Rime of the Ancient Mariner解析.docx

1、Rime of the Ancient Mariner解析Analysis Samuel Taylor Coleridges PoemSamuel Taylor Coleridges place in the canon of English poetry rests on a comparatively small body of achievement: a few poems from the late 1790s and early 1800s and his participation in the revolutionary publication of Lyrical Balla

2、ds in 1797. Unlike Wordsworth, his work cannot be understood through the lens of the 1802 preface to the second edition of that book; though it does resemble Wordsworths in its idealization of nature and its emphasis on human joy, Coleridges poems often favor musical effects over the plainness of co

3、mmon speech. The intentional archaisms of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and the hypnotic drone of “Kubla Khan” do not imitate common speech, creating instead a more strikingly stylized effect. Further, Coleridges poems complicate the phenomena Wordsworth takes for granted: the simple unity betwe

4、en the child and nature and the adults reconnection with nature through memories of childhood; in poems such as “Frost at Midnight,” Coleridge indicates the fragility of the childs innocence by relating his own urban childhood. In poems such as “Dejection: An Ode” and “Nightingale,” he stresses the

5、division between his own mind and the beauty of the natural world. Finally, Coleridge often privileges weird tales and bizarre imagery over the commonplace, rustic simplicities Wordsworth advocates; the “thousand thousand slimy things” that crawl upon the rotting sea in the “Rime” would be out of pl

6、ace in a Wordsworth poem. If Wordsworth represents the central pillar of early Romanticism, Coleridge is nevertheless an important structural support. His emphasis on the imagination, its independence from the outside world and its creation of fantastic pictures such as those found in the “Rime,” ex

7、erted a profound influence on later writers such as Shelley; his depiction of feelings of alienation and numbness helped to define more sharply the Romantics idealized contrast between the emptiness of the citywhere such feelings are experiencedand the joys of nature. The heightened understanding of

8、 these feelings also helped to shape the stereotype of the suffering Romantic genius, often further characterized by drug addiction: this figure of the idealist, brilliant yet tragically unable to attain his own ideals, is a major pose for Coleridge in his poetry. His portrayal of the mind as it mov

9、es, whether in silence (“Frost at Midnight”) or in frenzy (“Kubla Khan”) also helped to define the intimate emotionalism of Romanticism; while much of poetry is constituted of emotion recollected in tranquility, the origin of Coleridges poems often seems to be emotion recollected in emotion. But (un

10、like Wordsworth, it could be argued) Coleridge maintains not only an emotional intensity but also a legitimate intellectual presence throughout his oeuvre and applies constant philosophical pressure to his ideas. In his later years, Coleridge worked a great deal on metaphysics and politics, and a ph

11、ilosophical consciousness infuses much of his verseparticularly poems such as “The Nightingale” and “Dejection: An Ode,” in which the relationship between mind and nature is defined via the specific rejection of fallacious versions of it. The mind, to Coleridge, cannot take its feeling from nature a

12、nd cannot falsely imbue nature with its own feeling; rather, the mind must be so suffused with its own joy that it opens up to the real, independent, “immortal” joy of nature.ThemesThe Transformative Power of the ImaginationColeridge believed that a strong, active imagination could become a vehicle

13、for transcending unpleasant circumstances. Many of his poems are powered exclusively by imaginative flights, wherein the speaker temporarily abandons his immediate surroundings, exchanging them for an entirely new and completely fabricated experience. Using the imagination in this way is both empowe

14、ring and surprising because it encourages a total and complete disrespect for the confines of time and place. These mental and emotional jumps are often well rewarded. Perhaps Coleridges most famous use of imagination occurs in “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison” (1797), in which the speaker employs a

15、keen poetic mind that allows him to take part in a journey that he cannot physically make. When he “returns” to the bower, after having imagined himself on a fantastic stroll through the countryside, the speaker discovers, as a reward, plenty of things to enjoy from inside the bower itself, includin

16、g the leaves, the trees, and the shadows. The power of imagination transforms the prison into a perfectly pleasant spot.The Interplay of Philosophy, Piety, and PoetryColeridge used his poetry to explore conflicting issues in philosophy and religious piety. Some critics argue that Coleridges interest

17、 in philosophy was simply his attempt to understand the imaginative and intellectual impulses that fueled his poetry. To support the claim that his imaginative and intellectual forces were, in fact, organic and derived from the natural world, Coleridge linked them to God, spirituality, and worship.

18、In his work, however, poetry, philosophy, and piety clashed, creating friction and disorder for Coleridge, both on and off the page. In “The Eolian Harp” (1795), Coleridge struggles to reconcile the three forces. Here, the speakers philosophical tendencies, particularly the belief that an “intellect

19、ual breeze” (47) brushes by and inhabits all living things with consciousness, collide with those of his orthodox wife, who disapproves of his unconventional ideas and urges him to Christ. While his wife lies untroubled, the speaker agonizes over his spiritual conflict, caught between Christianity a

20、nd a unique, individual spirituality that equates nature with God. The poem ends by discounting the pantheist spirit, and the speaker concludes by privileging God and Christ over nature and praising them for having healed him from the spiritual wounds inflicted by these unorthodox views.Nature and t

21、he Development of the IndividualColeridge, Wordsworth, and other romantic poets praised the unencumbered, imaginative soul of youth, finding images in nature with which to describe it. According to their formulation, experiencing nature was an integral part of the development of a complete soul and

22、sense of personhood. The death of his father forced Coleridge to attend school in London, far away from the rural idylls of his youth, and he lamented the missed opportunities of his sheltered, city-bound adolescence in many poems, including “Frost at Midnight” (1798). Here, the speaker sits quietly

23、 by a fire, musing on his life, while his infant son sleeps nearby. He recalls his boarding school days, during which he would both daydream and lull himself to sleep by remembering his home far away from the city, and he tells his son that he shall never be removed from nature, the way the speaker

24、once was. Unlike the speaker, the son shall experience the seasons and shall learn about God by discovering the beauty and bounty of the natural world. The son shall be given the opportunity to develop a relationship with God and with nature, an opportunity denied to both the speaker and Coleridge h

25、imself. For Coleridge, nature had the capacity to teach joy, love, freedom, and piety, crucial characteristics for a worthy, developed individual.MotifsConversation PoemsColeridge wanted to mimic the patterns and cadences of everyday speech in his poetry. Many of his poems openly address a single fi

26、gurethe speakers wife, son, friend, and so onwho listens silently to the simple, straightforward language of the speaker. Unlike the descriptive, long, digressive poems of Coleridges classicist predecessors, Coleridges so-called conversation poems are short, self-contained, and often without a disce

27、rnable poetic form. Colloquial, spontaneous, and friendly, Coleridges conversation poetry is also highly personal, frequently incorporating events and details of his domestic life in an effort to widen the scope of possible poetic content. Although he sometimes wrote in blank verse, unrhymed iambic

28、pentameter, he adapted this metrical form to suit a more colloquial rhythm. Both Wordsworth and Coleridge believed that everyday language and speech rhythms would help broaden poetrys audience to include the middle and lower classes, who might have felt excluded or put off by the form and content of

29、 neoclassicists, such as Alexander Pope, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and John Dryden.Delight in the Natural WorldLike the other romantics, Coleridge worshiped nature and recognized poetrys capacity to describe the beauty of the natural world. Nearly all of Coleridges poems express a respect for and d

30、elight in natural beauty. Close observation, great attention to detail, and precise descriptions of color aptly demonstrate Coleridges respect and delight. Some poems, such as “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison,” “Youth and Age” (1834), and “Frost at Midnight,” mourn the speakers physical isolation fro

31、m the outside world. Others, including “The Eolian Harp,” use images of nature to explore philosophical and analytical ideas. Still other poems, including “The Nightingale” (ca. 1798), simply praise natures beauty. Even poems that dont directly deal with nature, including “Kubla Khan” and “The Rime

32、of the Ancient Mariner,” derive some symbols and images from nature. Nevertheless, Coleridge guarded against the pathetic fallacy, or the attribution of human feeling to the natural world. To Coleridge, nature contained an innate, constant joyousness wholly separate from the ups and downs of human e

33、xperience.PrayerAlthough Coleridges prose reveals more of his religious philosophizing than his poetry, God, Christianity, and the act of prayer appear in some form in nearly all of his poems. The son of an Anglican vicar, Coleridge vacillated from supporting to criticizing Christian tenets and the Church of England. Despit