How does Coleridge begin part one of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"?
by
ibz123 (student)
How does Coleridge begin part one of the rime of the ancient mariner?
In part one Coleridge employs narrative devices such as third person narrative, descriptive scenery and various language techniques to tell the story. This is done through the use of form, language and structure which will enable 19th and 21st century readers to “listens like a three years child”.
Coleridge begins part one by introducing the “Ancient mariner” in a third person narrative. He does this to create a distance between the mariner and the audience so that we observe he’s supernatural powers when he “holds” the wedding guest with his “glittery eye”. The word “glittery” suggests a supernatural power which is used by the mariner to compel the wedding guest, who then “Listen like a three year child”. Coleridge also tells part one in a ballad form by using an ABAB rhyming scheme, which is used to create pace throughout the poem, so we too can move swiftly through the mariners “paced” journey as “the ship drove fast” and as he is “chased” in part 1. As the ballad form was a literary technique typically used in medieval poetry by the romantics to represent the idealised past, Coleridge too uses the ballad form significantly, as we too are reminded of the mariner’s past “the ship was cheered”. By Coleridge employing a ballad form, loose and short ballads are used in part one to help the readers focus solely on the “wedding guest” and the “Mariners” tale so that we gain a greater understanding on what the mariner tale is and why it happened. This is true because stanza twenty shows that Coleridge uses first person narrative to allow the Mariner to reveal the nature of the tale as he proclaims “God save thee, ancient mariner” as he had “shot the albatross”. One could argue that this could be a tale of sin as the mariner has shot a “Christian soul.. hailed in Gods name”. “Christian” and “God” are words which draw religious connotations which Coleridge uses to appeal to his 19th century readers and teach them a moral lesson. On the other hand, the word albatross is something burdensome which may have given the mariner a reason to shot it.
