Merchant Taylors' School

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Theme Analysis One of the major themes of the poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Taylor Coleridge is isolation, especially isolation from Christ. The first sense of isolation in the poem is when the wedding guest is stopped by the Mariner outside of the church. The wedding guest is completely cut off from everyone at the wedding. The second depiction of isolation is during the Mariner’s story, his ship is blown into the Arctic and there is not a single…

The same year as his ordainment, Emerson married Ellen Tucker, and after her death (1831) from tuberculosis he resigned from the clergy, stricken with grief. The next year traveling to Europe, Emerson came into contact with Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Carlyle, a Scottish-born English…

The Prelude, written by William Wordsworth and published in 1850, is an autobiographical poem composed in unrhymed iambic pentameter. This poem follows the speaker through a series of psychological events in which he illustrates contrasting views of nature. In The Prelude, Wordsworth uses literary devices such as diction, imagery, and tone to communicate to readers his varying experiences with nature. In the beginning, the poem takes on a peaceful tone. The speaker is filled with anxious…

Samuel Coolidge, author of not only Kubla Khan, but of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, as well, wrote his story where real life slips into dreams and facts were reborn as fantasies. “Coleridge was far from being the most famous British writer in France during the first half of the nineteenth century”(Soubigou). Coolidge dared the journey inward and continue deep into the world of the imagination. His hunger for new ideas led him into radical politics and soon found himself suffering from asthma…

emphasis on imagination as a method of creative expression, conveying the notion that knowledge exists outside of the self. Possibly the most intricate understanding of the imagination, its ramifications and its advantages is best introduced in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, “This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison.” Throughout this conversation poem, Coleridge introduces the bower as a symbol for the confines of the natural world, acting as a metaphorical prison. This is apparent when the speaker is…

Romanticism, Realism, and Walt Whitman Author, G.K. Chesterton described in his book, Alarms and Discursions, the idea of realism when he wrote, “Realism is simply Romanticism that has lost its reason...that is its reason for existing” (G.K. Chesterton). Realism and Romanticism both hold important truths about the world around us. Romanticism was a literature movement that expressed the importance of individualism, the nature of human beings, and the spirituality of people. American Realism…

Although Wordsworth and Dunbar appear to call on their deceased elders, Milton and Douglass respectively, to solve their different woes with society, they instead seek refuge in a plea for living person to solve their modern problems using old wisdom. The speakers in both poems differ in regards to the reason behind their motivation to call their late role models. In the poem “London, 1802,” William Wordsworth agonizes over the idea that morals and creativity in England have deteriorated.…

inauthentic state of their human experience. Through the glorification of nature, the exemplification of the power of imagination and freedom of emotional expression, composers profoundly engage with elements of the authentic human experience. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s conversation poem, ‘This Lime Tree Bower My Prison’ (1797), his ballad, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (1798), Mary Shelley’s frame, Frankenstein (1818), Caspar David Friedrich’s oil painting ‘Chalk Cliffs on Rugen’ (1818), and…

Surrounded by the freezing tundra of the treacherous Antarctic, many courageous and adventuresome explorers have risked their lives for answers about the boundless mysteries hidden within the arctic sea. The rigid and harsh climate of this uncharted land makes survival an almost impossible task. However, the few exceptions, such as the renowned Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a courageous explorer aboard the old and unsuited ship, the Karluk, lead to fame and success. Stefanssons quest to find a lost…

Repentance and the Albatross Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s 1798 classic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a tale of an ancient mariner sharing his story with a young guest at a wedding. Coleridge uses the mariner’s fable to teach his readers valuable lessons on topics ranging from having respect for God’s creatures to acknowledging the consequences of an action before acting. In The Rime of an Ancient Mariner, Coleridge specifically uses the symbolism of the albatross to teach his readers…