The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot...
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Transcript of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot...
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
and The Waste Landby T.S. Eliot
Background and Introduction
Backgrounds Coleridge
Written in 1797/8 Reflects man’s need
for spiritual salvation Regarded by critics as
too obscure and archaic; the “gloss” was added in 1815/6
Signaled a transition into romanticism
Eliot Written in 1922 Reflects the post-war
sense of depression and futility
Provoked a violent literary controversy
A landmark of the literary modernist era
Backgrounds Coleridge
Inspired by A Voyage Round The World by Way of the Great South Sea (1726) by Captain George Shelvocke, in which a sailor shoots an albatross, Coleridge envisioned “tutelary spirits”
Eliot Based on archetypal
constructs drawn from non-fiction works: Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough and Jessie L. Weston’s From Ritual to Romance
Coleridge Eliot
Introductions Coleridge
Style: archaic language combined with religious imagery
Style: description of fantastical spirits and dream-like experiences
Tone: haunting, mystical, inspired
Structure: a narrative literary ballad
Eliot Style: condensed use
of language Style: a wealth of
historical and literary references
Tone: erudite, cryptic, satirical, earnest
Structure: lack of narrative sequence
Introductions Coleridge
Structure: seven sections which explore a soul guilty of a terrible sin and its guidance toward redemption
Theme: Man’s violation against nature is atoned for in the redemptive embrace of spiritual guides
Eliot Structure: five sections
which explore the psychic stages of a soul in despair, struggling for redemption
Theme: Spiritual stagnation of the modern era is contrasted with fertility myths of the past
Introductions Coleridge
Coleridge portrays oceanic spiritual “otherworld”
The Ocean = the deep spiritual realm
The town = the hectic human communal realm
Eliot Eliot portrays a
decaying twilight world
The Waste Land = spiritual drought
The city = paralysis
The Themes Coleridge
Life is lived in pursuit of selfish pleasure
The ennobled Wanderer must force his listener to suspend the spiritless pursuit of pleasure and admonish him to nurture his soul
Eliot Modern life is
comprised of suffering The cruelty of
existence must be investigated through the noble legends and mystical poetry and art of the past
The Themes Coleridge
Spiritual death is a state of suspension which can arbitrarily deliver us to “tutelary spirits”
Coleridge’s vision is wild yet optimistic
Eliot Death can be both
tragically meaningless and conceivably redeeming
Eliot’s vision is depressing but not pessimistic!
The Poems Coleridge
An unnamed Wedding- Guest is waylaid en route to the celebration
The wandering Ancient Mariner is entrusted with singling out the spiritually lost and entrancing them with his story of redemption
Eliot An unnamed persona
moves through the Waste Land of his society and soul, seeking salvation
The modern world is a land without values, a mechanical world of arid souls
The PoemsColeridge
Man must respect his integral position with both the natural world and the spiritual world
Communal man is spiritually selfish, reflectively ignorant, and morally afflicted
Eliot There was a time
when man was vibrant with life: he had ideas, moral values, and responded to natural forces
Modern man is morally sterile, sexually impotent, and culturally stagnant
The Poems Coleridge
Communal man serves the flesh and ignores the spirit
The sea is fluid depth of the unconscious and fountainhead of spiritual life
Remember The Odyssey!
Eliot Modern man is a
mechanical man: physically alive but spiritually dead
The land is arid because man’s soul is arid
Remember the Fisher King!
The Poems Coleridge
Communal man busies himself with activity and must be made to suspend his exertion to nourish the spirit
The Wedding-Guest realizes that there is a spiritual order to the universe
Eliot The modern Waste
Land is man-made: therefore it is within man’s power to regenerate his dead world
The persona realizes that there is supreme order in the universe
The Poems Coleridge
Salvation and the restoration of order are available to the Wedding-Guest through spiritual supplication
Man must submit himself to spiritual sanctity to bring order into his soul and into the world.
Eliot Salvation and the
restoration of order are available to the persona through spiritual/religious belief
The persona must merely submit himself to this supreme power to bring order into his soul and into the world.