The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and The Waste Landby T.S. Eliot

• Background and Introduction

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Backgrounds

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• Written in 1797/8
• Reflects mans need for spiritual salvation
• Regarded by critics as too obscure and archaic
  the gloss was added in 1815/6
• Signaled a transition into romanticism

• Written in 1922
• Reflects the post-war sense of depression and
  futility
• Provoked a violent literary controversy
• A landmark of the literary modernist era

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Backgrounds

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• 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

• Based on archetypal constructs drawn from
  non-fiction works Sir James George Frazers The
  Golden Bough and Jessie L. Westons From Ritual
  to Romance

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• Coleridge

• Eliot

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Introductions

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• 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

• Style condensed use of language
• Style a wealth of historical and literary
  references
• Tone erudite, cryptic, satirical, earnest
• Structure lack of narrative sequence

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Introductions

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• Structure seven sections which explore a soul
  guilty of a terrible sin and its guidance toward
  redemption
• Theme Mans violation against nature is atoned
  for in the redemptive embrace of spiritual guides

• 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

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Introductions

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• Coleridge portrays oceanic spiritual otherworld
• The Ocean the deep spiritual realm
• The town the hectic human communal realm

• Eliot portrays a decaying twilight world
• The Waste Land spiritual drought
• The city paralysis

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The Themes

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• 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

• 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

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The Themes

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• Spiritual death is a state of suspension which
  can arbitrarily deliver us to tutelary spirits
• Coleridges vision is wild yet optimistic

• Death can be both tragically meaningless and
  conceivably redeeming
• Eliots vision is depressing but not pessimistic!

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The Poems

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• 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

• 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

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The Poems

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• 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

• 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

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The Poems

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• 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!

• Modern man is a mechanical man physically alive
  but spiritually dead
• The land is arid because mans soul is arid
• Remember the Fisher King!

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The Poems

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• 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

• The modern Waste Land is man-made therefore it
  is within mans power to regenerate his dead
  world
• The persona realizes that there is supreme order
  in the universe

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The Poems

• Coleridge

• Eliot

• 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.

• 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.