Water, water everywhere....

Coleridge's long narrative poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" appeared in the "Lyrical Ballads" he compiled collaboratively with Wordsworth. Putting the poem next to Swift's "A Modest Proposal", it is easy to see the radical differences between the Restoration and Romantic literary periods. Coleridge uses the "naive" narrative style of the mediaeval ballad, a central story of sin and redemption common to much folklore (remember "Everyman"), and supernatural elements like those found in many legends (remember "Beowulf"). He creates a hypnotic effect by using ballad prosody- short lines of alternate tetrameter and triameter, and emphatic repetitions of nouns, verbs and phrases, meaning that the reader as mesmerised as the Wedding Guest was.

Look at the effect of these verses:

"The land of ice, and of fearful sounds where no living thing was to be seen.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts

Did send a dismal sheen :

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken--

The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around :

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like noises in a swound !"

And....

"And I had done an hellish thing,

And it would work 'em woe :

For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch ! said they, the bird to slay,

That made the breeze to blow !
But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make themselves accomplices in the crime.
Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,

The glorious Sun uprist :

Then all averred, I had killed the bird

That brought the fog and mist.

'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,

That bring the fog and mist."

Then the famous lines...

"Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean
And the Albatross begins to be avenged.
Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink ;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot : O Christ !

That ever this should be !

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout

The death-fires danced at night ;

The water, like a witch's oils,

Burnt green, and blue and white."

The poem, like a mediaeval ballad, finishes with an explicit moral:

"And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.
Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest !

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small ;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all."

Just as Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" has inspired many artists and musicians over the centuries, Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" has been a similar source of inspiration.

There is even a statue in a port town in Somerset thought to be have inspired Coleridge to write the poem:

"Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks

Had I from old and young !

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung."

As you've probably guessed, this is one of my favourite pieces of English Literature!!!