Incantations of the Supernatural in Rime of the Ancient Mariner

A detailed Summary of Incantations of the Supernatural in Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Incantations of the Supernatural in "Rime Of the Ancient Mariner"

Samuel Taylor Coleridge states his duties in writing for the Lyrical Ballads ".... to be, in part at least, supernatural; and the excellence aimed at was to consist in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions, supposing them real" ( "Biographia Literaria"). Coleridge was to write about the supernormal in such a way that the ordinary person would be able to believe such occurrences could happen. It seemed that Coleridge's responsibility was not to haunt or terrorize his readers, but to excite and grab their interest through unnatural happenings. And, with the willing suspension of disbelief, the common man could relate to his accounts. Samuel Taylor Coleridge adhered to his duties in the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by evoking supernatural elements within his main character the Mariner, descriptions of the ghost ship and its crew, and the unexplainable atmospheric changes that occur throughout the poem.

Early in the poem the Mariner was depicted as having a supernatural power to hypnotize the Wedding-Guest. Coleridge writes, "He holds him with his glittering ey

The freakish climate and atmospheric changes that Coleridge provided for the Mariner and his crew denoted that supernatural forces were at hand. As Coleridge wrote, "And now there came both mist and snow, / And it grew wondrous cold: / And ice, mast-high, came floating by, / As green as emerald" (51-54). He transformed the weather from hot to cold, and back to sweltering heat again. After the selfish murder of the albatross the normal weather took its first reversal, "All in a hot and copper sky, / The bloody Sun, at noon, / Right up above the mast did stand, / No bigger than the Moon" (111-114). These changes foreshadowed to the fact that the Mariner's journey would be guided by powers higher than that of usual man. Along with temperature changes, came unexplainable shifts in the wind. The Mariner and his crew could not depend upon traditional patterns of wind to guide them through the sea. At times, all of a sudden the wind would die down and becalm the ship. Then with no warning it would pick up again at abnormal rates. Without reason the ship would seem to sail without the use of wind. As the Mariner described one incident, "And soon I heard a roaring wind. / It did not come anear; / But with its sound it shook the sails, / That were so thin and sere" (309-312). One could only guess that a heavenly power was at will. At one point in the poem, the day changes to night at an untimed interval. "The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: / At one stride comes the dark;" (199-200). The heavens and all its surrounding could only be altered by an element unbecoming to that of mortal men. Predictability of these conditions could not b

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Approximate Word count = 1104
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

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