12/31/2022 0 Comments Rime of the ancient mariner![]() ![]() An iamb is a short beat followed by a long one, or, if you prefer, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one: Be- low the church, be- low the hill, Be- low the light-house top. The meter is characterized by a lot of iambs, the most common metrical unit in English. The line lengths alternate between eight syllables in the first and third lines, and six syllables in the second and fourth. Of course, not all of the stanzas have exactly four lines: Coleridge isn't willing to sacrifice meaning for form. Coleridge borrows the form of this poem from old, popular English ballads like " Sir Patrick Spens." Most stanzas have four-lines, called a "quatrain," and a rhyme scheme that goes ABCB, so the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme. With the intensity of its descriptions and its sheer emotional force, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner does feel like a lyric at times. ![]() The phrase "lyrical ballad" was supposed to signal the authors' intention to smoosh together two different genres: the lyric, dedicated to personal experience and emotion ("Ah, it's a dark and dreary day in my soul!") and the dramatic poem, which has characters and a story ("And then Tom went to Suzie's house"). Unlike some of the other works in the book, this one is actually more ballad than lyric. This poem was included in the collection titled Lyrical Ballads published by Coleridge and William Wordsworth in 1798. No, in poetry terms, it's a kind of poem that tells some kind of narrative or story, often a lengthy one. A ballad is not just a kind of song that people slow-dance to with the lights dimmed. ![]() First and foremost, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is one of the best representatives of the English ballad tradition. ![]()
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