Saturday 8 November 2014

“To a Skylark”

Summary

The speaker, addressing a skylark, says that it is a “blithe Spirit” rather than a bird, for its song comes from Heaven, and from its full heart pours “profuse strains of unpremeditated art.” The skylark flies higher and higher, “like a cloud of fire” in the blue sky, singing as it flies. In the “golden lightning” of the sun, it floats and runs, like “an unbodied joy.” As the skylark flies higher and higher, the speaker loses sight of it, but is still able to hear its “shrill delight,” which comes down as keenly as moonbeams in the “white dawn,” which can be felt even when they are not seen. The earth and air ring with the skylark’s voice, just as Heaven overflows with moonbeams when the moon shines out from behind “a lonely cloud.”
The speaker says that no one knows what the skylark is, for it is unique: even “rainbow clouds” do not rain as brightly as the shower of melody that pours from the skylark. The bird is “like a poet hidden / In the light of thought,” able to make the world experience “sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.” It is like a lonely maiden in a palace tower, who uses her song to soothe her lovelorn soul. It is like a golden glow-worm, scattering light among the flowers and grass in which it is hidden. It is like a rose embowered in its own green leaves, whose scent is blown by the wind until the bees are faint with “too much sweet.” The skylark’s song surpasses “all that ever was, / Joyous and clear and fresh,” whether the rain falling on the “twinkling grass” or the flowers the rain awakens.
Calling the skylark “Sprite or Bird,” the speaker asks it to tell him its “sweet thoughts,” for he has never heard anyone or anything call up “a flood of rapture so divine.” Compared to the skylark’s, any music would seem lacking. What objects, the speaker asks, are “the fountains of thy happy strain?” Is it fields, waves, mountains, the sky, the plain, or “love of thine own kind” or “ignorance or pain”? Pain and languor, the speaker says, “never came near” the skylark: it loves, but has never known “love’s sad satiety.” Of death, the skylark must know “things more true and deep” than mortals could dream; otherwise, the speaker asks, “how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?”
For mortals, the experience of happiness is bound inextricably with the experience of sadness: dwelling upon memories and hopes for the future, mortal men “pine for what is not”; their laughter is “fraught” with “some pain”; their “sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” But, the speaker says, even if men could “scorn / Hate and pride and fear,” and were born without the capacity to weep, he still does not know how they could ever approximate the joy expressed by the skylark. Calling the bird a “scorner of the ground,” he says that its music is better than all music and all poetry. He asks the bird to teach him “half the gladness / That thy brain must know,” for then he would overflow with “harmonious madness,” and his song would be so beautiful that the world would listen to him, even as he is now listening to the skylark.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

As romantic poem.

Coleridge's "Rim0e of the Ancient Mariner," was first published in the year 1798 in the "Lyrical Ballads." The "Lyrical Ballads" was a result of the combined efforts of Wordsworth and Coleridge to completely break with the poetic tradition of the Neo Classical age.

In his Biographia Literaria Chapter XIV, Coleridge informs us of the origin of his masterpiece:

it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons and characters supernatural, or at least Romantic; yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith. ... With this view I wrote the 'Ancient Mariner'.

The three important features of the Romantic Age as seen in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner are:

1. The Supernatural Element: The poets of the neo classical age gave more importance to realistic descriptions of day to day life. The romantic poets like Coleridge however, concentrated on describing the supernatural world. The whole poem describes the supernatural and mystical experience of the "ancient mariner" in a mysterious manner:

This seraph band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light:

2. Love for Nature: The romantic poets like Coleridge unlike the poets of the neo classical age who confined themselves to urban settings were lovers of Nature. They delighted in describing Nature in all its glory:

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

For the desperate and terrified "ancient mariner" alone and adrift on the ocean it is the natural sounds of the birds which offer him some hope and comfort.

3. Poetic form: The poets of the neo classical age used only one verse form in all their poems - the heroic couplet. Needless to say it resulted in artistic sterility and monotony. Coleridge uses a quatrain which rhymes a b c b for the most part of the poem but varies the number of the lines in some of the stanzas and also the rhyme scheme:

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere, (repetition)

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink. (rhyme)

Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow, (6 lines)
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.

ODE TO THE WEST WIND

Type of Work and Year of Publication

.......“Ode to the West Wind” is a lyric poem that addresses the west wind as a powerful force and asks it to scatter the poet's words throughout the world. (A lyric poem presents the deep feelings and emotions of the poet rather than telling a story or presenting a witty observation. An ode is a lyric poem that uses lofty, dignified language to address a person or thing.) Charles and Edmund Ollier published the poem in London in 1820 in a volume entitled Prometheus Unbound: a Lyrical Drama in Four Acts With Other Poems. Prometheus Unbound is a four-act play (intended to be read but not performed) that was the featured work in the volume.

Setting and Background Information

.......The time is autumn of 1819. The place is western Italy, from the Mediterranean coast inland to Florence. Shelley makes a specific reference in the poem to the city of Baiae (Italian, Baia), called Aqua Cumanae by ancient Romans. Its favorable climate attracted vacationing Roman dignitaries to the city, including Julius Caesar and Nero, who constructed villas there. Volcanic eruptions plunged part of the ancient site into the sea, as alluded to in the poem in lines 32 and 33. Shelley wrote the poem inland, in a forest on the Arno River near Florence. His notes on the the poem explain that he received the inspiration for it one fall day when the strong west wind swept down from the Atlantic and through the Tuscan landscape of west-central Italy:

This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapors which pour down the autumnal rains. They begin, as I foresaw, at sunset, with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. (Shelley 239)

Ode to the West Wind
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
Text, Summaries, and Notes

1
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou 5
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd¹ seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion² o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 10
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill;

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!

Summary, Stanza 1

Addressing the west wind as a human, the poet describes its activities: It drives dead leaves away as if they were ghosts fleeing a wizard. The leaves are yellow and black, pale and red, as if they had died of an infectious disease. The west wind carries seeds in its chariot and deposits them in the earth, where they lie until the spring wind awakens them by blowing on a trumpet (clarion). When they form buds, the spring wind spreads them over plains and on hills. In a paradox, the poet addresses the west wind as a destroyer and a preserver, then asks it to listen to what he says.

Notes, Stanza 1

1. The accent over the e in wingèd (line 7) causes the word to be pronounced in two syllables—the first stressed ....and the second unstressed—enabling the poet to maintain the metric scheme (iambic pentameter).
2. clarion: Trumpet.

2
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, 15
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20

Of some fierce Mænad³, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge⁴

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25
Vaulted with all thy congregated⁵ might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!

Summary, Stanza 2

The poet says the west wind drives clouds along just as it does dead leaves after it shakes the clouds free of the sky and the oceans. These clouds erupt with rain and lightning. Against the sky, the lightning appears as a bright shaft of hair from the head of a Mænad. The poet compares the west wind to a funeral song sung at the death of a year and says the night will become a dome erected over the year's tomb with all of the wind's gathered might. From that dome will come black rain, fire, and hail. Again the poet asks the west wind to continue to listen to what he has to say.

Notes, Stanza 2

3. Mænad: Wildly emotional woman who took part in the orgies of ....Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and revelry.
4. dirge: Funeral song.
5. congregated: Gathered, mustered.

3
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30
Lull'd by the coil of his crystàlline⁶ streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers 35
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 40

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves:⁷ O hear!

Summary, Stanza 3

At the beginning of autumn, the poet says, the the west wind awakened the Mediterranean Sea—lulled by the sound of the clear streams flowing into it—from summer slumber near an island formed from pumice (hardened lava). The island is in a bay at Baiae, a city in western Italy about ten miles west of Naples. While sleeping at this locale, the Mediterranean saw old palaces and towers that had collapsed into the sea during an earthquake and became overgrown with moss and flowers. To create a path for the west wind, the powers of the mighty Atlantic Ocean divide (cleave) themselves and flow through chasms. Deep beneath the ocean surface, flowers and foliage, upon hearing the west wind, quake in fear and despoil themselves. (In autumn, ocean plants decay like land plants. See Shelley's note on this subject.) Once more, the poet asks the west wind to continue to listen to what he has to say.

Notes, Stanza 3

6. The accent over the a in crystàlline shifts the stress to the second syllable, making crystàl an iamb.
7. In his notes, Shelley commented on lines 38-42:

The phenomenon alluded to at the end of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds announce it.(Shelley 239)

4
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 45

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey⁸ speed 50
Scarce seem'd a vision—I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd 55
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.

Summary, Stanza 4

The poet says that if he were a dead leaf (like the ones in the first stanza) or a cloud (like the ones in the second stanza) or an ocean wave that rides the power of the Atlantic but is less free than the uncontrollable west wind—or if even he were as strong and vigorous as he was when he was a boy and could accompany the wandering wind in the heavens and could only dream of traveling faster—well, then, he would never have prayed to the west wind as he is doing now in his hour of need.
.......Referring again to imagery in the first three stanzas, the poet asks the wind to lift him as it would a wave, a leaf, or a cloud; for here on earth he is experiencing troubles that prick him like thorns and cause him to bleed. He is now carrying a heavy burden that—though he is proud and tameless and swift like the west wind—has immobilized him in chains and bowed him down.

Notes, Stanza 4

8. Skiey is a neologism (coined word) whose two syllables maintain iambic pentameter. The s in skiey alliterates with the s in speed, ....scarce, seem'd, and striven.

5
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, 60
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse, 65

Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 70

Summary, Stanza 5

The poet asks the west wind to turn him into a lyre (a stringed instrument) in the same way that the west wind's mighty currents turn the forest into a lyre. And if the poet's leaves blow in the wind like those from the forest trees, there will be heard a deep autumnal tone that is both sweet and sad. Be "my spirit," the poet implores the wind. "Be thou me" and drive my dead thoughts (like the dead leaves) across the universe in order to prepare the way for new birth in the spring. The poet asks the wind to scatter his words around the world, as if they were ashes from a burning fire. To the unawakened earth, they will become blasts from a trumpet of prophecy. In other words, the poet wants the wind to help him disseminate his views on politics, philosophy, literature, and so on. The poet is encouraged that, although winter will soon arrive, spring and rebirth will follow it.

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Examples of Figures of Speech and Rhetorical Devices

Stanza 1

Alliteration: wild West Wind (line 1).
Apostrophe, Personification: Throughout the poem, the poet addresses the west wind as if it were a person.
Metaphor: Comparison of the west wind to breath of Autumn's being (line 1).
Metaphor: Comparison of autumn to a living, breathing creature (line 1).
Anastrophe: leaves dead (line 2). Anastrophe is inversion of the normal word order, as in a man forgotten (instead of a forgotten man) or as in the opening lines of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Kahn": In Xanada did Kubla Kahn / A stately pleasure dome decree (instead of In Xanadu, Kubla Kahn decreed a stately pleasure dome). Here is another example, made up to demonstrate the inverted word order of anastrophe:

In the garden green and dewy
A rose I plucked for Huey

Simile: Comparison of dead leaves to ghosts.
Anastrophe: enchanter fleeing (line 3).
Alliteration: Pestilence-stricken multitudes (line 5).
Alliteration: Pestilence-stricken multitudes (line 5).
Alliteration: chariotest to (line 6).
Alliteration: The wingèd seeds, where they (line 7).
Metaphor: Comparison of seeds to flying creatures (line 7).
Simile: Comparison of each seed to a corpse (lines 7-8).
Alliteration: sister of the Spring (line 9).
Personification: Comparison of spring wind to a person (lines 9-10).
Metaphor, Personification: Comparison of earth to a dreamer (line 10).
Alliteration: flocks to feed
Simile: Comparison of buds to flocks (line 11).
Anastrophe: fill / . . . With living hues and odours plain and hill (lines 10, 12).
Alliteration: Wild Spirit, which (line 13).
Paradox: Destroyer and preserver (line 14).
Alliteration: hear, O hear (line 14).

Stanza 8

Apostrophe, Personification: The poet addresses the west wind as if it were a person.
Metaphor: Comparison of the poet and the forest to a lyre, a stringed musical instrument (line 57).
Metaphor: Comparison of the poet to a forest (line 58).
Alliteration: The tumult of thy mighty harmonies (line 59).
Alliteration: Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, (line 61).
Metaphor: Comparison of the poet to the wind (line 62).
Alliteration: Drive my dead thoughts over the universe (line 63).
Simile: Comparison of thoughts to withered leaves (lines 63-64).
Alliteration: the incantation of this (line 65).
Simile: Comparison of words to ashes and sparks (66-67).
Alliteration: my words among mankind (67).
Metaphor: Comparison of the poet's voice to the wind as a trumpet of a prophecy (lines 68-69).
Alliteration: trumpet of a prophecy (lines 68-69).
Alliteration: O Wind, / If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
.......

Theme and Historical Background

Irresistible Power

.......The poet desires the irresistible power of the wind to scatter the words he has written about his ideals and causes, one of which was opposition to Britain’s monarchical government as a form of tyranny. Believing firmly in democracy and individual rights, he supported movements to reform government. In 1819, England’s nobility feared that working-class citizens—besieged by economic problems, including high food prices—would imitate the rebels of the French Revolution and attempt to overthrow the established order. On August 16, agitators attracted tens of thousands of people to a rally in St. Peter’s Field, Manchester, to urge parliamentary reform and to protest laws designed to inflate the cost of corn and wheat. Nervous public officials mismanaged the unarmed crowd and ended up killing 11 protesters and injuring more than 500 others. In reaction to this incident, Shelley wrote The Masque of Anarchy in the fall of 1819 to urge further nonviolent action against the government. This work was not published during his lifetime. However, "Ode to the West Wind," also written in the fall of 1819, was published a year later. The poem obliquely refers to his desire to spread his reformist ideas when it says, "Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth / Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!" Shelley believed that the poetry he wrote had the power bring about political reform: "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World," he wrote in another work, A Defence of Poetry.
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Kubla Khan” Samuel Taylor Coleridge

INTRODUCTION

Along with “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1798) and “Christabel” (1816), “Kubla Khan” (1816) has been widely acclaimed as one of Coleridge's most significant works. While Coleridge himself referred to “Kubla Khan” as a fragment, the vivid images contained in the work have garnered extensive critical attention through the years, and it has long been acknowledged as a poetic representation of Coleridge's theories of the imagination and creation. Although it was not published until 1816, scholars agree that the work was composed between 1797 and 1800. At the time of its publication, Coleridge subtitled it “A Vision in A Dream: A Fragment,” and added a prefatory note explaining the unusual origin of the work. The poet explained that after taking some opium for medication, he grew drowsy while reading a passage about the court of Kubla Khan from Samuel Purchas's Pilgrimage. In this dreamlike state, Coleridge related, he composed a few hundred lines of poetry and when he awoke, immediately began writing the verses down. Unfortunately, a visitor interrupted him, and when the poet had a chance to return to his writing, the images had fled, leaving him with only vague recollections and the remaining 54 lines of this fragmentary poem. Although many critics have since challenged Coleridge's version of the poem's composition, critical scholarship on the work has focused equally on its fragmentary nature and on its place in Romantic writing as a representative work of poetic theory.

Plot and Major Characters

The poem begins with a description of a magnificent palace built by Mongolian ruler Kubla Khan during the thirteenth century. The “pleasure dome” described in the first few lines of the poem is reflective of Kubla's power, and the description of the palace and its surroundings also help convey the character and nature of Kubla, the poem's main character. In contrast to the palace and its planned gardens, the space outside Kubla's domain is characterized by ancient forests and rivers, providing a majestic backdrop to Kubla's creation. It initially appears that there is harmony between the two worlds, but the narrator then describes a deep crack in the earth, hidden under a grove of dense trees. The tenor of the poem then changes from the sense of calm and balance described in the first few lines, to an uneasy sense of the pagan and the supernatural. There is a vast distance between the ordered world of Kubla's palace and this wild, untamed place, the source of the fountain that feeds the river flowing through the rocks, forests, and ultimately, the stately garden of Kubla Khan. As the river moves from the deep, uncontrolled chasm described in earlier lines back to Kubla's world, the narrative shifts from third person to first person; the poet then describes his own vision and his own sense of power that comes from successful poetic creation.

Major Themes

Despite the controversy surrounding the origin of “Kubla Khan,” most critics acknowledge that the images, motifs and ideas explored in the work are representative of Romantic poetry. The emphasis on the Oriental setting of “Kubla Khan” in contrast to the description of the sacred world of the river is interpreted by critics as commonplace understanding of orthodox Christianity at the turn of the century, when the Orient was seen as the initial step towards Western Christianity. Also typical of other Romantic poems is Coleridge's lyrical representation of the landscape, which is both the source and keeper of the poetic imagination. Detailed readings of “Kubla Khan” indicate the use of intricate metric and poetic devices in the work. Coleridge himself explained that while any work with rhyme and rhythm may be described as a poem, for the work to be “legitimate” each part must mutually support and enhance the other, coming together as a harmonious whole. In “Kubla Khan” he uses this complex rhyming structure to guide the reader through its themes—the ordered rhymes of the first half describe the ordered world of Kubla Khan, while the abrupt change in meter and rhyme immediately following, describe the nature around Kubla Khan—the world that he cannot control. This pattern and contrast between worlds continues through the poem, and the conflict is reflected in the way Coleridge uses rhythm and order in his poem. Critics agree that “Kubla Khan” is a complex work with purpose and structure, and that it is representative of Coleridge's poetic ideal of a harmonious blend of meaning and form, resulting in a “graceful and intelligent whole.”

Critical Reception

When Coleridge first issued “Kubla Khan” in 1816, it is believed that he did so for financial reasons and as an appendage to the more substantial “Christabel.” The work had previously been excluded by Wordsworth from the second edition of the Lyrical Ballads and there is little evidence that Coleridge himself claimed it as one of his more significant works. In fact, when first published, many contemporary reviewers regarded the poem as “nonsense,” especially because of its fragmentary nature. In the years since, the poem, as well as the story of its creation, has been widely analyzed by critics, and much critical scholarship has focused on the sources for this work as well as the images included in it. Recent studies of the poem have explored the fragmentary nature of the poem versus the harmonious vision of poetic theory it proposes. For example, in an essay analyzing the fragmentary nature of “Kubla Khan,” Timothy Bahti proposes that the poet uses the symbol of the chasm to represent the act of creation, and that the struggle between the fragment and division that generates the sacred river is representative of the act of creative continuity. Other critics have focused on “Kubla Khan” as a poem that relates the account of its own creation, thus stressing its importance as a work that defines Coleridge's theories of poetic creation. It is now widely acknowledged that “Kubla Khan” is a technically complex poem that reflects many of its creator's poetic and creative philosophies and that the thematic repetition, the intricate rhymes, and carefully juxtaposed images in the work come together as a harmonious whole that is representative of Coleridge's ideas of poetic creation.

COLERIDGE ANCIENT MARINER

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Summary

Three guys are on the way to a wedding celebration when an old sailor (the Mariner) stops one of them at the door (we'll call him the Wedding Guest). Using his hypnotic eyes to hold the attention of the Wedding Guest, he starts telling a story about a disastrous journey he took. The Wedding Guest really wants to go party, but he can't pry himself away from this grizzled old mariner. The Mariner begins his story. They left port, and the ship sailed down near Antarctica to get away from a bad storm, but then they get caught in a dangerous, foggy ice field. An albatross shows up to steer them through the fog and provide good winds, but then the Mariner decides to shoot it. Oops.
Pretty soon the sailors lose their wind, and it gets really hot. They run out of water, and everyone blames the Mariner. The ship seems to be haunted by a bad spirit, and weird stuff starts appearing, like slimy creatures that walk on the ocean. The Mariner's crewmates decide to hang the dead albatross around his neck to remind him of his error.
Everyone is literally dying of thirst. The Mariner sees another ship's sail at a distance. He wants to yell out, but his mouth is too dry, so he sucks some of his own blood to moisten his lips. He's like, "A ship! We're saved." Sadly, the ship is a ghost ship piloted by two spirits, Death and Life-in-Death, who have to be the lastpeople you'd want to meet on a journey. Everyone on the Mariner's ship dies.
The wedding guest realizes, "Ah! You're a ghost!" But the Mariner says, "Well, actually, I was the only one who didn't die." He continues his story: he's on a boat with a lot of dead bodies, surrounded by an ocean full of slimy things. Worse, these slimy things are nasty water snakes. But the Mariner escapes his curse by unconsciously blessing the hideous snakes, and the albatross drops off his neck into the ocean.
The Mariner falls into a sweet sleep, and it finally rains when he wakes up. A storm strikes up in the distance, and all the dead sailors rise like zombies to pilot the ship. The sailors don't actually come back to life. Instead, angels fill their bodies, and another supernatural spirit under the ocean seems to push the boat. The Mariner faints and hears two voices talking about how he killed the albatross and still has more penance to do. These two mysterious voices explain how the ship is moving.
After a speedy journey, the ship ends up back in port again. The Mariner sees angels standing next to the bodies of all his crewmates. Then a rescue boat shows up to take him back to shore. The Mariner is happy that a guy called "the hermit" is on the rescue boat. The hermit is in a good mood. All of a sudden there's a loud noise, and the Mariner's ship sinks. The hermit's boat picks up the Mariner.
When they get on shore, the Mariner is desperate to tell his story to the hermit. He feels a terrible pain until the story had been told
In fact, the Mariner says that he still has the same painful need to tell his story, which is why he stopped the Wedding Guest on this occasion. Wrapping up, the Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that he needs to learn how to say his prayers and love other people and things. Then the Mariner leaves, and the Wedding Guest no longer wants to enter the wedding. He goes home and wakes up the next day, as the famous last lines go, "a sadder and a wiser man."

A Short Synopsis of Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Part I: The Wedding guest, the voyage, stuck in ice, he kills the albatross.

The Mariner stops a wedding guest and forces him, spellbound, to listen to his story.

The ship sails south to equator.

Wedding guest hears music of wedding beginning.

A storm hits the ship and impels it south. They are stuck in ice.

An albatross appears and is befriended by the shipmates. A south wind springs up and takes them northward.

He kills it with his crossbow.

Part II: They suffer punishment for his crime and are becalmed.

The crew at first cry out against him, but then commend him when the fog clears off.

They sail north and become becalmed at the equator. They suffer from thirst. Slimy things are on the surface, and lights are on the water and masts at night.

A spirit follows them under the ship nine fathoms down.

They hang the bird around his neck.

Part III: A skeleton ship comes, and its ghastly crew gambles for their souls. The crew dies.

He sees a ship far off. They rejoice thinking they are saved, but then despair when they wonder how a ship can sail without wind.

It is a skeleton ship with only a woman, Life-in-Death, and a mate, Death, for crew.

They play dice for the crew and she wins. The sun sets and the skeleton ship departs.

The crew dies, one by one, and their souls fly out.

Part IV: He is left alone for seven days. He blesses the water snakes, and the spell is broken.

The wedding guest is afraid that he is speaking to a ghost, but the Mariner assures him that he did not die.

He is left alone and tries to pray but cannot. For seven days he looks at the dead men and cannot die.

He sees the water snakes by the light of the moon. He blesses them and is able to pray. The albatross falls from his neck.

Part V: It rains. The ship is moved north, its crew reanimated by spirits. He swoons and hears two voices.

He sleeps and awakens to find it raining. A roaring wind and storm comes, and the dead crew rises and mans the ship.

The wedding guest is afraid, but is reassured that it is not the souls of the dead men that reanimate them, but a troop of spirits blest. They sing around the mast at dawn till noon, continuing to sail moved on from beneath.

The spirit from the snow and ice moves them to the equator again, and the ship stands still. It moves back and forth then makes a sudden bound. He swoons.

He hears two voices in his sleep tell of his crime and trials.

Part VI: The two voices talk. He wakes up in his native land. The spirits signal the shore, and a boat appears.

The two voices talk back and forth as the ship is impelled northward faster than any human could endure.

He wakes up and the ship sails slowly now. The crew is still up, and their eyes curse him still.

The spell is broken and a sweet breeze blows on him alone. He sees his native country.

The spirits leave the dead bodies and each appears in its own form, full of light. They stand as signals to the land, but make no sound.

A boat is heard coming to him. The Pilot, his boy, and the Hermit are in the boat. He hopes that the Hermit will shrieve his soul to wash away the blood of the albatross.

Part VII: The ship sinks but he is saved. He is compelled to wander and tell his tale.

The Hermit who lives in the woods there loves to talk to mariners from far off.

The lights of the signal have disappeared, and the boat appears warped, the sails like skeletons.

As they approach a rumble is heard under the water. The ship splits and sinks.

His body floats and is found and dragged aboard the boat. When he moves his lips they scream. He rows the boat.

When they reach land he begs the Hermit to shrieve him. The Mariner is overcome by a fit which forces him to tell his tale. Since then, he has had to travel from land to land and tell his tale. He has powers of speech and knows the men to whom he must tell his tale.

The sounds of merriment come from the wedding party within. He tells how sweet it is for him to have company after being alone on the sea and tells the wedding guest to love all thing both great and small.

The wedding guest leaves and rose the next morn wiser and sadder.

Ulysses of Tennyson

During the reign of Queen Victorian, England emerged as the most powerful industrial nation in the world. In this era of scientific discovery and an expanding empire, Victorians sought to understand their place in a changing world. As new technologies made travel increasingly possible, new ideas about England's purpose in the World community began to emerge. Many Victorians came to believe that it was their duty to pass on their superior culture to the inferior peoples that they came in contact with. Victorian poets sought to address contemporary concerns arising from England's world dominance in their poetry. In Tennyson's "Ulysses," English ideas concerning expansion are illustrated in the dramatic monologue of Ulysses.

In "Ulysses," Tennyson creates a character that is arrogant, restless, driven, heroic, and adventurous. Tennyson's Ulysses is the embodiment of Victorian England because the same characteristics given to Ulysses can be attributed to Victorian England. In essence, one could say that Ulysses is England because they share the same values and characteristics. Ulysses' monologue is the monologue of England. For example, the restlessness evident in the beginning of the poem is a characteristic of Industrial Victorian England. Like Ulysses, England is restless in the wake of exploration and technological advancement.

Furthermore, when Ulysses says, "Much have I seen and known; cities of men / And manners, climates, councils, governments, / Myself not least, but honour'd of them all" (lines 13-15), he brings to light England's knowledge of the world. In addition, the lines illustrate how that knowledge helped to form the prevalent belief in England's superiority. In essence, England becomes a part of all it has seen and thereby represents the best of the world. The conquests of the British Empire provided Victorians with exotic products and material riches. On the same note, Ulysses' arrogance in regard to his knowledge mirrors the arrogance of Victorian England when comparing itself to the rest of the world. According to Queen Victorian, the duty of the British Empire was "to protect the poor natives and advance civilization" (1022). Queen Victoria's statement reveals the commonly held Victorian notion of the cultural, industrial, and scientific superiority of the British Empire. Like Ulysses who sees the great nations of the world and arrogantly replies that his was "honour'd of them all," Victorian England viewed the cultures, peoples, and governments of the rest of the world as inferior.

In the poem, Ulysses describes Telemachus who will rule in his absence. He uses words such as prudence, blameless, common duties, and tenderness. The images associated with Telemachus bring to mind Queen Victoria and her national image of prudence, duty, and feminine ideas. Like Telemachus, Queen Victoria sought to persuade her people though her dutiful action and image to useful and goodly pursuits. In addition, like Telemachus, Queen Victoria's duty was at home on the isle of England, while her army's soldiers were the heroes of her expanding empire: "He works his work, I mine" (43). During Queen Victoria's reign, the British Empire came to rule more than a quarter of the globe's landmass (1010).

Ulysses is searching for a way to leave his mark upon the world. His search for glory parallels the desire of Victorian England to spread its culture and ideas to the farthest reaches of the world. Both Ulysses and Victorian England are symbols associated with civilizations searching to achieve glory and increase their empire. When Ulysses says, "Come, my friends, / 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world" (lines 56-57), he might well be a Victorian. In addition, both Ulysses and Victorian England seek to pass on their knowledge to the world: "Some work of noble note, may yet be done, / Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods" (lines 52-54).

Tennyson reveals the ideas of English expansion and exploration in "Ulysses." Victorian England represents rapid change in both the scientific and social arena. Increasing scientific and technological developments changed England's source of strength, and created new ideas and values for the nation. In the final lines of "Ulysses," Tennyson suggests that it is England's unwavering commitment to progress that has made it the most powerful nation in the world:

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield (Lines 66-70).

In addition, the lines allude to the need for a change in British expansion practices. The "strength which in old days / Moved earth and heaven" (Lines 66-67) bring to mind the brutal expansion tactics of the British Empire which sought to reshape and control many civilizations and peoples of the world. The line "One equal temper of heroics hearts" suggests a new way of looking at expansion in which the desire for the material is tempered by compassion. Tennyson suggests that the British Empire's image was weakened by the excesses of its expansion tactics, "made weak by time and fate" (line 69). According to Tennyson, the true power of the British Empire could be found not in its material gains but in its commitment to progress, to self scrutiny, and to change: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" (line 70).

Tennyson's "Ulysses" is written in blank verse using iambic pentameter. The fact that the poem is held together by meter rather than rhyme is an important stylistic choice appropriate to the theme of progress. The beat in the poem creates a feeling of movement and a natural flowing sound. Like progress, the meter and lack of rhyme in "Ulysses" creates a forward movement of sound within the poem. The rhythm of the poem combines with Tennyson's careful word choices and use of simile, "To follow knowledge like a sinking star" (line 31), to illustrate his unique style and voice. For example, Tennyson's light imagery and blank verse style in "Ulysses" is extremely different from Robert Browning's style exploring rhyming and violent imagery as in his poem, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came":

Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek

For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!

--It may have been a water-rat I speared,

But, ugh! It sounded like a baby's shriek (lines 123-126).

Tennyson used for his subject a figure from ancient times to illustrate the concerns and ideas of his age. Using Greek mythology as a subject, he was able to present an accurate picture of his own time. Many other Victorian poets used subjects from other times to illustrate contemporary concerns. For example, Robert Browning used characters out of Charlemagne legends and history as the speakers in his dramatic monologues to illustrate the concerns of the Victorian age. The use of well-known figures from history and legend to illustrate the social concerns of the Victorian age was common in both the works of Tennyson and Browning. Both Tennyson and Browning used the dramatic monologue form to let their speakers reveal themselves. The dramatic monologue form is characteristically Victorian because it illustrates the contradictory nature of the Victorian tendency for self introspection. The Victorian tendency for self-reflection was in direct contrast to the current cultural ideas which stressed action, production, civic duty and family responsibility (1027). Through the use of the dramatic monologue form, Victorians were able to disguise the self-examining nature of their works by using characters to speak for them.

"I sometimes hold it half a sin / To put in words the grief I feel," said Tennyson. The variety of disguised or semiautobiographical forms (such as the dramatic monologue) suggests that introspection produced its own moral perplexities.

The theme of English superiority and expansion appears in many different poetic works of the Victorian age. For example, Browning's "Aurora Leigh" the common belief in England's superiority is illustrated in the opinion of Aurora Leigh's aunt:

She liked a woman to be womanly,

And English women, she thanked God and sighed (Some people always sigh in thanking God)

Were models to the universe (lines 444-446)

In addition, Robert Browning illustrates the concept of the English Empire in his "Home Thoughts, from the Sea." In the poem, he describes a battle at sea and the desire to do some good for his country: "Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?"-say, / Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, / While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa" (Lines 5). The poem's allusion to England's sea power and Africa illustrate the poem's theme of English Empire.

In "Ulysses," Tennyson creates a poem that provides a clear picture of the British Empire during the Victorian age. Through the use of Greek mythology, Tennyson brings to life the ideas of his age against the ancient backdrop of Ulysses' world. Tennyson uses Ulysses to personify Victorian England by giving him qualities that are clearly characteristic of the Victorian age. Ulysses is restless like England, heroic like England, and determined like England. In Tennyson's "Ulysses", English thoughts concerning expansion are presented in this characteristically Victorian dramatic monologue form, as are Victorian England's superiority, knowledge, and glory.

English Expansion and Tennyson's "Ulysses"

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield (Lines 66-70).