Not least of its innovations is that filmic device of cutting, now and again, between the Mariner's urgent button-holing of the wedding-guest, and the tantalising merriment and minstrelsy of the wedding. The scenery remains thrillingly hellish, while laced with photographically realistic meteorological effects, and the narrative drive is irresistible. But the poem exerts its potency every time. Certainly, it's easy to agree wholeheartedly with Coleridge's own self-criticism, that there is altogether too much of a pious moral. You might criticise the sometimes over-blown declamatory style, the archaic words, or the ghastly invocation of Christian belief at its most judgmental. We're revisiting it this week as All Souls' Night approaches, and autumnal shades are not entirely banished by the commercialised pumpkin-orange and matt-black masquerade of Halloween.Īstonishingly, the poem's spell doesn't seem to weaken over the years. It's a poem most people read when young, quickly falling under the powerful spell of its simple ballad metre, its dramatic storytelling and ever-shifting imagery. In our recent National Poetry Day poll, Coleridge's ballad," The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" was enthusiastically mentioned by several posters.
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