Thinking about those water snakes, what I should have written was that they
begin as alien, but they become other (or Other).
Best wishes
Matthew Francis
[mailto:[log in to unmask]
01443 482856
-----Original Message-----
From: Francis M (HaSS)
Sent: 19 April 2000 11:32
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Ancient Mariner
Viv wrote:
>
>Viv (closing with the thought: Albatross? Coleridge and The Rhyme of the
>Ancient Mariner...haven't read that since school days. Wonder if it bears
>re-reading?)
>
You bet it does! It will knock you out. A good example of how poems read
entirely differently at different ages. At school I just thought it was an
overlong, archaic fairy story. Now it seems to me to prefigure Modernism
(the counterpoint between ballad and notes and the poem's ironic assumption
of an earlier set of conventions are reminiscent of The Waste Land) as well
as being one of the great Romantic nature poems. The moment when the water
snakes become transformed from part of the stage scenery of Gothic horror to
living creatures having their own non-human existence (alien in the sense
that they don't belong to us, but at the same time connected to us by our
shared animal nature) is as moving as anything in poetry. And the sheer
econonomy and vividness of the writing is wonderful.
Best wishes
Matthew Francis
[mailto:[log in to unmask]
01443 482856
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