Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Transcription

1 Samuel Taylor Coleridge LIFE Born in Devonshire in 1772; School in London and Cambridge but never graduated; Influenced by French revolution ideals, but then upset by its development; He planned to constitute a community in Pennsylvania (he coined the term Pantisocracy), following Rousseau's ideas, but the project wrecked soon; He left radical ideals to study Kant and irrationalism; Addiction to opium (first prescribed by the doctors) that weakened him; Long literary fellowship with Wordsworth, that would bring to Lyrical Ballads MAIN WORKS: The Rime of Ancient Mariner (1798); Christabel (published in 1816), an unfinished poem set in the Middle Ages; Kubla Khan (1816), a poem set in an exotic setting.

2 Imagination and fancy FANCY It is the quality to combine different things together, but it doesn't create a fusion between them. It just creates an association through figures of speech like allitterations rhymes, sounds. It is a sort of memory that recollects images that remain Separate. PRIMARY IMAGINATION It is a synthesis of individual perception and a production of images. It gives order to sensation and, unlike fancy, is able a create a fusion into one image. It is mechanical and universal. SECONDARY IMAGINATION It is the poetic faculty to build new worlds. It is the capability of modelling and shaping the perceptions given by primary imagination into a poetic act. It is conscious and only poets have it.

3 Imagination and fancy: an overview Fancy vs Primary Imagination Common things Both of them have the perception as a basis Both of them are superior to sensation Differences Primary imagination, unlike fancy, is able to give order to images. Fancy just recollects images. Primary imagination is superior to fancy Primary vs Secondary Imagination They are not really two different things, but two different degrees of that great skill, called imagination; Secondary imagination is superior to Primary because it is a poetic skill, that only artists have, whereas Primary imagination belongs to every individual; Primary imagination is spontanous, while Secondary is conscious and due to the poet's free will.

4 Coleridge's idea of nature The nature's role Essential: it stimulates the poet to find symbols in nature that reflect his emotions and feelings Art cannot exist Without, or apart from, Nature With the use of imagination, the poet so is able to elevate a natural element to a universal symbol, and at the same time the universal value is visible in poetry through this natural element. Ex. For example, the "water-snakes" in The Ancient Mariner are elevated from being biological creatures to be symbols of beauty and imagination. The same is true about the spiritual world of the beautiful, which becomes tangible through the "water-snakes." The poet's task In this way, the poet is a sort of holy figure, because he is able to unveil the nature's spirit to reveal it through poetry His view of nature Coleridge saw nature with the principle of the ideal in the real: it means that every real object conceals an abstract and universal meaning. In this sense, the material world is a projection of Platonic world of Ideas. Different from Wordsworth who believed in the pantheistic vision of nature.

5 Nature in Coleridge: an example THE ALBATROSS Ideal in the real Elevated to a symbol of Beauty and of the real Power Of imagination Is visible through THE SPIRITUAL AND ABSTRACT WORLD OF IDEAS Thanks to The poet

6 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner FIRST PART An old mariner meets 3 men and stops One of them to tell his Story. The ship where He was stuck among the Ice of South Pole, when an albatross appeared. The crew Considered it as a symbol of Good luck. But the old Mariner killed it with no reason. SECOND PART From that moment the ship Was persecuted by s curse And was conducted to the Equator, where it can't move Because of the calm sea. The crew perceived it as a Punishment and obliged The Mariner to hang the dead Albatross on his neck. THIRD PART The crew started to die of thirst, when a Ghost Ship appeared: into it Death and Life-in-Death, That cast dice to decide the Destiny Of the crew. The Death Won the crew''s lives, who died while Life-in-Death could win only the life of the Mariner, The only one who survived. FOURTH PART The mariner felt the Sorrow for the destiny of his fellows and felt guilty. He was persecuted by their memory. Then, the Mariner saw Big water snakes in the Sea, while the albatross Fell From his neck: the Mariner Had purged his guilt FIFTH PART The falling of the rain Symbolized the end of the curse: the crew came back to life. Suddenly, some Spirits similar to angels Appeared and quickly lead the Ship through the ocean. The Mariner Fainted. SIXTH PART During his trance, the Mariner heard the spirits Talking about his sin: They discussed about The necessity of his Atonement before God's judgement. The ship, meanwhile, Was coming back home. SEVENTH PART The ship landed at Home and sank. The Mariner went to Confess his faults into The lifeboat of a hermit. His task is now going All over the world, Teaching men how to Respect and love God's creatures.

7 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (2) The mix between supernatural and reality All the beginning of the ballad is realistic, with a lot of details concerning the setting, the weather, geographical positions and the wedding; The second part is rich of supernatural events, such as the presence of monsters, spirits and the supernatural powers of the mariner. Themes The atonement, detected in its psychological study from the guilt (the killing of the Albatross, which is no less than a symbol of Christ) to the redemption; The power of Nature, described in her destructive power as the manifestation of God's judgement; The artistic creation, which characterized the whole story, and the idea that the poet could be saved, in his condition, by the power of imagination. The ballad The link with the medieval tradition is witnessed by the adoption of the ballad as genre for this poem. Even though with many elements that are not connected with ballads such as the use of the moral and the presence of themes concerning the atonement and the sense of absolute the work is a ballad for these reasons: a) The use of four-line stanzas, structured with a rhyme scheme; b) The massive use of repetitions, shattered in different stanzas; c) The combination between dialogue and narration; d) The use of archaic language; e) The frequent presence of figure speech concerning the sound, such as allitterations and onomatopeias to make the work more memorable.