Romanticism: Samuel Tylor Coleridge
Was born in Devonshire in 1772
When he was still young he suffered from chronic rheumatism.
That time good medicines did not exist, so doctors used to prescribe opium to ease his bodily pains.
Later he became drug addicted.
In 1798 he wrote THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER which is considered the
IN THE FIRST PART
the mariner stops a wedding guest and talks about the storm which pushed him and his crew to the equator and the polar regions.
The mariner killed an albatross without a motif this is why he is punished
(Nature is very important for the Romantics and if men destroy it, Nature punishes them.
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IN THE SECOND PART
the Mariner is punished for what he has done. After his crime the world is dead and terrible: the ship has stopped to move and sailors are tortured by thirst, and the only moving things are slimy creatures in the sea
IN THE THIRD PART
a Phantom ship arrives with two ghosts DEATH and LIFE-IN-DEATH casting dice.
The former DEATH wins the crew and they die, the latter LIFE IN DEATH wins the Ancient Mariner's life so the mariner is damned to live with this sense of guilt.
IN THE FORTH PART
the Marinir starts to feel lonely and he blesses the water snakes and begins to re-establish a relation with Nature.
IN THE FIFTH PART
there is a soul's revival and celestial spirits stand by the corpses of the dead men
AT THE END (6th and 7th parts)
it seems that the Mariner gains the guest's sympathy. Coleridge doesn't tell how it finishes, but it is clear that his sense of guilty will end only when he will die.
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