Before Reading Meet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is famous for composing Kubla Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, considered two of the greatest English poems. As a critic and philosopher, he may have done more than any other writer to spread the ideas of the English romantic movement.

Precocious ReaderThe youngest of ten children, Coleridge grew up feeling rejected by his distant mother and bullied by his older brother Frank. These early experiences gave rise to feelings of insecurity and loneliness that plagued Coleridge throughout life. Despite his self-doubt, Coleridge was an exceptional student who impressed classmates with his eloquence, his knowledge of classical languages, and his flair for writing poetry.

Restless YouthAt Cambridge University, Coleridge continued to read widely and hone his craft. Troubled by debt, though, he left Cambridge in 1793 and enlisted in the 15^th Dragoons, a British army regiment, under the alias Silas Tomkyn Comberbache. After being rescued by his brothers, Coleridge returned to Cambridge, but he left again, in 1794, without having earned a degree. That year, Coleridge met the author Robert Southey, and together they dreamed about establishing a utopian community in the Pennsylvania wilderness of America. Southey, however, backed out of the project, and their dream was never realized.

Dream PoemIn 1795, Coleridge developed a close friendship with the poet William Wordsworth. Inspired by the encouragement and intellectual stimulation he received from Wordsworth, Coleridge entered his most creative period. Over the next few years, he produced a series of extraordinary poems, four of which appeared along with poems by Wordsworth in Lyrical Ballads (1798). Coleridge said that when they had planned this landmark collection, “it was agreed that my endeavors should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least romantic. ...”

Lyrical Ballads opens with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Coleridge got the idea for the poem from a friend who had dreamed about a skeleton ship. Before composing it, Coleridge discussed the poem extensively with Wordsworth.

Despite illness, depression, and drug addiction, Coleridge produced an extraordinary body of work. He became the greatest literary critic of his age, known particularly for his perceptive commentary on the plays of Shakespeare and his Biographia Literaria, which contains an extended reasoned critique of Wordsworth’s poems. He also became an influential philosopher, journalist, and literary theorist. The collected works of

Coleridge fill volumes, although, with typical selfreproach, he faulted himself toward the end of his life for not having achieved more.

While Reading

Poetic form: literary ballad

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a celebrated literary ballad,or narrative poem written in deliberate imitation of the traditional folk ballad. Like older ballads, Coleridge’s masterpiece features sensational subject matter—the perilous journey of an old sailor. It also contains other conventional elements: dialogue, repetition of words and phrases, and strong patterns of rhyme and rhythm. However, there are aspects of the poem that reflect Coleridge’s own romantic writing style: his emphasis on the supernatural, his sophisticated use of sound devices, and his use of archaic language. For example, notice his description of a mysterious ghost ship:

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!

And still it neared and neared:

As if it dodged a water-sprite,

It plunged, and tacked and veered.

As you read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, observe how Coleridge reworks the traditional ballad form and creates a poem of rare beauty and complexity.

Reading strategy: reading narrative poetry

Like all ballads, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a narrative poem—a poem that tells a story. It has many of the basicelements of a prose story: setting, characters, point of view,plot, conflict, and theme. As you read the poem, use a chartlike the one shown to take notes about each of these elements.Focus on the main story, not on the frame story. Additionally,use the red marginal notes, which were written by Coleridge,to help you clarify plot developments.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 1156