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  • Essay / Man's relationship with nature in The Age of the Ancient Sailor

    To the same extent that the ancient sailor ushers the wedding guest in with his "glittering eye," Samuel Taylor Coleridge sought to attract audience in Le Temps du marin. Ancient Marinere (1798). The poem, written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is constructed using various elements associated with the traditional ballad form of poetry. These elements, including the literary form the words take, the narrative style, and the subject matter, encourage the reader to associate the content with pre-modernity. However, it is through the allegorical aspect of the ballad form that the ambiguity of the emphasis on both modernity and pre-modernity in relation to nature is most pronounced. A later version of the poem develops this point further, but simultaneously changes the nature of this relationship. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834), the final revision of the poem, many differences from the original are evident. By modernizing archaic diction, adding marginal glosses, and omitting certain passages, Coleridge largely removed the premodern critique of society. In return, a moral interpretation is imposed on the reader. Evaluating the differences between the two ballads, the idea that nature is above human perception becomes evident. It is in this vein that Coleridge not only addresses, but puts into practice, humanity's relationship with the natural world in the 19th century. L'Ancyent Marinere (1798) is distinctly written in the form of a traditional ballad. Adhering to certain rigors typical of the ballad form, the poem places emphasis on the past. This harks back to Western folk culture and explicitly attributes its themes to pre-modernity. The literary form used by Ancyent Marinere (1798) is loosely based on short ballad stanzas and a regular rhyme scheme: The wedding guest sits down on a stone, He cannot help but hear: And thus spoke of this ancient man, The brilliant-” looked at Marinere. The effect of the heavily stressed syllables and pronounced rhyme scheme produces a song-like effect that "draws the reader in" just as the wedding guest was. The diction, illustrated above in the words "sate", "chuse" and "Marinere", was archaic even in the 19th century. Through this structure, the poem shares an affinity with the traditional form of the ballad, which was transmitted orally "from listener to listener, from culture to culture." Other characteristics of the ballad are displayed in the style of narrative used. In Ancyent Marinere (1798), minimal descriptive details about the setting and characters are given. A "long gray beard and...bright eyes" are the only traits of the Mariner that are commented on, even the names of the characters, "the Ancient Mariner" and "the wedding guest", are vague. By describing only the immediate action of the Mariner's story, Coleridge opens the poem to the reader's interpretation. This quality brings the Ancyent Marinere (1798) even closer to the traditional form of the ballad. Using this traditional form, each speaker inscribed their own personal vision of the story into the ballad. The theme of the nautical, supernatural and superstition associated with the ballad form was used by Coleridge as he criticized both pre-modernity and modernity within the Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (1798). Coleridge achieved this by exploiting the ambiguous nature of these themes, which he conveyed through imagery and allegory. The nautical theme is not only typical of traditional ballads and therefore encourages a visionfrom a pre-modern era, but it also alludes to the Maritime expansion that occurred in the 19th century. This nautical theme is illustrated through the diction which is actually a fusion of words from travel books, traditional ballads and the works of Chaucer, Spenser and Chatterton. As mobilized people, they become more detached from their environment. Along with the start of the Industrial Revolution, respect for nature changed as people in the 19th century placed value on evolving technology and transportation. When the ship runs aground in the ocean and the sailor remembers: “Alone, alone, all alone. / Alone on the vast sea" Coleridge implies how vulnerable humanity is in relation to the natural world. This was to comment on the growing idea of ​​man's superiority over nature. This example is one way whose ballad poses an ambiguous morality criticizing both pre-modernity and modernity. This ambiguity in the interpretation of morality is further developed through the themes of superstition and the supernatural, which are also consistent themes with the. traditional form of the ballad. The Ancient Mariner (1798) creates this effect through the allegory of the albatross. Through Mariner's superstitious conceptualization of the albatross, the allegory addresses the unreliable superstitions of the. pre-modernity. The relationship between the albatross and the people on the ship is also a metaphor for the relationship between all of humanity and the natural world in Coleridge's time. This conflicted relationship was evident in modernity, as the Industrial Revolution conflicted with the ideology of the 19th century Romantic movement. The albatross is first “hailed in the name of God” when it breaks the ice surrounding the ship. He is then mistaken for "the demons who torment you like this" and shot dead by the Mariner. He then admits to having done "an infernal thing" since he "killed the Bird / who made the Breeze blow", the breeze being the savior which freed the boat from the ice. This view of nature is further complicated when the people aboard the ship proclaim "It was good...such birds to kill/It brings the fog and mist" as the sun rises. This change in attitude towards the albatross, far removed from the events attributed to it, is representative of the capricious relationship that humanity had with the natural world in the 19th century. It is also notable that it was the breeze that caused 'the ice [to] part with a Thunder-fit.' Coleridge implies that only nature can fight against the natural world Although the men on the ship conceptualize the bird as the one who wields power over events, the reader can see that no solitary part of nature rules. rather, conditions are controlled by the forces of nature in a way that is beyond human conception. It is through this idea that nature's capacity to be considered both as something to be understood. both formidable and impressive It can be concluded that The Rime of the Ancient Marinere (1798) uses the traditional ballad form as a vehicle to highlight the capricious relationship between humanity and the natural world in Coleridge's time. and that of pre-modernity However, Coleridge did not stop there. Between 1800 and 1834, he published five other versions. By the sixth publication, the archaic diction had been modernized, marginal glosses had been added. various other parts of the poem had been changed. This final version of the poem is titled The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834). The result of these revisions is that the ambiguity of the meaning of the poem is altered. After the publication of the first Rime de l'Ancyent Marinere.