Keywords: Coleridge, Gothic, Instruction, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, “Christabel”, Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century British Literature, Romanticism, Romance, Coleridgean Metaphysics, Theology, Criticism. This study focuses on how Samuel Taylor Coleridge uses Gothic as a medium of instruction in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Christabel”. The following study is the subject of Samuel Taylor Coleridge using Gotiese as an instrument in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel".
Most people tend to focus their studies on "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel". Seeing as Coleridge's philosophical prose is notoriously complicated, which identifies Coleridge's instructive project in these poems (specifically in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"). Chapter Two identifies a uniquely Coleridgean theological and metaphysical form of teaching evident in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
In this chapter I attempt to illustrate that in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" Coleridge communicates a "philosophy"2 that reconciles two historically dominant and.
Chapter One
Contextualisation and history of British Gothic literature
In addition to the implications of the complicated semantics raised by the term "Gothic," Clery makes a valid point about the general boundaries crossed by the Gothic. In doing so, Walpole, according to Ellis, reconciled the novel and certain romantic conventions. In the second preface to The Castle of Otranto Walpole explains that his "Gothic History" "was an attempt to blend two kinds of romance, [..] the antient [sic] and the modern" (in Ellis, 2000:20).
As mentioned earlier, the term "Gothic" would have conjured up images of barbarism and the fall of the ancient Roman Empire to Walpole's contemporaries. According to Ellis, Hurd and Warton informed Walpole's treatment of the relationship between the supernatural and the medieval environment (ibid.). Clery shows that Edmund Burke's philosophical inquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and the beautiful (1757) presented imaginative transport, both mental and physiological, as a necessity (2006:19).
It therefore comes as no surprise that since the publication of the second edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1800, the Gothic and the Romantic have seemed to be juxtaposed.
Chapter Two
Coleridgean Metaphysical and Theological Instruction in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
The sheer size and scope of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner means, however, that an in-depth analysis of. From this would flow a multitude of opinions as to whether The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has a moral and what that moral might be. Like most questions involving the Mariner, the answer begins with his shooting of the Albatross.
As Rudolf says, the Mariner considers himself part of the crew, having already been disowned by him. However, the ontological uncertainty of the crew does not completely disappear with the arrival of the bird. I maintain that this idea is illustrated in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by the example of the sailor blessing the water serpents.
The discussion so far has centered on the nature of the crime committed by the Mariner and crew and on the details of his redemption. This passage remains unchanged in all versions of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Consequently, the characters (the Pole Spirit and the two voices) whose existence is derived from dreams can be said to be the product of the ontological crisis in which the Sailor and the crew find themselves.
Yet it is precisely this process that I claim is the cornerstone of the theology that Coleridge promotes in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Following the theological interpretation of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" suggested above, Williams' characterization of the typical Male Gothic villain is, it would seem, very applicable to the Mariner. Herein lies the essence of the theological principles presented in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner".
This is where the sailor's role as the wedding guest's enemy becomes apparent, along with the confirmation of his status as an apostle. The affinity between the mariner's and the insect's responses to external stimuli is most apparent. Faced with the story of the Sailor's defection, the Wedding Guest, I believe, becomes aware of the Sailor's foolishness and of many misconceptions.
In short, it is my belief that Coleridge uses the Gothic in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
Chapter Three
Christabel” as Instructive Gothic Allegory
Karen Swann (1985) admits that the focus of her essay is on the periphery of the poem. Christabel" is a complex allegory which in turn sees Geraldine as the embodiment of Gothic fiction and Christabel as the embodiment of the contemporary British reading public. This will, as happened in the previous chapter, involve an examination of the origins (literary and not -literary) of the characters in the poem.
Ellis reiterates the idea that the "vulgar" entertainment of the Gothic was compatible with women writers and readership (as evidenced by the publishing market and circulating libraries) and that as such it became the site of frank debates about the nature and politics of femininity. (2000:48). Dramino's argument is substantiated by a passage written by Coleridge in the March 6, 1796 issue of The Watchman. In the poem, specifically in the second part of the poem, the reader is confronted with many geographical references, especially references to the Lake District.
It is in this sense that "Christabel" comes to allegorically represent the British literary atmosphere of the time, torn between the patriarchal law of the critics and the novelty of Gothic Romanticism. This idea is also reflected in the name Christabel if we consider it again as a composite of the names of Christ and Abel. Cain, according to the apocryphal Gospel of Philip (as well as the Kabbalah and a number of Jewish Midrashic texts), was the son of the serpent and not of Adam.
This notion is strengthened through the mention of the mistletoe that grows on this particular oak. However, Jackson emphasizes Coleridge's love, and indeed reverence, for the study of the history of words. Consequently, Geraldine's seduction of Christabel reflects Coleridge's sense of the spell that binds the reader to the mysteries of Udolpho.
It is this sameness that, according to this review, would undoubtedly lead to the gradual decline of the popularity of Gothic romance. Perhaps the clearest similarity between one of Coleridge's remarks on Gothic literature and "Christabel" is to be found in Chapter XXIV of the Biographia Literaria. 49 The fact that marks feature prominently in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "The Three Graves".
Owls, clock towers and barking dogs are common elements in the performance of the Gothic genre.
Conclusion
I then argued that the redemption in the poem is not the Mariner's own, but rather that of the external and obligated audience to his narrative. The mariner's morality is thus a prescription informed by natura naturata, constructed as a result of the mariner's constant reliance on the understanding. The catalysis effected by his story (and the philosophy represented in it) informs the mariner's intended audience of ultimate phenomena, of the center of creation, of God.
The Mariner and its story therefore resemble the treatise of the religious zealot referred to above by Coleridge. Moreover, because I impose on Coleridge's metaphysical and philosophical musings published some time after the composition of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," some may charge me with the charge of anachronism. Twitchell, despite his rather forced interpretation of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" as a vampire poem, offers some sharp insights into the gloss and its critical legacy.
The interpretation I have offered has rather less to do with the complex Coleridgean metaphysics, philosophy and theology than in my interpretation of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, to lean towards a historically and biographically informed authorial interpretation. I believe that Coleridge saw his instructive Gothic project in "Christabel" as one of the means by which such a transformation could be effected.
With "Christabel," Coleridge also aims for a creative correction of the major faults of the Gothic. The teaching philosophy evident in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner has a more universal applicability than that in Christabel. While "Christabel" deals, to a large extent, with very specific literary problems, "Rhymes of the Ancient Mariner" tries to instruct its reader, like the wedding guest, on the various metaphysical and theological aspects discussed above.
The fact that he wrote the letter while watching the composition of the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Therefore, in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Christabel, Coleridge does not use Fancy and the Understanding simply to arrange events, settings, and characters in such a way as to generate free emotions for the reader, thus reproducing simulacra of countless dead.
Bibliography
The Mysteries of Udolpho; a romance mixed with some poetry, by A. http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/coleridge.reviews Date accessed: July 12, 2017. http://www.english.upenn.edu / ~mgamer/Etexts/coleridge.reviews Date accessed: 12 July 2017. The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents, by A. http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/coleridge .reviews Date accessed: 12 July 2017. The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Including Poems and Version of Poems Now First Published Edited by E.H Coleridge.
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