rime of the ancient mariner by st coleridge

This is an example of the power of the secondary imagination, which allows us to see the world in new and different ways and to connect with ideas and themes that are beyond our everyday experience. Hence, the supernatural elements institute the evilness of human beings or the human characteristics in the poem.įurthermore, the supernatural elements in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” help to give human qualities to non-human entities, such as the albatross and the ghost ship, which allows the reader to connect with these characters on a deeper level. The misfortune that happened to the mariners allegorically represent the evilness that exist in a man or the inner self which remains hidden from the world. The mariner killed the “Albatross” and eventually some misfortune followed them and Coleridge tries to show the allegorical representation of the bird having a divine potential of dominance over mankind and hence the mariners became increasingly thirst.

The self show man’s anthropocentric and always holds its highest authority over nature but Coleridge profess that these entities possess human traits and has the potential to dominate over man, punish and make them realize their mistakes and guilt. These entities shows the important human feature of duality of human selves where man shows certain traits of dual selves including the inner self and outer self. The supernatural elements helps in granting human qualities with the use of secondary imagination.”The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” perfectly shows the handling of supernatural elements where the entities of “Albatross”, “Death and Life-in-Death”, water snakes, “Pilot”, and “Hermia” shows human features. He experimented his poems with supernatural elements. The most important aspect of his treatment was the supernatural elements which has a significant role in his poems. He was very much imaginative since childhood and developed his own theories on imagination in his famous essay “Biographia Literaria”. He is known for his collaboration with William Wordsworth on their work “Lyrical ballads” which led to the Romantic movement. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was one of the most well known poets of the First generation Romantic Age.

Rime of the ancient mariner by st coleridge