| Title | : | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0486223051 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780486223056 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 77 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1792 |
| Awards | : | награда "Пловдив" Художествен превод (2011) |
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (originally "The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere") is the longest major poem by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written circa 1797 and published in 1798 in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. Modern editions use a later revised version printed in 1817 and featuring a gloss. Along with other poems in Lyrical Ballads, it was a signal shift to modern poetry and the beginning of British Romantic literature.
It relates the events experienced by a mariner who has returned from a long sea voyage. The Mariner stops a man on his way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The Wedding-Guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience, fear, and fascination as the Mariner's story progresses, as can be seen in the language style: for example, the use of narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create a sense of danger, or the supernatural, or serenity, depending on the mood each different part of the poem.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) was an English poet, critic and philosopher who was, along with his friend
William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England, and one of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems
'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' (1792) and
'Kubla Khan' (1816), as well as his major prose work
'Biographia Literaria' (1817).
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Reviews
-
So why did the Ancient Mariner shoot the Albatross?
To me the answer is simple. He did it because he could; he did it because is he is a man, and that’s what men do: he saw something beautiful; he saw perfection in nature, and he killed it. That’s humanity for you. Sinning is easily, as quickly as a finger click: it happens just like that. There’s little thought involved. For the Mariner it is spontaneity itself; it’s in his nature to destroy. The shooting of the bird suggests that all sin is the same; it’s so very easy to be evil in the face of opportunity.
“And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!”
The bird is suggestive of a Christian soul; the Mariner shoots in regardless. He doesn’t care. Remorse comes later, but can it be called true remorse? It is only born out of regret because of the dire situation he is placed in because of his wanton act. Is this remorse or self-pity? Is he merely regretful because he wishes to be saved? The other sailors hang the bird round his neck, to represent a cross to show that they had no part in the deed. But, they didn’t care before; they had a pack mentality, to kill so mercilessly was a joke; it was fun to be in a position of power. However, when the scales are turned they realise the error of their ways. Is empathy that hard to develop? Do they have to be in a dire situation to understand brutality?
“Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.”
Before the shooting of the bird the world is a wonder. The ice is picturesque; it is sea is green like an emerald and the sun is fantastic. With the Albatross came the wind and the mist. Afterwards the sea becomes silent, the water turns to oil and the sun is bloody and vengeful. Nature recognises the crime; it reacts in turn and attacks humanity in its anger. The supernatural occurs, and the power of Coleridge’s romantic imagination is felt. The wonder of the poem is the many allegories it holds. It can be read in many different each of which is valid.
The one that I hear when I read is the one that suggests of a spiritual salvation. No matter what the symbolic nature of the Mariner’s crime suggests, he is still redeemable. Humanity is still redeemable. Not all is lost. There is still hope for the spontaneous and the thoughtless:
“The selfmoment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.”
It may be self-deceiving, and it may be just to save his own skin. But, I’d like to think the Mariner is genuine. I’d like to think he realises the futility of his actions and comes around. I’d like think his morale transformation is real, and he isn’t just doing it to continue his existence, but who knows. This poem is dense and conflicting, but it’s easily Coleridge’s best work. -
Who we start out as and who we end up as has always seemed to me to be the central point of this poem. One can often return to a physical place - but in the returning find that place lost - due to the way their journey has changed their soul. Looking for salvation one often finds that (in the finding) something else must be forever lost. A close friend who suffers from PTSD has related to me that this poem is 'true' to many feelings he has had to deal with.
-
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.
When I did construction work this is what I always wrote on the inside of the Port-a-Potties, amongst all the other graffiti and anatomically imaginative drawings of women. -
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns. (75)
Today, if a stranger stopped me at some party to talk to me about some story, I'd probably walk away with a nervous smile, holding my pepper spray with dissimulation. I admit it, I do not easily trust people. That is one of my many flaws fed by one complicated present. And, yes, not all people are bad but I am not willing to take any chances.
However, many years ago, a young man that was going to a wedding, had no other choice but to listen to a strange man's story. He resisted but the old man, a bright-eyed Mariner, had already decided that the young guest was going to be the next listener. And so the story begins.
This is my first Coleridge and I was delightfully surprised. This poem was published in 1798 and it is divided into seven parts. It is written in old English, of course, and that always means that I have to read it very carefully to avoid confusion. At some point, I felt like a four year-old finding help in the beautiful illustrations that this book contains. I probably should not admit that, but there it is. It is written. I cannot take it back. I could, though, but I do not want to erase that and think of something else to write. Like a lie. Because that would be too weird. And the babbling
ends
now.
Coleridge's poetry is a true gem waiting to be discovered. Its vividness is something I have seen before but with a different style. A very unique melody. It is exceptionally evocative. The images it describes are too powerful, they manage to leave the paper to become something you can see and touch. The roar of the sea becomes too intense to bear. The sky transforms into a dark vapor viciously moving from one side to another. I could hardly see who was next to me, I only hear their yelling. And the loudest one came from the sea.And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald. (12)
And yet, the frightening images described by this poem do not sound that bad after listening to the music dwelling in every verse. This beautiful melody took me by surprise and became a serene partner throughout this entire adventure. Suddenly, the sky did not look so threatening; the icy water became bearable, and the solitary immensity of the sea was welcome.
And again, contradictions. That feeling described above changed from time to time. The desperation of being trapped in such a surreal landscape was so great sometimes that I could feel it in my bones.Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean. (21)
Gustave Doré
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white. (25)
The story continues with the Mariner killing an albatross. That sad decision brought disgrace to all the crew, and especially, to the bright-eyed Mariner.
Sometimes death embodies blessing, when living becomes a curse.Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony. (35)
This poem is a perfect reminder of everything we need, no matter the place nor time: respect for one another. For all living things. Not only for the sake of others, but for yours. Every action has its consequence. It would be a dreadful thing to have killed the bird that made the breeze to blow.
Aug 17, 14
* Also on
my blog. -
If all poetry books were like this, I would never read any prose.
____________________________________________
I was thinking about the Ancient Mariner just now, apropos Kris's review of Ice, and recalled an incident from a project I was once involved in. The person in charge failed to renew the contract of a difficult but talented software engineer, after which we had a lot of problems. This prompted the following verse:For he had done a hellish thing
And it would work them woe
For all averred, he had fired the nerd
That made the code to go.
'Twas ill, said they, when nerds won't stay
That make the code to go.
-
A poem which heavily influenced modern Western culture
Review of free Kindle edition
A Public Domain Book
Publication Date May 16, 2012
Language: English
ASIN: B0083Z49HO
36 pages
I hated this thing in high school. The homework assignment to read it was interesting but the pain began in the next day's class. The teacher read it aloud to us. Slowly. Then she went over it line by line telling us exactly what each line, almost each word, meant. At some point she allowed us to say what we thought but then explained why the interpretations she was teaching were correct. We did this for what, to my memory, seems like months but surely was no more than weeks. The poem isn't that long. Come test time we were to regurgitate the meaning of various lines just as she had told us. My exasperated answer that it means what it says caused trouble. That teacher never did like me. But that's ok, I never liked her either. Still don't.
I don't remember a single thing that teacher told us about the meaning of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I have not read it or any interpretations of it since high school until I recently read this free Kindle edition. I enjoyed it. And since no tyrannical lit teacher is looking over my shoulder, I think. What I think is that the albatross is a Christ-like figure whom we have all killed with our sin which hangs heavily about our necks. Even if the albatross is simply innocence, the sin still hangs around our necks. The mariner then faces tribulation, pain and regret until penance, repentance and forgiveness redeems him. He is then compelled to tell his story just as are forgiven and saved Christians. I have no idea if this is a literature teacher approved interpretation or not. Don't really care either. For all I know Coleridge may have been an atheist in addition to an opium addict but it sounds Christian to me.
I think that I will also reread Kubla Khan after a more than Fifty year interval. -
Excellent!
Reading the USS INDIANAPOLIS a few weeks back brought this poem to my attention beginning with the well-known words......
Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.
First published in 1798, I was both delighted and surprised to find where this poem actually begins and takes the reader. It's really quite an amazing journey that may appeal to those who don't even care for poetry.
It's an eerie story with equally eerie illustrations told by an old sailor (mariner) about a disastrous voyage that begins with a storm that leads them astray until a lucky albatross appears and guides them along to safety....but then the mariner shockingly shoots the albatross and bad luck, bad spirits, slimy legged sea creatures and death result, but that's not where it ends....there's so much more.
If you have a little window of time to fit this one in....I highly recommend it! It's easy to understand....and a winner of a classic!
-
“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.“
If the truth has to be told, I must own that my first acquaintance with these lines was, as some of you might have already guessed, not through Samuel Coleridge’s poem but through Iron Maiden’s superbe album Powerslave, and when I bought myself a new car recently, one with a working car radio, I spent my daily ways to and from work listening to Iron Maiden again and when I came across The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I decided it was high time to read the well-known poem.
And I can understand how it grew to be so well-known: One reason may be that it is of sufficient length and will thus daunt students at schools, lending itself even as a means of correcting unruly learners and breaking them of bad habits – all a teacher has to do is threaten those students that unless they will behave properly they will have to learn the poem by heart. Another, more important, reason can doubtless be seen in the beauty of Coleridge’s lines. Since my re-encounter with the Iron Maiden song I have read the original poem several times aloud and was always moved by the power of the words and the rhythm. I can almost see the hoary mariner keeping the wedding guest from his destination, commanding him with his eyes only; the albatross hung around the sinner’s neck; the parched men casting reproachful and hatred-filled looks at the mariner; the skeleton ship approaching without any wind; and finally the falling rain that will slake the thirst of the cursed man. It’s hardly any wonder Steve Harris chose this dramatic ballad to turn it into an Iron Maiden song.
As to what the poem may mean, one can be satisfied with the following lines,“He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.“
All things considered, this would be a bit trite, though, and yet in its triteness most appealing to people of a particular modern mindset. My personal interpretation is that Coleridge, a wise Conservative, wants to warn modern man – Man as envisaged in the French Revolution – not to overreach himself by thinking that the Albatross is his to shoot and carry around as a trophy. If Man fails to keep his awareness of the limits of what is possible for him to do, if he denies the constraints the universe, its contingencies (and maybe hidden laws, some of them probably Divine) put upon him and upon his desire to change the world, then he will end up like this:“Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.“
That is to say, he will end up in a state of society which grants countless liberties but has forgotten the true freedom that results from one’s awareness of the responsibility one’s choices incur. The boundless stretches of water around us will not be able to slake our thirst for the real thing, just as a life devoted to hedonism and limitless self-expression will fail to truly fulfil any but a shallow and coarse mind. This knowledge, and the pessimism it is tinged with, may possibly make the reader arise“A sadder and a wiser man“.
-
Farewell, farewell! But this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us
He made and loveth all.
A mariner, returning from a long sea-voyage, engages a man who is attending a wedding, and begins to tell the tale of his sufferings during his journey. -
149th book of 2020.
Coleridge’s longest poem, comprised of seven parts. The language is lyrical and beautiful and the plot is forlorn and surreal—two of my favourite things. I never like to write the plots of novels in my reviews because they can be found quite simply on Goodreads or the Internet anyway, and I don’t like to spoil things—the impression that books and poems leave is far more interesting (I think), but I will say that this poem is centred, perhaps bizarrely, around a mariner killing an albatross.
“God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?”—With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross.
Before Coleridge, the albatross solely reminded me of Pink Floyd’s greatest song, Echoes (a separate argument there for those who disagree)…
Overhead the albatross
Hangs motionless upon the air
But now Coleridge appears in my mind’s eye, or not Coleridge himself, but the mariner who wears the corpse of the albatross around his neck like a noose—for what evil will be brought upon the boat for shooting the albatross?
Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross,
About my neck was hung.
Death and ghosts and souls and boats fill the poem’s narrative before it reaches its end. The final stanza being, I believe, fairly well-known. As I have said: it is a surreal, lyrical, beautiful but partially haunting poem; certain images from the narrative now linger in my head, the albatross, souls, a certain figure, playing dice for the souls of the crew. Surprisingly though, it received very mixed reviews on its release, and we all know that “mixed reviews” is more negative than positive. Wordsworth himself said,“From what I can gather it seems that the Ancient Mariner has upon the whole been an injury to the volume, I mean that the old words and the strangeness of it have deterred readers from going on. If the volume should come to a second Edition I would put in its place some little things which would be more likely to suit the common taste.”
But what is it all about? It is a classic story of salvation on one hand. On the other, quite literally, it is a story about the destruction of nature and its consequences. (Now the idiom of having an “albatross around your neck” is symbolic of guilt.)
(Statue of Mariner with Albatross round neck— Somerset)
I read that some see it as auto-biographical, that the mariner’s loneliness (for which there is plenty) reflects Coleridge’s loneliness, that can be found, I’ve read, in his letters.Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
It has life, and death; despair and hope; terror and beauty; above all, perhaps, it also leaves us sadder and wiser... -
Definitely in my top 10 favorite poems. I love the way it flows; the lyrical rhythm "soothes the battered soul".
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink. -
I only found out about this classic poem today and decided to read it immediately.
It's basically about a sailor who recounts the tale of a sea voyage during which an albatross is first becoming a good-luck charm and then, when the animal is being killed, a curse.
What makes this poem so interesting is that it's basically a fantasy story about despair and loneliness intensified by some classical horror scenarios. And all in rhyming form.
Sadly, despite there having been some really interesting moments, it did tend to drone on and on until it lost its grip on me. I'd get sucked back in, yes, but it was still a very uneven reading experience.
You can read it for free here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem... -
Beware the Age of Reason
14 December 2014
Whenever I come to this poem the first thing that comes to mind is the song by
Iron Maiden (unfortunately I don't think they did a video clip – which would have been awesome in its own right).
I am really tempted to spend the rest of this review talking about how as a teenager I loved Iron Maiden, and about how they were unfairly persecuted by the church because they released one song called 'Number of the Beast' (with an album of the same name), where in reality they just wrote some really cool songs with some really cool music. Okay, this particular song is based heavily on the poem, and probably would be more akin to a ballad as opposed to a song, but I am getting ahead of myself here because I probably shouldn't be talking about Iron Maiden. Still, I should at least display the cover for the single:
As I was looking through
Google Images for this particular poster I noticed that a lot of the artwork relating to this particular poem was very dark, and in some cases bordering on the horrific. Take for instance this poster:
There is a very heavy spiritual element to it, but then again the poem itself has some very strong spiritual connotations, with ghost ships, curses, and of course the mariner being forced to live and watch all of his crew die of thirst one by one. In fact, a classic line 'water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink' comes from this poem (and not, as originally thought, from the Iron Maiden song).
I'm sure we all know the story about how a group of sailors travel to the south pole and get stuck in the ice and then along comes an albatross who leads them out of the ice only to have one of the sailors shoot it with a crossbow (to the horror of the rest of the crew considering the Albatross is a good omen to sailors, and killing one brings lots of bad luck). Sure enough, the ship become becalmed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and one by one the crew drop dead until the silly sailor is the only one left alive. However, he ends up getting rescued (after a rain storm passes over to resupply his water) and then returns to England where he grabs some unsuspecting person at a wedding and proceeds to retell his story.
What I think is happening in this poem is that it is a reaction against the 'Age of Reason'. This was a period in Europe where philosophy was shifting from the sacred to the secular. Basically unless something could be proven empirically it is of no worth and of no interest. It was in effect the beginning of the end of the church, and of superstition (though as far as I am concerned the church is still alive and well today). The whole thing about the albatross is that it was superstition, and by shooting it with a crossbow the sailor is in effect thumbing his nose at superstition. As far as he is concerned, the age of superstition has passed and the age of reason has begun.
Coleridge, I suspect, is saying 'no it hasn't'. I don't necessarily think he is suggesting that we avoid black cats and look for four leaf clovers, but he is saying that despite the rise of the scientific method, we simply cannot discard the sacred, because not only is the sacred important to our past and gives us an identity, it also puts limits on morality. In effect, from what I gained from reading this poem, is that we dispense with the sacred code at our peril. -
I'M AN ENGLISH MAJOR WHO DOESN'T GET THE HYPE ON MARINER. I'M SORRY.
i don't even like the writing or the themes much.
3 stars just for the sheer endeavor of it. you have to respect the dedication.
part of a series i'm doing in which i review books a long time ago -
"It is an Ancient Mariner
And he stoppeth one of Three--
'By thy long grey beard and twinkling* eye,
Now wherefore stoppeth thou me?'
'There was a Ship...' 'Unhand me, Grey-beard loon!'"
I recall aloudreading and memorizing this in Grammar School (no longer the Latin Grammar school Shakespeare attended), Grade Four to Eight, which? Tested on knowing maybe 40 lines--beginning, ending, and various passages in between. In fact, it grounded me in my adolescent loneliness: "this soul has been/ Alone on a wide wide sea. / So lonely 'twas that God himself / Scarce seemed there to be." From adolescent loneliness to religious doubt, all bound in simple measure.
Of course, it had a Christian message, but also quite a bit of maritime knowledge-- the Albatross, " the Fair breeze blew, the white foam flew / The furrow followed free. / We were the first that ever burst / Into that silent sea." As well as plenty of poetic knowledge--here, medial caesura-rhyme, "blew" and "flew," "first" and "burst."
Even an Hydrology message: "Water, water everywhere / And all the boards did shrink /
Water, water everywhere, / Nor any drop to drink." A common problem for millionaires' shore cottages on Cape Cod estuarial swamps, where wells can fill with salt water.
From his verse, one would never know Coleridge to be the most astute, intellectual English literary critic in history (along with TS Eliot). One would never know it from his simple-seeming, ballad-form story-telling. Both Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote in ballad form (as did the greatest of all poets, E. Dickinson), but Coleridge told a novella in it.
Also, the Christian message at the end broadly diffuses as an Eco-environmental one: "He fareth well who loveth well / Both man and bird and beast. // He Fareth best who loveth best / All things both great and small / For the Dear God who loveth us, / He made and loveth all." (Another failing in the Humperty-Dumpster president's preparation-- he never read Coleridge, a drop in the bay of unread books.)
That should be an Ecological motto, Endangered Species, " All things both great and small" [He fareth best who loveth best...] Q.E.D. We are NOT FARING BEST.
*From memory...oops, "glittering" eye -
To be honest, I bought this only because this edition is illustrated by Mervyn Peake, and I wanted to read the work to which he matched his amazing illustrations.
Little did I expect to experience such a wonderful poetry story. I am, admittedly, a bit of an unreliable poetry reader. I don't often like (let alone, love) poetry, but when I do I tend to really like it.
No doubt, someone more knowledgeable or better-*cough*-versed in poetry can probably figure out why I like the poetry/poets I do (Like Blake, Eliot, Tennyson, Emerson) as opposed to the poetry I don't (Like Dickenson, Plath, Ginsberg, Cummings). I don't really know. I have never taken a poetry class, nor do I know of anyone around me who is an avid poetry fan, whom I can talk to about poetry. I don't really understand what makes one poet one way, or another different. I don't understand why The Wasteland makes my heart stir, or why The Colossus makes my eyes roll.
I do understand one thing, though: The Ancient Mariner is one work that has revitalized my occasionally flagging interest in poetry, and I'm thankful for it.
That being said, I can't imagine reading this without Peake's illustrations. If you're reading a version without Peake's illustrations, you are wrong, and you should feel wrong. Though, I suppose you can be forgiven if you are satisfied with the Gustav Dorè; he is amazing too, and was actually a major influence on Mervyn Peake.
Bottom Line:
Came for the Peake, stayed for the Coleridge (and Peake). -
Diverso tempo fa, vidi un documentario sui viaggi di Cook, nello specifico in relazione all'Australia e conseguenti oppressione e sottomissione delle popolazioni aborigene locali. All'interno della narrazione, il documentario si soffermava sull'opera poetica: "La ballata del vecchio marinaio", in rapporto al viaggio intrapreso da Cook per arrivare in terre australiane e cioè navigando da Nord a Sud l'oceano Atlantico fino ad arrivare in Antartide per poi risalire ecc...
Così incuriosito dall'argomentazione e dalla forma a racconto di viaggio, mi segnai il titolo che già conoscevo, ma di cui avevo solo un'idea di massima.
Un ringraziamento va a @Savasandir, qualche settimana fa me lo consiglia vivamente e così lo inizio.
Il libro ha un apparato introduttivo molto corposo, sinceramente diffido delle introduzioni lunghe e prolisse e soprattutto non sopporto quelle introduzioni che mi raccontano tutto ciò che leggerò dopo. Così ne leggo qualche pagina, poi salto perchè lo spoiler era alle stelle (ma è così difficile metterle alla fine della lettura, come postfazione o disamina dell'opera?)
Appena leggo il primo verso vengo catapultato su un vascello pirata con centinaia di marinai che corrono qua e là indaffarati e così per tutta la narrazione sono partecipe, insieme al vecchio marinaio, del suo viaggio!
Scrittura molto visionaria e crepuscolare.
L'opera poi è magistralmente illustrata da Gustave Dorè, magnifiche illustrazioni che rendono appieno l'atmosfera gotica/onirica.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7zk4...
Addio, addio! Ma questo tieni a mente,
tu, invitato alla festa!
Prega bene benevolo chi ama
sia l'uomo, sia l'uccello e l'altre bestie.
Meglio prega chi meglio ama le cose
siano grandi o modeste;
perchè quel Dio d'amore che ci assiste
fece ogni cosa e l'ama.
Scritto ormai più di 200 anni fa, l'essere umano di oggi ha seguito il monito di Coleridge? Mmmmhh, negli ultimi 50 anni abbiamo sterminato 2/3 della fauna selvatica!! -
"Hey, where were you last night?"
"Huh?"
"It was the wedding last night. Remember? Hello, you were supposed to be the best man! The bride was really upset when you didn't show up! Everybody kept asking me, 'Where is he, where is he?' And I was like, 'I don't know!' I was kind of getting worried about you, dude."
"Oh. Sorry."
"So why didn't you come? You sick or something?"
"No, not sick, exactly."
"So you just blew us off?"
"Well–I got distracted, I guess. It was the weirdest thing. I mean, I was on my way to the reception, when all of a sudden this creepy old guy comes up to me, right? And he just looked all greasy and skinny and unshaven. And he was all, 'There was a ship.' "
"He just walks up to you, and says that? Dude. That's really weird."
"I know, right? So I was like, 'Piss off, you crazy old guy with a beard.' But he wouldn't, so finally I just listened. And he told this story, and actually my mind was kind of blown."
"Your mind was blown? What does that mean? What kind of story?"
"Well, so this guy, he was travelling around on this ship, right? And then this great big bird–an albatross, I think he said– started following him around, and, like, helping him out and stuff. So then he shot it."
"Well, that was kind of a douche move. Anyway, aren't you not allowed to shoot birds without a licence? Did this guy have a licence? What kind of gun was he using?"
"Not a gun. A crossbow."
"A crossb....WTF? Okay. So you met some old crazy guy, who's probably also dangerous. Did he, like, kidnap you or something?"
"No, no. Like I say–he just kind of blew my mind."
"Ohhhh, man. He got you high, am I right? And now you're tripping."
"No, no, nothing like that. It was just...I'll finish the story, kay? Then you’ll get it.”
“Um, okay.”
“So then they started having all this bad luck, right? After they shot the albatross. And they were all really thirsty–”
“Thirsty?”
“Well, yeah, cause they were on a boat, and they were out of water. I mean, like, there was water all over the place, but they couldn’t drink any of it. You know? Anyway, then they made him wear the dead bird around his neck–”
“Wasn’t that super uncomfortable?”
“I think that was sort of the point. I dunno. Finally they saw this other boat. And there were these two people on it, this chick, and this other guy. And they were playing dice...”
“What, you mean like Yahtzee?”
“Could’ve been Yahtzee. He didn’t say what the game was. Maybe it was Monopoly. Anyway, the chick was like, “I win, I win!” And then she started whistling.”
“What song was she whistling? Was she, like, Jiminy Cricket, or something?”
“Might’ve been the intro to Moves Like Jagger, for all I know. Then everybody died.”
“Huh?”
“They died. The whole crew.”
“Just like that?”
“I guess so.”
“Uh–”
“So then a bit later, the old guy started praying. And then the necklace fell off, and he was all like, 'yes!' ”
“Why didn’t he just take it off earlier?”
“Maybe he couldn’t.”
“But when he raised his hands to pray, that jostled it, or something?”
“Could be. So then–this is the really crazy part–all the crew turned into zombies.”
“Zombies?”
“Zombies.”
“Okay. I’m gonna stop you right there.”
“Why?”
“This still doesn’t explain why you didn’t come to the wedding!”
“I dunno man. After he finished the story, I was just, like, stunned. And I just went home.”
“Okay. Dude. You’re definitely tripping.”
“No, I swear I’m not. I’m just sadder, I guess. And wiser.”
“Sadder and...? Screw it. Call me when it wears off.”
“Wait–!”
*click*
Don't get me wrong. I love this poem. Just couldn't resist having a bit of fun... -
"Gemimiz alkışlarla iskeleden ayrıldı
Tepeyi, kiliseyi arkamızda bıraktık
Deniz feneri bile artık geride kaldı
İşte ummana böyle sere serpe açıldık" (s.21)
Birleşik Krallıkta Romantizm akımının kurucularından biri kabul edilen Coleridge'in denizle adeta özdeşleşmiş gözleri çakmak çakmak yanan ihtiyar denizciyi anlattığı uzun şiiri;
Oğuz Baykara'nın çevirisi, Everest yayınlarının nefis kapak tasarımı ve baskısıyla elime geçer geçmez okuma sıramda en önlere aldığım bir kitap oldu. Eserin bir diğer çevirisini ise
Alper Çeker 1996 yılında yapmıştı ama daha önce başka bir çevirisini okuyup beğendiğimden bu yıl çıkan Oğuz Baykara çevirisini tercih ettim. Bu yıl için de belki son şiir okumam olacağından, şiirde kapanış kitabım diyebilirim.
"Alevler içindeydi batıdaki dalgalar,
Karardı neredeyse akşam olunca hava,
Kocaman cüssesiyle saçıyorken ışıklar
Çöreklenmişti güneş titreyen dalgalara..." (s.53)
Halk öykülerinden, kaşiflerin deniz maceralarından beslenen bu uzun şiir, 143 kıta uzunluğunda okuması oldukça keyifli bir şiirdir. Baskıda şirilerin ana dilinden metinlerine de yer verilmiştir. Sayfalarda bulunan gravür çizimler şiirlerin büyülü atmosferini daha da güçlendirmiş.
Doğanın güçleri karşısında korkuya kapılan ve bunların arkasında gizemli sebepler arayan insanın; doğa olaylarına anlam yükleme çabasının da örneklerini bulabiliriz bu şiirde. Zira fırtınaların tanrıların gazabı için geldiği, denizin öfkelenip sakinleşebileceği bu gizemli dünyada insan son derece güçsüzdür zira hem gerçek dünyayla hem de onun perdesinin arkasında tasavvur ettiği gizemli, büyülü dünyayla sürekli bir mücadele halindedir. Bu nedenle bu kadim insanın dünyasında gerçek çoğu defa düşlemle iç içedir.
"Bazı denizcilere rüyada malum oldu,
Meğer bir habis ruhmuş, musallat olan bize,
Dokuz kulaç derinde bizi izledi durdu,
karlı sisli diyardan bu kaynayan denize..." (s.47)
Bu kitap, aslında bir bakıma Coleridge ve Baykara'nın diyerek basılabilirdi, zira çevirmen şiirde özgün atmosferi korumak için oldukça emek harcamış. Örnek vermek gerekirse:
"Water, water, every where
Nor any drop to drink" (s.43) halinde olan, özgün metin:
"Her tarafta su vardı, her tarafta su, su, su!
Gel gör ki damlası yok, dudaklar gülkurusu..." (s.43)
olarak çevrilmiş. Haliyle özgün metinde ne dudaktan bahseder ne de gülkurusundan. Fakat kafiye oluşturmak için çevirmen bunları eklemiştir. Bu haliyle özgün metinden bile romantik bir havaya büründürmüş olsa da kimi okurlar tarafından bu hoş karşılanmayacaktır.
Bu akımın bir diğer şairi için:
William Wordsworth okunabilir.
"Hilal yükseliyorken, batıdaki ufuktan,
Işıl ışıl parlayan, bir yıldıza değmişti
Yıldız da hemen onun, ucunda belirmişti." (s.59)
M.B. -
La bellezza in una ballata. Mai mi sarei aspettata di trovare qui l’apoteosi del fantastico. Coleridge è il maestro di un notturno speciale, fatto di occhi scintillanti (glittering eyes) e mani di scheletro che prendono vita in un sussurro, di spose vermiglie come una rosa, di cieli di rame e sole sanguigno (bloody sun), di un paesaggio quasi lunare che si perde in un deserto di ghiaccio, silenzioso e immobile.
Da un albatro ucciso comincia l’incubo di una nave e del suo equipaggio, di un uomo che non può sfuggire al suo destino di morte/ non morte. L’albatro è l’uccello di pace per eccellenza che ama l’uomo, e lo lega a sé e alla natura in un patto di amore eterno, spezzato il quale non esiste più pace. E’ così che sulla nave cade l’incantesimo della morte. Due donne che si giocano ai dadi la vita di un equipaggio intero. Un’immagine macabra, splendida, rischiarata dal barlume della luna che la rende ancora più terrificante.
Al marinaio spetta la non vita per avere ucciso l’animale, mentre attorno a sé tutto è morte. Passa attraverso l’orrore, la morte, e riesce a ravvedersi e a riscoprire la luce, in mezzo a mari putridi, “glutinosi che sembrano vivi” a fuochi fatui in mezzo alle acque in cui si vedono serpenti di mare con corazze iridescenti che lo abbagliano, mentre attorno tutto ribolle di colori insoliti.
Le immagini sono splendide. Riempiono gli occhi e gelano il cuore. -
I know 'serious' students of poetry will mock this, but I really think this is a superlative poem and will even say that I believe Coleridge to be a superior poet to Wordsworth. The ballad meter is delightful, and how can one not be won over by things like: "I fear thee, ancient mariner/ I fear thy skinny hand/ For thou art long and lank and brown/ As is the ribbed sea sand." Ew, I mean, can't you just imagine what this guy looks like?
Or how about this?
"The very deep did rot : O Christ !
That ever this should be !
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea."
Again, so evocatively gross.
One last stanza, maybe my favorite:
I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat ;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.
I adore that 3rd line. I could just keep putting stanzas up here, but then you won't read it. He's pretty much my idol when I try to write poetry. -
I had to read this for 11th grade English class. After we discussed it, our teacher brought in the Iron Maiden song and played it for us in class as it is the whole text of the poem. That was my introduction to Iron Maiden. I had seen the shirts for years and they were so gross the band scared me and I remember thinking that it was just louder music and not so scary after all.
-
As just an audio book, this is excellent. It's short so I'd really like to listen to it again while looking at an illustrated version I have around here somewhere from my grandfather. Another classic well preserved & given to the public by Librivox. Thanks!!!
-
“Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold. “
O Κόλριτζ, ως γνήσιος εκπρόσωπος του ρομαντισμού, αλλά και σαν φιλόσοφος της εποχής του μας δίνει ένα μοναδικό ποίημα το οποίο είναι μια αλληγορική αυτοβιογραφία του δημιουργού, μια σκοτεινή ιστορία τρόμου με την αισθητική της αρμονίας των αντιθέτων που τόσο χαρακτήριζε το καλλιτεχνικό κείμενο.
Ο Γέρο Ναυτικός διηγείται στον καλεσμένο ενός γάμου την ιστορία του. Αυτή που τον άλλαξε σαν άνθρωπο. Διηγείται πως πέρασε σχεδόν μέσα από τις πύλες της κόλασης και εν τέλει πως έφτασε στο σημείο να γίνει κατά τι πιο σοφός. Μέσα σε αυτό το ταξίδι είδε το καλό και το κακό, αισθάνθηκε ενοχή, βασανίστηκε ψυχικά και στο τέλος εξιλεώθηκε και μεταμορφώθηκε σε έναν άλλο άνθρωπο.
Δυστυχώς αν το ποίημα δεν διαβαστεί παράλληλα με το πρωτότυπο, δεν μπορεί ο αναγνώστης να μπει στο πνεύμα του ρομαντισμού του Κόλριτζ και φυσικά δεν μπορεί σε καμια περίπτωση να ταξιδέψει στον μαγικό κόσμο του ποιήματος. Ο μεταφραστής προσπάθησε να αποδώσει στα ελληνικά το αγγλικό ποίημα με αποτέλεσμα να μην υπάρχει καμιά λυρικότητα ή έμμετρη δομή.
Στα συν της συγκεκριμένης έκδοσης, η πολύ ωραία εικονογράφηση του Gustav Dore και οι πληροφορίες για το έργο και την ζωή του Κόλριτζ.
Οπότε..
5/5 στο αγγλικό ποίημα
3.5/5 στην ελληνική απόδοση και την συγκεκριμένη έκδοση. -
I loved the first 3/4's of this! They were full of fantastic imagery and it read really well. But then, the last 1/4 just didn't sit well with me, it felt pretty out of place compared to the rest of the poem. However, it was overall really enjoyable and intriguing!
-
This, along with
Goblin Market, is tied for the most profound and evocatively brilliant poems I have ever read. -
Poetry isn't normally my thing, but my girlfriend suggested I should read this. It was a bit difficult to understand the language, but luckily I had my girlfriend and the annotated version of the poem to help me make sense of it all. I would suggest giving it a try though. The story is really good.
-
This seems like a good manifesto for vegetarianism. If you kill an animal you don't need to kill, you will meet with a ghost ship, watch all of your friends die one by one with reproach in their eyes, and be forced to wander the globe telling your tale to uncomfortable strangers. You don't want that, do you? Even the creepy animals, like these water snakes, are God's creatures:
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware. -
It was late at night when I began reading "The Rime of The Ancient Mariner" gifted to me very dearly by
my dearest friend and soul brother Matthew and I remember reading that first stanza that opens this story, that first introduces us to the character of the Mariner, a man whom we are first glad to perceive or imagine as a wizened old veteran of the seas and oceans, of many a voyage to many a strange land, until it strikes us more than a little odd - why, just why, would he approach a complete stranger, as the Wedding Guest, making his way to a cheerful, ceremonious occasion, to narrate his story, to bare his tell-tale heart?
It is the first instance- and among the many things and scenes and plays of phrase and rhyme in this almost epic-length poem, with the same weight, drama and profundity to be found in the greatest, most enduring of epics - that Coleridge pulls off the rug beneath our feet. Suddenly, what I had expected to be a leisurely, languid read, about the sights, sounds and sensations chronicled by an old seaman became something else, something closer to the dark, nihilistic intensity of a novel by Joseph Conrad; almost as if the Mariner's voice, disenchantment and dystopia predates the voice of Marlowe, the disgruntled anti-hero of "Heart Of Darkness" and the weary, reminiscing narrator of "Youth" - yes, this poem, lasting for about the same length as a Conrad novella, has also the same haunting, almost elegiac intensity in it.
This is not the story of a thrilling or swashbuckling voyage. Rather, unexpectedly, the tale that the Mariner narrates, in the voice of Coleridge's simple yet deeply profound words, is a dark and grim one, not to forget a cautionary parable for the present day (but more of that later). We follow the Mariner and his fellow seamen on a crew of dastardly misfortune, misfortune that drives him, the most, to the utter depths of venality and self-loathing and yet through it all, even in the most shocking scenes of terror, morbidity and almost Gothic horror that the poem takes us through, we are never less than mesmerised by how starkly beautiful these scenes feel drawn by Coleridge's hands. There is a stirring sense of unease that only grows more overwhelming as the Mariner is put through his own trial by fire, abandoned and alone and awash in the frosty seas, rendered bereft of empathy, pity and even forgiveness and redemption. Or is he? Will he never escape his certain death at the hands of Mother Nature, whom he slighted beyond repair when he killed one of its noblest, most harmless creatures in a reckless impulse?
Indeed, who are we, mere mortals, to judge whom or what we can destroy or plunder among the many gifts bestowed to us by Mother Nature? That would be the moral that we can infer from the poem, if only Coleridge had been content to give us merely that moral. But this, as said before, is so much more...
And yes, so much more. From those little scenes of almost unearthly fear and terror, like the ghost ship materialising from the mist and snow like a nightmare, the almost monotonous routine of the Sun and the Moon rising from opposite directions, the dead crew rising up like spectres to take up their deck hands again and escort the disgraced Mariner back to safety and so many more moments - the unbelievable thrill of finding your way back to your "countree" and, of course, the unbearable weight of guilt, embodied in that albatross, and the equally unbearable weight of disillusionment as evidenced in that tell-tale heart...
I cannot go on anymore. I can just conclude this review by saying that this poem - like any great work of literature - is one that, eventually, makes you, just as the odyssey does to the Mariner, look at the world in a new way and as my friend said, in a "sadder but wiser" way. -
سه ستاره دادن به این اثر هم به دلیل طراحی های گوستاو دوره است و هم به خاطر خود شعر
در آغاز کتاب مقدمه ای کوتاه درباره ی زندگی گوستاو دوره آورده شده است - البته در مورد خود شعر و کولریج چیز خاصی گفته نشده. این مقدمه برای آشنایی کلی با دوره مفید است
شعر در باب ناخدایی است که مرغی ماهیخوار (آلباتروس) را می کشد و بدین دلیل دچار نفرین می شود و کشتی و ملوانانش را از دست می دهد اما سرانجام به دلیل جوشیدن عشق به طبیعت در وجودش از این نفرین رهایی می یابد. شعر آشکارا رومانتیک است و مضمون اصلی آن الهی بودن عشق به طبیعت و دین طبیعی است
و اما کلیت داستان
