she reached the line. The sun rose on the left, He came out of the sea! And it shone bright, and on the right I went down to sea. Higher and higher every day Until noon above the tree ... >> The wedding guest here beat his chest, Because he heard the strong bundle.