Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s life

Coleridge was born in Devonshire in 1772. He studied at Christ's Hospital and then he went to Cambridge, which he left without graduating. He was influenced by French revolutionary ideals. After the disillusionment with the French Revolution, he planned a utopian commune-like society, “Pantisocracy”, in Pennsylvania. This project came to an end. In 1797 he met William Wordsworth, with whom he wrote the Lyrical Ballads (1798),which includes The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In the same year he went with Wordsworth in Germany, where he became interested in German idealism of Kant and Schlegel and Schelling. Finally he settled in London, where he produced Biographia Literaria, a classic text of literary criticism and autobiography. In contrast to Wordsworth’s content, he represents supernatural characters. He died in 1834.

Imagination - Coleridge conceives the imagination as a creative power of poetry. He considered two kinds of imagination: primary imagination is possessed by men to read and understand, has the power to produce images and consists on image and perceive the reality through the senses. Secondary imagination is possessed only by poets, in fact he dissolves, dissipates, in order to recreate. Secondary imagination imagination is able to create a new reality beyond the concrete experience. It is strong and creative. The mind is not only active, as evidenced by the primary imagination, but also creative of a new reality.

Fancy – The mechanical ability the poet has to use devices, like metaphors, alliterations in poetry in order to blend various “ingredients” into beautiful images.

Nature – Coleridge did not view nature as a moral guide or a source of consolation and happiness. Nature is not a comfort for man but something that destroys. It’s a divine power and all natural creature must be respected. He saw nature and the material world as the projection of the “real” world of ideas on the flux

of time.

Task of the poet – He starts from ordinary experience to create a timeless world full of striking images.

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Coleridge’s poetry

Content Supernatural characters

Aim To give them a semblance of truth

Style Archaic language rich in sound devices. Traditional form of ballad with variations. Symbolic and evocative.

Main interest The creative power of imagination

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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

This strange ballad was composed between 1797 and 1798. It is the story of a crime and its punishment told by the protagonist himself, an old mariner condemned, to expiate his crime, to travel for ever from land to land telling his story and teaching , by his example , love and reverence for all God’s creature. The poem is divided into seven sections, each one ending with a hint at the crime and each one constituting a new stage in the progress from crime to punishment.

Plot

An "ancient mariner" is stopped, along with his crew, in a land completely frozen and salvation comes through the work of an albatross; Nevertheless, the sailor, for no apparent reason, it kills the albatross with his crossbow. At this point, nothing seems to happen and the crew approves the crime of his captain; and so, finally, the nature rebels and all those who suffer thirst and the scorching heat of the sun, until all of them, one by one, they fall and the sailor remains alone. In desperation, he tries to pray, but he can not until, unexpectedly, he blesses the sea snakes swimming in the water. The sailor has understood: he killed the albatross, a marvelous creature, and now is forced to love so horrible creatures like sea snakes, because you know how to love everyone equally. The work of Coleridge, nevertheless, is a strong critique of Christianity, he wants us to understand that pray continually, repeating words in which you do not really believe, it's useless: it is far more Christians only if we are able to love our neighbor .