The rime of the ancient mariner?

Question

How does this poem qualify as romance? Does anyone know where I can find some good information on the by colleradge

Answer 1

Well, it's not "romance' in the sense of love and kisses. This definition refers to novels, but it's also true of poetry:

“The term romance has had special meanings as a kind of fiction since the early years of the novel … In common usage, it refers to works with extravagant characters, remote and exotic places, highly exciting and heroic events, passionate love, or mysterious or supernatural experiences. In another and more sophisticated sense, romance refers to works relatively free of the more restrictive aspects of realistic verisimilitude."

"A major work of the English Romantic movement, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is considered one of the most significant and famous poems in the English language. While the poem was poorly received during Coleridge's lifetime, it is now praised as a classic example of imaginative poetry, characterizing Coleridge's poetic theories, of which he said in the Biographia Literaria, "My endeavors should be directed to persons and characters spiritual and supernatural, or at least romantic.
Plot and Major Characters

Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner appears in Lyrical Ballads in a purposefully "archaic" form, with words spelled in the manner of an earlier day. Coleridge changed some of the archaic diction of the original Ancient Marinere for the second edition of Lyrical Ballads and added glosses in the margins when it was included in Sibylline Leaves (1817). In its original form and in the modified version that followed, the poem describes an elderly mariner who, compelled to wander the Earth repeating his tale of woe, narrates his story to a wedding guest he meets in a village street. The story he tells relates how, in his youth, the mariner had set out on a sea voyage to the Southern Hemisphere with two hundred other men aboard a sailing ship. During the voyage, the ship is shadowed by an albatross, a huge seabird considered an omen of good fortune by seafarers. For no good reason, the mariner shoots the albatross dead with his crossbow, to the horror of his companions. In a short time, the ship is becalmed, and soon all the crew members die of thirst—all except the mariner. Before they died, the angry crew hung the dead albatross around the mariner's neck for his folly; and now, stricken with the horror of his deed's consequences, the mariner spends his time watching the phosphorescent trails of slimy creatures who writhe and coil in the night waters in the ship's shadow. In his heart, he blesses these humble creatures for their life and beauty, and at that moment, as he leans over the ship's side, the curse on his life begins to lift, as the albatross falls from his neck and sinks into the sea. The rest of the poem tells of the supernatural events that took place as spirits and angels propel the ship north into the snug harbor of the mariner's home town and his rescue by a holy hermit, who pronounces the terms of the mariner's penance upon him. The poem presents a variety of religious and supernatural images to depict a moving spiritual journey of doubt, sin, punishment, renewal, and eventual redemption.

Major Themes

The Ancient Mariner begins with almost the sense of classical Greek tragedy, with a man who has offended against pagan forces condemned to wander the world and repeat his tale to passersby when the daemon within him moves him. There is much in this poem concerning luck, fate, and fortune; this and the theme of death-in-life appear throughout the poems first half, with death-in-life, graphically symbolized by the revivified crew of corpses, appearing from the poem's mid-point almost too the end. There is a point of transition between pagan and Christian elements in the poem, falling at the moment the mariner blesses the sea-snakes in his heart. Death-in-life continues, and elemental spirits converse in the poet's conscious. Yet now, a redemptive presence is at work in the mariner's life, and even the elemental spirits and the living dead are subservient to it, as it becomes apparent that angelic beings have taken over the bodies of the dead crew and are bringing the ship into port. Christian themes and imagery become more pronounced as the poem nears its end, with the mariner declaiming about the quiet, longed-for joy of walking to church with his friends in the village, and then uttering one of the most-quoted stanzas in the entire poem: "He prayeth best who loveth best / All things both great and small; / For the dear God who loveth us, / He made and loveth all"—lines expressing sentiments endorsed by even so formidable an agnostic as Theodore Dreiser. Much of the poem's Biblical and medieval Catholic imagery has sparked radically different interpretations, and several commentators consider it an allegorical record of Coleridge's own spiritual pilgrimage. Coleridge himself, however, commented that the poem's major fault consisted of "the obtrusion of the moral sentiment so openly on the reader. . . . It ought to have had no more moral than the Arabian Nights' tale of the merchant's sitting down to eat dates."

Plese see link 3 for LOTS of good info.

Answer 2

Coleridge's poem isn't about romance, but it is Romantic, meaning that it is part of a literary tradition that reduced the emphasis upon reason (the Enlightenment) and replaced it with the ideals, inspirations, and aspirations of the individual.

Type "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" into the topic box at Google, and you will learn more about Coleridge than you want to know. Coleridge's personal life was a mess, and his children got by due to the generosity of another English poet, Robertr Southey. Coleridge's wife was Southey's sister-in-law. Southey was much more practical, less 'romantic,' than Coleridge.

Answer 3

Romantic only means death and mourning of heroes, as opposed to ordinary people, etc. There are different levels of poetry, this is one category.

Answer 4

Thanks for the answers EVERYONE xx