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

Backgrounds Coleridge  Written in 1797/8  Reflects man’s need for spiritual salvation  Regarded by critics as too obscure and archaic; the “gloss” was added in 1815/6  Signaled a transition into romanticism Eliot  Written in 1922  Reflects the post-war sense of depression and futility  Provoked a violent literary controversy  A landmark of the literary modernist era

Backgrounds Coleridge  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” Eliot  Based on archetypal constructs drawn from non-fiction works: Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough and Jessie L. Weston’s From Ritual to Romance

Coleridge Eliot

Introductions Coleridge  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 Eliot  Style: condensed use of language  Style: a wealth of historical and literary references  Tone: erudite, cryptic, satirical, earnest  Structure: lack of narrative sequence

Introductions Coleridge  Structure: seven sections which explore a soul guilty of a terrible sin and its guidance toward redemption  Theme: Man’s violation against nature is atoned for in the redemptive embrace of spiritual guides Eliot  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

Introductions Coleridge  Coleridge portrays oceanic spiritual “otherworld”  The Ocean = the deep spiritual realm  The town = the hectic human communal realm Eliot  Eliot portrays a decaying twilight world  The Waste Land = spiritual drought  The city = paralysis

The Themes Coleridge  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 Eliot  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

The Themes Coleridge  Spiritual death is a state of suspension which can arbitrarily deliver us to “tutelary spirits”  Coleridge’s vision is wild yet optimistic Eliot  Death can be both tragically meaningless and conceivably redeeming  Eliot’s vision is depressing but not pessimistic!

The Poems Coleridge  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 Eliot  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

The Poem s Coleridge  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 Eliot  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

The Poems Coleridge  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! Eliot  Modern man is a mechanical man: physically alive but spiritually dead  The land is arid because man’s soul is arid  Remember the Fisher King!

The Poems Coleridge  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 Eliot  The modern Waste Land is man-made: therefore it is within man’s power to regenerate his dead world  The persona realizes that there is supreme order in the universe

The Poems Coleridge  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. Eliot  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.