Coleridge, Samuel Taylor - The rime of the ancient mariner (5)

What were the early life and influences?

He was born in Devonshire in 1773, he was supporter of the French Revolution and was influenced by 'pantisocracy' based on egalitarian principles. For him are very important the studies of Shakespeare and he introduced to Britain the works of the German idealist philosophers so he distinguishes between primary and secondary imagination. The primary makes knowledge, the second creates art. In 1800 his health worsened and was constricted to use opium for his neuralgia's pain but died in 1834.

The ancient mariner's tale

It came from by the Lyrical Ballads written with William Worsworth. It tells the story of an ancient mariner to a young man who is bring to a marriage: since the boy is balky and the sailor hypnotizes the boy with his glittering eye. The ship on which the sailor travelled is jammed from the ice towards the South Pole, so an albatross (symbol of good wish because as soon as arrives the ice breaks) and is killed by the sailor (this fact shows that the man has broken his pact with God). This way to the sailor is made to wear the body of the dead bird around the neck. The companions dies but the sailor will be forced to live for expiating his guilt: so hes is condamned to wander through the world for all eternity. With the arrival of the snakes, the sailor return home where he meets the three boys to explain theirs that has to have self-respect themselves.

Symbolism and themes

In this ballad there is the juxtaposition of realistic details and supernatural events, in fact the mariner is the symbol of the man sinner who is reformed and so he is the wandering Jew and the outcast. The language is arcaic and there are personifications, repetitions and internal rhyme.