Milton Parallels?

Shelleys Interpretation?

(Paradise Lost)

(Frankenstein)
STRUCTURE:

Many critics see

the Rime of the
Ancient Mariner
as an allegory of
some kind of fall,
like

Sin, Punishment, Redemption

Of Adam -

cast into hell?

forbidden fruit?

slimy things

I shot the albatross

Slimy sea
the very deep did
rot

and I had done a

hellish thing

Cain?

Of Lucifer -

Of Coleridge opium?
witchs oils, / burnt
green, and blue and
white

Phantasmagoria!

Purely inspirational?

Dark gothic?
cursed me with his eye

poetry gives most

pleasure when only generally
Life-in-death
and not perfectly understood"
spectre bark
- Coleridge
Many critics maintain, as Christopher Lamb does,
that the Ancient Mariner is a work of complete
and pure imagination. As
No single interpretation seems to
fit the entire poem
In essence, it is a very imaginative
and unusual piece

Gustav Dors Dark Etches

Just as the
Ancient Mariner
has to re-tell his
Coleridge felt a deep sense of sin,
tale, Coleridge
for his opium addiction and
has to keep on
otherwise.
returning to this
poem and
it
The poem could be his way of fathomingrevising
his
feelings.
The strange power of the Ancient Mariner, as his difficult feelings.
mingled strangely with my fears
I know that man must hear me / To him my tale I teach

Hence, his sensitivity and saying that the poem

should not be analysed?
(poetry gives most pleasure when only
generally and not perfectly understood)

Instead of the cross, the Albatross/

About my neck was hung
I had killed the bird / That made
the breeze to blow
Hailed it in Gods name
Christian soul
Crimson red like Gods own head
- Hid in mist
- dungeon-grate

Crew
distanced
from God

blessed them
unawares

Vs.
Some critics maintain that this ballad was
an exploration, by Coleridge, into the
science vs. spirituality debate:
There are many mysterious fantastical images,
at
the
glittering
with itshestrange
He was
a point
in hiseye
life where
was more
power
concerned with the rational than the empirical,
the
polar
spirits andofseraph
band
this poem
was
an exploration
the former.

The latin preface says, Human cleverness

has always sought knowledge of these
things, never attained it.

THE
END.