Coleridge's Ancient mariner

[Sana Shahid]

well heres another thread about coleridge's poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner, this is my interpretation of the poem, of which my english teacher doesnt support because i thinkl that it is a dark poem, not a poem about the consecquences of killing a bird :P (the rest may be slightly repeatitive as it was saved from another post :P) please tell me your interpretation of the poem, and tell me if you disagree cuz i need to change it a bit before the HSC thanks

but here is the my one teacher disagrees with me the most, the good ol' Ancient Mariner. according to my teacher the purpose of the poem is a demonstration of what happens when you kill 'gods creatures' (and i go to a public school!!!)
but in a complete contrast of understanding and beliefs, i believe that the poem isn't postitive like my teacher thinks, but a total opitamy, the complete opposite, i believe that this poem is negitive, demonstrating the destructiveness of the human culture, the poem as a whole is negitive, Life -In-Death, and Lady Death gambling for the lives of the crew is a prefect example of this, the dominators determing the fate of the 'lesser' mortals, (fairly ironic to today really).

the main theme in this peom i believe is the negitivity of the human culture ands the destructiveness of the human ideal, NOT the consequences of shooting an albotross, or some slackass not navigating properly. but the main ideal that sets this poem down is the sudden need to include god into the poem, from what i believe it is a sudden reminder to coleridge himself that the dominators (i.e. church/god etc) must be followed, and hence the sudden religious theme that to me slows down the whole poem, from as a demonstration of the negitivity of human culture and the consequences, to respecting all gods creatures, to me why would coleridge set up a poem to demonstrate negitivity, to suddenly lose momentum, and add god to the scene, if he wanted to demonstreate the consequences of god, why didnt he start it positivily??????

another thing i think that the mariner is the representative (or 'host'/key character/muse) that coleriodge uses as a demonstration of these negitive feelings, otherwise why is the mariner stopping people and telling him of his curse, and the negitivity of the human psyche ( thats the word i needed!!)
he is only a muse who serves as a sole purpose to act as a warning as a prevention of destruction to humanity. as he is only telling the guest a story of his life, and this, with the aspects of Life-in-Death, the godly eel bit, and a few others. the poem as a whole is a warning to humanity, about self destruction, not 'to stop shooting pretty little birdies'

please tell me your opinion of my interpretation of any ideas you's have that can help me get this right

Thanks Scruffy

[Virgil]

Wow, someone else who shares my love of Conrad. I too love Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, and Nostromo. I couldn't possibly choose which of those I like best. But you forgot to mention Victory and The Secret Agent as very highly ranked Conrad novels. Thanks for the post. Perhaps some day we can read one of these simultaneously and discuss it in detail. Also of note, two famous authors after Conrad loved him immensely that you can often here echoes of Conrad in their work: F. Scott Fiztgerald and William Faulkner.

[Scheherazade]

Wow, someone else who shares my love of Conrad. I too love Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness, and Nostromo. I couldn't possibly choose which of those I like best. But you forgot to mention Victory and The Secret Agent as very highly ranked Conrad novels. Thanks for the post. Perhaps some day we can read one of these simultaneously and discuss it in detail. Also of note, two famous authors after Conrad loved him immensely that you can often here echoes of Conrad in their work: F. Scott Fiztgerald and William Faulkner.Virgil,

How did you know Sana likes Conrad?

:confused:

[Virgil]

Virgil,

How did you know Sana likes Conrad?

:confused:
There was a post from him right here, so I thought? :confused: :confused:
I was reading it just before. Was I in the wrong thread? I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. What happened? :confused: I know I was reading it as I was writing my post, or so I thought. :eek2: :alien:

[bluevictim]

I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.

What, you've never seen someone named Virgil posting about Conrad in a thread about Coleridge in a sub-forum devoted to Yeats?

[Xamonas Chegwe]

What, you've never seen someone named Virgil posting about Conrad in a thread about Coleridge in a sub-forum devoted to Yeats?

It's not so unusual - I like Ted Hughes too, especially "Ode to Autumn" and "Hamlet". We ought to discuss Enid Blyton more in this forum - perhaps in the Jimi Hendrix thread in the Richard Nixon section.

[The Unnamable]

Virgil, you’ve been spending too much time (or not enough) on that Drugs thread.

[Virgil]

Virgil, you’ve been spending too much time (or not enough) on that Drugs thread.
No really. He had a long discourse on how he likes Conrad, especially on Lord Jim. I'm not making it up. Like XC points out, this whole thread is screwed up. I wonder what happened? :confused: :cool: :eek: :alien:

I don't even know which smiley to attach. They all seem to apply. :nod:

[bluevictim]

We ought to discuss Enid Blyton more in this forum - perhaps in the Jimi Hendrix thread in the Richard Nixon section.I'm too busy analysing Kurt Godel over at underwaterbasketweavers.net

[ShoutGrace]

I was excited about finding another ROTAM thread but I think that I like what I got even better. :D

[bootlegger]

In response to the ACTUAL thread posted, i see your point. In my opinion, the poem is about Coleridge making a statement about the bond between man and nature, and how the mariner destroys this through the arbitary act of violence; killing the albatross. However, i was disappointed with the ending, i felt it was clichéd and a complete anti-climax. Throughout the poem, Coleridge supplies us with wonderfully dark imagery and vivid descriptions, "Her skin was white as leprosy", "A painted ship upon a painted ocean", "A thousand, thousand slimy things", "By thy long beard and glittering eye"...which leaves the reader expecting the ending to be a culmination of aural and visual imagery, screaming banshees, crashing thunderclaps and an army of corpses riding out of the sea on white horses.
What we actually get is a two-dimensional Victorian psalm, some utter poppycock about "loving all creatures great and small". What an anti-climax! What a cop-out! I fail to believe that Coleridge really felt he had to succumb to the pressures of his modern audience, he had to portray religion and authority as the winning figures in any battle between man and his psyche. Coleridge is famous for his unique poems written whilst hallucinating on laudenum! So why does the Rime of the Ancient Mariner decelerate so much, and lose all its focus as the poem reaches its conclusion?

[Redzeppelin]

That's a perceptive criticism of the poem's conclusion. But, considering Romanticism's veneration of nature, what choices did Coleridge have? Besides that, I wonder if the Mariner's consequence somewhat darkens the ending a bit. He is a "redeemed" figure, certainly, but he is essentially a driven wanderer (like the "Wandering Jew" - perhaps a connection?) who most likely will never "rest" again because of the stipulations of his atonement. The poem's ending is not celebratory - in fact it ends on an oddly somber note.

[beccabear272]

I am not very into poems mainly because i think i am to daft to understand the greater meaning in the lesser amount of words, however, Coleridge has been one of the easiest poets for me to understand, he does usual some flowery visuals but for the most part I had a pretty easy go at understanding what he was talking about. I could be wrong however so please let me know if I am anywhere close to what he was trying to get at. . This is my interpretation of a portion of his The Rime of the Ancient Mariner... And its for my English class..

The poem i chose was The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge, to me the tragic tail depicting a mistaken mariner depicts a long repeated tail. The section i choose to focus on in this poem was the section the painted the "other ship" approaching. This second ship come to "rescue" the parched crew did not appear to me as an actual ship but as a mirage possibly of a ship and foreshadowing of what was to come for that hopeless ship full of men. In the stanza on page 911, the mariner cries, " Heaven's Mother send us grace!", the entire crew is desperate for some reprieve, it is ironic that it would be sent so fast, another reason why I disbelieve the ship being a reality. What might have been their salvation transforms into their despair-
"Are those her ribs through which the Sun did peer, as through a grate? And is that Woman all her crew? Is that a Death?and are there two? Is Death that woman's mate? As often expressed, death and turmoil and the names of ships are usually named after women, it is fitting that the Mariners vision of death is lead and depicted by a women image. This passage seems to be the point in which the Mariner is finding out that he will not get out of suffering so easily. It is beginning to sink in (no pun intended) that he is destined to roam the seas forever suffering for his mistaken killing. The Mariner is suffering enough but it perpetually reminded of his bad deed by the way the rest of the "crew" is depicted, the constant reminder that they are all dead, and the repeated mentioning of the innocently killed albatross.

[doctorjoann]

Since I have travelled almost the world around, I followed Coleridge's poem, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, with excitement because it did arouse my emotions when I read this poem in high school. As I remembered it I also remembered clearly the North Pole and in particular the Albatross for which I had great sympathy when I saw one for the first time. The Albatross in my lifetime and probably long before was very much maligned. As I understand the use of albatross as a metaphor came from a poem by Charles Baudelaire. It means that someone with a burden or obstacle in their life is said to "have an albatross around their neck." This was the punishment given to the mariner who killed the albatross. In part due to the poem, there is a widespread myth among sailors, which my husband is one, that to shoot or harm an albatross believe it to be disastrous just as the poem which tells the story of an Ancient Mariner.

On our trip to the South Pole, we encountered an albatross which was a huge bird which acted as our mascot as our captain weaved our ship in-between icebergs. It was web-footed and had long slender wings. The guide on our trip told us a little of the history of the bird. He explained that they nested on certain islands where they would choose a mate by a process of ritual dances. Sometimes the searching for a mate took up to a year, but when they mated, it was for life. The albatross would then go to sea and stay sometimes as long as fourteen years. My sadness when I saw the albatross was the fact of his long absence from his mate. Then when I read the poem and found out that the mariner had killed the albatross it saddened me as well.

My thesis is that Coleridge wrote these poems with specific thoughts in mind showing the relationship between one's mind and nature. Just as I, when reading the Ancient Mariners story not only brought to my mind, the fury of the sea, the icebergs, and the wind, the danger which I encompassed in reality and relived again in the poem. For example, Coleridge wrote "And now the Storm-blast came, and he was tyrannous and strong: He struck with o'ertaking wings, And chased us south along." "And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald." The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around: It cracked and growled and roared and howled, like noises in a swound. "At length did cross an Albatross, Through the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name." "God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus! "Why look'st thou so? -- With the cross-bow I shot the Albatross!"

Here then are just a few verses which show an injustice to nature without considering the bird or the Mariner's own actions. Throughout the poem, the Mariner carried with him the results of his crime -- he had the albatross around his neck. In the final stanzas he shares the lesson he has learned. "Farewell, farewell! but this I tell To thee thou Wedding-Guest! He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast---For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all."

[doctorjoann]

Hey gals and guys, I just joined this literature group and posted an assignment on Coleridge, but not after fumbling around a bit. I am looking forward to appearing here often after a little vacation. Until then, Aloha! Joann Branson

[hcochran]

I chose to attempt a close reading of excerpts from Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. In this folk ballad-type poem the protagonist thoughtlessly kills an albatross and the spirit world intervenes in outrage. After the initial vengeance the mariner must wander the earth telling his tale to certain individuals, warning them of the consequences of sinning against nature. I feel that the overall theme of this work is transformation. It conveys the careful balance of mankind in nature and warns against disrupting this balance.
In the poem, the albatross is viewed as a good omen from God. Coleridge wrote, “It ate the food it ne’er had eat,/ And round and round it flew./ The ice did split with thunder-fit;/ The helmsman steered us through” (63-66). The ice splitting and the thunder give the feeling of God intervening by sending the albatross to save the sailors from their icy deaths. After the mariner shoots the albatross the sailors blame him for their bad luck (“They all averred, I had killed the bird/ That made the breeze to blow”). When circumstances improve they are quick to change their minds (“Then all averred, I had killed the bird/ that brought the fog and mist./ Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,/ That bring the fog and mist”). The parallel between these lines points out the crew’s hypocrisy. Just like the mariner they are ignorant to the balance between nature and man and in some ways are just as guilty as him. This guilt is made clear when the skeleton ship arrives and Death claims their souls.
A great transformation takes place in the protagonist throughout the poem. In the beginning he notes, “The very deep did rot: O Christ!/ That ever this should be!/ Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs/ Upon the shiny sea” (122-125). It is ironic that he cries out to God in disgust and fear of God’s creatures in the water. This irony shines light on his lack of respect and understanding of nature. After Life-in-Death claims the mariner’s soul, he suffers for seven days and nights, which seems to transform his outlook. He describes the water snakes in a much different way – “O happy living things! No tongue/ Their beauty might declare:/ A spring of love gushed from my heart,/ And blessed them unaware” (282-285).