1. The Ancient Mariner Essay
The Ancient Mariner
Through The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge has created a masterpiece. This epic reworks the ballad form so that it comes alive and speaks
to the Romantic Age, breathing a story as strange and delightful, mystical and wonderful as the mystery of life itself. The raw power of the language,
the startling speed at which it hurls you along and the arresting questions of the poem fill your spirit with wonder at the operation of nature and the
awesome mystery of evil.
There will always be those men whose imaginations transcend the limitations of their time. Coleridge is such a man, with The Ancient Mariner being
an imaginatively sharp ballad, in contact with mystery and evil, with the penance and final...show more content...
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st though me?" '
The scene is set, and already Coleridge's tightness and conciseness of narrative hastens through. This powerful stanza and the following few paint a
picture of enormous imaginative influence, as this 'ancient mariner' comes to a disturbing life. The strangeness, mysterious knowledge and experience
and a touch of the supernatural combine to hold the wedding guest in place ââ 'he cannot choose but hear'. The eerie power of the mariner is contrasted
with the joy of the wedding beginning in the distance. Already we see that what we are entering is a world not of the ordered but the disturbing ââ not
the controlled but the uncontrollable.
Powerful, rapid changes are undergone in the story, as we learn of a ship sailing from port and then swept into a terrible storm and then a land of ice
and snow. The romantic interest in nature is revealed as the breathtaking wonder of massive icebergs float by in complete stillness, causing a shiver to
run down your spine.
Coleridge's sudden contrasts prove utter magic:
' And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast
âhigh, came floating by, As green as emerald. '
This stanza directly follows the intensity of the storm ââ no time is wasted as one breathtaking detail of nature is exchanged for another of completely
different kind. Here the eerie