Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1. Samuel Taylor Coleridge October 21, 1772 – July 25, 1834)

2. 1772: born in Ottery St Mary, Devonshire • 1782: Christ’s Hospital School, a charity school, in London • 1791 – 1794: Cambridge University (never graduated) • influenced by French Revolutionary principles • disillusioned by the Revolution • 1794 attempted to create a utopian community in Pennsylvania – Pantisocracy – based on communist principles – a failure • use of opium to reduce his bodily pains due to chronic rheumatism – drug addiction

3. 1797 – settled in Somerset and met the Wordsworths, (William and his sister Dorothy) …… beginning of artistic collaboration with Wordsworth • 1798 –Coleridge (together with the Wordsworths) left for a stay (autumn-winter) in Germany and …. he became interested in German philosophy. • 1798 – “Lyrical Ballads” – the manifesto of the English Romanticmovement – contains Coleridge’s most famous poem: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” • 1797 – 1800 “Christabel” – long narrative poem set in a Gothic castle about a vampire that has the form of a beautiful lady (unfinished only two of the five planned parts were finished).

4. 1797 – Kubla Khan – a fragment of 54 lines composed under the effect of opium and dealing with the building of the summer palace in Xanadu by the Mongol ruler and Emperor of China Kublai Khan. • (both “Christabel” and “Kubla Khan” were published in 1816) • 1799 – Lake District period with Wordsworth • 1804 – 1806 period of solitude in Malta • return to England – a career as a journalist and as a literary critic: lectures on Shakespeare • 1810 – friendship with Wordsworth breaks up • 1817 – “Biographia Literaria”, a text of literary criticism and an autobiography.

5. Imagination the sovereign creative power • primary imagination • the human capacity to: a) perceive and … b) produce images c) to give a certain shape and order to the material (i.e. the world) perceived. • secondary imagination • the faculty the poet used, not only to give shape and order to a given world, but mainly to build and create new worlds.

6. Fancy • the poet’s ability to use material which already exists to produce new images • a capacity the poet has to shape old material into something different. The role of Nature • not a moral guide or a source of consolation and happiness • not the manifestation of God on earth • the reflection of the perfect world of “ideas” which is not subject to time or space • natural images have abstract, supernatural meanings.

7. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” • The Rime is the story of a Mariner who is punished for killing an albatross. • His shipmates are also punished because they justify his crime. • They die of thirst one by one while the ship is stuck on the ocean under a blazing sun. • The Mariner’s penance is even more terrible: • he will return to his native country but …….. will be obliged to travel endlessly in orderto tell people about his experience and teach them to love and respect all creatures of God.

8. the world of ‘The Rime’ is like that of a dream a juxtaposition of ordinary experience and supernatural events. Examples of ordinary experience: the fury of the storm the world of ice, snow and mist the ocean Reality and symbol

9. Examples of supernatural events: A spirit follows the ship. The albatross falls from the mariner’s neck as soon as he repents. The Mariner has a ghostly appearance and exerts a hypnotic power on the wedding-guest. The dead on the ship do not rot. Reality and symbol

10. Reality and symbol • All elements belonging to the world of nature (the sun, the sea, the storm) are vividly described and evoke real images in the reader’s mind but …. they are also charged with a deeper symbolic meaning: • the Sun = severe divine justice. • the Calm = the desolation of a sinful soul. • the Rotting sea = the Mariner’s soul troubled by his guilt. • the Moonlight spreading a sort of white frost = the refreshing coolness of forgiveness

11. The Atmosphere The dominant atmosphere is: • uncanny and eerie • full of strange, mysterious, supernatural and frightening elements • built up through the accumulation of strange and mysterious incidents : • the Mariner has a ghostly appearance • he exerts a hypnotic power on the wedding guest • the ice is a threatening presence • the dead bodies of the Mariner’s shipmates curse him with their eyes ……

12. Style and form • The poem is rich insound effectsandimagery: • Repetition; • Internal rhyme; • Alliteration • Similes; • Personification;

13. Form the Rime reproduces the traditional form of a ballad but with some variations. Traditional Ballad • 4-line stanzas rhyming abab; • stress pattern : 4-3-4-3; • story-line: simple and short; • narrative technique : narrator and direct speech; • subjects: universal themes ( love, death, revenge, ) supernatural themes (ghosts); • language: use of repetition.

14. Variations in the Rime • the stanza is basically a 4-line stanza but there are also stanzas with 5 or more lines; • the typical abab/abcbrhyme is present but not very regular, • the length of the story is untypical; • the long descriptions of natural landscapes are not typical; • the moral drawn at the end is not usual. • the presence of the supernatural is, instead, typical.

15. Rime’s interpretations Religious interpretation: the killing of the albatross is a sin against nature or God ; the Mariner’s sufferings are a form of purgatorial fire and … the return to his country represents salvation.

16. Rime’s interpretations Aestheticinterpretation: the Mariner is seen as an artist who …. breaks the bounds of conventions in his search for beauty, thruth and self-knowledge, he passes through a terrible period of trial, and is eventually saved by his power of imagination (watching the beautiful sea-snakes); his mission is to pass his discovery of truth to ordinary men, but… he only finds a largely uncomprehending audience (the wedding guest).

17. Somerset

18. Devonshire