Narrative Methods Used in Part 1 of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Comment on the Narrative Methods used in Part 1 of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Part one of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner opens with a third person omniscient narrator: ‘It is an ancient Marinere, And he stoppeth one of three.’ This person represents Coleridge as he knows everything that is happening in the poem, and he is setting the scene for the rest of the lyrical ballad. Other people may take the view that the omniscient narrator represents God, as he is seen by religious people as the only person who can possibly be omniscient. This instantly injects elements of religion into the poem. The next stanza is narrated by the wedding guest, who speaks for the reader and voices the questions that the reader may have. He is confused as to why this odd-looking man has ‘stoppest’ him, which shows that the wedding guest doesn’t know who the man is. This leaves the wedding guest just as clueless as the reader themselves at that moment. The mariner speaks for the first time in the third stanza, beginning his tale with ‘there was a ship.’ The mariner is responsible for telling the embedded narrative, which is an element of the Gothic. The mariner then takes over the story, telling his tale within the tale.
The ballad is structured in Quatrains for all of Part 1, but this changes to symbolise a change in the narrative. Stanzas six and eleven end in the same line: ‘The bright-eyed Marinere.’ The seventh Stanza is reversed at the end of the poem to show when he is going away from the familiar and when he is returning to it.
The genre of this piece is a Lyrical Ballad, with elements of Romance and the Gothic. It draws on elements of the Romantic by its recurring themes of nature, extremes of emotion and religion. It also draws on elements of the Gothic as it includes religious imagery, bad weather and supernatural themes.
The ballad is set at a wedding in reality, but the embedded narrative in Part 1 is set in the land of ‘mist and snow.’ This represents the
Part one of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner opens with a third person omniscient narrator: ‘It is an ancient Marinere, And he stoppeth one of three.’ This person represents Coleridge as he knows everything that is happening in the poem, and he is setting the scene for the rest of the lyrical ballad. Other people may take the view that the omniscient narrator represents God, as he is seen by religious people as the only person who can possibly be omniscient. This instantly injects elements of religion into the poem. The next stanza is narrated by the wedding guest, who speaks for the reader and voices the questions that the reader may have. He is confused as to why this odd-looking man has ‘stoppest’ him, which shows that the wedding guest doesn’t know who the man is. This leaves the wedding guest just as clueless as the reader themselves at that moment. The mariner speaks for the first time in the third stanza, beginning his tale with ‘there was a ship.’ The mariner is responsible for telling the embedded narrative, which is an element of the Gothic. The mariner then takes over the story, telling his tale within the tale.
The ballad is structured in Quatrains for all of Part 1, but this changes to symbolise a change in the narrative. Stanzas six and eleven end in the same line: ‘The bright-eyed Marinere.’ The seventh Stanza is reversed at the end of the poem to show when he is going away from the familiar and when he is returning to it.
The genre of this piece is a Lyrical Ballad, with elements of Romance and the Gothic. It draws on elements of the Romantic by its recurring themes of nature, extremes of emotion and religion. It also draws on elements of the Gothic as it includes religious imagery, bad weather and supernatural themes.
The ballad is set at a wedding in reality, but the embedded narrative in Part 1 is set in the land of ‘mist and snow.’ This represents the