Coleridge's POEMS (1 Viewer)

[angelsoda]

Hi everyone,

I'm doing Coleridge's poems and from on these forums it seems as though not a lot of ppl are doing them or there's just not a lot of talk and notes around.

So if n e one has some technique info to share with everyone doing the poems it would be of great help.

Once it takes off, i'm sure all those ppl doing Coleridge will come and share their ideas and thoughts and techniques, etc.

So if u have something...GO FOR IT!!

 

[L0RDW3SS3X]

hmm...

I was looking up for help with Coleridge's poems earlier, and only found (limited) texts/analysing thingys. So, meh, after I wrote my one today (because I have my exams tomorrow, so now I will set about memorising it) I feel gracious(? assuming my essay's great and my view's not too arrogant) I'm going to post it ups. =] enjoy, feel free to criticise. Also, since i had to choose an extra related text there's a bit on 'The Road Not Taken' as well.
P.S. goodlucks for all people with exams k, and study hard (because ... i'm panicking my exams are 2mrow >.< sighss)

N.B. Structured around this 'pretend-essay' question, “Journeys lead to great understanding.” Show how this is done through related texts.

Coleridge, a poet borne of the Romantic Period, tries to convey to us the many ideas associated with Romanticism, of harmony between Man and Nature, nature being the moral guide to order, wisdom and stability, leading men to a higher spiritual understanding. The contexts of Coleridge’s poems are important, simply because they are the basis of interpretations that result from reading Coleridge’s poems, with views from those of a romanticist’s, stressing strong emotion, imagination, freedom and individualism from the classical correctness in art forms, and rebellion against social conventions.
Rime of the Ancient Mariner (ROTAM) and Lime Tree Bower (LTB) both present these views, although each in different ways. ROTAM is about the journey of a Mariner, with deliberate capitalism to emphasise the Mariner’s special position. Another note is that the word-choice of ‘Mariner’ in itself already suggests a journey, albeit a voyage. The Mariner, who starts off by waylaying a Wedding Guest, who is stopped by the Mariner’s “glittering eye” and then forced to listen to the Mariner’s tale. The tale is of the experiences that the Mariner has undertaken, which eventually forces him to repeat his tale over and over again as a living penance for what he did.
ROTAM starts off enough on a happy note, with the Mariner onboard and “the ship was cheered”. However, soon the ship journeys into waters unknown, where “the ice was all around”, with no “shapes of men nor beasts we ken– the ice was all between.”
In this desolate and cold land, the crew and the Mariner begin to feel alone.
So when an albatross appears through the fog, it was naturally received by the superstitious sailors as a sign of good fortune. The Albatross is a great white bird, symbolising many ideas about freedom, purity, innocence and goodness. All the virtues conjoined with nature, because the bird in itself is a part of nature.
But towards the end of Part I of the poem, the Mariner “with my cross-bow, I shot the albatross.”
Although the Mariner’s action is never explained, his murder of the innocent bird is soon linked by his crewmates as the reason why the wind no longer blew.
“Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.”
This apparent paradox does justice to the image formed in our minds, that even with all the seawater everywhere, the crewmates and the Mariner could not drink it. And so, verging upon starvation and dehydration, the crew blame the Mariner for shooting the albatross, “instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung.” Whereby the ‘instead of the cross’ already alludes to the Mariner as being a spiritual man, or at least aware of the spiritual ties, but is instead forced to wear the dead Albatross around his neck, a symbol of his crime in killing the innocent Albatross.
The crew and the Mariner are soon confronted by what seems like a spiritual entity, a ghost ship with Death and her Night-Mair (Life-in-Death) on board. The entities play dice for the crew, and the crew die. In turn, the Mariner is spared because Death is too good for him, and for his sin in killing the Albatross the Mariner has to live with his sins, disconnected from his unity with nature and God.
Here perhaps, begins the true suffering of the Ancient Mariner as he “alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide wide sea!” has to live with his murder of the Albatross which in turn has led to condemn him and the crew forever.
The Mariner however, still has a chance for redemption. He sees in the sea “a thousand thousand slimy things”, and yet, even after looking upon these unnatural “things”, the Mariner begins to notice that the “water-snakes…(in their) rich attire” were “happy living things”, something he could welcome and he “blessed them unaware”. In this stanza, although the Mariner does only a simple action as to appreciate the beauty of the sea-snakes, he is in turn effecting a bigger action; blessing the sea-snakes has allowed the Mariner to form back his bond with nature, and in turn with God. A small part of his penance is paid, as symbolised by the fact that from the Mariner’s neck “the Albatross fell off, and sank like lead into the sea.”
The burden is lessened, and then throughout the rest of his tale the Mariner explains how he is then charged with telling his story wherever he may go, to warn and teach others.
This journey that the Mariner has undertaken has not only served to be a lesson to not murder the innocence of nature (as represented by the Albatross) but to gain greater understanding by being able to bond with all of God’s creatures.
Although other ideas are being presented in the poem as well as just bonding with nature; by exploring the possibilities of the imagination, ROTAM conveys to us an idea that a greater understanding can be reached from even such simple actions in which the Mariner has done.
Lime Tree Bower is a poem, about Coleridge himself. Coleridge is visited by friends who can only stay for the one-visit, but due to an unfortunate accident Coleridge is unable to ‘see the sights’ with his friends, and fretful, angry, Coleridge is trapped at his residency.
Utilising only his imagination, Coleridge then embarks on a journey of his own, with his friends, enjoying the sights and such; in this journey, the poem Lime Tree Bower is written.
The conversational tone of this poem addresses an implied listener in a mediative tone, exploring the relationship between God and nature through the beauty of nature.
Coleridge’s love of nature and his recognition of God run strongly in this poem, “the Almighty Spirit” whom shows his omnipotent presence in all the beauty of nature, not just the “roaring dell” of which Coleridge wanted to see with his friends, but also the lesser parts of nature, the “purple heath-flowers”, “broad and sunny leaf”, etc.
Again though, this imaginative journey shows that not only can one partake and enjoy the beauty of nature physically, one can also do the same imaginatively. This journey shows a self-realization which is borne from the depths of his journey.
The “wide, wide Heaven” and “the sea” mentioned in the second stanza acts as a metaphor show that the imaginative journey is limitless, not bound by the physical or mental boundaries.
Both of these poems convey to us ideas of self-realizations from actions undertaken with the effect of teaching both the person taking the journey, and the readers, us.
‘The Road Not Taken’, a poem about a physical journey, where the persona explores the choices in life. However, the persona makes the choice knowingly regretting that the decision to take one path will close the path of another journey, “two roads diverged…”. Essentially, it is the reflection of a journey that is made, and that each journey taken, the persona “knowing how way leads on to way”, that even after one choice is made to undertake the journey, the journey will still lead on. The nostalgic tone throughout the pome lends to the effect of showing the persona reflecting back at the choices and how it has impacted, “And that has made all the difference.”

Quotes
ROTAM

• “glittering eye”
• “the ship was cheered”
• “the ice was all around”
• “shapes of men nor beasts we ken– the ice was all between.”
• “with my cross-bow, I shot the albatross.”
• “Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.”

• “instead of the cross, the Albatross about my neck was hung.”
• “alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide wide sea!”
• “a thousand thousand slimy things”
• “water-snakes…(in their) rich attire”
• “happy living things”
• “blessed them unaware”
• “the Albatross fell off, and sank like lead into the sea.”

Lime Tree Bower

• “the Almighty Spirit”
• “roaring dell”
• “purple heath-flowers”
• “broad and sunny leaf”
• “wide, wide Heaven”
• “the sea”

The Road Not Taken

• “two roads diverged…”
• “knowing how way leads on to way”
• “And that has made all the difference.”

Ohyeah... a final note (i know, sorry for rambling on and on etc) if anyone else knows about Coleridge, feel free to message me, or if you need like basic clarifying of what the poems are about, message me and I'll set ya straight =]
have a nice day all, ja~

-Jacques

 

[The Gate Keeper]

Re: hmm...

Very nice jacques. I'm probably going a bit in reverse to majority of you guys, as i'm working from my subtext rather than my full one. These points do help overall, and has encouraged me to work a bit on mine.

Pretty much the general feel of coleridge is that it's always about the imagination, from frost at midnight, where he drifts off into a daydream, to kubla-khan where he describes a place of extrodonary peace, some would say, heaven. I linked these main two ideas, to Back to the future. In BTTF, moving in to it to the first introduction of the DeLorean, they express how they always wanted to see the past, or the future. So yea, mind and the imagation come in to play. Making contrasts between can be hard, but if you can keep to a main idea, like time travel (which is pretty broad), you should score yourself a B- or so, that's without a lot of quotes, if you put in quotes, should get B+ to A. Unless you can go a bit further in and make specific contrasts, like how for kubla-khan, how he talks about the ice and the fountains and that, well you could reflect that into BTTF2, where marty is over the water (being the fountains) and biff goes into the tainted glass of the town hall (being the ice). So yea, it's good to try and make visual contrasts as well as theoritical ones, as it can be easy mark grabbers.

Remember the marker isn't out to take marks, he/she's out to give them, you only need to show that you are deserving.

 

[angelsoda]

This is great work.

I had to incorporate 4 texts into a speech. My suggestion is keep to the time limit because you don't want to take too much time out of another section.

Use SEX or something similar to establish what you are talking about:
S - State
E - Example
X - 'Xplain

When preparing for an exam with poems do a few of these about the themes and techniques and their effect so you might develop some plan of memorising it better in how it is set out.

 

[L0RDW3SS3X]

Added tip

Heys again peoples, sorry about my inconsiderate tones in referring to my own work. Anyway, "SEX" is a 'great technique' (pun intended) to use, I'll keep that in mind when my Trials are closer (similar/less 'evocative' technique rephrased is "TEL", not good, but its "Technique, Explain, Link (back to question)).
Anyway, after doing my english exams today, I realised the major problem posed is not memorising essays, or even most of the quotes, but time: time management for English shuld be very important, because it seems a lot of people spent too much time getting marks in the 1st Section (where its not worth too much, but hell of a lot of reading) and in the 2nd Section, where story-writing seems to evolve on a life of its own and just happens to take away all your exam time, leaving with the 3rd Section, worth 15 marks, just not enough time to perform a deep analysation.
So, some general advice (if i may, and i am sure all your teachers have already done so) just don't spend too much time on the basic crap, like what's that text about, give a quote, crap crap crap, and focus on the heavy shit, like writing an essay and a story =]
Anyways, wish me luck for maths exams 2mrow, I'll stop these "updates" or whatever, just wanted to check backs a bit. Laters and hope my advice helps.
-JaCqUeS (pseudonym.. ofcourse LOL)

 

[angelsoda]

Yeh as i said above ^ TIME can be an issue.

When i did my exam i chose to do Section I first and sticking to 40 mins and if possibly be detailed and less time - but don't try too much to do really quick answers so u finish that section quicker. Only use less time if u think ur answers here a good enough.

Then after Section I, i did Section III (essay etc) cos that way i would be able to get my thoughts down and hopefully stay within 40 mins and if not, then take a bit of my Section II (creative writng) time but not too much.

Section II u can adjust to fit ur time limit. you are probably in most control of time in this section. hopefully u can have 40 mins here too but if not, u can stay in control and manage it accordingly.

This way u can have ALL SECTIONS done and hopefully as well as possible.

 

[Brad1989]

Hey
Another approach to essays or writing about anything including Coleridge is
Label
Example
Discuss

Our english teacher said that we would be LED to success in English if you Label, Example Discuss.

EG in Rime of the ancient mariner
one could say
the poem moves on through the physical and what is later an imaginative journey of the mariner and here the reader's imagination is stimulated as the poet takes us to an almost unimaginable world
"yea slimy things did crawl with legs
upon the slimy sea"
and then discuss more.

i doesnt necessarily need to be in that order, but it is important that you cover all aspects of LED principle.