Coleridge’s Treatment of Supernatural in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
S.T Coleridge is the
greatest English poet of supernaturalism and his The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is
one of the best poems of supernatural ever written in English literature. As we
go through the poem, there is a “willing suspension of disbelief” on our part.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme
Coleridge as a Supernatural Poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poetry is characterized by the supernatural. In this conception of the supernatural Coleridge is systematically romantic. He generates a different and exotic magnificence from the pictures stored in his imagination. It "lives and breathes before the eyes" and yet it is fanciful, improbable, and even impossible. One essential factor in understanding the exotic and fantastic nature of the supernatural in his poems is to realize The Ancient Mariner and Christabel were indirectly influenced by his opium dreams and Kubla Khan. The immensity of The Ancient Mariner lies mainly in the technique by which the supernatural has been made credible and convincing. There are, no confusion, a number of difficult, unbelievable, and bizarre conditions in the poem.
Reason
why Coleridge use of the Supernatural in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Coleridge makes the normal to appear to
be supernatural by crediting to nature something of the uncommon
force and capability of the supernatural. Coleridge is most popular for his haunting ballad, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the dream like Kubla Khan and the unfinished Christabel.
Some Supernatural elements in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
As
we know, several horrific supernatural
elements seal the fate of the ship and crew--slimy snakes from the
bottom of the sea come to the ship; a ghost-ship, with the figures of Death and
Death-in-Life, comes and the whole crew dies (Death) but the Mariner remains thriving
(Death-in-Life).
Treatment of Supernatural Elements in The Rime of The Ancient Mariner
The story of the
ancient Mariner is an unbelievable one. Up to the killing of the albatross,
everything around the Mariner’s ship is natural, but after the killing
unbelievable and supernatural things began to happen. First of all, Coleridge
aroused the sense of supernatural mystery by transporting us to distant times
and remote places. After the killing of the albatross, the mariner’s ship
entered into a silent sea where the ship remained unmoving as idle as a painted
ship upon a painted ocean. Subsequently he finds himself:
“Alone,
alone, all, all alone,
Alone
on a wide, wide sea!”
“Her
lips were red, her looks were free,
Her
looks were yellow as gold;
Her
skin was as white as leprosy
The
night-mare Life-in-Death was she
Who
thicks man’s blood with cold.”
The manner of the death
of two hundred sailors is also supernatural. However, the most supernatural event
in the whole poem is the coming back to life of the dead sailors. We are
terrified here when we read the following lines:
“The
dead men gave a groan
They
groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor
spake nor moved their eyes
They
raised their limbs like lifeless tools
We
were as ghasty crew.”
The manner of falling
of the dead albatross from the Mariner’s neck and the talking of the two voices
in the air are equally supernatural events. Coleridge’s treatment of
supernatural is a symbol of the mystery of life. It is a symbol of love which
binds man, bird and beast and which is the life of all creation.
Thus Coleridge
presented supernatural elements in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in such a way that they appeared to be real. The air of
reality is imparted by the poet by skillfully blending natural and supernatural
phenomena. In one stroke Coleridge presents a skeleton ship, the spectre sea,
the woman and her death mate, the coming back to life of the ship’s crew and
the polar spirits talking to one another. But these supernatural incidents have
not been left without their association with reality.
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ReplyDeleteIqbal Hossain I try to my best.
DeleteIn “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he creates an experience for the reader that tells a cautionary tale about not taking things for granted in life.
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ReplyDeleteThanks Khaled Abdullah
DeleteBoth visible and unseen Natures are in the poem.
ReplyDeleteThats why Coleridge is one of the great poet.
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Just awesome. Yet another one of those canonical texts people like to reference but have rarely read all the way through.........
ReplyDeleteThe poem is filled with the supernatural
ReplyDeleteThanks Curtis Hollister.
ReplyDeleteThanks Fred Manar.
ReplyDelete