Coleridge was one of the chief weather makers of 19th-century English Romanticism. (Remember to write this word always with ‘R’ when it refers to this historical event.) Besides being a leading poet of the time, he was the underwriter of the essential Romantic literary practice. If you read the accounts of the literary proceedings of the time, you would see that his name turns up pretty frequently in different contemporary writings and discussions just as his writings are shot through with thoughts of numerous others. Coleridge thoroughly prepared himself to be a poet, philosopher, critic, social thinker and literary theorist; though there’s controversy over the range of reading that Coleridge is famed to have done: some question his claims and accuse him of pretence. (Read William Hazlitt’s ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets’, Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals, Charles Lamb’s ‘Two Races of Man’ and the writings of Thomas De Quincey to know him as a person and poet,). Be that as it may, he remains the principal figure of the English Romantic Age.
I would like to give you a few leads on the rise of English Romanticism in the 19th century and discuss certain salient features and characteristic tendencies of the movement. You should be informed of the different schools and generations of Romanticism and their distinctive marks. You might consult the following titles to begin with:
1. Aidan Day, Romanticism
2. C.M. Bowra. The Romantic Imagination.
(The Bowra book is rather dated but useful to beginners.)
My Coleridge assignments with you comprise the following:
1. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
2. Kubla Khan.
3. Dejection: An Ode
4. Selections from Biographia Literaria (Chapters: IV, XIII, XIV and XVII).
Lecture Outline of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
I shall start with the Ancient Mariner. Students are advised to do the preliminary reading of the text so that they can participate in critical discussion in the class.
I shall try to explore the text primarily through the following questions:
1. Why does the Ancient Mariner kill the bird? What changes do you notice following the killing? How would you define the Mariner's offence: crime, sin or vice? Why is his crossbow snatched away and the dead albatross hung around his neck? What is the significance of this act?
2. How do the sufferings of the mariners intensify? When do you consider their suffering comes to a head? What causes their suffering? How does the fact of their superstiousness add to their suffering? How does their condition degenerate? Do you see any pattern in their degeneration? What images of degeneration, drought and rot are striking? What irony and paradox do you find in the condition of no drinking water in the sea? What is Romantic agony? Can you find this in the poem?
3. All but the Ancient Mariner die in Part III. How would you explain it?
4. How serious is the use of the supernatural in the poem? What role does it play in both suffering and redemption? What is the significance of dice-playing preceding the death of the mariners? (Part -3) How would you interpret Death and Life-in-Death in relation to the mariners?
5. How does Coleridge visualise the Ancient Mariner's loneliness?
6. How would you explain the following in perspective: the advent of the albatross, the crossbow, the dead albatross around the Mariner's neck?
7. When the Mariner appreciates the water snakes, the dead albatross around his neck falls off into the sea ? What does it signify? What change do you notice from this point on?
8. Being able to pray is a crucial sign among believers. Can you see the truth of this statement worked out in the poem?
9. What is the significance of music and the appearance of seraph men in Part-6?
10. What does the Mariner tell about his loneliness? In the light of this experience of the Mariner, can you justify his preference for church over the wedding ceremony?
There are other things in the poem that draw you deeper into an puzzling complex of themes. For instance:
- Note the physical features of the Ancient Mariner. What is strange about him? Can you characterise a Coleridgean, that is, a Romantic poet by this description?
- When the Ancient Mariner chooses his listener - one of three (not all the three), Coleridge may be taken to be theorizing about the audience (in modern parlance, reader-response theory, narrator-and-narratee relationship). Determine the number of storytellers and listeners in the poem. Who is the implied audience. Coleridge casts the tale in ballad form. Does the tale fit into the traditional ballad form? Or there are also departures? What is trapped consciousness in the poem? Why does the Mariner have to tell his tale over and over again? This related to the theme of redemption in the poem. Can the Mariner find permanent redemption?
- There's a very important term in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, namely, 'willing suspension of disbelief' (Ch.XIV). [Contrast it with Keats' 'Negative Capability']. Can you illustrate this phrase from this poem. (You'd do well to notice how his critical prose and poetry interface.) Then, you could wonder why the mariner kills the albatross. He doesn't explain: he only declares his wanton act. Why can't he explain? Does it throw light on any aspect of our psyche? It's very intriguing.
- After the killing of the albatross, the situation becomes confusing. What are these confusions? How does Coleridge dramatize the confusion?
- Blood revenge already takes place in the poem. Where is it?
- Find out where the Ancient Mariner commits the first of the Seven Deadly sins. Find out the acts of pride and humility in the poem. In which utterances of the mariner do you find them?
- The principal figure around which the poem turns is the albatross,a huge white seabird. Coleridge suggests that the killing of the bird is a homicide. How does he develop this theme?
- Observe the landscape, seascape and skyscape. How do they change and why do they change? The sun and moon play an important role. How do they affect the mariners?
- Images of degeneration and regeneration.
- Pay attention to the use of dreams: How are they functional in the poem?
- I would like you to make your observations on the colours, atmospher, language etc. in the poem, and their effect and symbolic meanings.
- Read the poem as a confession and conversion. How does the poem affect the Wedding Guest? Is the poem didactic? Consider such lines as 'I know the man that must hear me:/ To him my tale I teach.' This might also give you clues to compulsive story-telling and listening. How does it satisfy an ancient function of poetry?
- What idea can you form about the Medieval world and society? What were the mariners of Medieval times like?
- One thing you must always try to do: avoid reading the poem as a religious allegory which is a dated interpretation. How can you use this poem as a work of timeless appeal?
- What idea do you get about the nature of the Romantic imagination? Consider lines 586-590.
Keep an eye on this page: I might bring up some other issues and elements worth notice or refine on these issues.
